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Meaning & History
The name of the Native American confederation of tribes in Virginia, which English colonists mistook for the name of Chief Wahunsenacawh, the paramount chief of Tsenacommacah, an alliance of Algonquian-speaking Virginia Indians in the Tidewater region of Virginia at the time English settlers landed at Jamestown in 1607. The name Powhatan is the name of the village or town that Wahunsunacawh came from. Chief Powhatan, as he came to be known, is best known as the father of Pocahontas.