SwANTON] INDIANS OF THE SOUTHEASTERN UNITED STATES 163 



NOTTOWAY (NOTOWEGA, NITTAWEEGA, OR NAUTAUGUE) 



This is a common Algonquian name for enemy tribes, particularly 

 those of Iroquoian stock. It has received specific application to an 

 Iroquoian tribe formerly living on the river which still bears their name 

 in southeastern Virginia. They first appear in the narratives of the 

 Kaleigh expeditions to North Carolina under another Algonquian 

 name, Mangoac. Edward Blande and his companions visited them in 

 1650. In 1728 William Byrd found them living in a stockaded town. 

 Although not prominent in history, they maintained their identity as 

 late as 1825, when they were living on a reservation in Southampton 

 County and were ruled by a "queen." 



The same name, in the forms "Notowega," "Nittaweega," or "Nau- 

 taugue," was given to a band of Indians which appeared on the fron- 

 tiers of South Carolina in the eighteenth century. It is possible that 

 this body of Indians is intended by the "Andasses or Iroquois" men- 

 tioned in a French document, attributed to the third decade of that 

 century, in association wuth some Shawnee and Chickasaw, as living 

 about 70 leagues below the Kaskinampo on Tennessee River. Since 

 that would take them to the other side of the Mississippi, it is proba- 

 ble that we should read "above" rather than "below." The material 

 in this particular document is unreliable in so many particulars that 

 this single notice would deserve little credit except for later evidence. 

 Quoting from manuscript sources. Milling tells us that in 1748 two 

 white men named Haig and Brown were murdered in the Catawba 

 country "by a mixed party of Indians known as Notowega or Nitta- 

 weega, who fled into the Cherokee country for protection" (Milling, 

 1940, p. 90) . The same writer says : "The preamble to their 'talk' to 

 Governor Glen, written soon after their arrival, suggests that they were 

 a mixed band of Iroquois, Savannah, and Conestoga." This talk was 

 delivered by "Asaquah, the Head beloved Man of Nautaugue, Conne- 

 wawtenty of Connetstageh and about Sixty others of Different Towns 

 of Nitiwaga Nation of Indians now in Keowee in the Cherokees" 

 (Milling, 1940, p. 91). While a few Shawnee may have attached them- 

 selves to this band temporarily, the prevailingly Iroquoian complexion 

 of it is evident, and this is reenforced by further information that 

 the murderers of Haig and Brown were "a party of Warriors chiefly 

 consisting of Seneka Indians" (Milling, 1940, p. 91) . The name "Con- 

 estoga," or "Connetstageh," clearly identifies part of them as Susque- 

 hanna Indians, and Iroquois and Seneca are such general terms that 

 we may suspect the tribe to have consisted in part of Nottoway In- 

 dians of Virginia or, more likely, of the near neighbors of the Notto- 

 way, the Meherrin. This suspicion is founded on a record in the 

 Colonial documents that the Meherrin consisted of fugitive Conestoga. 

 As the name of the Meherrin appears before 1675, when the Susque- 



