The 1622 Indian Massacre: A Personal Story

Video

In my lecture on the Virginia Colony (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvokFncxkh8), I discussed the strained relationship between the English colonists and the Powhatan Indians that culminated in the 1622 Indian Massacre, in which over 300 Jamestown colonists were killed in an Indian attack. I tend to refer to this as America's first nativist riot against the "illegal" incursion of the English into Powhatan territory. My ancestor, William Farrar, an Englishman who arrived in Virginia in 1618, was one of these illegal immigrants.

Had William Farrar been home that day, he would have been slaughtered along with everyone who was at his house, but by a twist of fate and/or luck, he wasn't home. Listen to the story of how my ancestor survived the 1622 Indian Massacre.