Protohistory of West Virginia

History of West Virginia
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The protohistoric period of the state of West Virginia in the United States began in the mid-sixteenth century with the arrival of European trade goods. Explorers and colonists brought these goods to the eastern and southern coasts of North America and were brought inland by native trade routes. This was a period characterized by increased intertribal strife, rapid population decline, the abandonment of traditional life styles, and the extinction and migrations of many Native American groups.

Written accounts of the area begin by the late seventeenth or early eighteenth century with the scattered documentation and journals of early explorers. These accounts frequently portray a sparsely inhabited area, possibly due to the Iroquois wars to monopolize the European fur trade^[1] or the devastating effects of new diseases introduced by Europeans.

During the climatic warming of the Medieval Warm Period (900–1200 CE), the introduction of the bow and arrow and maize led many Late Woodland period groups in Eastern and Southern North America to develop sedentary agriculture based societies, which lead to larger populations.

The harsh droughts and cold winters during the Little Ice Age (sixteenth to nineteenth centuries),^[2][3] put these larger groups under severe social stress as they competed for scarcer resources, such as less timber, less fertile farm land and fewer game animals. These groups were already unstable when Europeans arrived during the sixteenth century with superior weapons and diseases to which the native populations had no resistance. Many of these groups are now only known through the archaeological record.

Groups of the Fort Ancient and Monongahela cultures lived in the western part of the state (and in the adjoining states of Pennsylvania, Maryland, Ohio and Kentucky) along the Ohio River and its tributaries. Late Fort Ancient (1400 to 1750) and Late Monongahela (1580 to 1635) peoples began consolidating their villages into larger settlements with more defensive measures such as wooden palisades during this time. Archaeologists suggest that this means that intergroup strife had increased, with the smaller settlements amalgamating into larger entities for mutual protection. These cultures were very similar and were both influenced by Mississippian cultures to their south and west.^[4] Exotic trade items from the Mississippian regions have been found in excavated Fort Ancient and Monongahela villages.^[1] These items include shell gorgets from Eastern Tennessee, a head pot similar to those produced in the Central Mississippi Valley by the peoples of the Middle Mississippian Parkin and Nodena phases, and pottery with motifs and decoration methods connected with Angel phase sites in the Lower Ohio Valley. Such items made their way into this region through long established native trade routes.

European items were deposited into the archaeological record at sites such as Lower Shawneetown and Hardin Village in nearby Greenup County, Kentucky and the Buffalo,^[5] Rolf Lee^[1] and Clover sites^[6] in Putnam, Mason and Cabell Countys in West Virginia, which have all produced European metal objects dated after 1550.^[1] These objects came from Spanish, French, and English explorers who had begun to explore the eastern seaboard and Gulf Coast of the present United States by the sixteenth century.

One such expedition that left objects in the archaeological record was the de Soto Entrada of the early 1540s, which encountered many Late Mississippian groups. This expedition spent almost four years trekking from Florida up to the eastern Tennessee region, down through Alabama, across Mississippi to Eastern Arkansas, through Northern Louisiana and into Texas, before doubling back to Arkansas and down the Mississippi to Mexico by way of the Gulf of Mexico.^[7] These groups were extinct by the time Europeans colonized West Virginia, either becoming victims of European diseases, which at times had as much as a 90% death rate among Native American populations,^[8] or migrating to other areas to avoid intergroup warfare such as the Iroquois wars to control the fur trade.^[1]

The Franquelin map of Ohio also shows an unidentified tribe labelled the "Casa" as existing roughly in the region of what is now Ohio which was once occupied by the Monongahela.^[9] It's possible that this name could be connected to them. Archaeology has also shown odd traits among the people, such as domestication of turkeys ^{[citation needed]} & the building of stone walls across certain mountain valleys.^[10] The uses of the walls are unknown, but they may have been used to control movement through the regions & seem to have also been used as traps to pen in and slaughter Forest Buffalo & other large game, according to a great deal of animal bones found at such sites.

