Encyclopedia Virginia: Indians, Virginia

Towns and Town Life in Early Virginia Indian Society

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 09:28:38 EST

Much of what is known about towns and town life in early Virginia Indian society is drawn from archaeological investigation, the observations of English settlers, and the work of Captain John Smith, who between 1607 and 1609 explored and mapped the Chesapeake Bay area. Through a combination of these sources, we know that most Virginia Indian towns were located close to fertile soil and along waterways, which were both a source of food and drinking water and a means of transport. Towns generally conformed to one of two layouts: a dispersed settlement pattern, in which the houses were scattered according to which fields were being cultivated at the time; and a nucleated settlement pattern, in which a palisade surrounds a tightly packed group of houses. The latter layout was usually found in frontier areas, where the threat of attack by enemy tribes was greater. Indian towns were busy, intensely social places and each resident, regardless of age or sex, was expected to play a particular role. This resulted in a tight-knit community that could be supportive, but constricting. Privacy was limited, so great emphasis was placed on manners and politeness and on releasing tension through a nightly group activity like singing and dancing. The quality of life in Indian towns declined in Virginia after the English arrived and began to encroach on Indian land.
Mon, 17 Jun 2013 09:28:38 EST

Don Luís de Velasco / Paquiquineo (fl. 1561–1571)

Tue, 21 May 2013 16:21:22 EST

Paquiquineo, later Don Luís de Velasco, was a Virginia Indian who encountered Spanish explorers on the Chesapeake Bay in 1561 and returned to Spain with them, either voluntarily or as a captive. There, he appeared before King Philip II and was granted permission to lead a Catholic mission back to the Chesapeake, a land the Spaniards believed the Indians called Ajacán. A brief stop in Mexico City turned into a years-long stay after Paquiquineo became ill. During that time he converted to Christianity, taking the name of the viceroy of New Spain (present-day Mexico), Don Luís de Velasco. After two failed attempts to return home with Dominican missionaries, Don Luís sailed again to Spain, where he joined a group of Jesuit priests, and finally landed on the James River in September 1570—more than nine years after he had left. He initially aided the Jesuits, but quickly reunited with his family and, in February 1571, led an ambush that killed the missionaries save for an altar boy, Alonso de Olmos. While contemporary Spanish chroniclers demonized Paquiquineo, at least one modern scholar has suggested that the violence may have been a symbolic and predictable reaction to violations of the Indians' gift-exchange economy. In 1572 the Spanish dispatched soldiers to Ajacán. They hanged a handful of Indians but did not find Paquiquineo, who subsequently disappeared from history. Based on Jamestown-era rumors, some historians have argued that Paquiquineo and Opechancanough were the same person.
Tue, 21 May 2013 16:21:22 EST

Segura, Juan Baptista de (1529–1571)

Tue, 21 May 2013 16:07:20 EST

Juan Baptista de Segura was a priest and vice-provincial of the Jesuits in the Spanish province of La Florida. In 1570 he led a mission to the Chesapeake Bay and was killed the next year in an ambush led by Don Luís de Velasco (formerly Paquiquineo), a Virginia Indian who had converted to Christianity. Born in Toledo and educated at a time when Spanish clerics vigorously debated the best way of converting American Indians, Segura joined the Society of Jesus in 1556 and was ordained a priest the following year. Ten years after that he was named vice-provincial of the Jesuits in La Florida. An intellectual and idealist, Segura was also an indecisive leader who advised his superior that the Jesuits should abandon La Florida and then, just a few months later, organized a mission to the Chesapeake Bay. Segura insisted, against the advice of Florida governor Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, that the Jesuits did not need military protection on their mission. He instead placed his faith in Don Luís, who promised that the land he called Ajacán would be rich in potential converts and natural resources. Segura established his mission near the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay in September 1570, but when Don Luís returned to his family, the Jesuits were without support. In February 1571 the Virginia Indian killed Segura and his fellow missionaries, leaving only an altar boy alive.
Tue, 21 May 2013 16:07:20 EST

Strachey, William (1572–1621)

Thu, 16 May 2013 15:39:11 EST

William Strachey was a member of the Virginia Council, served as secretary and recorder for the colony from 1610 until 1611, and was one of the first historians of the Jamestown settlement. Educated at Cambridge and Gray's Inn, he wrote verse and befriended poets Ben Jonson and John Donne before serving a brief stint as secretary to the English ambassador at Constantinople (1606–1607). Strachey then returned to England, purchased two shares in the Virginia Company of London, and in 1609 sailed on the Sea Venture, the flagship of a resupply fleet bound for the colony. When a storm ran the ship aground on the Bermudas, he and his shipmates were stranded for nearly a year, but eventually managed to construct two small vessels, Patience and Deliverance, and arrived at Jamestown in May 1610. Strachey's account of the adventure, published in 1625 as A true reportory of the wracke, and redemption of Sir Thomas Gates Knight, probably had served, years earlier, as source material for William Shakespeare's play The Tempest. In Virginia, Strachey was appointed to the Council and made its secretary and recorder, in which capacity the company requested that he produce an extensive account of the colony and its future prospects. When he completed The Historie of Travaile into Virginia Britannia in 1612, the company declined to publish it. In the years since, however, it has become one of the most important sources of information on early Virginia Indian society, politics, and religion. Strachey died in poverty in London in 1621.
Thu, 16 May 2013 15:39:11 EST

Smith, John (bap. 1580–1631)

Thu, 16 May 2013 15:32:19 EST

Captain John Smith was a soldier and writer who is best known for his role in establishing the Virginia colony at Jamestown, England's first permanent colony in North America. A farmer's son, Smith was a soldier of fortune in Europe before he joined the Virginia Company of London expedition of 1606–1607. At Jamestown, Smith served on the local council; explored and mapped the Chesapeake Bay; established a sometimes-contentious relationship with Powhatan, the paramount chief of Tsenacomoco; and was president of the colony from September 1609 to September 1610. He was unpopular among his fellow colonists, however, who forced his return to England in October 1610. Smith never returned to Virginia, but he did travel to and map a portion of the northeast coast of North America, which he named New England. Much of what is known about Smith's life comes from his own detailed and informative accounts of his experiences. Although many of his contemporaries considered him a braggart and he almost certainly embellished his own accomplishments, his narratives provide invaluable insights into English and native life during the Virginia colony's formative years.
Thu, 16 May 2013 15:32:19 EST

Colonial Virginia

Thu, 16 May 2013 14:50:38 EST

The colonial period in Virginia began in 1607 with the landing of the first English settlers at Jamestown and ended in 1776 with the establishment of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Although a thriving Indian society had existed for thousands of years before the English arrived, war with the European settlers and the introduction of new diseases for which the Indians had no resistance spelled disaster for it. The English colonists, meanwhile, just barely survived, suffering through summer droughts and winter starvation. Salvation came to the colony in the form of smoking tobacco, or what King James I called a "vile and stinking custom," when John Rolfe cultivated a variety of tobacco that sold well in England. In 1619, a General Assembly convened, bringing limited self-government to America. That same year brought the first slaves to Virginia. For most of the 1600s, white indentured servants worked the colony's tobacco fields, but by 1705 the Virginia colony had become a slave society. Nearly all power was in the hands of white male landowners, who ran the government and, by law, belonged to the Church of England. Women who married and worked at home were considered "good wives"; those who refused such "proper" roles were considered troublesome. And while Virginia's ruling men did not encourage women to be independent, they nevertheless fought for their own independence, taking full part in the American Revolution (1775–1783).
Thu, 16 May 2013 14:50:38 EST

First Anglo-Powhatan War (1609–1614)

Thu, 16 May 2013 14:48:17 EST

The First Anglo-Powhatan War was fought from 1609 until 1614 and pitted the English settlers at Jamestown against an alliance of Algonquian-speaking Virginia Indians led by Powhatan (Wahunsonacock). After the English arrived in Virginia in 1607, they struggled to survive through terrible drought and cold winters. Unable to adequately provide for themselves, they pressured the Indians of Tsenacomoco for relief, which led to a series of conflicts along the James River that intensified in the autumn of 1609. Powhatan ordered something like a siege of the English fort, which lasted through the winter of 1609–1610 and precipitated the so-called Starving Time. This was the Indians' best chance to win the war, but the English survived and, after the arrival of reinforcements, viciously attacked. Using terror tactics borrowed from Queen Elizabeth's conquest of Ireland, English soldiers burned villages and towns and executed women and children. Eventually they defeated the Nansemonds and Kecoughtans at the mouth of the James and the Appamattucks near the falls. After two years, Captain Samuel Argall captured Powhatan's daughter Pocahontas in the spring of 1613 and turned his prisoner into the leverage necessary to make peace. Although not all scholars see the First Anglo-Powhatan War as a distinct conflict, at least from the Indians' perspective, many argue it to be England's first Indian war in America.
Thu, 16 May 2013 14:48:17 EST

Starving Time, The

Thu, 16 May 2013 14:41:45 EST

The Starving Time refers to the winter of 1609–1610 when about three-quarters of the English colonists in Virginia died of starvation or starvation-related diseases. In his unpublished account A Trewe Relacyon, George Percy, who served as president during these grim months, wrote that Englishmen felt "the sharpe pricke of hunger which noe man trewly descrybe butt he which hathe tasted the bitternesse thereof." Already for two years, the Jamestown colonists had died at alarming rates, mostly of summertime diseases. In 1609, the beginning of the First Anglo-Powhatan War (1609–1614) prompted the Indians to lay siege to the English fort, helping to provoke the famine. Settlers were forced to eat snakes, vipers, rats, mice, musk turtles, cats, dogs, horses, and perhaps even raptors. In addition, multiple gruesome stories suggest, and archaeological evidence has partially corroborated, that settlers devoured each other. The siege lifted in May 1610, and when the survivors of the Sea Venture wreck arrived in Virginia, they found just 60 gaunt remnants of the 240 people who had crowded the fort the previous November. Many observers argued that the colonists' idleness—their persistent refusal to work for their food—contributed to the famine. It is likely, though, that malnutrition and despair worked together to create symptoms that imitated laziness. In the end, Virginia survived, but just barely.
Thu, 16 May 2013 14:41:45 EST

Roanoke Colonies, The

Thu, 16 May 2013 14:28:07 EST

The Roanoke Colonies were an ambitious attempt by England's Sir Walter Raleigh to establish a permanent North American settlement with the purpose of harassing Spanish shipping, mining for gold and silver, discovering a passage to the Pacific Ocean, and Christianizing the Indians. After three voyages the enterprise ended in the mysterious disappearance of the "Lost Colony." The first voyage, a reconnaissance venture led by Philip Amadas and Arthur Barlowe, landed in 1584 on the Outer Banks of present-day North Carolina and made mostly friendly contact there with the Algonquian-speaking Indians, even returning to England with two of them: Manteo and Wanchese. Boosted by Barlowe's positive report and Queen Elizabeth's grant to settle "Virginia," the second voyage, in 1585, established a fortified camp on Roanoke Island. John White and Thomas Hariot accompanied explorations of the mainland and the Chesapeake Bay, creating maps, paintings, and descriptions of native culture. But after less than a year in America and shortly after beheading the Indian chief Pemisapan (Wingina), the English abandoned the colony. They returned the next year, this time under White's leadership and intending to settle in the Chesapeake; instead, they reoccupied Roanoke. After White sailed to England to update Raleigh and obtain additional supplies, he was delayed by the Spanish Armada. By the time he returned in 1590, the colonists, including his granddaughter, Virginia Dare, had disappeared.
Thu, 16 May 2013 14:28:07 EST

Jamestown Settlement, Early

Thu, 16 May 2013 14:24:23 EST

The Jamestown settlement, established in 1607, was the seat of England's first permanent colony in North America. After the failure of the Roanoke colonies, investors in the Virginia Company of London were anxious to find profit farther to the north, and in April 1607 three ships of settlers arrived at the Chesapeake Bay. The enterprise, fraught with disease, dissension, and determined Indian resistance, was a miserable failure at first. "The adventurers who ventured their capital lost it," the historian Edmund S. Morgan has written. "Most of the settlers who ventured their lives lost them. And so did most of the Indians who came near them." John Smith mapped out much of the Bay and established (sometimes violent) relations with the Powhatan Indians there. During the winter of 1609–1610, the colony nearly starved. The resupply ship Sea Venture, carrying much of Virginia's new leadership, was thought lost at sea. When it finally arrived in May 1610, fewer than a hundred colonists still survived. Discipline at Jamestown did not match the urgency of the moment until Sir Thomas Dale's arrival in 1611 and his full implementation of the strict Lawes Divine, Morall and Martiall. By year's end, Dale had founded an outside settlement at Henrico, near what became Richmond. The introduction of saleable tobacco soon after helped secure the colony's economy, and as political power expanded into the James River Valley, the influence of Jamestown waned.
Thu, 16 May 2013 14:24:23 EST

Letter from Antonio de Abalia to the Council of Indies (October 23, 1566)

Wed, 15 May 2013 13:54:11 EST

In this letter to the Council of Indies in Seville, Spain, dated October 23, 1566, at Cádiz, Spain, Antonio de Abalia reports the arrival of the Spanish ship La Trinidad. The ship carried two Dominican friars, fifteen soldiers, and the baptized Virginia Indian Don Luís, part of an expedition instructed to establish a mission in the area of the present-day Chesapeake Bay; storms forced them to return to Spain. The records of the expedition are stored at Archivo de Indias in Seville, Spain (Indiferente General 2004, folio 420). This English translation, by L. A. Vigneras, was originally published in the North Carolina Historical Review and is reprinted by permission.
Wed, 15 May 2013 13:54:11 EST

La Trinidad Expedition Log (August 25, 1566)

Wed, 15 May 2013 13:52:19 EST

In his expedition log, dated August 25, 1566, Diego de Carmago records that crew members from the Spanish ship La Trinidad, which carries two Dominican friars, fifteen soldiers, and the baptized Virginia Indian Don Luís, explore the coast of present-day North Carolina. The records of the expedition are stored at Archivo General de Indias in Seville, Spain (Patronato Real 257, No. 3, R. 4). This English translation, by L. A. Vigneras, was originally published in the North Carolina Historical Review and is reprinted by permission.
Wed, 15 May 2013 13:52:19 EST

