Smoke from cook fires may have helped Smith find, map and visit these settlements. One of Smith’s principal goals in his exploration was to revisit the Rappahannock River where he had been led as a captive the previous winter to visit the Rappahannock chiefdom. Here he had the good fortune to find at the settlement of the Moraughtacund, the same guide, Mosco, who had on the first voyage taken them up the Potomac River. Peaceful relations were thus established with the Moraugtacund, whose territory stretched along the north shore of the river. The Rappahannocks were the next chiefdom up river, and they had recently raided the Moraugtacund and taken three of the wives of the werowance of the Moraugtacund. Before he left the Rappahannock, Smith’s crew was attacked twice by the Rappahannocks. Smith eventually established a truce and than brokered a peace between the two chiefdoms.

Such diplomatic action independent of Powhatan’s wishes, over the chiefdoms that Powhatan controlled, would have ramifications for the year to follow. Powhatan responded with increased hostility toward the English who dared act as if they were masters of this place. Smith was not acting like a chief adopted by Powhatan the previous winter as part of Powhatan’s effort to make the English just another tributary chiefdom under his control. From a distance, the shores looked peaceful. But the current of cross-cultural misunderstand or trust continued to ebb and flow with each passing encounter.