Archaeology seems to show an influx of Siouan speaking people into the region forcing them to the northernmost reaches of their territory during the 15th & 16th centuries ^[11] and a possible union with the Fort Ancient culture to the west.^[12] See also Shenandoah.

This region was inhabited by members of several different major language families when Europeans first arrived. These groups shared similar cultures, but spoke languages that had diverged from each other over thousands of years. Archaeological cultures such as the Monongahela and Fort Ancient groups may have been confederacies whose constituent members did not all speak a common language instead of individual tribes or communities. The major language groups inhabiting the West Virginia region were the Central Algonquian, Iroquoian and Ohio Valley Siouan.

In the seventeenth century, Native Americans groups had not yet formed the large political "tribes" known from the historical era during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and many tribal names used in historical literature do not apply in the seventeenth century. Many tribal names were actually amalgamations of earlier groups that had been decimated by wars and disease and banded together for mutual safety. Groups were also known by many different names, which also made identifying specific groups difficult. Group names were often recorded before the group met Europeans, and was frequently the name that enemies knew them by and in a different language family from what the group themselves spoke. These names were then transliterated into several European written languages, particularly French, English, Dutch, and Spanish. These European languages often had different phonetic stylings for the foreign languages of the Native Americans, and this translation and transliteration was conducted in an era before many modern writing conventions, resulting in inconsistent spelling, grammar and alphabetic characters.

The

This tribe, known variously as the Shawnee, Chaouanon, Shaawanwaki, Shaawanooki, Shaawanowi lenaweeki, Sawanogi, Sawanons and Savanoa,^[15][16] was one of the more mobile of the tribes encountered by early European explorers. They occupied areas Delaware and Pennsylvania to the Ohio Valley region in West Virginia, Kentucky and Ohio, the Cumberland River region of Central Tennessee,^[17] and in Georgia, where the Savannah River is named for them. The tribe consisted of a number of autonomous subdivisions known as "septs" who shared a common language and culture: the Mekoche, Pekowi, Chalahgawtha, Hathawekela and Kispoko.^[18] This tribe may have been indigenous to the West Virginia, Ohio, and Kentucky area and could be descendants of the Fort Ancient or Monangahela cultures.^[19] Some protohistoric Shawnee villages have been found at locations that were former Fort Ancient sites, such as Lower Shawneetown.^[20] Their mobile lifestyle may have been due to being driven from their ancestral homelands by the Iroquois Confederacy. They are usually described as being in a near constant state of war with the Iroquois Confederacy, who were making inroads during the protohistoric period into the Ohio Valley region in a bid to control the fur trade.^[18] The Shawnee, under Tecumseh, sided with the British during the War of 1812 and were removed to the west of the Mississippi River after the war.

Like the Cisca (Yuchi territory) in neighboring Tennessee, this area's Shawnee Cheskepe village originally traded with the Spanish.^[21] Kentucky is derived from an Iroquois word, kentáke, meaning "where prairies are."^[22] Another Shawnee village known as Eskippakithiki was located on Upper Howard Creek (Kentucky River Basin) was called "kenta aki," meaning the "place of level land," by the Iroquois.^[23] A few peculiar artifacts are found in collections from the curious protohistoric period. At Madisonville, intertribal trade ending in the 1610s included Basque kettle parts and Clarksdale bell type associated with the "de Soto entrada" variety of artifacts, and other.^[24] Basque kettle parts and brass have been found similar to a few St. Lawrence River early protohistoric fisherman locations. The Algonquian language of Core Central consists of Ojibwe–Potawatomi, Shawnee, Sauk-Fox-Kickapoo, and Miami-Illinois — Eastern Great Lakes languages.^[25]

