Greatest Virginian of 17th century

The Greatest:  Paramount Chief PowhatanWahunsonacock--who took the name Powhatan sometime in the 1580s when he formed a loose confederation of Algonkian-speaking tribes in the tidewater region of Virginia--received a number of votes as the greatest or most influential person in 17th-century Virginia. He was the paramount leader of the Indians with whom the English colonists primarily dealt.

"There is no possible doubt," they concluded, "that the fledgling colony continued to exist at Jamestown with Powhatan's permission. For this reason, he remains in some ways the most influential native Virginian of all time."