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Appomattoc
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Appomattoc
The Appomattoc (also spelled Appamatuck, Apamatic, and numerous other variants) were a historic tribe of Virginia Indians speaking an Algonquian language, and residing along the lower Appomattox River, in the area of what is now Petersburg, Colonial Heights, Chesterfield and Dinwiddie Counties in present-day southeast Virginia.
The Appomattoc were affiliated with the estimated 30 tribes of the Powhatan Confederacy, who controlled the area then known as Tenakomakah, present-day Tidewater Virginia. According to William Strachey, the Appomattoc were one of four subtribes within the original inheritance of Chief Powhatan, before he incorporated the other tribes into his Confederacy, and were said to be closely connected with the Powhatan royal line.
The Appomattoc first encountered English explorers on May 8, 1607, when a party led by Christopher Newport reached one of their villages at the mouth of the Appomattox River (it was shown as "Mattica" on the 1608 Tindall map). The English recorded that the foremost warrior among the Virginia Indians was bearing a bow and arrow in one hand, and a pipe with tobacco in the other, to signify the choice of war or peace. The English party soon settled some 30–40 miles downstream from there, on Jamestown Island.
On May 26, Newport led a second party of 24 English colonists to Mattica. They were welcomed with food and tobacco. He noted the village was surrounded by cornfields, which the Indians cultivated. A weroansqua (female chieftain), Oppussoquionuske, led the village. Despite welcoming the colonists, some Appomattoc warriors took part in the sporadic raids on their fort until June 13, after which the paramount Chief Powhatan called a ceasefire. John Smith saw the weroansqua of Appomattoc again at Werowocomoco (the main residence of Chief Powhatan) during his capture in December 1607, where she was appointed to wash his hands; as well as on another expedition to Werowocomoco in February 1608, when Powhatan commanded her to serve him water, turkey and flatbread.
Desperate for corn, Smith and Ralph Waldo visited the Appomattoc village in late fall 1608, and bought corn in exchange for copper. Smith reported in this year that the tribe had 60 warriors (some historians estimated the total population might be 220 based on that.) Their larger village nearby on the north bank of Wighwhippoc Creek, now called Swift Creek, was ruled by the weroance Coquonasum, brother of Oppussoquionuske.
Anglo-Native relations deteriorated in 1609, culminating in the First Anglo-Powhatan War by 1610. Around Christmas 1611, in reprisal for an Appomattoc ambush on a group of English colonists a year before, Sir Thomas Dale seized Oppussoquionuske's village and the surrounding cultivated land. He renamed it "New Bermudas" (the settlement was incorporated in 1614 as the town of Bermuda Hundred).
Following the resumption of hostilities in 1622, the colonists, led by Captain Nathaniel West, destroyed Coquonasum's village and drove off the residents in August 1623. The remnants of the tribe moved their settlement farther up Swift Creek, and slightly southward to Old Town Creek in present-day Colonial Heights, Virginia. Colonists attacked them again in 1627.
In 1635 the Appomattoc were driven from the upper Swift Creek Valley by Captain Henry Fleet. He had spent four years with Indians at Nacotchtank, the present site of Washington DC, and spoke Algonquian Powhatan fluently. Fleet built a small fort on the large hill overlooking the falls on the north bank. The site is now occupied by the campus of Virginia State University in Ettrick.
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Appomattoc
The Appomattoc (also spelled Appamatuck, Apamatic, and numerous other variants) were a historic tribe of Virginia Indians speaking an Algonquian language, and residing along the lower Appomattox River, in the area of what is now Petersburg, Colonial Heights, Chesterfield and Dinwiddie Counties in present-day southeast Virginia.
The Appomattoc were affiliated with the estimated 30 tribes of the Powhatan Confederacy, who controlled the area then known as Tenakomakah, present-day Tidewater Virginia. According to William Strachey, the Appomattoc were one of four subtribes within the original inheritance of Chief Powhatan, before he incorporated the other tribes into his Confederacy, and were said to be closely connected with the Powhatan royal line.
The Appomattoc first encountered English explorers on May 8, 1607, when a party led by Christopher Newport reached one of their villages at the mouth of the Appomattox River (it was shown as "Mattica" on the 1608 Tindall map). The English recorded that the foremost warrior among the Virginia Indians was bearing a bow and arrow in one hand, and a pipe with tobacco in the other, to signify the choice of war or peace. The English party soon settled some 30–40 miles downstream from there, on Jamestown Island.
On May 26, Newport led a second party of 24 English colonists to Mattica. They were welcomed with food and tobacco. He noted the village was surrounded by cornfields, which the Indians cultivated. A weroansqua (female chieftain), Oppussoquionuske, led the village. Despite welcoming the colonists, some Appomattoc warriors took part in the sporadic raids on their fort until June 13, after which the paramount Chief Powhatan called a ceasefire. John Smith saw the weroansqua of Appomattoc again at Werowocomoco (the main residence of Chief Powhatan) during his capture in December 1607, where she was appointed to wash his hands; as well as on another expedition to Werowocomoco in February 1608, when Powhatan commanded her to serve him water, turkey and flatbread.
Desperate for corn, Smith and Ralph Waldo visited the Appomattoc village in late fall 1608, and bought corn in exchange for copper. Smith reported in this year that the tribe had 60 warriors (some historians estimated the total population might be 220 based on that.) Their larger village nearby on the north bank of Wighwhippoc Creek, now called Swift Creek, was ruled by the weroance Coquonasum, brother of Oppussoquionuske.
Anglo-Native relations deteriorated in 1609, culminating in the First Anglo-Powhatan War by 1610. Around Christmas 1611, in reprisal for an Appomattoc ambush on a group of English colonists a year before, Sir Thomas Dale seized Oppussoquionuske's village and the surrounding cultivated land. He renamed it "New Bermudas" (the settlement was incorporated in 1614 as the town of Bermuda Hundred).
Following the resumption of hostilities in 1622, the colonists, led by Captain Nathaniel West, destroyed Coquonasum's village and drove off the residents in August 1623. The remnants of the tribe moved their settlement farther up Swift Creek, and slightly southward to Old Town Creek in present-day Colonial Heights, Virginia. Colonists attacked them again in 1627.
In 1635 the Appomattoc were driven from the upper Swift Creek Valley by Captain Henry Fleet. He had spent four years with Indians at Nacotchtank, the present site of Washington DC, and spoke Algonquian Powhatan fluently. Fleet built a small fort on the large hill overlooking the falls on the north bank. The site is now occupied by the campus of Virginia State University in Ettrick.