lO SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 94 



and in many respects the entire site resembles that of the ancient 

 Saponi village, Monasukapanough, on the banks of the Rivanna some 

 15 miles away. 



DISPERSING OF THE NATIVE TRIBES FROM THE RAPIDAN- 

 RAPPAHANNOCK AREA 



The English reached the falls of the Rappahannock in August 1608 

 and there came in contact with the IManahoac tribes whose lands lay 

 to the westward, but the first journey into the country beyond the 

 falls, of which a record is known to have been preserved, was not 

 made until the year 1670. Great changes had taken place, however, 

 during the interval between 1608 and 1670, and although there had 

 been a relatively large population living in camps and villages along 

 the courses of the streams at the beginning of the century, by the year 

 1670 the country was practically deserted. 



During the summer of 1670 the German traveler, John Lederer, 

 of whom so little is known, traversed the wilderness as far as the 

 Blue Ridge. Earlier in the year he had visited several Monacan 

 villages in the valley of the James, and in the brief account of his 

 " Third and last expedition. From the Falls of Rappahanock River 

 in Virginia, due west to the top of the Apalatean Mountains ", referred 

 to his journey through the region that had so short a time before been 

 the home of the scattered Manahoac tribes. Small groups of Indians 

 may have remained in the vicinity, but they Avere not mentioned and 

 may not have been encountered. Describing this last expedition 

 Lederer wrote in part : ° 



On tlie twentieth of August 1670, Col. Catlet of Virginia and my self, with 

 nine English horse, and five Indians on foot, departed from the house of one 

 Robert Talifer, and that night reached the falls of Rappahanock river, in Indian 

 Ma)itapciick. 



The next day we passed it over where it divides into two branches north 

 and south, keeping the main branch nortli of us. 



The three and twentieth we found it so shallow, that it onely wet our horses 

 hoofs. 



The four and twentieth we travelled thorow the Savanae amongst vast herds 

 of red and fallow deer which stood gazing at us ; and a little after, we came 

 to the Promontories or spurs of the -A.palataean-mountains. 



A crudely drawn map of the region accompanies the narrative, a 

 section of w^hich is reproduced in figure i. This shows the Rappa- 

 hannock and the Rapidan uniting some miles above the falls, and 



"Lederer, John, The discoveries of Begun in March 1669, and ended 



in September 1670. London, 1672. Reprint 1902. 



