THE MANAHOAC TRIBES IN VIRGINIA, 1608 



By DAVID I. BUSHNELL, JR. 



(With 21 Plates) 



INTRODUCTION 



At the beginning of the seventeenth century the greater part of 

 the piedmont section of Virginia was occupied by Siouan tribes. The 

 villages of the Monacan were then standing on the banks of the James 

 and Rivanna Rivers and dominated the surrounding country.^ North- 

 ward, along the course of the Rappahannock and of the tributary 

 Rapidan, were the scattered settlements of the various tribes that 

 formed the Manahoac confederacy. The restricted area between the 

 eastern boundary of the lands then claimed by the Manahoac tribes, 

 which extended to the vicinity of the falls of the Rappahannock, and 

 the right ^ bank of the Potomac was occupied by Algonquian groups, 

 some of whom belonged to the Powhatan confederacy, others being 

 in alliance with tribes then living on the opposite side of the Potomac, 

 a region soon to become part of the " Province of INIary-land ". 



For many years after the establishment of Jamestown the Mana- 

 hoac tribes constituted one of the most important groups in the colony. 

 But between the English settlements and the land claimed and occu- 

 pied by the Manahoac were the many Algonquian villages, dominated 

 first by Powhatan and later by Opechancanough, hostile to the English 

 and ever enemies of their Siouan neighbors. These served as a barrier 

 and prevented intercourse between the colonists and the tribes then 

 living beyond the falls of the Rappahannock. 



Although the English encountered many of the Manahoac for a 

 single day during the summer of the year following the settlement 

 of the colony, there is no known record of a European having visited 

 a village of the confederacy or of having had other contact with the 

 tribes in the region they had occupied in 1608. Evidently the English 

 did not enter the country west of the falls until after the native 



' Bushnell, David I., Jr., The Five Monacan towns in Virginia, 1607. Smith- 

 sonian Misc. Coll., vol. 82, no. 12, 1930. 



^ When using the terms " right bank " and " left bank ", the observer is con- 

 sidered to be facing downstream. 



Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, Vol. 94, No. 8 



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