Bancroft says the savages at first murmured at this intrusion of strangers into the country; but their crafty chief disguised his fear and would only say, "They hurt you not; they take but a little waste land."
But even Powhatan grew suspicious of a cross which Newport insisted on erecting as a sign of English dominion until the latter, probably at the suggestion of Smith, told him the arms represented Powhatan and himself, and the middle their united league. The interview ended by the return of the explorers to Jamestown, but before doing so Newport presented the chief with a hatchet, with which he was much delighted.
The English invested savage life with all the dignity of European courts. Powhatan was styled "king" or "emperor," his wives, of whom he had many, were "queens," his daughter was a "princess" and his principal warriors were "lords of the kingdom."
In his younger days Powhatan had been a great warrior. Hereditarily he was sachem of eight tribes and by his arms he subdued twenty-two others, so that at this time he was the mighty werowance, or sagamore, of thirty of the forty tribes of Virginia. This great chief has been called the Indian Caesar, and certainly his system of government was strikingly similar to that of the Roman Empire, for the hereditary chiefs or "kings" of the subject tribes were permitted to rule their own people as before the conquest and their local laws and customs were not interfered with on condition of their paying annual tribute to Powhatan of "skinnes, beads, copper, pearle, deere, turkies, wild beasts and corne. What he commandeth they dare not disobey in the least thing." Moreover, as if to make the resemblance more remarkable, his subjects regarded him as half man and half god, just as the Roman people regarded their emperors as demi-gods.
He is described as a "tall, well-proportioned man with a sower looke, his head somewhat gray, his beard so thinne that it seemeth none at all, his age neare sixtie, of a very able and hardy body, to endure any labor." And certainly the extent of his conquests, his unlimited power over his subjects and the pomp which he maintained invested Powhatan with no little courtly though savage dignity.