Chanco

Chanco is a name traditionally assigned to a Powhatan Indian who was converted to Christianity and apparently adopted by Richard and Isabella Pace, and in 1622 is said to have been alerted by his brother about about an impending Powhatan attack to which he alerted the Jamestown colonists, Richard Pace and his wife, Isabella. See Richard Pace.

Unnamed Native The Native American's warning to Richard Pace is described in the Virginia Company of London's official account of the 1622 Powhatan attack on Jamestown, but the Native American is not named. He is described only as a converted Native American "belonging to one Perry:"

The account later makes reference to other Native Americans who warned settlers of the impending attack: ...it pleased God to vse some of them as instruments to saue many of their liues, whose soules they had formerly saued, as at Iames-Cittie, and other places, and the Pinnace trading in Pamounkey Riuer, all whose liues were saued by a conuerted Indian, disclosing the plot in an instant.

"Chauco" misread as "Chancho" In 1740, William Stith published his History of the first discovery and settlement of Virginia. According to a description of the book on the Library of Congress website, "William Stith compiled this detailed factual history of Virginia by culling material from the Records of the Virginia Company, a manuscript archive that Jefferson later owned and used in his own work." The archive was subsequently acquired by the Library of Congress and is now available online

Stith evidently read the letter in which Chauco's peace mission is mentioned and concluded that Chauco (misread by Stith as "Chanco") was the same person as the Native American who warned Pace. The identification is explicitly made by Stith in the following passage:

Whether Stith's identification was correct or mistaken remains undetermined. In Pocahontas's People, the historian Helen C. Rountree argues that Chauco and the Pace's Paines Native American have probably been wrongly conflated.

Whatever the truth, the name "Chanco" has by now been firmly established in folklore as the name of "the Native American who saved Jamestown" and seems unlikely ever to be dislodged.

Appearance in modern culture Chanco on the James (formerly Camp Chanco) is an outdoor events facility and summer camp in Surry County, Virginia, and is owned and operated by the Episcopal Diocese of Southern Virginia.