Chief Powhatan card art from Lost Chapters (Emerald, Character) — Card art: Chief Powhatan

Chief Powhatan: Emerald Character

Chief Powhatan, whose birth name was Wahunsenacawh, was the paramount chief of Tsenacomoco, a union of about thirty Native nations in Tidewater Virginia. He was the most powerful Native leader the English met when they founded Jamestown in 1607, and he died in 1618.

Cost: 7 crystals
Type: Character · Leader
Power / Health: 5 / 7
Color: Emerald (Frontier & Explorers)
Rarity: Rare
Set: Liberty & Lightning (Set 1)
Keywords: Guard

Guard

Your other characters get +0/+1.

Powerful Algonquian leader whose diplomatic balancing act between 30 tribes and strange pale newcomers shaped early American history.

Real history

The real history

Wahunsenacawh was born around 1550. He inherited leadership over six core Algonquian-speaking groups along the James, Mattaponi and Pamunkey rivers, then expanded his reach through warfare, alliances and marriages. By 1607 his chiefdom, Tsenacomoco, included roughly thirty nations, and his title, mamanatowick, carried spiritual as well as political weight. He lived at Werowocomoco, on the north bank of the York River.

When English colonists settled Jamestown in 1607, Powhatan first looked for an alliance. Captain John Smith was brought to Werowocomoco as a captive in December 1607, and Powhatan offered to adopt him as a son. Historians still debate Smith's later story that Pocahontas saved his life. Many scholars think what Smith saw may have been a ceremony of adoption.

Relations soured. Powhatan was not fooled by an English attempt in 1608 to crown him, since he refused to kneel, and by 1609 he had stopped trading with Jamestown. The First Anglo-Powhatan War followed, lasting until 1614. In 1613 the English captain Samuel Argall kidnapped Powhatan's daughter Pocahontas. Her marriage to the colonist John Rolfe in 1614 brought a period of peace.

Powhatan handed power to his brothers Itoyatan and Opechancanough and died in 1618. In 1622 Opechancanough led a major attack on the English settlements, beginning the Second Anglo-Powhatan War. Archaeologists identified Werowocomoco in 2003, and the site is now part of the Captain John Smith Chesapeake National Historic Trail.

Sources

Powhatan (Wahunsenacawh), National Park Service
Powhatan (d. 1618), Encyclopedia Virginia, Virginia Humanities
Werowocomoco, a Place of Power, William & Mary

Checked against these sources on October 3, 2026. Spot a mistake? Report an error. How we check facts.

How the card plays

Chief Powhatan costs 7 crystals and is a 5/7 Rare Emerald Leader. He has Guard, so he can block without resting, and your other characters get +0/+1 while he is on the field. He does not have to attack to be useful, because his whole job is to make your team harder to kill.

Play him once you have a few characters out so the extra health lands on real bodies. A 7-cost card is a mid-to-late play, so keep your cheaper characters coming first. Remember that your field holds 5 characters and he takes one of the spots.

Fort Sumter Fort Sumter adds +0/+2 to every character, which stacks with his bonus. Red, White, & Blue Red, White, & Blue gives +0/+1 for only 2 crystals. The Flag The Flag adds +1/+1 for the whole team.

Playable in decks led by Amelia Earhart, and by any Traveler Leader whose colors include Emerald.
In the Earhart starter deck (1 copy). Deck code: LC2-Ax8CIAEhASIBIwIkAiUBJgEnASgCKQEqAisBLAEtAS4BLwEwATEBMgEzATQBNQE2ATcBOAE5AToBOwE8AT0BZQJ0Anuc
A deck holds up to 3 copies of this card.

Questions about Chief Powhatan

Was Pocahontas the daughter of Chief Powhatan?

Yes. Pocahontas was one of his daughters. English captain Samuel Argall kidnapped her in 1613, and her 1614 marriage to John Rolfe brought a temporary peace.

Did Pocahontas really save John Smith?

Historians disagree. The rescue comes from Smith's own later account, and many scholars think he may have witnessed a ceremony in which Powhatan adopted him.

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