John Smith notes that the uprising provides a great rationale for complete extermination of Native peoples. Smith states that the war “will be good for the Plantation, because we have just cause to destroy them by all means possible” (Nies, 1996, p. 130). When John Smith first arrived, there had been an estimated 30,000 Powhatan and allied Indians; by 1669, the population is decimated and only 2,000 remain.