GLOUCESTER, Virginia (AP) ― A farm field overlooking the York River in Tidewater Virginia is believed to be where Pocahontas interceded with her powerful father Powhatan to rescue English Capt. John Smith from death.

On loan to archaeologists for more than a decade, these 23 privately owned hectares will be preserved forever under an agreement years in the making and to be officially announced Friday. The deal is important for Native Americans because they believe their story has been overshadowed for centuries by the narrative of Smith and his fellow Europeans.

Powhatan’s chiefdom covered 30 political divisions and a population of 15,000 to 20,000 people while Jamestown settlers struggled to survive. Excavations have yielded the outline of the largest longhouse ever found in Virginia and a system of ditches that may have separated sacred and secular areas.

Randolph Turner, a retired state archaeologist whose hunt for Werewocomoco dates to the 1970s, said Powhatan’s empire was “one of the most complex political entities in all of eastern North America.” The leader “had the power of life and death” and expanded his empire through warfare or the threat of warfare.

“He’s one of the most interesting political and military figures that I’ve ever read about,” Turner said. “And we’re just getting hints in the historical records of all he accomplished in his lifetime.”

The discovery of Werewocomoco can be credited to a purebred dog belonging to the land’s owners, Lynn and Robert Ripley.

Lynn Ripley used to walk around their land with her Chesapeake Bay Retriever, an American Kennel Club competitor named Mobjack Rhett Master Hunter. She would remove debris that could cut her dog’s paws, and found arrowheads, spear tips, pipe stems and pottery shards.

“I just seemed to have an eye for it,” she said. “That’s how it all began, so our dog wouldn’t cut his feet. It’s like we were meant to be there and I was meant to find these things.”

The clincher was the discovery of copper, which was valued by the Indians as gold is today.

“I am absolutely convinced this is Werewocomoco,” Turner said. “It makes no sense for it to be anywhere else.”

That conclusion is supported by the U.S. Park Service, William & Mary, the Virginia Department of Historic Resources and the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities.

Virginia Indians hope work at the site will continue to build on what is known about Powhatan and the centuries before him, dispelling myths about what the first European settlers found when they arrived.

“I want people to understand there was a real civilization, a complex cultural community that existed prior to European colonization,” Atkins said. “Europeans didn’t bring civilization. They brought a lot of other things, some good, some bad.”

Kathleen Kilpatrick, executive director of the state’s historic resources agency, said the site “certainly tells an aspect of a story that often goes untold. In tangible ways, it is their Jamestown.”

The preservation will be commemorated Friday at a ceremony with Gov. Bob McDonnell and Indian leaders. An easement will ensure the site remains undeveloped and open to future exploration. It is part of more than 250 acres owned by the Ripleys, who have lived there for nearly 17 years.

When Kilpatrick approached them with the idea of preserving the site, “We decided it really is the best thing,” Robert Ripley said.

“If we do nothing else for Virginia Indians, we’ve done the very best because we have preserved it for all time with an entity that has the power to enforce its easement: the state of Virginia,” he said.

Lynn Ripley said, “It’s their heritage, their history. We felt a huge responsibility to protect it.” She hopes her collection of artifacts can be displayed someday in a museum on the site.

Centuries after Powhatan ruled, Lynn Ripley said, this place still resonates with what it once was.

“It’s definitely a sacred place,” she said. “It’s serene, it’s spiritual, it’s beautiful. I feel very good about what we’ve done.”