The Shawnee attacked the

Among the Cornstalk oratory, there is a story of young Kentucky warriors who mistakenly massacrued "Spiritual or Holy People" in southwest Kentucky. This young gang's trophies were declared not Spanish by the elders upon return to Kentucky counsel. A similar story was told by other Shawnee to the 1770s surveyors at the Scioto village (Thomas Bullitt 1773 with Shawnees at Chillicothe. The now old Chief at the Mouth of the Kanawha explained why they passed beyond the western of the state to build their towns on the Scioto valley in western Ohio. This policy also applied to game taking in West Virginia.^{[citation needed]}

Ouabano was a band of

Delaware Chief Bull's old town, son of Teedyuscung, of Burnsville Lake Wildlife Management Area in Braxton County, dates from 1754 through 1772. They migrated to the White River, eighteen miles from the Wabash.^[32] Of these and colonial assimilation, there are still some descendants living in West Virginia^[33]

The

In 1649 the tribes constituting the

Erie populi is the earliest recognizable tribal grouping documented, including the northerly region "Riviere de la Ronceverte" of the state. The Huron Map of 1642 shows a river in the Allegheny Mountains delineating French territory from Virginian territory.^[40] Another map from 1657 by Francesco Bressani, titled Novae Franciae accurata delineatio, shows the same river of the French Canadien domain adjoining the Virginia domain below the mountain line.^[41]

The Erie people or Cat Nation (also known as the Nation de Chat, Rickohockans, and Rechahecrians) appear on Edward Bland's "Discovery of New Brittaine" map dated August 31, 1650, in the New River-Holston divide watershed region. Coming from beyond the Monetons, the Rickahockans or Ricahecrians entered Piedmont Virginia in 1656. This eastern Virginia Algonquian phrase referred to "from beyond the mountains." This groups has been identified in various ways, including as ancient Cherokee, as a Cat Nation division called Rique, and as "Riquehronnons" or "Rigueronnons".^[42]

The Chonnonton ("people of the deer",

These early Iroquois or proto-Iroquoians were from an earlier Neutralia trade network south of the

Franquelin's map of 1684 shows tribal villages of eastern Siouan

The Mohetans were the earliest Native American tribe reported by Virginians in central West Virginia. They are found during the Batts and Fallams' 1671 Expedition, and this expedition also found evidence that others colonists preceded them into the area. Earlier authors considered Mohetan to be a northernmost Mountain Cherokee; today, scholars consider them Eastern Siouan. A "Sepiny" Indian guide of the Sapony River returned to the expeditionary party and reported that he heard a drum and a gunshot towards the north, possibly the Greenbrier or Gauley River valleys. A Mohetan runner met the Virginian and Siouan group to discover whether they were planning to attack or not, and was given ammunition for his European gun. This was prior to Bacon's Rebellion, the Virginian farmers uprising against their locale tribes in 1676.

Monetons traded with Tomahitans of

John Lederer, on behalf of the colonial governor of Virginia, Sir William Berkeley, made expeditions into the Appalachians in 1669 and 1670 reaching the mouth of the Kanawha River and reported no hostilities on the Kanawha Valley from the early "Cherokee People". He settled in western Maryland and made trips to the head waters of the Potomac area. The Iroquoian stock of the Virginias, Nottoway or Mangoac and allied Meherrin and remnant Susquehanna, calling themselves Chiroeⁿhaka, according to James Mooney. In the north, this linguistic grouping was called Mingo or Mengwe by the Dutch trade or New England Algonquian stock.^[54] John Lederer's guide was a Susquehanna on his journey to southwest Virginia and North Carolina, home of the Early Cherokee people.^[55]

The Tomahitans developed from either the Yuchi or the Cherokee from eastern Tennessee.

