A portrait of Indian Chief Opechancanough (as the English called him), who helped establish the most powerful chiefdom in the mid-Atlantic region. When English settlers founded Virginia in 1607, he fought tirelessly to drive them away, leading to a series of wars that spanned the next 40 years—the first Anglo-Indian wars in America—and came close to destroying the colony.
... a detailed history of Virginia’s founding and early growth, which examines the socio-political interaction of indigenous peoples and English settlers ... Horn’s story rivals any narrative—fact or fiction—and provides ample suspense and action to entertain the reader. His examination of Opechancanough’s lineage gives him an opportunity to display his superb scholarship and debunk earlier work which mistook Chief Powhatan’s younger brother for his father. A Brave and Cunning Prince joins the aforementioned previous Horn works in providing a complete and intriguing look at the early years of Virginia by questioning previous assumptions of other historians and providing highly detailed and well-researched accounts of these seminal events.
Informative and engaging, A Brave and Cunning Prince challenges conventional wisdom about Pocahontas, Captain John Smith and, most important, the early encounters between the Indians and the English. And Horn reminds us that the outcome of their protracted conflict was by no means certain ... If even a fraction of A Brave and Cunning Prince is true—and much more than that certainly is—[Opechancanough] deserves the honor still bestowed on him by the Pamunkeys, who, Horn reveals, continue to live on the ancient tribal land he defended so tenaciously.
This book complicates centuries of mainstream historiography and the narrative that the Powhatan people helped early English colonies survive ... A fascinating narrative of intrigue, shifting alliances, and betrayal. Horn's detailed biography properly places Opechancanough in the context of history.