La Trinidad Expedition Log (August 24, 1566)

Wed, 15 May 2013 13:50:30 EST

In his expedition log, dated August 24, 1566, Diego de Carmago records that the Spanish ship La Trinidad, carrying two Dominican friars, fifteen soldiers, and the baptized Virginia Indian Don Luís, anchors off the coast of present-day North Carolina. The records of the expedition are stored at Archivo General de Indias in Seville, Spain (Patronato Real 257, No. 3, R. 4). This English translation, by L. A. Vigneras, was originally published in the North Carolina Historical Review and is reprinted by permission.
Wed, 15 May 2013 13:50:30 EST

La Trinidad Expedition Log (August 14, 1566)

Wed, 15 May 2013 13:48:50 EST

In his expedition log, dated August 14, 1566, Diego de Carmago records that the Spanish ship La Trinidad, carrying two Dominican friars, fifteen soldiers, and the baptized Virginia Indian Don Luís, encounters a storm off the coast of present-day Maryland. The records of the expedition are stored at Archivo General de Indias in Seville, Spain (Patronato Real 257, No. 3, R. 4). This English translation, by L. A. Vigneras, was originally published in the North Carolina Historical Review and is reprinted by permission.
Wed, 15 May 2013 13:48:50 EST

List of People on La Trinidad Expedition (August 1, 1566)

Wed, 15 May 2013 13:46:39 EST

The following document, likely compiled on August 1, 1566, lists the members of a military and religious expedition to present-day Virginia, along with their parents' names and residences. Two Dominican friars, three officials, and fifteen soldiers, in the company of a baptized Virginia Indian called Don Luís, were to sail on La Trinidad to Bahía Santa María, or the present-day Chesapeake Bay, and there establish a colony and convert the Indians. Storms forced them to Spain, instead. This document was written in the hand of Diego de Carmago, the expedition's secretary. The records of the expedition are stored at Archivo General de Indias in Seville, Spain (Patronato Real 257, No. 3, R. 4). This English translation, by L. A. Vigneras, was originally published in the North Carolina Historical Review and is reprinted by permission.
Wed, 15 May 2013 13:46:39 EST

Instructions from Pedro Menéndez de Avilés to Pedro de Coronas, et al. (August 1, 1566)

Wed, 15 May 2013 13:42:42 EST

In the following document, dated August 1, 1566, Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, governor of the Spanish province of La Florida, provides instructions for a military and religious expedition to present-day Virginia. Two Dominican friars, three officials, and fifteen soldiers, in the company of a baptized Virginia Indian called Don Luís, were to sail on La Trinidad to Bahía Santa María, or the present-day Chesapeake Bay, and there establish a colony and convert the Indians. This document was written in the hand of Diego de Carmago, the expedition's secretary. The records of the expedition are stored at Archivo General de Indias in Seville, Spain (Patronato Real 257, No. 3, R. 4). This English translation, by L. A. Vigneras, was originally published in the North Carolina Historical Review and is reprinted by permission.
Wed, 15 May 2013 13:42:42 EST

Cockacoeske (d. by July 1, 1686)

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 14:06:45 EST

Cockacoeske, also known as Cockacoeweske, was a Pamunkey chief, and a descendant of Opechancanough, brother of the paramount chief Powhatan. After the death of her husband, Totopotomoy, chief of the Pamunkey from about 1649 until 1656, Cockacoeske became queen of the Pamunkey. In 1676, a few months before the outbreak of Bacon's Rebellion (1676–1677), the insurrection's leader, Nathaniel Bacon, and his followers attacked the Pamunkey, took captives, and killed some of Cockacoeske's people. That summer she appeared before a committee of burgesses and governor's Council members in Jamestown to discuss the number of warriors she could provide to defend the colony against frontier tribes. She gave a speech reminding the colonists of Pamunkey warriors killed while fighting alongside the colonists. In February 1677 she asked the General Assembly for the release of Pamunkey who had been taken captive and for the restoration of Pamunkey property. An astute politician, Cockacoeske signed the Treaty of Middle Plantation on May 29, 1677, reuniting under her authority several tribes that had not been under Powhatan domination since 1646. Cockacoeske ruled the Pamunkey until her death in 1686.
Fri, 19 Apr 2013 14:06:45 EST

Chauco (fl. 1622–1623)

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 14:57:34 EST

Chauco was one of several Virginia Indians who saved the lives of English colonists by warning of Opechancanough's plans to attack their settlements on March 22, 1622. He is named in no more than two known documents, leaving details about his parentage, birth, death, and tribal affiliation unknown. It is possible that he was the person referred to in 1624 as Chacrow, an Indian who a decade earlier had lived with an English colonist and knew how to use a gun. The story of a Christian Indian who, like Pocahontas, helped the Virginia colonists survive the hostilities of their own people is a popular Virginia legend.
Wed, 17 Apr 2013 14:57:34 EST

Bacon, Nathaniel (1647–1676)

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 14:58:20 EST

Nathaniel Bacon was a member of the governor's Council and, in 1676, a leader of Bacon's Rebellion (1676–1677), a dramatic uprising against the governor that ended with Bacon's sudden death. Bacon was born and educated in England and moved to Virginia with his wife in 1674. A relative of both the governor, Sir William Berkeley, and his wealthy wife, Frances Culpeper Stephens Berkeley, the tall, handsome, and arrogant Bacon farmed land on the James River and, in 1675, was appointed to the Council. His rebellion erupted in a climate of political and economic uncertainty made worse by a series of Indian attacks. When the governor rebuked Bacon's attempt at reprisals, Bacon ignored him and was removed from the Council, after which he marched a militia to Jamestown. There, he was pardoned by the governor who then changed his mind, setting up a confrontation a few weeks later in which, at the House of Burgesses, Berkeley bared his chest and dared Bacon to shoot him. After issuing a declaration of grievance calling for a new assembly to be chosen under his own authority, Bacon marched his men to the lower Rappahannock River and attacked the friendly Pamunkey Indians. His subsequent siege of Jamestown provoked action from the English king, but Bacon died suddenly of dysentery on October 26, 1676. His rebellion remains one of the most controversial events in Virginia history.
Mon, 15 Apr 2013 14:58:20 EST

Ashuaquid (fl. 1607)

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 14:39:35 EST

Ashuaquid, an Arrohateck chief, was the head of a tribe consisting of about sixty warriors who resided in a town on the north bank of the James River about thirteen miles below the fall line, well within the territory that was part of Powhatan's original inheritance. Powhatan frequently placed a close relative, such as a son, brother, or sister, in such leadership positions, but evidence of Ashuaquid's relationship to Powhatan is lacking. In May 1607, Ashuaquid's tribe twice welcomed Christopher Newport and a small group of men who were exploring the upper reaches of the James River. Later, after learning that the colonists' fort at Jamestown had been attacked by Indians hostile to the settlers, Ashuaquid advised the colonists on who their enemies were and how to better defend against them. The Arrohateck tribe is last mentioned in William Strachey's record of his visit to Virginia in 1609. The Arrohateck site had been abandoned by 1611 and the fate of Ashuaquid is unknown.
Mon, 15 Apr 2013 14:39:35 EST

Ann (fl. 1706–1712)

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 13:51:29 EST

Ann was a Pamunkey chief and a successor to the most famous Pamunkey queen, Cockacoeske, who led the Pamunkey for thirty years until her death in 1686. Cockacoeske was succeeded by an unidentified niece, perhaps the leader whose mark and the name "Mrs. Betty, the Queen," appear on a petition requesting the confirmation of a sale of Pamunkey land to English subjects that was submitted to the General Court on October 22, 1701. Sparse documentation and the Powhatan Indians' practice of changing their names on important occasions have led to confusion in identifying the principal leaders of the Pamunkey. It has been conjectured that the niece who succeeded Cockacoeske, Mrs. Betty, and Ann were the same woman and that she changed her name to Ann after Queen Anne ascended the English throne in 1702. In the few records that bear the mark of Ann, she fought for the rights of her people. For example, eighteenth-century petitions that she and the great men of the Pamunkey submitted to the colonial government request that squatters on Indian land be removed, that ownership of tribal lands be confirmed, and that the annual tribute be reduced. Ann likely died about 1723.
Mon, 15 Apr 2013 13:51:29 EST

Andros, Sir Edmund (1637–ca. 1714)

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 13:36:53 EST

Sir Edmund Andros served as governor of Virginia from 1692 until 1698. Born in London, Andros enjoyed ties to the family of Charles II, served in the army, was appointed governor of New York by the future James II in 1674 and in 1686 of the Dominion of New England. His stay in New England was unpopular enough that he ended up imprisoned before returning to England. During the Glorious Revolution (1688) he supported William of Orange, who appointed him governor of Virginia with the hopes that he would aid New York during King William's War (1689–1697) and raise the salaries of the Anglican clergy. Andros's efforts were hindered by the war's effect on the tobacco trade; when prices fell, so did the salaries of clergymen, who were paid in the crop. Forced to battle with the clergymen's leader, James Blair, Andros raised salaries some but not enough. In the meantime, he subtly extended royal power in Virginia, tying the colony's laws closer to England's. Just staying in power despite a host of political enemies, Andros left office due to poor health, leaving Virginia in 1699. He served as lieutenant governor of Guernsey before dying in England sometime around 1714.
Mon, 15 Apr 2013 13:36:53 EST

Patawomeck Tribe

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 10:02:27 EST

The Patawomeck tribe is a state-recognized Indian tribe based in Fredericksburg. Dating its presence on the south bank of the Potomac River to about AD 1300, the tribe lived relatively far from the English settlement at Jamestown but nevertheless played a major role in the politics and warfare of the early colonial period. In an effort to maintain its own independence, the Patawomeck tribe regularly played its more powerful Indian neighbors and the English colonists against one another. Tribal members traded food to starving colonists in 1609; hosted an English boy, Henry Spelman, for a time; and helped the English kidnap Pocahontas, daughter of the paramount chief Powhatan. Not only did the Patawomeck not participate in the weroance, or chief, Opechancanough's attack against the English in 1622, they possibly helped the English to poison Opechancanough the next year. (He survived.) English settlements did not encroach on Patawomeck land until the 1650s. At first the county courts and General Assembly defended the Patawomeck against bad English behavior that included an attempt to frame the Patawomeck weroance for murder in 1662. But just four years later, in 1666, the governor's Council called for the Patawomeck Indians' "utter destruction." The tribe disappeared from colonial records after that. In February 2010, the Commonwealth of Virginia granted the Patawomeck Indians state recognition, against the advice of the state-appointed Virginia Council on Indians.
Tue, 09 Apr 2013 10:02:27 EST

Relation of Bartolomé Martínez (October 24, 1610)

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 12:56:57 EST

In these excerpts from a memoir, dated October 24, 1610, at Potosí in present-day Bolivia, Bartolomé Martínez recounts the story of the Virginia Indian Don Luís de Velasco (Paquiquineo). Martínez was a minor Spanish official married to a niece of the wife of Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, the adelantado, or governor, of the Spanish province of La Florida. While living at Santa Elena, near present-day Parris Island, South Carolina, from 1571 to 1579, Martínez heard the story of the Jesuit missionaries killed by Don Luís in February 1571. The memoir's full title reads: The Martyrdom of the Fathers and Brothers of the Company of Jesus whom the Indians of Ajacán, in the Land of Florida, martyred, about which Father Pedro de Ribadeneyra has written briefly in the third book, chapter six, of the Life of the Blessed Father Francis Borgia. The translation from Spanish to English was done by Father Aloysius J. Owens in 1935.
Mon, 08 Apr 2013 12:56:57 EST

Pamunkey Tribe

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 15:28:12 EST

The Pamunkey tribe is a state-recognized Indian tribe with a reservation, located on the Pamunkey River in King William County, that is one of the nation's oldest. Of the reservation's 1,200 acres, 500 are wetlands. In 2012 about eighty Pamunkey tribal members lived on the reservation, with many more residing in nearby Richmond and Newport News, as well as throughout Virginia and the United States. Pamunkey people have served in every American war and major conflict, beginning with the Revolutionary War (1775–1783).
Fri, 05 Apr 2013 15:28:12 EST

Rappahannock Tribe

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 15:18:25 EST

The Rappahannock tribe is a state-recognized Indian tribe whose tribal area is located in Indian Neck in King and Queen County. In the late twentieth century, the tribe owned 140.5 acres of land and the Rappahannock Cultural Center and had about 500 members on its tribal roll.
Fri, 05 Apr 2013 15:18:25 EST

Nansemond Tribe

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 14:57:51 EST

The Nansemond tribe is a state-recognized Indian tribe whose members live mostly in the cities of Chesapeake and Suffolk. In 2009 about 200 Nansemond tribal members were registered in Virginia.
Fri, 05 Apr 2013 14:57:51 EST

Monacan Indian Nation

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 11:35:05 EST

The Monacan Indian Nation is a state-recognized Indian tribe whose tribal area is located near Bear Mountain in Amherst County. The original territory of the Siouan-speaking tribe and its allies comprised more than half of present-day Virginia, including almost all of the Piedmont region and parts of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Early in the twenty-first century about 1,600 Monacans belonged to the tribe, one of the oldest groups of indigenous people still existing in its ancestral homeland, and the only group in the state whose culture descends from Eastern Siouan speakers.
Tue, 02 Apr 2013 11:35:05 EST

Upper Mattaponi Tribe

Thu, 21 Mar 2013 14:50:18 EST

The Upper Mattaponi tribe is a state-recognized Indian tribe whose tribal grounds consist of thirty-two acres in King William County, near the upper reaches of the Mattaponi River. In 2009, the tribe consisted of 575 members, many of whom live in Virginia.
Thu, 21 Mar 2013 14:50:18 EST

Letter from Juan Rogel to Francis Borgia (August 28, 1572)

Tue, 12 Mar 2013 12:00:05 EST

In this letter, translated from the Spanish and dated August 28, 1572, the Jesuit Juan Rogel updates his superior, Francis Borgia, on his trip to bahía de Madre de Dios, or the Bay of the Mother of God, the Spanish name for the Chesapeake Bay. Rogel journeyed to the bay in search of Alonso de los Olmos, a Spanish boy who the year before had survived an Indian attack on the Spanish mission, Ajacán, led by Don Luís de Velasco (Paquiquineo), a Virginia Indian who over the previous decade had visited Spain, Mexico, and Cuba, and converted to Christianity. Borgia died on October 1, 1572, and therefore likely never received the letter.
Tue, 12 Mar 2013 12:00:05 EST