Kanawha canoemen moved trade along the Ohio Valley and its tributaries of the Oniasantkeronons and Siouan, while Messawomeake moved trade from here across the

White traders began establishing trading houses in the Ohio, Allegheny, and Monongahela valleys in 1717, according to University of Pittsburgh's Historic Pittsburgh. Pennsylvania fur trader Michael Bezallion made a record of his trip from Illinois country up the Ohio en route to Philadelphia in 1717. The Iroquois established a town at Kanaugha opposite the Mouth of the Kanawha before 1748,^[69] and the French constructed a fort nearby prior to the French and Indian War.^[70][71] James (Jacob) Le Tort, Sr. moved his Penn permit trading house of the 1720s and 1730s from the Allegheny's Beaver Creek fur trade area to near the Letart Falls by 1740. Céloron de Blainville, a French Canadian officer with a flotilla of canoes, encountered English traders with canoes nearby on August 12, 1749. Trade artifacts found in this area have dated from at least the seventeenth century.^[72]

Hudson's Trading Post Inn and canoe landing, a hunter's camp, village, and archaeological mound site, appeared on Madison's 1807 map opposite St. Albans. Colonial maps from this period depict the upper Ohio River as an extension of the Alleghany River along the West Virginia shores.^[73] A Delaware Indian legend of ancient time states that the Allegheny Indians were defeated and allowed to cross the Allegheny River to arrive on the east coast, which became their homeland.

The Oniasantkeronons are of probably of the Kanawha River area.

The Sussquahana and Sinaicus destroyed the Black Mincquaas.^[79]

The Calicua^[80] migrated east to the upper Potomac River trade area, but the tribe was later destroyed and absorbed into other tribes. The earliest location of the Calicuas is depicted as a province north of the Chisca (Uchi) and Appalachians according to the Narrative of De Soto's expedition in 1540–1541. Calicuas is found on Ortelius's 1570 map and 1642 on the Blaeuw map. The next map by Merian was issued about 1650 now with more correct geography showing the Calicuas along the general area of West Virginia. The Guyandottes appeared in southwestern West Virginia and southern Ohio around this time, pushing out from the Acansea (Ohio) Valley the Calicua and Mosopelea (Ohio Ofo) peoples according to the progressing of contemporary maps.

This era is sometimes called a fire-side cabin culture, which is associated with eighteenth-century hunters. Historical trader Charles Poke's trading post dates from 1731 with these "Trade Indians", then called

It cannot be understated, however, that the Wyandots, or Guyandotte, of West Virginia came to be extremely far from the Ohio Wyandot over time & may have been operating as a separate tribe, also fractured from the Petun. Its possible that they may be the Kentatentonga mentioned on Franquelin's map, with a whopping 19 villages in northwest Pennsylvania having been destroyed.[9]

Several historic references speak of a separate tribe living in the Shenandoah River Valley along West Virginia's eastern border known as the Senandoa, or Shenandoah, until approximately 1715. It is during this time that they were allegedly destroyed by the Catawba—the most likely scenario being that they sided the Yuchi during the Yamasee War, whereas the Catawbas of North Carolina backed the Yamasee. They appear to have been mound builders, and so may have been associated with the Monongahela Culture to the northwest, who were the only mound building society surviving in the region by that time. While confusion still remains as to whether they could have been associated with the Iroquois, Algonquians or Siouans, they may have, in fact, been a separate tribe from other known groups who passed through the region during the 17th century.^[85][86] They seem to share little to no cultural traits with their Saponi neighbors. Many make a point that the place has been largely forgotten and rarely explored by Archaeologists, warranting a closer look.

It's difficult to say what happened to the remaining Senandoa. They may have merged with the Yuchi. Some may have also gone to live among the Saponi to the east, who appear to have remained neutral in the Yamasee War & were being collectively referred to as the Christannas at the time. In the 1883 paper "Tutelo Tribe and Language," Horatio Hale met with the last full-blooded Tutelo living among the Iroquois Confederacy in Canada, Waskiteng/ Nakonha. The man claims that he was 106, remembered times before the American Revolution & claimed that his people's village in New York was referred to as Tutelo, but was made up of a mixture of "Tutelos, Saponis & Botshenins." Although it is assumed that Botshenin may be a nickname for Occaneechi (The three tribes were all Christannas & were a core group who stuck close to one another throughout the 18th century), no one has yet seemed to identify this tribe who they are for certain.^[87]