BUSHNELL] NATIVE VILLAGES AND VILLAGE SITES 87 
upon one of y® three greate Rivers with sufficience of cleared ground 
for y® plowe & bravely accomadated for fishing.”’ 
The ‘‘speciall” towns were evidently the ‘‘kings howses’’ of 
Smith, standing on the banks of the rivers which furnished easy com- 
munication between the many villages. Such was the condition of 
tidewater Virginia three centuries ago. 
At the time of the discovery and settlement of Virginia, and for 
many years after, the Powhatan tribe occupied the country about the 
Falls of the James, the site now covered by the city of Richmond. 
When first visited by the colonists, in 1607, Wahunsonacock was the 
chief of the tribe, but soon he became known to the settlers by the 
tribal name, Powhatan, meaning ‘‘at the falls,” and which was 
variously spelled Powatah, Powite, etc. A map of the greatest 
interest, showing this site as it was in the beginning of the year 1663, 
is reproduced in plate 7. This is copied from the manuscript volume 
bearing title ‘‘Byrd Title Book,’’ now preserved by the Virginia 
Historical Society. The small village of the “Powite Indians,” 
shown on the map at the mouth of Shaccoe Creek, corresponds with 
the position of the foot of Sixteenth Street, Richmond, now covered 
with tracks and warehouses. This small village had evidently sur- 
vived the uprisings of 1622 and 1644, and the troubles attending the 
expulsion of the Indians who, about the year 1654, ‘‘lately sett 
downe near the falls of James river, to the number of six or seaven 
hundred.”’ (Hening, (1), I, p. 402.) Contrary to the belief and 
statements of many writers, it would appear, by reason of these 
newcomers having been located ‘‘neer the falls of James river”’ for 
some months, that they came not as enemies seeking to attack the 
colonists, but for the purpose of finding a new home. ‘Their identity 
has not been fully established, although it has been suggested, and 
with good reason, that they may have been a band of Yuchi, then 
recently expelled from their ancient seats among the mountains to 
the west of the headwaters of the James. Others believe them to 
have been Cherokee, but there is no reason to explain the desire of 
the latter to seek a new home, far away from their long occupied sites. 
Probably the most convincing argument regarding the identity 
of these people is presented in the following statement by Mr. James 
Mooney: 
“In an earlier Bureau publication the present writer assumed 
that the Rechahecrian or Rickohockan were identical with the 
Cherokee, based chiefly upon the statements of the Virginia records 
and of the traveler Lederer (1670) that they came from, or resided 
in, the mountain region at the back of Virginia and Carolina. Later 
consideration, however, indicates a possibility that they may have 
been the Erie—variously known as Eriga, Riqué, Riquehronnon 
and Rike-haka—a powerful tribe of Iroquoian stock residing, when 
