An extraordinary mortality due to imported epidemics, and diseases of the climate for which in these days we have found a remedy in quinine, slew the new-comers by hundreds.

One thousand people were in Virginia at Easter, 1619, and to this number three thousand five hundred and seventy more were added during the next three years,[17] yet only one thousand two hundred and forty were resident in the colony on Good Friday, March 22, 1622, a day when the horrors of an Indian massacre reduced the number to eight hundred and ninety-four.[18] Since 1614, when Pocahontas married John Rolfe, peace with the Indians continued uninterruptedly, except for a short time in 1617, when there was an outbreak of the Chickahominies, speedily suppressed by Deputy Governor Yardley.

In April, 1618, Powhatan died,[19] and the chief power was wielded by a brother, Opechancanough, at whose instance the savages, at "the taking up of Powhatan's bones" in 1621, formed a plot for exterminating the English.

Of this danger Yardley received some information, and he promptly fortified the plantations, but Opechancanough professed friendship.

Under Sir Francis Wyatt for some months everything went on quietly; but about the middle of March, 1622, a noted Indian chief, called Nemmattanow, or Jack o' the Feather, slew a white man and was slain in retaliation.