NO. 7 INDIAN OCCUPANCY IN VIRGINIA BUSH NELL 3 



country, going by the names of Monocans and Powhatans." Thus 

 it would appear that the people of the two groups had much in com- 

 mon and did not differ greatly in manners or ways of life. 



If the belief that the Siouan tribes moved eastward from the 

 Ohio is correct, they must necessarily have crossed the valley of the 

 Shenandoah — the Valley of Virginia — before entering the piedmont 

 where they were established when first encountered by Europeans, 

 but the rich and fertile region just west of the Blue Ridge, one which 

 would have appealed to the hunter if he were unmolested, was not 

 occupied by any native tribe when it first became known to the colo- 

 nists. War parties of the northern Iroquoian tribes traversed the 

 land, and evidently the fear of their coming had caused the less war- 

 like to abandon the region and to seek new homes elsewhere. Thus 

 it is believed the Siouan groups crossed the Blue Ridge and occupied 

 the piedmont country, in turn pushing the Algonquian tribes before 

 them. That such were the actual conditions appears to be proved by 

 later events. During the months of June and July, 1744, a great 

 gathering of the Six Nations met Commissioners of Virginia and 

 Maryland at Lancaster and there concluded a treaty of much impor- 

 tance to the colonies. Present at the treaty-making were "The Depu- 

 ties of the Onandagoes, Senecas, Cayogoes, Oneidas and Tiisca- 

 roraes."^ On the afternoon of June 27 one of the Indians, Tacha- 

 noontia, addressed the gathering and said in part: "All the World 

 knows we conquered the several Nations living on Sasquahannah, 

 Cohongoronta, and on the Back of the Great Mountains in Virginia ; 

 the Conoy-uch-such-roona, Coch-now-tuas-roonan, Tohoa-irough- 

 roonan, and Connutskin-oiigh-roonazv, feel the Effects of our Con- 

 quests, being now a Part of our Nations, and their Lands at our 

 Disposal. We know very well, it hath often been said by the Vir- 

 ginians, that the Great King of England, and the People of that Col- 

 ony, conquered the Indians who lived there, but it is not true." On 

 the following day one of the Commissioners replied to the foregoing : 

 " If the Six Nations have made any Conquest over Indians that may 

 at any Time have lived on the West-side of the Great Mountains of 

 Virginia, yet they never possessed any Lands there that we have ever 

 heard of. That Part was altogether deserted, and free for any Peo- 

 ple to enter upon, as the People of Virginia have done, by Order of 

 the Great King, very justly. . . ." 



The conquest of the region by the northern tribes had probably 

 occurred only a few years before the coming of the English colo- 



3 Colden, Cadwallader, The history of the Five Indian Nations of Can- 

 ada, 2d ed., London, 1750. 



