Samuel Argall

(Encyclopedia Virginia) Samuel Argall was a longtime resident of Jamestown and the deputy governor of Virginia (1617–1619). He pioneered a faster means of traveling to Virginia by following the 30th parallel, north of the traditional Caribbean route, and he first arrived in June 1610, just after the "Starving Time" when the surviving colonists were ready to quit for Newfoundland. Although he joined in the war against the Virginia Indians, Argall also engaged in diplomacy, negotiating provisions from Iopassus (Japazaws) of the Patawomeck tribe. Argall explored the Potomac River region in the winter of 1612 and spring of 1613, and there, with Iopassus's complicity, kidnapped Pocahontas, a move that helped establish an alliance between the Patawomecks and the Virginians. In 1613 and 1614, Argall explored as far north as present-day Maine and Nova Scotia, and made hostile contact with the Dutch colony at Manhattan. He also helped negotiate peace with the Pamunkey and Chickahominy tribes. As deputy governor, Argall improved military preparedness but did not enforce martial law in the same way as Sir Thomas Dale had, making his administration a bridge between the old politics and a new more democratic era. Knighted by James I in 1622, Argall led an English fleet against the Spanish in 1625 and died at sea in 1626. Continued

Pictured: The Abduction of Pocahontas, copper engraving by Johann Theodore de Bry, 1618