EAKLY HISTORY OF THE PAMTJNKEY INDIANS. 



At the time of the settlement of Jamestown, in 1607, that region lying- 

 in Virginia between Potomac and blames rivers was occnpied by three 

 great Indian confederacies, each of which derived its name from one of 

 its leading tribes. They were (1) the Mauuahoac, who lived on the head- 

 waters of Potomac and Rappahannock rivers; (2) the Monocan, who 

 occupied the banks of the upper James, and (3) the Powhatan, who in- 

 habited all that portion of the tidewater region lying north of the James. 

 The last-named powerful confederacy was composed of thirty warlike 

 tribes, having 2,400 warriors, whose disastrous attacks on the early set- 

 tlers of Virginia are well known to history. The largest of the te-ibes 

 making up the Powhatan confederacy was the Pamunkey, their entire 

 number of men, women, and children in 1007 being estimated at a.bout 

 1.000, or one-eighth of the population of the whole confederacy. 



The original seat of the Pamunkey tribe Avas on the banks of the 

 river which bears their name, and Avhich flows somewhat parallel with 

 James river, the Pamunkey being about 22 miles north of the James. 

 This tribe, on account of its numerical strength, would i)robably from 

 the beginning have been the leader of its sister tribes in warfare, had 

 it not been for the superior ability of the noted chief Powhatan, who 

 made his tribe the moving spirit of attack on the white settlers. 



On the death of Powhatan, the acknowledged head of the confed- 

 eracy which bore his name, he was succeeded in reality, though not 

 nominally, by Opechancanough, chief of the Pamunkey. John Smith, 

 in his history of Virginia (chapter 9, page 21.3), gives an interesting 

 account of his contact with this chief, whose leadership in the massa 

 ere of 1622 made him the most dreaded enemy which the colonists of 

 that period ever had. In 1669, 50 persons, remnants of the Chicka- 

 hominj^ and Mattapony tribes, having been driven from their homes, 

 united with the Pamunkey. The history of these Pamunkey Indians, 

 whose distinction it is to be the only Virginia tribe* that has sur- 

 vived the encroachments of civilization, furnishes a tempting field of 

 inquiry, but one aside from the writer's present purpose, which is 

 ethnologic rather than historical. 



Tliei<! iire a few Indians (Dr. Albert S. Gatscliet found 30 or 35 iu 1891) living 

 on a small reservation of some 60 or 70 acres on Mattapony river, about 12 miles 

 noi'th of tlie Pamunkey reservation. They are thought by some to be the remnant 

 of the Matta])ony tribe, but the writer is of a dift'ereiit opinion. He believes that 

 the territory of the Pamunkey once extended from the Mattapony to Pamunkey 

 river, and that the laud between gradually passed into the possession of the white 

 man, thus dividing the tribe, leaving to each part a small tract on each of the 

 above named rivers. 



