In 2008, officials erected a historical marker in West Point, a small hamlet in Virginia’s King William County. Set at an intersection about 20 miles north of Williamsburg, the plaque is titled “Indians Poisoned at Peace Meeting.” It commemorates a little-known act of colonial duplicity: a mass poisoning carried out by the English in 1623 as part of an attempted assassination of the Pamunkey leader Opechancanough.
“Why place a marker of tragedy?” asked Pamunkey Chief William P. Miles at the unveiling ceremony. “By telling the past,” he added, “it leads to our future. … Not many knew of this poisoning. This will help tell the story of the good and bad neighbors.”
May 22 marks the 400th anniversary of that unprecedented moment, when English soldiers gave poisoned wine to 200 Powhatans, members of a confederacy of about 30 Native groups. The historical record is unclear on how many of those who were poisoned died. But even during a war that ravaged Indigenous and colonial communities, the incident stood out because Europeans at the time believed no civilized nation should employ poison in war—an idea later embodied in the 20th-century Geneva Conventions.
