Nearly elderly and reportedly carried on a litter, Opechancanough orchestrated one final large-scale assault against Virginia's expanding English colonies, echoing his surprise attack of 1622. Though the raid killed hundreds, the colony's growing population and militia strength meant it could not achieve the uprising's goal of driving the English from Virginia, and it instead triggered brutal retaliatory campaigns.
By 1644, the Powhatan Confederacy had watched English tobacco planters spread relentlessly along Virginia's rivers for nearly four decades, consuming land the Powhatan depended on for hunting and farming. Opechancanough, who had succeeded his brother Wahunsenacawh (Powhatan) as paramount chief, had already led one devastating surprise attack in 1622 that killed roughly a third of the colony's English population.
By this second uprising, Opechancanough was reportedly so old and infirm he had to be carried into battle on a litter, his eyelids so heavy attendants had to lift them for him to see. Despite his frailty, he coordinated a strike that killed around 400 colonists in a single day, a serious blow but far smaller in relative terms than 1622 given Virginia's growing population of several thousand.
The English response was merciless. Virginia's militia hunted Powhatan communities for two years until Opechancanough himself was captured in 1646, an old man taken prisoner and put on public display in Jamestown, where a soldier eventually shot him dead in violation of orders. His death effectively ended organized Powhatan resistance in the region.