Powhatan (c. 1550-1618), also called Wahunsonacock, was the leader 
of a powerful confederation of tribes that lived on the East Coast, 
from Spanish Florida to the Potomac River. Powhatan's father had 
been driven north from Florida by the Spanish, and he consolidated 
his own tribe with six others. Powhatan expanded this confederacy 
until it consisted of about ten thousand people in thirty different 
tribes. Powhatan at first opposed the English colonists who landed at 
Jamestown in 1607. When his daughter Pocahontas married English 
settler John Rolfe, it helped bring about good relations between the 
Indians and the Englishmen. Powhatan died in 1618, and within five 
years the tribes he had ruled were at war with the colonists.