Mattaponi Tribe

Fri, 01 Mar 2013 13:35:47 EST

The Mattaponi tribe is a state-recognized Indian tribe located on a 150-acre reservation that stretches along the borders of the Mattaponi River at West Point in King William County. Early in the twenty-first century the tribe included about 450 people, 75 of whom lived on the reservation.
Fri, 01 Mar 2013 13:35:47 EST

Chickahominy Tribe

Fri, 01 Mar 2013 09:22:51 EST

The Chickahominy tribe is a state-recognized Indian tribe located on 110 acres in Charles City County, midway between Richmond and Williamsburg. Early in the twenty-first century its population numbered about 875 people living within a five-mile radius of the tribal center, with several hundred more residing in other parts of the United States.
Fri, 01 Mar 2013 09:22:51 EST

Eastern Chickahominy Tribe

Fri, 01 Mar 2013 09:19:19 EST

The Chickahominy Tribe Eastern Division is a state-recognized Indian tribe located about twenty-five miles east of Richmond in New Kent County. Early in the twenty-first century its population numbered about 132 people, with 67 of those living in Virginia and the rest residing in other parts of the United States.
Fri, 01 Mar 2013 09:19:19 EST

Review of To Have and to Hold (April 1900)

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 13:46:45 EST

In a review published in its April 1900 issue, the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography praises To Have and to Hold, the second novel by Mary Johnston.
Thu, 28 Feb 2013 13:46:45 EST

"Mary Johnston in Her Home" by Annie Kendrick Walker (March 24, 1900)

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 13:42:16 EST

In "Mary Johnston in Her Home," published in the New York Times on March 24, 1900, writer Annie Kendrick Walker attempts to profile Mary Johnston despite the author's unwillingness to speak on the record. Johnston's second novel, To Have and to Hold, had just been published.
Thu, 28 Feb 2013 13:42:16 EST

"Miss Johnston's 'To Have and to Hold'" (February 10, 1900)

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 13:39:35 EST

In this review, published on February 10, 1900, the New York Times praises To Have and to Hold, the second novel by Mary Johnston.
Thu, 28 Feb 2013 13:39:35 EST

"A Book Very Like 'To Have and to Hold'" by L. F. A. Maulsby (June 9, 1900)

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 13:36:49 EST

In this letter to the New York Times, published on June 9, 1900, L. F. A. Maulsby suggests an unseemly similarity between the plots of Mary Johnston's newly published novel To Have and to Hold and The Head of a Hundred (1897) by Maud Wilder Goodwin.
Thu, 28 Feb 2013 13:36:49 EST

"Miss Johnston's Virginia" by Thomas Dixon Jr. (November 1900)

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 13:33:12 EST

In this letter to the Bookman, published in the journal's November 1900 issue, Thomas Dixon Jr. describes the setting of Mary Johnston's novel To Have and to Hold as it can be explored in modern-day Virginia. Dixon's most famous novel, The Clansman: An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan, was published in 1905 and, in 1915, partially adapted into the silent film The Birth of a Nation.
Thu, 28 Feb 2013 13:33:12 EST

The Case of Wahanganoche; an excerpt from the Journals of the House of Burgesses of Virginia (1662)

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 09:22:24 EST

On March 23, 1662, after hearing the report of a special committee, the House of Burgesses determines that the Patawomeck chief Wahanganoche has been unjustly framed for murder and penalizes the perpetrators, all planters in Westmoreland County. The burgesses also combine Westmoreland and Northumberland counties. Some spelling has been modernized.
Thu, 28 Feb 2013 09:22:24 EST

"An act concerning the building of a ffort" (October 1665)

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 09:18:16 EST

In "An act concerning the building of a ffort," passed in October 1665, the General Assembly requires that the Patawomecks sell all of their remaining land for the site of a fort.
Thu, 28 Feb 2013 09:18:16 EST

"An act concerning Indians" (October 1665)

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 09:16:12 EST

In "An act concerning Indians," passed in October 1665, the General Assembly, among other things, reserves to the governor the right to appoint tribal weroances, or chiefs, for Virginia Indians.
Thu, 28 Feb 2013 09:16:12 EST

"An act concerning the Northerne Indians" (September 1663)

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 09:12:56 EST

In "An act concerning the Northerne Indians," passed in September 1663, the General Assembly requires the Patawomeck Indians to return English hostages taken while repelling an English attack against them.
Thu, 28 Feb 2013 09:12:56 EST

Basse, Nathaniel (bap. 1589–1654)

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 09:07:13 EST

Nathaniel Basse was an English colonist who represented Warrosquyoake in the House of Burgesses (1624, 1625, 1628, 1629) and served on the governor's Council. The length of his service on the Council is unknown, but he is named as a member on documents dated December 20, 1631, and February 21, 1632. He came to Virginia in March 1619 with Christopher Lawne. In 1621 he received a grant of 300 acres of land; his settlement, Basse's Choice, was among the first English settlements in Isle of Wight County. Knowledge of his personal and family life is obscured by a lack of documentation, but tradition holds that he may have been the father of John Bass, who married a member of the Nansemond tribe in 1638 and from whom the Bass family of lower Tidewater Virginia is descended. However, a deposition recorded in England on August 30, 1654, states that Basse died without issue.
Thu, 28 Feb 2013 09:07:13 EST

Custalow, George F. "Thunder Cloud" (1865–1949)

Wed, 27 Feb 2013 11:26:08 EST

George F. "Thunder Cloud" Custalow was the chief of the Mattaponi tribe from 1914 until his death in 1949. Born in King William County in 1865, Custalow instituted educational and religious reform in his community and helped forge Mattaponi tribal identity. (Prior to his efforts, it was mistakenly believed that the Mattaponi were a branch of the Pamunkey, not a separate Powhatan tribe.) Under his leadership, a Mattaponi school opened on the reservation and tribal members founded the Mattaponi Indian Baptist Church. Custalow also campaigned with Pamunkey chief George Major Cook against legislation that restricted Virginia Indians' civil rights even further than the Virginia Act to Preserve Racial Integrity, which passed in 1924, already did. He died on the Mattaponi Indian Reservation on March 18, 1949.
Wed, 27 Feb 2013 11:26:08 EST

Cook, George Major (1860–1930)

Wed, 27 Feb 2013 11:22:05 EST

George Major Cook, also known as Wahunsacook or Wahansunacoke, served as chief of the Pamunkey Indians from 1902 until his death in 1930. Born on the Pamunkey Reservation in King William County in 1860, Cook had become one of the headmen of the tribe by 1888 and was elected chief in 1902. In 1917 he obtained rulings from the state attorney general that Virginia had no right to tax Indians living on the reservation or to draft members of the tribe for military service, thus reaffirming Pamunkey status as wards of the state. During the 1920s he opposed the Virginia Act to Preserve Racial Integrity, which effectively classified Virginians as either black or white. In speeches, newspaper articles, and visits to legislative committees and successive Virginia governors, Cook argued for the right of Virginia's Indians to maintain their distinct heritage and be correctly classified as Indians in official records. During the final year of his life, Cook led opposition to a proposal to exempt Indians on reservations from being classified as black because it did not protect those who lived off the reservations. He died at his home on the reservation on December 16, 1930.
Wed, 27 Feb 2013 11:22:05 EST

Chapter 33: "In Which My Friend Becomes My Foe"; an excerpt from To Have and to Hold by Mary Johnston (1900)

Wed, 13 Feb 2013 11:52:33 EST

In chapter 33 of To Have and to Hold , a novel by Mary Johnston published in 1900 and set in colonial Virginia, the hero, Captain Ralph Percy, and his former indentured servant Diccon are meeting with Indians led by Opechancanough. As the Indians prepare to attack the English settlement at Jamestown, Percy does not receive the expected support from Nantauquas, the brother of Pocahontas.
Wed, 13 Feb 2013 11:52:33 EST

Religion in Early Virginia Indian Society

Tue, 29 Jan 2013 14:42:03 EST

Knowledge of religion in early Virginia Indian society largely comes from English colonists like Captain John Smith, who stated that all Indians had "religion, Deare, and Bow and Arrowes." Because Smith and his countrymen almost exclusively dealt with the Powhatans of Tsenacomoco—an alliance of twenty-eight to thirty-two petty tribes and chiefdoms centered around the James, Mattaponi, and Pamunkey rivers—the most is known about them. The Powhatans worshipped a number of spirits, the most important of whom was Okee. Men cut their hair in imitation of Okee's. To assuage his anger in times of crisis or court his pleasure before the hunt, they made sacrifices. Other spirits included the benevolent Ahone, the Great Hare creator god, an unnamed female divinity, and the Sun god. In charge of managing relations with these various spirits were the kwiocosuk, or shamans, who lived apart from common Powhatans and wielded the society's ultimate authority. Quiocosins , or holy temples, housed the shamans and hosted various rituals. When weroances, or chiefs, died, they were reduced to bundles of bones and, for several years, stored in the temples. The Powhatans also had a variety of rituals associated with eating, hunting, male initiation, and the killing of prisoners of war. Smith described what appeared to be a "conjuration" and, on another occasion, a three-day dance that may have been a yearly harvest festival.
Tue, 29 Jan 2013 14:42:03 EST

Plants in Early Virginia Indian Society, Domesticated

Tue, 29 Jan 2013 14:40:43 EST

Virginia Indians began domesticating plants to be used as a food source following the Ice Age. As the climate warmed, their lives became less nomadic and the conditions improved for husbanding certain plants—sunflower, knotweed, and little barley at first, and then the so-called three sisters of maize, beans, and squash. Eastern North America is one of ten sites in the world where independent plant domestication occurred, but because of other abundant food sources in the Chesapeake Bay area, maize, or corn, was not widespread until as late as AD 1100. Plant domestication coincided with increasing populations, improved weapons technology, and more complex social and political systems. Already a high-status food among the Indians, maize was held in particularly high regard by the Jamestown colonists, who had never seen it before. Scholars disagree how much of the Indian diet it comprised, but it seems clear that only the highest-ranking of the Powhatan Indians of Tsenacomoco ate domesticated plants year-round.
Tue, 29 Jan 2013 14:40:43 EST

Manners and Politeness in Early Virginia Indian Society

Tue, 29 Jan 2013 14:38:44 EST

Manners and politeness, as dictated by custom, were an important aspect of early Virginia Indian society. What is known about the subject is limited to the observations of Jamestown colonists, visiting English observers, and later American historians, and is mostly applicable to the Algonquian-speaking Powhatan Indians of Tsenacomoco, a paramount chiefdom of twenty-eight to thirty-two groups in Tidewater Virginia. Although regulation among the Virginia Indians tended to be informal, the line between good and bad manners was nevertheless clear and the consequences for crossing it were severe. The Powhatans did not tolerate interruptions in formal situations, and tended to refrain from speaking until the appropriate moment. In instances of minor personal conflict, they chose either to withdraw from the situation or to bear any imposition without complaint. Powhatan society had various outlets for aggression and frustration, but in the end, self-control, even under torture, was most valued.
Tue, 29 Jan 2013 14:38:44 EST

Late Woodland Period (AD 900–1650)

Tue, 29 Jan 2013 14:36:46 EST

The Late Woodland Period lasted from AD 900 until 1650. It was a time when Virginia Indian societies underwent important social and cultural transformations. It traditionally has been dated from the supposed widespread adoption of maize agriculture. During this period scattered populations consolidated into large villages and towns, occasionally fortified; they also built burial mounds or ossuaries (large burial pits) and developed into some of the most socially and politically complex groups on the Atlantic Coast. The period's end date comes almost five decades after the establishment in 1607 of the English colony at Jamestown. The new settlement eventually upended Virginia Indian societies, including the once-powerful Powhatan Indians of Tsenacomoco. Written records by John Smith and other English colonists have helped modern historians reconstruct those early Indian cultures, especially those on Virginia's Coastal Plain; however, because such records reflect the writers' European biases, archaeological evidence is critical to a full understanding of Virginia Indians during this period. This is especially true for regions west of the Blue Ridge Mountains, where earlier Indian cultures had vanished by the time English explorers and colonists had moved this far west.
Tue, 29 Jan 2013 14:36:46 EST

Hygiene Among Early Virginia Indians, Personal

Tue, 29 Jan 2013 14:25:44 EST

Early Virginia Indians practiced personal hygiene that included daily baths in all seasons and all weather. They also engaged in occasional sweat baths in sweat lodges, which likely were presided over by a priest and which they believed to be healthy and invigorating. Despite a lack of soap, elite Powhatan Indians washed their hands before eating, according to Jamestown colonists and other European observers, whose writings don't comment on the practices of common people. At least one late seventeenth century European traveler remarked on Virginia Indians who never washed their clothes, a practice that probably originated when they dressed in tough deerskin but which became less seemly after switching to European-style garb. Regardless, by modern standards, Virginia Indians were far more sanitary than the Europeans who arrived in 1607.
Tue, 29 Jan 2013 14:25:44 EST

Witchcraft in Colonial Virginia

Tue, 29 Jan 2013 13:58:11 EST

Witchcraft was a genuine concern for colonial Virginians. The colony's English settlers brought with them a strong belief in the devil's power and his presence in the New World. This belief was first manifested in the Jamestown colonists' early perceptions of the Virginia Indians, whom they believed to be devil worshippers. After 1622, some colonists began to accuse one another of practicing witchcraft. Though witchcraft cases in Virginia were less common and the sentences less severe than the more famous witch trials of Salem, in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, evidence exists that about two dozen such trials took place in Virginia between 1626 and 1730. They ranged from civil defamation suits to criminal accusations. The most famous of these was the trial of Grace Sherwood of Princess Anne County, in which the judges determined her guilt by administering a water test. Records indicate that the last witchcraft trial in the mainland colonies took place in Virginia in 1730; five years later, Parliament repealed the Witchcraft Act of 1604, the statute under which British American colonists prosecuted accused witches. Since then, witchcraft has been largely forgotten as an aspect of life in colonial Virginia.
Tue, 29 Jan 2013 13:58:11 EST

Rolfe, John (d. 1622)

