Opechancanough was the chief of the Tsenacomoco, or the Powhatan paramount chiefdom, from about 1619 until his death in 1646. As leader, Opechancanough led his people through two unsuccessful surprise assaults against the Virginia colonists, one in the 1620s and again in the 1640s, both of which resulted in the long term wars between colonists and native people in the region. The second of these wars, called the Third Anglo-Powhatan War, ended in 1646 when a group of colonists captured Opechancanough at a fort on the Pamunkey River and executed him two weeks later.