The Powhatan had extensive interactions with Europeans prior to the founding of Jamestown. By far the greatest influence on coastal Virginia prior to Jamestown came from Spanish mission attempts. Wahunsenaca/Powhatan, a mamanatowick (paramount chief), forged an Algonquian-speaking confederacy of thirty-four groups in tidewater Virginia. Mattaponi oral tradition states he did this as a direct response to the growing Spanish threat, which encouraged Powhatan/Wahunsenaca to build alliances with neighboring groups as a way of enlarging the Powhatan confederacy, and to eventually befriend the English as potential allies when they arrived.

Jamestown was founded on May 13, 1607. Though Jamestown is sometimes portrayed as first contact in the public consciousness, European interaction with the inhabitants of the Virginia coast began soon after the discovery of the New World. Traders and slaving raids along the Florida coast preceded officially sanctioned entradas in the early 16th century, and Europeans gradually moved further north. Mattaponi oral tradition indicates a young Powhatan boarded a ship bound for Spain in 1559 or 1560, and returned home roughly a decade later. There is some speculation that the young Powhatan (called Don Luis by the Jesuits) was actually Opechancanough, brother of Powhatan/Wahunsenacawh, but according to recent conversations with descendants of the Powhatan that connection is now suspect. An unsuccessful Spanish attempt to found Dominican missions on Chesapeake Bay found themselves lost along the Virginia coast in 1566. In 1570 a small party of Jesuits, armed with an Algonquian interpreter captured during their first exploratory voyage, sailed into the mouth of the James River, five miles from the future site of Jamestown. The Jesuits crossed to the York River where they established a small wooden mission, and quickly began to starve. Algonquians indicated “six years of famine and death” depleted food stores, and left them unable to aid the Jesuit missionaries. The Algonquian captive (Don Luis del Velasco) escaped, and in early 1571 returned with an armed party to murder the three Jesuit fathers (Weber 1992).

Given the gradual encroachment of the Spanish, as well as the need to defend the Powhatan from the neighboring Monacans and Susquehannocks, Powhatan/Wahunsenacawh decided to ally with the newly arrived English settlers at Jamestown. The famous story of John Smith's capture was his initiation as a representative of the English for a ceremonial induction into the Powhatan political sphere. Smith was taken by the Powhatans in December of 1607. The capture was a ritual ceremony dedicated to securing the relationship between the Powhatan and Jamestown by appointing Smith as a local chief (werowance). The werowance established Smith as a local governor of an individual town within Powhatan influence, and by extension the English at Jamestown as members of Powhatan society.

Previous contact with European (really Spanish) encroachment and periodic slaving raids/trading fishermen along the coast dramatically changed the nature of Virginia prior to Jamestown. Powhatan/Wahunsenacawh understood the threat and had the both the foresight, and power, to create a massive confederacy to protect his people.

See Weber The Spanish Frontier in North America for an overview of the northern frontier of the Spanish Empire, including mission attempts in Virginia.

Custalow The True Story of Pocahontas: The Other Side of History for the Mattaponi oral tradition history of the period focusing of the life of Pocahontas.

Gleach's Powhatan's World and Colonial Virginia: A Conflict of Cultures provides a good ethnohistoric account of the Powhatan-English interaction.