Tue, 29 Jan 2013 13:51:11 EST

John Rolfe served as secretary and recorder general of Virginia (1614–1619) and as a member of the governor's Council (1614–1622). He is best known for having married Pocahontas in 1614 and for being the first to cultivate marketable tobacco in Virginia. Joined by his first wife, whose name is unknown, Rolfe sailed on the Sea Venture, a Virginia-bound ship that wrecked off the islands of Bermuda in 1609. There his wife gave birth to a daughter, but mother and child soon died. In Virginia, Rolfe turned to experimenting with tobacco, a plant first brought to England from Florida. The Virginia Indians planted a variety that was harsh to English smokers, so Rolfe developed a Spanish West Indies seed, Nicotiana tabacum, that became profitable and, indeed, transformed the colony's economy. In 1614, Rolfe married Pocahontas, daughter of Powhatan, the paramount chief of Tsenacomoco. The marriage helped bring an end to the First Anglo-Powhatan War (1609–1614), but Pocahontas died in 1617 while visiting England with Rolfe and their son, Thomas. While in England, Rolfe penned A True Relation of the state of Virginia Lefte by Sir Thomas Dale Knight in May Last 1616 (1617), promoting the interests of the Virginia Company of London. Back in Virginia, he married Joane Peirce about 1619 and had a daughter, Elizabeth. He died in 1622.
Tue, 29 Jan 2013 13:51:11 EST

Bermuda Hundred During the Colonial Period

Tue, 29 Jan 2013 13:10:01 EST

Bermuda Hundred was established by Sir Thomas Dale in 1613 at the confluence of the James and Appomattox rivers. Virginia Indians had occupied the site for at least 10,000 years before Dale planted a settlement there. The term "hundred" comes from the English practice of locating ten towns, or tithings (groups of ten families), at a settlement. One of Bermuda Hundred's most famous residents was John Rolfe, who may have grown his first marketable tobacco there—Nicotiana tabacum, a West Indian plant with which he had been experimenting since 1612. Rolfe may have lived there with his wife Pocahontas, the daughter of the Powhatan Indians' paramount chief, Powhatan. The population of Bermuda Hundred, like that of other early English settlements in Virginia, was nearly wiped out by a massive assault orchestrated by one of Powhatan's successors, Opechancanough. The settlement survived, however, becoming one of Virginia's first ports in 1691, the site of a tobacco inspection in 1731, and the site of a new ferry to City Point in 1732. In 1738, the General Assembly considered Bermuda Hundred for the colony's new capital. After 1780, when Richmond became the new capital of Virginia, Bermuda Hundred began to decline.
Tue, 29 Jan 2013 13:10:01 EST

Bacon's Rebellion (1676–1677)

Tue, 29 Jan 2013 13:08:10 EST

Bacon's Rebellion, fought from 1676 to 1677, began with a local dispute with the Doeg Indians on the Potomac River. Chased north by Virginia militiamen, who also attacked the otherwise uninvolved Susquehannocks, the Indians began raiding the Virginia frontier. The governor, Sir William Berkeley, persauded the General Assembly to adopt a plan that isolated the Susquehannocks while bringing in Indian allies on Virginia's side. Others saw in the Susquehannock War an opportunity for a general Indian war that would yield Indian slaves and lands, and would give vent to popular anti-Indian sentiment. They found a leader in Nathaniel Bacon, a recent arrival to Virginia and a member of the governor's Council. Bacon demanded a commission to fight the Indians; when none was forthcoming, he led "volunteers" against some of Virginia's closest Indian allies. This led to a civil war pitting Bacon's followers against Berkeley loyalists. The conflict was often bitter and personal—at one point, Berkeley bared his chest and dared Bacon to kill him—and involved the looting of both rebel and loyalist properties. Berkeley expelled Bacon from the Council, reinstated him, and then expelled him a second time. After the governor fled Jamestown for the Eastern Shore, he returned, only to be chased away by Bacon's army, which burned the capital. Bacon died suddenly in October 1676, but bitter fighting continued into January. The Crown dispatched troops to Virginia, which arrived shortly after the rebellion had been quelled. The causes of Bacon's Rebellion have long been disputed. Today it is generally regarded as part of a general crisis in Virginia's social, economic, and political arrangements. The argument that it should be seen as a revolt against English tyranny and a precursor to the American Revolution (1775–1783) has been discredited.
Tue, 29 Jan 2013 13:08:10 EST

Treaty Ending the Third Anglo-Powhatan War (1646)

Fri, 25 Jan 2013 16:14:58 EST

In the following enactment, dated October 1646, the General Assembly confirms a peace treaty ending the Third Anglo-Powhatan War (1644–1646), a relatively short conflict that led to the death of Opechancanough, paramount chief of Tsenacomoco. Necotowance, Opechancanough's successor, assented to the treaty on behalf of the Indians. Some spelling has been modernized.
Fri, 25 Jan 2013 16:14:58 EST

Articles of Peace (1677)

Fri, 25 Jan 2013 15:08:35 EST

In Articles of Peace, published in London in 1677, the British government formalizes what became known as the Treaty of Middle Plantation, signed on May 29, 1677. Following the violence against Virginia Indians that accompanied Bacon's Rebellion (1676–1677), several tribes, formerly part of the paramount chiefdom Tsenacomoco, reunited under the authority of the Pamunkey chief Cockacoeske and promised fidelity to the Crown in exchange for its protection. Some spelling has been modernized.
Fri, 25 Jan 2013 15:08:35 EST

Houses in Early Virginia Indian Society

Thu, 24 Jan 2013 13:34:50 EST

Houses in early Virginia Indian society became necessary after the Ice Age, when the Indians began depending less on the hunt for survival. Among the Powhatan Indians, especially, but elsewhere in the region, too, a house, or a yi-hakan in Algonquian, typically had a circular or oval floor plan and was rarely if ever longer than forty feet. (The Powhatans designed special houses for their weroances, or chiefs, and their kwiocosuk, or shamans.) Built by women, Indian houses consisted of long, bent sapling poles that were covered with either woven-reed mats or bark. They had a single door, which also served as the only source of light and ventilation. Construction was labor-intensive and time-consuming, and Englishmen, who often were hosted by the Powhatans, complained that they were dark, smoky, and flea-infested. Within a hundred years of the landing at Jamestown, the Indians had begun to adopt English-style houses, but adapted them to native methods and materials (building, for instance, bark-covered cabins). After another hundred years, Indian houses had become largely indistinguishable from those built by non-Indians.
Thu, 24 Jan 2013 13:34:50 EST

Diseases that Ravaged Indian Towns; an excerpt from A briefe and true report of the new found land of Virginia by Thomas Hariot (1588)

Thu, 10 Jan 2013 10:56:23 EST

In this excerpt of his account of the 1585–1586 English expedition to Roanoke Island, Thomas Hariot describes how diseases hit Indian towns after the English had visited. He also suggests how this phenomenon caused the Indians to wonder why the English never were sick themselves and whether they might be gods instead of men. Hariot's account was first published in London in 1588 as A briefe and true report of the new found land of Virginia. Some spelling has been updated and contractions expanded.
Thu, 10 Jan 2013 10:56:23 EST

The Indians of Ossomocomuck; an excerpt from A briefe and true report of the new found land of Virginia by Thomas Hariot (1588)

Thu, 10 Jan 2013 09:34:21 EST

In this excerpt of his account of the 1585–1586 English expedition to Roanoke Island, Thomas Hariot describes "the nature and manners of the people" he encountered there. The Indians of Ossomocomuck were Algonquian, so their language and culture was very similar to the Indians of Tsenacomoco in present-day Tidewater Virginia. Hariot's account was first published in London in 1588 as A briefe and true report of the new found land of Virginia. Some spelling has been updated and contractions expanded.
Thu, 10 Jan 2013 09:34:21 EST

Meeting Granganimeo; an excerpt from "The first voyage made to the coasts of America" by Arthur Barlowe (1589)

Wed, 09 Jan 2013 16:08:43 EST

In this excerpt of his account of the 1584 English expedition to Roanoke Island, Arthur Barlowe reports first of the area's animals and trees; then he tells of his party's first encounter with the Indian weroance, or chief, Granganimeo. Barlowe's report, "The first voyage made to the coasts of America," was published in Richard Hakluyt (the younger)'s Principal Navigations, Voyages and Discoveries of the English Nation (1589). Some spelling has been updated and contractions expanded.
Wed, 09 Jan 2013 16:08:43 EST

Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Smith Barton (September 21, 1809)

Mon, 17 Dec 2012 09:05:31 EST

In this letter to the American botanist, naturalist, and physician Benjamin Smith Barton, Thomas Jefferson explains how his collection of American Indian language vocabularies was lost on his way home to Monticello from Washington, D.C., when his term as United States president ended.
Mon, 17 Dec 2012 09:05:31 EST

Letter (with Enclosure) from Peter S. DuPonceau to Thomas Jefferson (July 13, 1820)

Fri, 14 Dec 2012 10:29:24 EST

In this letter to Thomas Jefferson, dated July 13, 1820, the French linguist Peter S. DuPonceau encloses a comparative vocabulary of the Nottoway and Iroquois languages. Jefferson had previously sent DuPonceau a Nottoway word list compiled by John Wood, a mathematics professor at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, who visited a Nottoway community in Southampton County on March 4, 1820. Until hearing from DuPonceau, Jefferson had believed the Nottoway language to be in the same family as the Powhatan language, which is now known to be Algonquian.
Fri, 14 Dec 2012 10:29:24 EST

Letter from Peter S. DuPonceau to Thomas Jefferson (July 12, 1820)

Fri, 14 Dec 2012 10:09:44 EST

In this letter to Thomas Jefferson, dated July 12, 1820, the French linguist Peter S. DuPonceau explains that a Nottoway word list sent to him by the former United States president suggests that the Virginia Indian language is a dialect of Iroquois and not, as Jefferson believed, Algonquian. The word list was originally compiled by John Wood, a mathematics professor at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, who visited a Nottoway community in Southampton County on March 4, 1820. Some spelling has been modernized.
Fri, 14 Dec 2012 10:09:44 EST

"A true description of the people, of their cullour, attire, ornaments, constitutions, dispositions, etc."; an excerpt from The Historie of Travaile into Virginia Britannia by William Strachey (1612, pub. 1849)

Thu, 13 Dec 2012 12:02:05 EST

In chapter 5 of the first book of The Historie of Travaile into Virginia Britannia, completed by William Strachey in 1612 and published in 1849, Strachey describes the attire and appearance of the Virginia Indians he encountered, including Pocahontas.
Thu, 13 Dec 2012 12:02:05 EST

"A Dictionarie of the Indian Language"; an excerpt from The Historie of Travaile into Virginia Britannia by William Strachey (1612, pub. 1849)

Thu, 13 Dec 2012 11:58:10 EST

In this excerpt from "A Dictionarie of the Indian Language, for the Better Enabling of Such Who Shalbe Thither Ymployed," William Strachey compiled what he believed to be words spoken by the Virginia Indians of Tsenacomoco who lived in the Tidewater when the Jamestown colonists landed in 1607. Appearing at the end of The Historie of Travaile into Virginia Britannia , Strachey's dictionary consisted of 400 words, of which 263 accurately represent Algonquian-language words or phrases, according to the linguist Frank T. Siebert Jr.
Thu, 13 Dec 2012 11:58:10 EST

Plecker, Walter Ashby (1861–1947)

Thu, 13 Dec 2012 10:32:40 EST

Walter Ashby Plecker was a physician and the first Virginia state registrar of vital statistics, a position he served in from 1912 to 1946. He was a staunch promoter of eugenics, a discredited movement aimed at scientifically proving white racial superiority and thereby justifying the marginalizing of non-white people. Employing Virginia's Racial Integrity Act of 1924, Plecker effectively separated Virginia citizens into two simplified racial categories: white and colored. The law, which remained in effect until 1967, when it was overturned by the United States Supreme Court in the case of Loving v. Virginia , required that a racial description of every person be recorded at birth, while criminalizing marriages between whites and non-whites. Plecker's policies used deceptive scientific evidence to deem blacks a lesser class of human beings, but they also targeted poor whites and anyone he or other eugenicists considered "feebleminded." Asserting that Virginia Indians were, in fact, "mixed-blooded negroes," Plecker also pressured state agencies into reclassifying Indians as "colored." The policy's legacy was effectively to erase "Indian" as an identity and has made it difficult for Virginia Indians to gain state and federal recognition.
Thu, 13 Dec 2012 10:32:40 EST

Arriving in Virginia; an excerpt from "Observations gathered out of a Discourse of the Plantation of the Southerne Colonie in Virginia" by George Percy (1625)

Thu, 13 Dec 2012 10:22:27 EST

In this excerpt from "Observations gathered out of a Discourse of the Plantation of the Southerne Colonie in Virginia by the English, 1606," George Percy describes how the Jamestown colonists first arrived to Virginia in April 1607. He describes in detail the landscape of the Chesapeake Bay, where they explored, as well as their first encounters with the Virginia Indians, including notes about their diet, religion, and politics. The account was published in 1625 by the Reverend Samuel Purchas in Hakluytus Posthumus, or Purchas His Pilgrimes.
Thu, 13 Dec 2012 10:22:27 EST

The Dying Time; an excerpt from "Observations gathered out of a Discourse of the Plantation of the Southerne Colonie in Virginia" by George Percy (1625)

Wed, 12 Dec 2012 16:00:52 EST

In this excerpt from "Observations gathered out of a Discourse of the Plantation of the Southerne Colonie in Virginia by the English, 1606," George Percy describes the building of the fort at Jamestown in the spring of 1607, the departure of Captain Christopher Newport, and the period, beginning in August, when many settlers, including Captain Bartholomew Gosnold, died of disease. Percy also touches on the religion and hygiene of the Virginia Indians. The account was published in 1625 by the Reverend Samuel Purchas in Hakluytus Posthumus, or Purchas His Pilgrimes.
Wed, 12 Dec 2012 16:00:52 EST

John Smith and Pocahontas in England; an excerpt from The Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles by John Smith (1624)

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 15:15:54 EST

In the fourth book of his Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles, published in 1624, John Smith describes a tense encounter with Pocahontas during her first and only visit to England, in 1616. Pocahontas first met Smith in 1607, after he arrived in Virginia to help establish the Jamestown settlement.
Thu, 01 Nov 2012 15:15:54 EST

