Appomattoc
Total population | |
---|---|
400 (1608), estimated Now extinct | |
Regions with significant populations | |
Eastern Virginia | |
Languages | |
Powhatan (historical) | |
Religion | |
Native | |
Related ethnic groups | |
Pamunkey, Patawomeck, Chickahominy, and other Algonquian peoples |
The Appomattoc (also spelled Appamatuck, Apamatic, and numerous other variants) were a historic tribe of
The Appomattoc were affiliated with the estimated 30 tribes of the
History
The Appomattoc first encountered English explorers on May 8, 1607, when a party led by
On May 26, Newport led a second party of 24 English colonists to Mattica. They were welcomed with food and tobacco. He noted the village was surrounded by cornfields, which the Indians cultivated. A weroansqua (female chieftain),
Desperate for corn, Smith and Ralph Waldo visited the Appomattoc village in late fall 1608, and bought corn in exchange for copper. Smith reported in this year that the tribe had 60 warriors (some historians estimated the total population might be 220 based on that.)[1] Their larger village nearby on the north bank of Wighwhippoc Creek, now called Swift Creek, was ruled by the weroance Coquonasum, brother of Oppussoquionuske.
Anglo-Native relations deteriorated in 1609, culminating in the First
Following the resumption of hostilities in 1622, the colonists, led by Captain Nathaniel West, destroyed Coquonasum's village and drove off the residents in August 1623. The remnants of the tribe moved their settlement farther up Swift Creek, and slightly southward to Old Town Creek in present-day Colonial Heights, Virginia. Colonists attacked them again in 1627.
In 1635 the Appomattoc were driven from the upper Swift Creek Valley by Captain Henry Fleet. He had spent four years with Indians at Nacotchtank, the present site of Washington DC, and spoke Algonquian Powhatan fluently. Fleet built a small fort on the large hill overlooking the falls on the north bank. The site is now occupied by the campus of Virginia State University in Ettrick.
After the Powhatan Confederacy was finally defeated by the English during the second major
In 1645, the
Fort Henry also served as a starting point for subsequent English westward exploration. In 1650, an Appomattoc guide called Pyancha took a party led by Abraham Wood beyond the headwaters of the river. In 1671, their weroance Peracuta led Thomas Batts and Robert Fallam on an expedition within the borders of present-day West Virginia.[2][3] A 1669 census shows that the Appomattoc had 50 bowmen around this time, which means their total population may have been about 150.
Although beyond the allowed treaty limits, Batts in 1674 patented land just west of Matoks. Settlers destroyed the Appomattoc village during
Although the colony had prohibited Indian slavery by law,
As the Appomattoc population began to dwindle, the people were vulnerable to attack from traditional western enemy tribes. On April 24, 1691, the weroansqua who succeeded Peracuta petitioned the colony for permission for her people to live among the English colonists for protection.
The names "Appomattox" and "Mattox" were sometimes applied to the Matchotic, a Virginia Indian group made up of the Onawmanient and other remnant tribes of the Powhatan Confederacy, but located principally in the Northern Neck region between the Potomac and Rappahannock rivers. There were historic villages named Matchotic in Northumberland and King George's counties.[5]
Notes
- ^ Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico: A-M, ed. Frederick Webb Hodge, Washington, DC: GPO, 1912, accessed 19 Apr 2010
- ^ First Biennial Report of the Department of Archives and History of the State of West Virginia, p. 154
- ^ A History of Monroe County, West Virginia by Oren Frederic Morton p. 19
- ^ Helen C. Rountree, Pocahontas's People, p. 109
- ^ Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico: A-M, ed. Frederick Webb Hodge, Washington, DC: GPO, 1912, accessed 19 Apr 2010
References
- Chapter 4, A Study of Virginia Indians and Jamestown: The First Century, National Park Service
- Richard L. Jones, Dinwiddie County: Carrefour of the Commonwealth