The Powhatan (also spelled Powatan) are a Native American people in Virginia.

It may also refer to the leader of those tribes, commonly referred to as Powtitianna.

It is estimated that there were about 14,000–21,000 Powhatan people in eastern Virginia when the English settled Jamestown in 1607.

They are also known as Virginia Algonquians, as they speak an eastern-Algonquian language known as Powhatan or Virginia Algonquian.In the late sixteenth and early seveneteenth centuries, a mamanatowick (paramount chief) named Wahunsunacawh (a.k.a.

Powhatan), creates a powerful organization by affiliating thirty tributary peoples, whose territory is much of eastern Virginia.

They call this area Tsenacommacah ("densely inhabited Land").

Wahunsunacawh comes to be known by the English as "Powhatan".

Each of the tribes within this organization has its own weroance (chief), but all pay tribute to Powhatan.

After Powhatan's death in 1618, hostilities with colonists escalate under the chiefdom of his brother, Opechancanough, who seeks in vain to drive off the encroaching English.

His large-scale attacks in 1622 and 1644 meet strong reprisals by the English, resulting in the near elimination of the tribe.

By 1646, what is called the Powhatan Paramount Chiefdom by modern historians has been decimated.

More important than the ongoing conflicts with the English settlements is the high rate of deaths the Powhatan suffer due to new infectious diseases carried to North America by Europeans, such as measles and smallpox.

The Native Americans do not have any immunity to these, which had been endemic in Europe and Asia for centuries.

The wholesale deaths greatly weaken and hollow out the Native American societies.By the mid-seventeenth century, the leaders of the colony are desperate for labor to develop the land.

Almost half of the English and European immigrants arrive as indentured servants.

As settlement continues, the colonists import growing numbers of enslaved Africans for labor.

By 1700, the colonies have about six thousand black slaves, one-twelfth of the population.

It is common for black slaves to escape and join the surrounding Powhatan; some white servants are also noted to have joined the Indians.

Africans and whites work and live together; some natives also intermarry with them.

After Bacon's Rebellion in 1676, the colony enslaves Indians for control.

In 1691, the House of Burgesses abolishes Indian slavery; however, many Powhatan are held in servitude well into the eighteenth century.

In the twenty-first century, eight Indian tribes are officially recognized by Virginia as having ancestral ties to the Powhatan confederation.

The Pamunkey and Mattaponi are the only two peoples who have retained reservation lands from the seventeenth century.

The Powhatan Renape Nation has been recognized by the state of New Jersey.

The competing cultures of the Powhatan and English settlers are united through unions and marriages of members, of which the most well known is that of Pocahontas and John Rolfe.

Their son Thomas Rolfe is the ancestor of many Virginians; many of the First Families of Virginia have both English and Virginia Indian ancestry.