Pocahontas (d. 1617)

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 15:14:05 EST

Pocahontas was the daughter of Powhatan, paramount chief of an alliance of Virginia Indians in Tidewater Virginia. An iconic figure in American history, Pocahontas is largely known for saving the life of the Jamestown colonist John Smith and then romancing him—although both events are unlikely to be true. She did meet Smith several times, sometimes serving as Powhatan's silent figurehead and a symbolic liaison between the chief and the English colonists; she was not, however, a "princess" or a diplomat in any modern sense. Sometime around 1610, she married an Indian named Kocoum, and in 1613 she was captured by the English and confined at Jamestown, where she converted to Christianity and married the colonist John Rolfe. The marriage, approved by Powhatan, brought an end to the First Anglo-Powhatan War (1609–1614) and set the stage for Pocahontas's visit to London in 1616. At the request of the Virginia Company of London, she met both King James I and the bishop of London, after which she reunited briefly with Smith. Early in her return voyage to Virginia, she became ill and died at Gravesend in March 1617. In the centuries since, Pocahontas's life has slipped into myth, serving to represent Virginia's early claim to be the foundation-place of America. Many elite Virginians, meanwhile, have tenuously claimed her as a relative, even leading to a "Pocahontas clause" in the Racial Integrity Act of 1924.
Thu, 01 Nov 2012 15:14:05 EST

John Smith's Letter to Queen Anne; an excerpt fromThe Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles by John Smith (1624)

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 14:37:18 EST

In the fourth book of his Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles, published in 1624, John Smith describes the content of a letter he allegedly wrote to Queen Anne, the wife of King James I of England, asking her to give special consideration to Pocahontas, the daughter of the Virginia Indian paramount chief Powhatan, on the occasion of Pocahontas's visit to London in 1616.
Thu, 01 Nov 2012 14:37:18 EST

Racial Integrity Laws of the 1920s

Mon, 15 Oct 2012 14:18:10 EST

The Racial Integrity Laws, which included the Racial Integrity Act (RIA) of 1924, were a series of legislative efforts designed to protect "whiteness" against what many Virginians perceived to be the effects of immigration and race-mixing. Passed in the context of a national surge in nativism, racism, and sexism, these laws explicitly defined how people should be classified—for example, as white, black, or Indian—and then, through Virginia's newly created Bureau of Vital Statistics under the direction of Dr. Walter Plecker, aggressively policed the distinctions. Elite white Virginians, often belonging to the Anglo-Saxon Clubs of America (ASCOA), worried that their efforts on behalf of white supremacy might be confused with the more violent work of the Ku Klux Klan. As a result, they used the RIA to recast racial bigotry as progressive, scientific social policy. There was some social and political backlash against the laws, but not enough to overturn them until the U.S. Supreme Court's 1967 ruling in Loving v.Virginia, which declared Virginia's ban on interracial marriage to be unconstitutional. Most of Virginia's Indians, meanwhile, had been classified by the RIA as racially black, a designation that continues to be an obstacle for federal tribal recognition.
Mon, 15 Oct 2012 14:18:10 EST

"The people of America crye oute unto us"; an excerpt from Discourse on Western Planting by Richard Hakluyt (the younger) (1584)

Wed, 26 Sep 2012 14:11:49 EST

In these excerpts from the first three chapters of Discourse on Western Planting, Richard Hakluyt (the younger) argues why England should compete with Spain in colonizing the America. Specifically, he makes the case for converting the Indians to Christianity, and suggests that without colonies, England's economy is at a disadvantage. The manuscript was originally prepared in 1584 at the request of Sir Walter Raleigh for Queen Elizabeth I and her advisers only. It was not published until the nineteenth century. Some spelling has been modernized.
Wed, 26 Sep 2012 14:11:49 EST

Education, Early Virginia Indian

Thu, 20 Sep 2012 11:28:26 EST

Early Virginia Indians educated their children for the purpose of preparing them to be adults. Boys and girls were expected to absorb the community's values, including stoicism in the face of hardship, and master the skills necessary to survive and thrive. For men that included hunting and warfare and for women collecting plants, building houses, and making household furnishings. English colonists had little to say about how Indian girls were reared, either out of lack of interest or because such knowledge was considered to be none of their business. Powhatan boys were trained in hunting and warfare by their fathers and older male relatives in order to win personal names, learn marksmanship, and earn the right to join the hunt. Between the ages of ten and fifteen, they engaged in the several-months-long huskanaw ritual, in which they were ritually—but not actually—killed and then given a drug which turned them briefly violent and ritually erased their memories of boyhood. The English colonists saw this sort of training for boys as frivolous; they believed that boys, instead of girls, should plant and farm. Although education practices among the Virginia Indians changed in the years after contact with the English, what remained was an ingrained reluctance to send their children outside the family for instruction.
Thu, 20 Sep 2012 11:28:26 EST

White, John (d. 1593)

Tue, 18 Sep 2012 14:36:25 EST

John White was an English artist who in 1585 accompanied a failed colonizing expedition to Roanoke Island in present-day North Carolina and who, in 1587, served as governor of a second failed expedition, which came to be known as the Lost Colony. As an artist attached to the first group of colonists, White produced watercolor portraits of Virginia Indians and scenes of their lives and activities. He rendered the local flora and fauna and, using the English polymath Thomas Hariot as a surveyor, created detailed maps of the North American coastline. He also joined Hariot and others on an exploration of the Chesapeake Bay and made contact there with the Chesapeake Indians. Many of White's paintings were published, sometimes in altered form, by Theodor de Bry as etchings in Hariot's illustrated edition of A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia (1590). They are the most accurate visual record of the New World by an artist of his generation. After the first colony failed, White led a second, which was intended for the Chesapeake but which settled again at Roanoke. The colonists included White's daughter, Elinor White Dare, who gave birth to Virginia Dare, the first English child born in America. A poor and unpopular leader, White agreed to be a messenger back to England to inform the colony's backers of the location change and a need for new supplies. Waylaid by the Spanish Armada, he did not return until 1590; the colonists had disappeared. White died three years later.
Tue, 18 Sep 2012 14:36:25 EST

Tsenacomoco (Powhatan Paramount Chiefdom)

Tue, 18 Sep 2012 13:46:07 EST

Tsenacomoco, otherwise known as the Powhatan paramount chiefdom, was a political alliance of Algonquian-speaking Virginia Indians that occupied the area first settled by the English at Jamestown. The origins of Tsenacomoco date to the Late Woodland Period (AD 900–1650). By 1607, twenty-eight to thirty-two groups, each with its own chief, paid tribute to Powhatan, the paramount chief of Tsenacomoco. With boundaries that stretched from the James River to the Potomac and west to the fall line, Tsenacomoco had a population of around 15,000 people. The name of the paramount chiefdom was first reported by the early English settler William Strachey and, while some scholars disagree, it may be translated to mean "densely inhabited place." Living in riverside towns, the Indians of Tsenacomoco cleared land for farming and used the forests for hunting. The wide, slow-moving rivers, meanwhile, provided means for travel, trade, and war. After the English arrived in 1607, Powhatan attempted to subsume them into Tsenacomoco, and, when that failed, he fought them in the First Anglo-Powhatan War (1609–1614), which ended only with the marriage of his daughter Pocahontas to John Rolfe. A successor to Powhatan, Opechancanough, fought two more wars, both of them unsuccessful. With Opechancanough's death in 1646 came the end of Tsenacomoco.
Tue, 18 Sep 2012 13:46:07 EST

Savage, Thomas (ca. 1595–before September 1633)

Fri, 14 Sep 2012 09:01:06 EST

Thomas Savage (sometimes spelled Salvage or Savadge) was an English interpreter of Indian languages. At age thirteen, he arrived at Jamestown in 1608 to work as a laborer, but was instead given by Captain Christopher Newport to Powhatan, the paramount chief of Tsenacomoco, a political alliance of twenty-eight to thirty-two Algonquian-speaking Virginia Indian groups. Savage remained with the Indians for almost three years, during which time he learned their language and became familiar with their customs. According to contemporary accounts, Savage was well treated and well liked by Powhatan, who often sent the boy to Jamestown to deliver messages to the English. After the outbreak of the First Anglo-Powhatan War (1609–1614), however, Savage feared for his safety among the Indians, and in 1610 he escaped to Jamestown. He remained in Virginia, where he established a successful career as an interpreter and settled on the Eastern Shore. He died in or before September 1633.
Fri, 14 Sep 2012 09:01:06 EST

Gift Exchange in Early Virginia Indian Society

Tue, 28 Aug 2012 09:17:06 EST

Algonquian-speaking Virginia Indians during the Late Woodland Period (AD 900–1650) practiced a gift-exchange economy. All Indians were required to give, accept, and, at a later date, reciprocate; failure to do so could lead to punishments of varying kinds. Rather than value the goods being exchanged, Indians valued the relationships of the people exchanging, with participants in the economy collecting personal debts rather than material wealth. In fact, goods were not owned but continuously passed from gift-giver to receiver. This system contrasted sharply with the commodity-exchange system with which Europeans were familiar, and each culture's unfamiliarity with the other's economy led to tensions and even violence. In 1571, a baptized Virginia Indian named Don Luís led a party that killed a group of Jesuit missionaries, an act of violence that can be best explained as a response to a violation of gift-exchange protocol. The Jesuits had declined to offer gifts to Don Luís's people while trading with neighboring groups, an act of humiliation that led to their deaths. At Roanoke, the Indians allowed such slights to pass, instead manipulating the English colonists for their own political advantage. At Jamestown, however, English ignorance of the gift exchange unleashed more violence, which was often symbolic. In one case, the mouths of English corpses were stuffed with bread, a repeated gift of sustenance for which the English had failed to reciprocate. The derisive term "Indian giver," the meaning of which has changed over time, has come to represent the frustration that resulted from each group's ignorance of the other's economic system.
Tue, 28 Aug 2012 09:17:06 EST

"An Act directing the trial of Slaves, committing capital crimes; and for the more effectual punishing conspiracies and insurrections of them; and for the better government of Negros, Mulattos, and Indians, bond or free"

Wed, 01 Aug 2012 12:54:19 EST

In "An Act directing the trial of Slaves, committing capital crimes; and for the more effectual punishing conspiracies and insurrections of them; and for the better government of Negros, Mulattos, and Indians, bond or free," passed by the General Assembly in the session of May 1723, Virginia's colonial government establishes laws with regards to the punishment of slaves and the overall government of slaves, free blacks, and Indians.
Wed, 01 Aug 2012 12:54:19 EST

"Twenty and odd Negroes"; an excerpt from a letter from John Rolfe to Sir Edwin Sandys (1619/1620)

Thu, 12 Jul 2012 14:19:22 EST

In this excerpt from a letter to Sir Edwin Sandys, treasurer of the Virginia Company of London, the Jamestown colonist John Rolfe describes events in the Virginia colony. These include the first meeting of the General Assembly, a murder trial, and a controversy involving the Indian-language interpreter Captain Henry Spelman. He also notes the arrival of "20. and odd Negroes," the first Africans in Virginia. In greater detail he recounts a visit to Jamestown by a Patawomeck elder Iopassus (Japazaws), who in 1613 had been responsible for delivering Rolfe's since-deceased wife Pocahontas into the hands of Captain Samuel Argall. Now Iopassus appeared to be engaging in diplomacy independent of Powhatan, Opechancanough, and the Indians of Tsenacomoco. The letter is dated "January 1619/1620," the two years reflecting both the Old (Julian) Calendar and the New (Gregorian) Calendar. Some spelling has been updated and contractions expanded.
Thu, 12 Jul 2012 14:19:22 EST

Languages and Interpreters in Early Virginia Indian Society

Wed, 11 Jul 2012 16:47:01 EST

Early Virginia Indians spoke dialects of Algic, Iroquoian, or Siouan, three large linguistic families that include many of the more than eight hundred indigenous languages in North America. Among Virginia's Algic-speakers were the Powhatan Indians, who lived in the Tidewater and encountered the Jamestown settlers in 1607. Little is known of their language—a form of Algic known as Virginia Algonquian—although Captain John Smith and William Strachey both composed influential vocabulary lists. The Nottoways and the Meherrins lived south of the James near the fall line and spoke Iroquoian. Although the Meherrin language was never recorded, it has been identified as Iroquoian based on geography. In 1820, John Wood interviewed the elderly Nottoway "queen" Edie Turner and created a word list that eventually was recognized as Iroquoian. Virginia's Siouan-speakers, meanwhile, largely lived west of the fall line and included the Monacans, the Mannahoacs, and the Saponis. Many Virginia Indians, encouraged by the requirements of trade, diplomacy, and warfare, spoke multiple languages, and when the English arrived, they and the Powhatans eagerly exchanged boys to learn each other's language and serve as interpreters. By the twentieth century, most if not all Virginia Indian languages had become extinct, meaning that no native speakers survived. In 2005, the Terrence Malick film The New World presented a form of Algonquian based on the Smith and Strachey lists and the work of the linguist Blair Rudes.
Wed, 11 Jul 2012 16:47:01 EST

Cactus Hill Archaeological Site

Wed, 11 Jul 2012 13:57:37 EST

The Cactus Hill Archaeological Site is located on a wind-deposited (eolian) terrace of the Nottoway River in Sussex County. The site gets its name from the prickly pear cacti commonly found growing on the site's sandy soil. Cactus Hill is one of the oldest and most well-dated archaeological sites in the Americas, with the earliest human occupations dating to between 18,000 and 20,000 years ago. It also contains one of the most complete stratified prehistoric archaeological sequences yet discovered in Virginia. Prior to the discoveries at Cactus Hill, which were made in the mid-1990s, most scholars believed that the earliest humans arrived in the Americas approximately 13,000 years ago. Representing the so-called Clovis culture, these people were believed to have come to the Americas from Siberia across the Bering land bridge. Cactus Hill has since given scholars cause to revise that theory; they now propose that people may have skirted along the glaciers located near the Pacific coast of North America, or they may have crossed pack ice from Europe to the Atlantic coast of America. Investigations done at Cactus Hill by the Nottoway River Survey and the Archeological Society of Virginia suggest that the people there may not have been the first, leading scholars to look for even older settlements.
Wed, 11 Jul 2012 13:57:37 EST

