His plans were laid with great cunning. Although thousands of natives knew of the design, no warning reached the white men until the very eve of the massacre. While Opechancanough was preparing this tremendous blow, he protested in the strongest terms his perpetual good will and love, declaring that the sky would fall before he would bring an end to the peace.[175] In order to lull the suspicions of the planters, "even but two daies before the massacre", he guided some of them "with much kindnesse through the woods, and one Browne that lived among them to learne the language", he sent home to his master. The evening before the attack the Indians came as usual to the plantations with deer, turkeys, fish, fruits and other provisions to sell.[176]
That night, however, a warning was received, which although too late to save the most remote settlements, preserved many hundreds from the tomahawk. Chanco, an Indian boy who had been adopted by an Englishman named Race, revealed the entire plot to his master. The man secured his house, and rowed away before dawn in desperate haste to Jamestown, to give warning to the Governor. "Whereby they were prevented, and at such other plantations as possibly intelligence could be given."[177]
The assault of the savages was swift and deadly. In all parts of the colony they fell upon the settlers, and those that had received no warning were, in most cases, butchered before they could suspect that harm was intended. Sometimes the Indians sat down to breakfast with their victims, "whom immediately with their owne tooles they slew most barbarously, not sparing either age or sex, man woman or childe".[178] Many were slain while working in the fields; others were trapped in their houses and butchered before they could seize their weapons. The savages, "not being content with their lives,... fell againe upon the dead bodies, making as well as they could a fresh murder, defacing, dragging, and mangling their dead carkases into many peeces".[179]
That the plot was so successful was due to the completeness of the surprise, for where the English made the least resistance the savages were usually beaten off. A planter named Causie, when attacked and wounded and surrounded by the Indians, "with an axe did cleave one of their heads, whereby the rest fled and he escaped; for they hurt not any that did either fight or stand upon their guard. In one place where they had warning of it, (they) defended the house against sixty or more that assaulted it."[180]