Law and Justice in Early Virginia Indian Society

Wed, 13 Jun 2012 11:08:39 EST

Law and justice in early Virginia Indian society were not well understood by English observers, whose main concern was replacing the native system with their own. William Strachey wrote that the Indians ruled not by "posetive lawes," but by custom, and Henry Spelman, who lived among the Patawomeck Indians and spoke their language, wrote that he thought that the "Infidels wear [were] lawless" until he witnessed five of them brutally executed by being beaten and thrown into a fire. In fact, most of what is known about the laws and punishments among the Powhatan Indians can be reduced to a series of often graphically violent anecdotes in which men and women are killed for the crimes of infanticide, stealing, carrying on unsanctioned affairs, and even interrupting a weroance, or chief, while he is speaking. Powhatan custom demanded that revenge be exacted for wrongs against the person and against the chiefdom; the chiefs and paramount chief were powerless to intervene. This led to nearly constant, small-scale warfare, but it also caused problems with the English. Whenever a slight was made against an Indian, revenge was likely and was sometimes directed at the entire group rather than just at the individual. In the end, the English copied this practice, passing a law in 1641 giving colonists the power to hold otherwise innocent Indians hostage when the guilty party eluded capture.
Wed, 13 Jun 2012 11:08:39 EST

Fishing and Shellfishing by Early Virginia Indians

Wed, 13 Jun 2012 10:35:36 EST

Virginia Indians living around the Chesapeake Bay and other people living along the bays and rivers of the Chesapeake region have long relied on harvesting fish and shellfish. Lacking long-handled tongs, Indian boys encountered by the Jamestown colonists dived for oysters in the Chesapeake, in addition to gathering clams and mussels and turning the byproducts of consumption into jewelry. Hard clamshells were crafted into cylinders and beaded, and by the seventeenth century this so-called wampum was being used as money. Indians fished using rods, line, and bone crafted into fishhooks; in shallow water, they speared fish with javelins. Spying Atlantic sturgeon asleep on the water's surface, Indians sometimes noosed the giant fish, requiring them to hold on, at risk to life and limb, as the sturgeon darted and dived in an attempt to escape. Powhatan Indians also used small fires, set in hearths aboard canoes, to throw bright lights and attract fish close enough to the surface and to the boat to be speared. Weirs and V-shaped rock dams also trapped fish. Ill-equipped to feed themselves, the English colonists generally expressed surprise and admiration at the Virginia Indians' expertise in fishing, eventually hiring Indian men to do the job for them.
Wed, 13 Jun 2012 10:35:36 EST

Letter from John Rolfe to Sir Thomas Dale (1614)

Fri, 01 Jun 2012 15:37:17 EST

In his letter to Virginia deputy governor Sir Thomas Dale, Jamestown colonist John Rolfe asks permission to marry Pocahontas, the daughter of Powhatan, the paramount chief of Tsenacomoco. The letter was first published in Ralph Hamor's A True Discourse of the Present Estate of Virginia, and the Success of the Affaires There till the 18 of June 1614 (1615).
Fri, 01 Jun 2012 15:37:17 EST

Requesting to Hire an Indian Servant (1711)

Fri, 01 Jun 2012 14:21:48 EST

In the following petition to Virginia governor Alexander Spotswood, Richard Little Page (sometimes Littlepage) of New Kent County requests permission to hire two Pamunkey Indians to work for him as servants. He does so according to the provisions of a law, "Concerning Indians," passed by the General Assembly in its March 1662 (New Style) session. Spotswood then replies, granting Little Page's request. Some contractions have been expanded.
Fri, 01 Jun 2012 14:21:48 EST

"Concerning Indians" (1662)

Fri, 01 Jun 2012 13:38:35 EST

In the following act, "Concerning Indians," passed in its March 1662 (New Style) session, the General Assembly attempts to regulate various interactions colonists have with the neighboring Virginia Indians.
Fri, 01 Jun 2012 13:38:35 EST

Paleoindian Period (16,000–8000 BC)

Wed, 30 May 2012 09:59:35 EST

The Paleoindian Period (16,000–8000 BC) came toward the end of the Ice Age, a time when the climate warmed and the largest mammals became extinct. Likely having originally migrated from Asia, the first people in Virginia were hunter-gatherers who left behind lithic, or stone, tools, often spearheads. At the Cactus Hill Archaeological Site in Sussex County, these date back to 16,000 BC, or well before the better-known Clovis culture. The so-called Paleoamericans likely banded together in groups of thirty to fifty and located themselves near high-quality stone resources, especially in Dinwiddie and Mecklenburg counties. While keeping a base camp, they may have established smaller settlements for more specialized tasks such as tool-making and hunting. The bands probably lacked central leadership, moved often, and traded with one another. Based on the religious practices of the later Virginia Indians, they likely were animists, investing various natural forces with spiritual power.
Wed, 30 May 2012 09:59:35 EST

Early Archaic Period

Wed, 23 May 2012 16:06:27 EST

The Early Archaic Period (8000–6000 BC) is sometimes viewed as a transitional period from the first occupation of North America around 15,000 BC to a more settled time. In fact, some archaeologists include it as part of the Paleoindian Period (15,000–8000 BC), but the climate and ways of life in Virginia suggest important differences. As the temperatures rose and precipitation increased, deciduous forests spread, providing a greater variety of nuts, berries, and fruits for foraging. Mammoths and mastodons were by now extinct, but the Early Archaic people hunted deer, elk, and bear, banding together in larger groups but staying within smaller, resource-rich areas. (Archaeologists have proposed settlement clusters that more or less coincide with the routes of present-day Interstates 81 and 95.) Technology, meanwhile, responded to the changing environment and growing population. New, notched-point spearheads and arrowheads may have followed the invention of the spear-throwing atlatl, and the chipped-stone axe may have been a response to the newly forested areas.
Wed, 23 May 2012 16:06:27 EST

"An act for keeping holy the 13th of September" (1663)

Mon, 14 May 2012 14:41:44 EST

In "An act for keeping holy the 13th of September," the General Assembly declares an annual holiday after a foiled attempt by servants in Gloucester County to rebel.
Mon, 14 May 2012 14:41:44 EST

"Their devilish plot"; an excerpt from The History of Virginia by Robert Beverley (1722)

Mon, 14 May 2012 10:21:34 EST

In this excerpt from The History of Virginia (1722)—an expansion of The History and Present State of Virginia (1705)—Robert Beverley Jr. describes the Gloucester County Conspiracy (1663), also known as the Servants' Plot and Birkenhead's Rebellion, in which a group of indentured servants planned a revolt in Gloucester County.
Mon, 14 May 2012 10:21:34 EST

Testimony about the Gloucester County Conspiracy (1663)

Mon, 14 May 2012 08:24:49 EST

In these depositions, several indentured servants, captured in an attempt to rebel in Gloucester County, explain what their plan was and how it should have been executed. Some spelling has been modernized.
Mon, 14 May 2012 08:24:49 EST

Instructions from the Virginia Company of London to the First Settlers (1606)

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 15:24:30 EST

In these instructions, dated November 1606, the Virginia Company of London informs the men who would settle what became Jamestown of its priorities once they land. In particular, the company suggests how to look for a Northwest Passage, how to search for gold, and how to treat the Virginia Indians, whom it calls "naturals." Captain Christopher Newport and Bartholomew Gosnold are mentioned by name. Some spelling has been modernized and contractions expanded.
Fri, 27 Apr 2012 15:24:30 EST

A Declaration of the State of the Colony and Affaires in Virginia (1622)

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 10:37:55 EST

A Declaration of the state of the Colonie and Affaires in Virginia. With a Relation of the barbarous Massacre in the time of peace and League, treacherously executed upon the English Infidels, 22 March last … (1622), written by Edward Waterhouse, was the Virginia Company of London's official publication about an assault by Virginia Indians on the English plantations along the James River that took place on March 22, 1622. The company's secretary, Waterhouse collected information from eyewitnesses and Virginia's governing officials and concluded that the surprise attack, which killed more than a quarter of the colony's population, was executed with the purpose of their "utter extirpation." Waterhouse describes a time, just prior to the attack, of "firme peace and amitie," when Indians and colonists freely mingled. He notes that the Indians used this to their advantage, insinuating themselves into the homes of colonists, using the colonists' own tools to "basely and barbarously" kill them, and then disappearing into the woods. Outraged that most Indians, and in particular their leader Opechancanough, had not accepted Christianity, Waterhouse declares that the attack justified a policy whereby the English "destroy them who sought to destroy us." The attack, and the company's response to it, marks a point at which colonists, no longer dependent on the Indians economically, began in earnest to kill them and seize their land.
Wed, 04 Apr 2012 10:37:55 EST

"An act to repeale a former law makeing Indians and others ffree" (1682)

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 16:28:16 EST

In "An act to repeale a former law makeing Indians and others ffree," passed by the General Assembly in the session of November 1682, Virginia's colonial government attempts to clarify the definitions of indentured servants and slaves.
Tue, 03 Apr 2012 16:28:16 EST

"This starveing Tyme"; an excerpt from "A Trewe Relacyon of the procedeings and ocurrentes of Momente which have hapned in Virginia" by George Percy

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 11:44:44 EST

In this excerpt from "A Trewe Relacyon of the precedeings and ocurrentes of Momente which have hapned in Virginia from the Tyme Sir Thomas Gates was Shippwrackte uppon the Bermudes Anno 1609 untill my departure owtt of the Cowntry which was in Anno Domini 1612," George Percy describes the events at Jamestown in the autumn of 1609; the Starving Time, during the winter of 1609–1610, when most of the colony died; and the colony's rescue, first by Sir Thomas Gates and then, in the midst of evacuating, by Thomas West, baron De La Warr. The account was written in the mid-1620s but not widely published until 1922.
Tue, 03 Apr 2012 11:44:44 EST

"What tyme Indians serve" (1670)

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 11:25:55 EST

In this act, "What tyme Indians serve," passed by the General Assembly in the session of October 1670, Virginia's colonial government attempts to clarify the definitions of indentured servants and slaves.
Tue, 03 Apr 2012 11:25:55 EST

"The maner of their language"; an excerpt from "Map of Virginia. With a Description of the Countrey, the Commodities, People, Government and Religion" by John Smith (1612)

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 11:15:25 EST

In this excerpt of "Map of Virginia. With a Description of the Countrey, the Commodities, People, Government and Religion," first published in 1612, the Jamestown colonist John Smith provides a list of Algonquian-language words and phrases he encountered in his dealings with the Virginia Indians of Tsenacomoco.Some spelling has been modernized and contractions expanded.
Tue, 03 Apr 2012 11:15:25 EST

"Of ther Tounes & buildinges"; an excerpt from "Relation of Virginia, 1609" by Henry Spelman (1613)

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 15:36:29 EST

In this section of "Relation of Virginia, 1609" titled "Of ther Tounes & buildinges," the Jamestown colonist Henry Spelman describes Virginia Indian towns, house types, and hunting practices as he encountered them living with the Algonquian-speaking Powhatan and Patawomeck Indians from 1609 until 1611. His account was probably written in 1613 but not published until 1872.
Mon, 02 Apr 2012 15:36:29 EST

"Of ther servis to ther gods"; an excerpt from "Relation of Virginia, 1609" by Henry Spelman (1613)

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 15:36:02 EST

In a section of "Relation of Virginia, 1609" titled "Of ther servis to ther gods," the Jamestown colonist Henry Spelman describes Virginia Indian religion, including possibly the huskanaw ceremony, as he encountered it living with the Algonquian-speaking Powhatan and Patawomeck Indians from 1609 until 1611. His account was probably written in 1613 but not published until 1872.
Mon, 02 Apr 2012 15:36:02 EST

"Ther maner of visitinge the sicke with the fation of ther buriall if they dye"; an excerpt from "Relation of Virginia, 1609" by Henry Spelman (1613)

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 15:35:31 EST

In this section of "Relation of Virginia, 1609" titled "Ther maner of visitinge the sicke with the fation of ther buriall if they dye," the Jamestown colonist Henry Spelman describes how Virginia Indians treat the sick and bury the dead. He encountered those religiously influenced practices living with the Algonquian-speaking Powhatan and Patawomeck Indians from 1609 until 1611. His account was probably written in 1613 but not published until 1872.
Mon, 02 Apr 2012 15:35:31 EST

"How the name ther children"; an excerpt from "Relation of Virginia, 1609" by Henry Spelman (1613)

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 15:34:51 EST

In a section of "Relation of Virginia, 1609" titled "How the name ther children," the Jamestown colonist Henry Spelman describes Virginia Indian naming practices as he encountered it living with the Algonquian-speaking Powhatan and Patawomeck Indians from 1609 until 1611. His account was probably written in 1613 but not published until 1872.
Mon, 02 Apr 2012 15:34:51 EST

Justice and Execution; an excerpt from "Relation of Virginia, 1609" by Henry Spelman (1613)

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 15:34:17 EST

In these two sections of "Relation of Virginia, 1609" titled "The Justis and government" and "The manor of execution," the Jamestown colonist Henry Spelman describes Virginia Indian law and punishment as he encountered it living with the Algonquian-speaking Powhatan and Patawomeck Indians from 1609 until 1611. His account was probably written in 1613 but not published until 1872.
Mon, 02 Apr 2012 15:34:17 EST

"Ther maner of mariing"; an excerpt from "Relation of Virginia, 1609" by Henry Spelman (1613)

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 15:33:32 EST

In a section of "Relation of Virginia, 1609" titled "Ther maner of mariing," the Jamestown colonist Henry Spelman describes Virginia Indian marriage and divorce practices as he encountered it living with the Algonquian-speaking Powhatan and Patawomeck Indians from 1609 until 1611. In addition, he recalls one particularly violent confrontation with the wife of a weroance, or chief. Spelman's account was probably written in 1613 but not published until 1872.
Mon, 02 Apr 2012 15:33:32 EST

"He sould me to him for a towne"; an excerpt from "Relation of Virginia, 1609" by Henry Spelman (1613)

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 15:32:49 EST

In this excerpt of "Relation of Virginia, 1609," probably written in 1613 but not published until 1872, the English colonist Henry Spelman describes sailing from England to Jamestown in 1609, when he was just fourteen years old, and how he came to live first with Powhatan's son Parahunt (referred to as "littel Powhatan") just prior to the start of the First Anglo-Powhatan War (1609–1614). Spelman later lived with Powhatan himself, but when the mamanatowick used Spelman to lure a company of Englishmen led by John Ratcliffe into an ambush, Spelman fled to the Patawomeck Indians. In his account, Spelman also mentions John Smith, Thomas Savage, Sir Thomas Gates, Sir George Somers, and Samuel Argall.
Mon, 02 Apr 2012 15:32:49 EST

An excerpt from A Declaration of the state of the Colonie and Affaires in Virginia (1622)

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 13:33:12 EST

In August 1622, Edward Waterhouse, secretary to the Virginia Company of London, composed A Declaration of the state of the Colonie and Affaires in Virginia. With a Relation of the barbarous Massacre in the time of peace and League, treacherously executed upon the English by the native Infidels, 22 March last … In this excerpt, he details the massive attack on the Jamestown colonists by Opechancanough and his forces, which started the Second Anglo-Powhatan War (1622–1632). Some spelling has been modernized and contractions expanded.
Mon, 02 Apr 2012 13:33:12 EST

"In wishing him well, he killed him"; excerpt from Relation of Juan Rogel (ca. 1611)

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 10:56:15 EST

This excerpt, translated from the Spanish, is from the "Relation of Juan Rogel," the original manuscript of which was lost but can be found paraphrased by Father Juan Sánchez Vaquero (b. 1548) in his unpublished history, Fundación de la Compañía de Jesús en Nueva España, 1571–1580. Father Juan Rogel, a Jesuit priest born in Pamplona, Spain, in 1519, here tells the story of the Virginia Indian Don Luís de Velasco (Paquiquineo), who accompanied the Spanish in 1561 to Spain, Mexico, and Cuba before returning with a mission to the Chesapeake Bay in an area the priests understood to be called Ajacán.
Wed, 28 Mar 2012 10:56:15 EST

Letter from Luis de Quirós and Juan Baptista de Segura to Juan de Hinistrosa (1570)

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 10:48:53 EST

In this letter, translated from the Spanish and dated September 12, 1570, two Spanish Jesuits update Juan de Hinistrosa, the royal treasurer of Cuba, on their mission to the Chesapeake Bay (the Spanish understood the general area to be called Ajacán). Father Luis de Quirós is the letter's primary author, referring to Juan Baptista de Segura as "Father Vice-Provincial." Segura follows with a brief note, and Quirós adds a note after that. With the Jesuits was a Virginia Indian, Don Luís de Velasco (Paquiquineo), who over the previous decade had visited Spain, Mexico, and Cuba, and converted to Christianity. Don Luís later killed Quirós, Baptista, and the other missionaries.
Wed, 28 Mar 2012 10:48:53 EST

"Nottoway Indians" from Gentleman's Magazine (1821)

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 10:31:08 EST

In this short dispatch from London's Gentleman's Magazine, originally printed in 1821, an anonymous writer—probably John Wood, a mathematics professor at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg—recounts his visit to a community of Nottoway Indians in Southampton County. He mistakenly describes the Nottoways' language as "Powhattan," which is to say Algonquian, and even Celtic; in fact, Wood's word list made its way from Thomas Jefferson to Stephen DuPonceau, who identified it as likely Iroquoian. In his short piece, Wood also comments on the Virginia Indians' religion.
Wed, 28 Mar 2012 10:31:08 EST

The Huskanaw Ritual; an excerpt from The History of Virginia by Robert Beverley (1722)

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 15:54:30 EST

In this excerpt from The History of Virginia (1722)—an expansion of History and Present State of Virginia (1705)—Robert Beverley describes the male-initiation rite known as the huskanaw among the Algonquian-speaking Indians of Tsenacomoco and Tidewater Virginia.
Thu, 23 Feb 2012 15:54:30 EST

Marriage in Early Virginia Indian Society

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 15:05:10 EST

What is known of marriage in early Virginia Indian society is limited to the observations of Jamestown colonists, visiting English observers, and later American historians, and is mostly applicable to the Algonquian-speaking Powhatans of Tsenacomoco, a paramount chiefdom of twenty-eight to thirty-two groups living in Tidewater Virginia. Marriage was crucial for survival in Indian society, because men and women needed to work as partners in order to accomplish their many daily and seasonal tasks. The man initiated courtship and looked for a woman who would perform her assigned tasks well. The woman could decline a marriage offer, but if she did choose to accept it, her parents also needed to approve the offer. The groom's parents, meanwhile, paid a bridewealth, or marriage payment, to the bride's parents to compensate them for her lost labor. Men were allowed to have additional wives, so long as the husband could afford to provide for them; for chiefs especially, these wives served as symbols of wealth. It is estimated that the paramount chief Powhatan (Wahunsonacock) had as many as one hundred wives during his lifetime. While a man's first marriage was expected to last for life, additional marriages were likely negotiated for shorter terms. Unless a woman was married to a chief, she was allowed to conduct extramarital affairs, provided she had her husband's permission (which was usually given). Punishment for dishonesty on this score could be severe, however. Virginia Indians held onto their marriage traditions long after contact with the English, and marriage between Indians and the English was rare.
Tue, 31 Jan 2012 15:05:10 EST

Diet in Early Virginia Indian Society

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 14:32:54 EST

Diet in early Virginia Indian society changed significantly from the Ice Age to the English colonists' landing at Jamestown in 1607, from initially relying more on meat to over time increasingly combining wild game, fish, nuts, and berries. The Indians' eating patterns were shaped by the seasons, and for the Powhatans there were five, not four. In the early and mid-spring (cattapeuk), they ate migrating fish and planted crops. From late in the spring until mid-summer (cohattayough), they split their time between the towns, where they weeded the fields, and the forests, where they foraged. Late summer (nepinough) was harvest time, and the autumn and early winter (taquitock) the occasion for feasts and religious rituals. This marked a second time in the year when the Indians abandoned their towns, this time for communal hunts. Meats were prepared and stored for the late winter and early spring (popanow), when shortages made life difficult and even dangerous. "They be all of them huge eaters," the colonist William Strachey observed of the Powhatans, but the Indians also lived intensely physical lives, requiring a large number of calories. Their metabolisms, meanwhile, were slow enough to store nutrients and then, during shortages, use them slowly while the people remained active. The colonist John Smith described the Powhatans as living "hand to mouth," but they were often better fed than the colonists with a diet that was low in fat, sugar, and salt, and high in protein and fiber.
Tue, 31 Jan 2012 14:32:54 EST

Powhatan (d. 1618)

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 15:43:59 EST

Powhatan, whose given name was Wahunsonacock, was the paramount chief of Tsenacomoco, a political alliance of Virginia Indians whose core six groups all settled along the James, Mattaponi, and Pamunkey rivers. Introduced to the Jamestown colonists in 1607 as Powhatan, he was for a decade the most powerful point of contact for the English; in 1614, the marriage of his daughter, Pocahontas, to John Rolfe, helped end, at least temporarily, years of war. Coming to power in Powhatan, the Powhatan Indians' principal frontier town on the James River, Wahunsonacock likely was raised much as any other Algonquian-speaking Indian would have been—learning archery and hunting from the men of his village. By 1607, he was paramount chief of Tsenacomoco, having expanded it, through a combination of force and diplomacy, to between twenty-eight and thirty-two tribes and petty chiefdoms. Powhatan negotiated with the English, and especially John Smith, attempting to reach accommodation with the colonists and, when he could not, attempting to intimidate or kill them. In 1609, he moved his capital from Werowocomoco to Orapax, which was farther west, and intensified his efforts to kill Smith and expel the English. Pocahontas's marriage ended that stage of the conflict, and relations were peaceful until Powhatan's death in 1618. When his brother, Opechancanough, became leader of Tsenacomoco, he launched the attack that inaugurated the Second Anglo-Powhatan War (1622–1632).
Fri, 20 Jan 2012 15:43:59 EST

Divorce in Early Virginia Indian Society

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 17:02:34 EST

Divorce was permitted, if not common, in early Virginia Indian society. What is known of the practice is limited to the observations of Jamestown colonists, visiting English observers, and later American historians, and applicable mostly to the Algonquian-speaking Powhatans and possibly speakers from other language families. A divorce among common married people could be obtained in cases of mere "disagreement." Because daily labor was divided between the sexes and every adult needed at least one opposite-sex partner to get all the work done, marriage was encouraged among the Indians as a means of survival. If a married person divorced or was widowed or abandoned, remarriage was therefore expected. If a spouse was captured and did not return, a divorce was assumed in order to encourage remarriage. The paramount chief Powhatan divorced each of his wives as soon as she gave him a child, sending her either to one of his under chiefs or back to her home, but eventually taking the child into his household. Among nonchiefs, the children were raised by one of the parents; accounts differ as to how custody was settled. English colonists reacted to the relative ease by which Virginia Indians obtained a divorce by characterizing them as sexually promiscuous. In the centuries following the settlement of Jamestown in 1607, however, divorce among the Indians came into line with English and new American practices, becoming much more difficult.
Thu, 19 Jan 2012 17:02:34 EST

Games by Early Virginia Indians, Uses of

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 15:46:02 EST

Early Virginia Indians played a variety of games, with some of these games reserved especially for men and others for women, girls, and boys. The men and boys had wrestling, footraces, and a game that resembled modern-day football, but the rules were never described in detail by the Jamestown colonists and later English settlers who observed them played among the Powhatan Indians. Gambling among Indian men, along with alcohol consumption, seems to have increased as a form of escapism with the arrival of the Europeans and was made worse by the availability of European trade goods. That behavior seems to have waned over time, however, and was not observed in the twentieth- or twenty-first-century Virginia Indian communities.
Wed, 18 Jan 2012 15:46:02 EST

Domesticated Animals by Early Virginia Indians, Uses of

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 14:43:27 EST

Virginia Indians did not domesticate animals, in large part, because good candidates for domestication did not live in the Eastern Woodlands of North America. The one exception was wolves, which the Indians domesticated into dogs. Likely about knee-high and with an average weight of twenty pounds, these animals were not specialized or even especially tame, and were used only in hunting land fowl such as wild turkey. According to the Jamestown colonists, the Powhatan Indians did not eat their dogs but may have sacrificed them ritually. With no horses or oxen, Powhatans were unable to clear forests easily or practice plow agriculture. English colonists concluded that the Indians were "lazy" and "backward"; in fact, they had great physical endurance, although many suffered from arthritis while relatively young. Colonists brought horses, cows, goats, pigs, and large dogs from England, but because most of these animals required grass or other pasture vegetation for grazing, the Indians did not adopt them. Pigs, however, were turned loose into the forest and hunted by both Indians and colonists.
Wed, 18 Jan 2012 14:43:27 EST

Ceramics, Virginia Indian

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 14:38:04 EST

Indians have made ceramics continuously in Virginia for more than 3,200 years. Pottery manufacture in North America first arose more than 4,200 years ago in the coastal plain of Georgia and spread north from there. Pottery production was a cottage industry, conducted by families with the knowledge of manufacture handed down from mother to daughter. Archaeologists have defined more than sixty Virginia Indian wares, recording the variables in vessel size and shape, temper, surface treatment, and decoration of pottery. This wealth of pottery information provides archaeologists with ways to help date sites and to describe Indian social groups and interpret their interaction and movement.
Wed, 18 Jan 2012 14:38:04 EST

Brent, Giles (ca. 1652–1679)

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 13:56:47 EST

Giles Brent was a participant in Bacon's Rebellion (1676–1677). A Catholic of both Indian and English heritage, he learned the Indian language from his mother, inherited all of his father's land, and became a prosperous young planter and militia captain. In July 1675 Brent served in a party that killed several Doeg Indians in retaliation for the Indians' having killed some white Virginians. He joined forces loyal to Nathaniel Bacon in order to battle the Pamunkey and collaborated with Bacon until the rebel leader turned his forces against the governor, Sir William Berkeley, in 1676 and laid siege to Jamestown. Brent then gathered approximately 1,000 men to confront Bacon's forces. When the men learned that Bacon had burned Jamestown, they deserted Brent. He died in Middlesex County on September 2, 1679.
Wed, 18 Jan 2012 13:56:47 EST

Jamestown Ter-Centennial Exposition of 1907

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 10:36:42 EST

The Jamestown Ter-Centennial Exposition, marking the three hundredth anniversary of the founding of Jamestown and the Virginia colony by settlers from England, was held in Norfolk, Virginia, from April 26 to November 30, 1907. The event was one in a series of large fairs and expositions held across the United States, beginning with the 1893 World's Columbian Exhibition in Chicago, which commemorated the four hundredth anniversary of Christopher Columbus's landing in America. Such events were designed as international showcases for arts and technology and were often linked to important anniversaries in order to highlight the notion of historical "progress." More than its predecessors, the Jamestown exhibition emphasized athletics and military prowess, the latter drawing some protests. Among many dignitaries who visited the exposition were U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt, the author Mark Twain, the educator Booker T. Washington, representatives from more than twenty nations abroad, and a number of foreign naval ships. Although the exhibition on African Americans was considered to be particularly successful, the event in general was a financial fiasco, plagued by poor management, overly ambitious plans, insufficient resources, and tight deadlines. The naval display, however, was impressive enough that in 1917 the exposition's site became home to Naval Air Station Hampton Roads (later Naval Station Norfolk).
Wed, 18 Jan 2012 10:36:42 EST

Jefferson's Mound Archaeological Site

Thu, 15 Dec 2011 09:46:06 EST

Jefferson's Mound Archaeological Site is a Virginia Indian burial mound located near the Rivanna River, north of Charlottesville in Albemarle County, although its exact location is unknown. In 1784, Thomas Jefferson directed the excavation of the mound, one of a cluster of thirteen in the Piedmont, Blue Ridge Mountains, and Shenandoah Valley. He found the human remains of adults, children, and infants, and estimated that the mound was the burial site of as many as a thousand people. The jumbled arrangement of bones suggested that the mound was a secondary burial site, where remains were deposited in groups years after people's deaths. According to a map published by John Smith, the mound was in Monacan Indian territory, and may have been built by Monacans or their ancestors. About 1754, Jefferson observed Indians conducting a ceremony at the mound, and his association of the mound with eighteenth-century Indians provided an inadvertent argument against the prevailing "Lost Race" theory that the mounds were the work of an earlier, supposedly more sophisticated people. Written up as part of his Notes on the State of Virginia (1787), Jefferson's investigation—systematic, in search of answers to specific questions, and published—was the first example of scientific archaeology in the United States.
Thu, 15 Dec 2011 09:46:06 EST

Opechancanough (d. 1646)

Thu, 08 Dec 2011 16:57:59 EST

Opechancanough was paramount chief of Tsenacomoco, a political alliance of Virginia Indians, and famously led massive assaults against the English colonists in 1622 and 1644. The younger brother (or cousin) of Powhatan, who was paramount chief at the time of the Jamestown landing in 1607, Opechancanough was possibly chief of the Youghtanund Indians and, as such, protected one of Tsenacomoco's most critical territories. Still, when another chief seduced his favorite wife, neither Opechancanough nor Powhatan had the power to return her. Although the colonist John Smith portrayed Opechancanough as immediately hostile to the English, the chief actually treated Smith well upon the Englishman's capture. As Powhatan aged, Opechancanough filled the apparent power vacuum, and while he did not immediately become paramount chief upon Powhatan's death in 1618, he appeared to wield the most power. He organized a large-scale assault on the English colonists in March 1622, starting the Second Anglo-Powhatan War (1622–1632); another assault, this time in April 1644, inaugurated the much shorter Third Anglo-Powhatan War (1644–1646), which ended with Opechancanough's capture. Neither attack deterred English expansion, and Opechancanough died in English custody. By early in the 1700s, the defeated Powhatans were distancing themselves from his memory, and popular writing about him since has tended to downplay his military and diplomatic achievements.
Thu, 08 Dec 2011 16:57:59 EST

Revenge upon the Indians; an excerpt from "A Trewe Relacyon of the procedeings and ocurrentes of Momente which have hapned in Virginia" by George Percy

Mon, 14 Nov 2011 16:16:05 EST

In this excerpt from "A Trewe Relacyon of the precedeings and ocurrentes of Momente which have hapned in Virginia from the Tyme of Sir Thomas Gates was Shippwrackte uppon the Bermudes Anno 1609 untill my departure owtt of the Cowntry which was in Anno Domini 1612," George Percy describes the events at Jamestown in the spring of 1610, just after the Starving Time, until the end of summer. During this time, the colonists, led by Governor Thomas West, baron De La Warr, and Lieutenant Governor Sir Thomas Gates, attack the Indians in revenge for the deaths the previous winter, escalating what has come to be called the First Anglo-Powhatan War (1609–1614). Percy's account was written in the mid-1620s but not widely published until 1922.
Mon, 14 Nov 2011 16:16:05 EST

The First Anglo-Powhatan War Begins; an excerpt from "A Trewe Relacyon of the procedeings and ocurrentes of Momente which have hapned in Virginia" by George Percy

Mon, 07 Nov 2011 14:23:11 EST

In this excerpt from "A Trewe Relacyon of the precedeings and ocurrentes of Momente which have hapned in Virginia from the Tyme of Sir Thomas Gates was Shippwrackte uppon the Bermudes Anno 1609 untill my departure owtt of the Cowntry which was in Anno Domini 1612," George Percy describes what turned out to be the beginning of the First Anglo-Powhatan War (1609–1614). The excerpt begins with Captain John Smith dispatching Percy and Captain John Martin to bargain with the Nansemond Indians. The account was written in the mid-1620s but not widely published until 1922.
Mon, 07 Nov 2011 14:23:11 EST

"Of such a dish as powdered wife"; an excerpt from The Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles by John Smith (1624)

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 09:26:39 EST

In this excerpt from the fourth book of The Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles (1624), John Smith describes events at Jamestown following his own departure in 1609. These included the beginning of the First Anglo-Powhatan War (1609–1614), the Starving Time, and the colony's rescue by the Sea Venture castaways led by Sir Thomas Gates and Sir George Somers.
Wed, 02 Nov 2011 09:26:39 EST

Huskanaw

Fri, 28 Oct 2011 15:50:14 EST

The huskanaw was a rite of passage by which boys become men. While such rituals were common among American Indian societies, the huskanaw was conducted by, among others, the Algonquian-speaking Powhatan Indians of Tsenacomoco, an alliance of twenty-eight to thirty-two petty tribes and chiefdoms centered around the James, Mattaponi, and Pamunkey rivers. Aligning it with various other religious rituals, they referred to the huskanaw as a sacrifice and told the Jamestown colonists that if they did not perform it their powerful god Okee would be angered and disrupt their hunting or cause natural disasters. Although the English colonists at first took this ceremony to be a literal sacrifice of boys, they quickly learned that the term was metaphorical. The word huskanaw refers to the youth of the initiates and to the fact that they were to be transformed into men.
Fri, 28 Oct 2011 15:50:14 EST

Great Awakening in Virginia, The

Thu, 06 Oct 2011 15:09:46 EST

The Great Awakening was the most significant cultural upheaval in colonial America. The term refers to a series of religious revivals that began early in the eighteenth century and led, eventually, to the disestablishment of the Church of England as the official church during the American Revolution (1775–1783). Triggered by the preaching of the Anglican itinerant George Whitefield, the Great Awakening began in New England and the Middle Colonies, where thousands converted to an evangelical faith centered on the experience of the "new birth" of salvation. It also featured intense, emotional scenes of penitential sinners and new converts being filled, as they saw it, with the Holy Spirit, with associated outcries, visions, dreams, and spirit journeys. The Great Awakening's effects in Virginia developed slowly, beginning early in the 1740s. By the 1760s, evangelical Presbyterians and Baptists were making major inroads among Virginians, and challenging the established church in the colony. Perhaps the most notable historical result of the Great Awakening in Virginia was the end of the state's establishment of religion, which was ultimately accomplished through the Act for Establishing Religious Freedom (1786). The cause of religious freedom was championed politically by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, but it depended on the popular support of legions of evangelicals, especially Baptists.
Thu, 06 Oct 2011 15:09:46 EST

Personal Names by Early Virginia Indians, Uses of

Fri, 03 Jun 2011 14:44:20 EST

Early Virginia Indians—the Algonquian-speaking Powhatans, in particular, and possibly other groups—used multiple personal names. Although these names had specific meanings, most were not translated by English colonists at Jamestown, and many of those meanings have been lost. Often, Indians held more than one name simultaneously, with different names used in different situations. Pocahontas, for instance, had a formal given name; a "secret," or highly personal name; and nicknames that were updated throughout her life, sometimes commenting on her personality or her position within the community. Indian men and boys were expected to earn names that described their feats as hunters and warriors. Chiefs, such as Powhatan, often took new names when assuming power and sometimes even changed their names again after that. After the mid-seventeenth century, Virginia Indians began to adopt English first names, which they sometimes paired with shortened versions of their Indian names.
Fri, 03 Jun 2011 14:44:20 EST

Nicketti, Princess

Thu, 05 May 2011 16:55:53 EST

Princess Nicketti is the name given to a Virginia Indian woman believed by some to have been the daughter of Opechancanough, a leader of the Powhatan Indians and the brother of the paramount chief Powhatan. While the name has been referenced almost exclusively on twenty-first-century genealogy websites by people claiming family relationship, no scholarly evidence exists that Princess Nicketti ever lived. A careful search of seventeenth-century records in Virginia yields no one by that name, male or female. And no name of a child of Opechancanough was ever recorded in that century. The writings about her stem from a single published source: Alexander Brown's genealogy The Cabells and Their Kin (1939). Significantly, Brown calls Nicketti's story only a "very interesting tradition" and adds, "I cannot vouch for it[s accuracy]," but he had heard about her from several prominent Piedmont Virginia families. Subsequent writers have quoted Brown's text as fact.
Thu, 05 May 2011 16:55:53 EST

Paint Lick Mountain Pictograph Archaeological Site

Fri, 22 Apr 2011 10:05:29 EST

The Paint Lick Mountain Pictograph Archaeological Site in Tazewell County consists of a group of twenty pictographs on a rock cliff. First investigated by archaeologists late in the nineteenth century, the geometric-, animal-, and human-form designs likely were made by Virginia Indians of unknown identity and at an unknown time. There are only two known examples of such pictographs in Virginia—the other is at Little Mountain in Nottoway County—and such representations were not recorded by the early settlers of the Virginia colony. The soft mudstone at Paint Lick Mountain, rich in iron oxide, provided the red pigment used to create the pictographs, which collectively likely reflect spiritual and cognitive aspects of Indian culture. As a tangible expression of a prehistoric social connection to the landscape of Southwest Virginia, the site retains a deep significance for Indian communities in Virginia and surrounding states.
Fri, 22 Apr 2011 10:05:29 EST

Political Organization in Early Virginia Indian Society

Tue, 12 Apr 2011 09:24:33 EST

Political organization in early Virginia Indian society likely was similar across the several distinct and culturally diverse groups that lived in the area; however, due to the records left by the English colonists, the most is known about the Powhatan Indians of Tsenacomoco. The alliance's six core groups lived along the James, Mattaponi, and Pamunkey rivers, with their capital, Werowocomoco, situated on the present-day York River. Each constituent group consisted of one or more towns ruled by a weroance, or chief, whose position was inherited matrilineally. For guidance, the weroance consulted his council, or cockarouses, and whenever he acted he was first obligated to seek the approval of his one or more kwiocosuk, or shamans. The mamanatowick, or paramount chief, ruled all of Tsenacomoco and likely combined the authority of weroance and kwiocosuk. He lived an opulent and exalted life—bejeweling himself in necklaces, bracelets, and a crown and traveling with a fifty-man bodyguard—but he was not an absolute ruler. He, too, consulted his council and, lacking a standing army or police force, he was not always able to enforce his will on subordinates. In the end, the ultimate authority in Tsenacomoco was religious, not political. Although the paramount chief was seen to own all of the land and its wealth, the shamans were empowered to intervene with the gods, mollifying them with sacrifices on the occasion of famine, flood, or other disasters.
Tue, 12 Apr 2011 09:24:33 EST

Desegregation in Public Schools

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:15:19 EST

The desegregation of the public schools in Virginia began on February 2, 1959, and continued through early in the 1970s when the state government's attempts to resist desegregation ended. During this period, African Americans in Virginia pushed for desegregation primarily by filing lawsuits in federal courts throughout Virginia. This litigation was aimed at achieving court rulings forcing the state of Virginia and its local school districts to comply with the U.S. Supreme Court's 1954 decision Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, mandating the desegregation of public schools. State and local officials, however, generally resisted efforts to bring about desegregation and utilized their political power to avoid and then minimize public school desegregation. Virginia's Indians, meanwhile, went without the benefit of any state-funded public education until 1963, almost a decade after Brown.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:15:19 EST

Fire by Early Virginia Indians, Uses of

Tue, 05 Apr 2011 11:52:30 EST

For early Virginia Indians, fire was difficult to make, requiring a stick, a small piece of wood, and a lot of arm strength. As such, the Powhatans tended to keep their household fires going year round and even in the hottest weather. These indoor fires provided heat and produced smoke that repelled insects and hardened the reed mats that covered the houses, thus making the mats last longer. Separate fires were kept just outside the house for cooking. Absent draft animals and iron cutting tools, Virginia Indians used fire to burn into wood and shells to scrape away the resulting charcoal, a technique that could fell a tree and hollow out a canoe. Fire was the center of any ritual, religious or otherwise, that involved singing and dancing, and was used to punish and sometimes execute criminals and captives. On the hunt, Indian men used numerous small fires to direct herds of deer into smaller and smaller circles, making them easier to kill. The light from fires on boats even brought fish within spearing distance. The work of maintaining fires, especially household fires, often fell to women, which brought them constantly in and out of town and away from male supervision. The English colonists at Jamestown found this to be odd and concluded that Indian men were "lazy."
Tue, 05 Apr 2011 11:52:30 EST

Cooking in Early Virginia Indian Society

Tue, 05 Apr 2011 09:02:46 EST

Early Virginia Indians hunted, fished, and collected wild grains and berries, which they prepared in various ways. Meats were roasted, while grains and tubers were pounded into ashcakes and then baked. For many millennia, boiling water was difficult, but by the Late Woodland Period (AD 900–1600), technology had improved among the Powhatan Indians of Virginia such that a large ceramic stew pot became the focus of family eating. Roasted meats, shellfish, and wild berries were all added to the stew, which boiled throughout the day. Rather than prepare set meals, family members who spent the day gathering food or doing chores added to the stew as able and ate from it as necessary. Wild grains and, later, domesticated corn were harvested and baked into bread. The Powhatans generally avoided seasonings, including salt, and likely enjoyed food for its texture rather than its flavor. Although the Indians domesticated beans and squash, they ate more corn (maize) than any other crop, sucking unripe ears for their sweet juice, baking cornbread, or roasting it. They also made cooking wrappers, baskets, and mats out of the husks. What is known of Indian cooking in this period is based on research from paleobotanists and paleozoologists about what wild foods were available, as well as eye-witness accounts from English colonists. Most of these accounts concern the Algonquian-speaking Powhatans, but they likely apply to the speakers of Siouan and Iroquoian languages in Virginia.
Tue, 05 Apr 2011 09:02:46 EST

Bridges by Early Virginia Indians, Uses of

Thu, 31 Mar 2011 13:17:08 EST

Early Virginia Indians built bridges in various places in eastern Virginia, although perhaps not very many. This was in part due to the fact that Indians used stone tools and did not domesticate draft animals to assist with their work. The bridges connected arterial roads that crossed waterways, parts of villages separated by water, and adjacent, heavily used points along important waterways, and were constructed according to the resources, technology, and needs of the native people. The limitations on building technology were especially apparent in an account written by the early Jamestown settler John Smith, who was led across a bridge into Chief Powhatan's capital at Werowocomoco. As his guides well knew, the bridge was not made for people wearing boots, and he was forced to submit to an embarrassing rescue by canoe. In this case, the bridge was a convenient diplomatic tool. The English saw the Indian technology as crude and unsophisticated, and the Indians could manipulate those impressions to gain the upper hand in formal encounters.
Thu, 31 Mar 2011 13:17:08 EST