Patawomeck
The Patawomeck is a tribe of American Indians based in Stafford County, Virginia, along the Potomac River (Patawomeck is another spelling of Potomac). It is one of Virginia's nine American Indian tribes and is not recognized by the United States federal government; it is also the only one of the nine that is not state recognized either.[1] The tribe numbers approximately 500 members, 80 percent of whom live within ten miles (16 km) of the tribe's original village. The tribe in the seventeenth century was considered a "fringe" component of the Powhatan Confederacy, at times allied with them, and at others, with the English against them.
Seventeenth century
John Smith visited them in 1608 in their homeland, between Aquia Creek and Upper Machodoc Creek; he said there were 1,000 acres (4.0 km2) of corn growing along the Potomac River. The Patawomecks' main town, also called Patawomeck, was located on the north of Potomac Creek, in Stafford County. The weroance of Passpatanzy, a satellite village, was Japazeus (also spelled Japazaws or Iopassus), brother to the main weroance. The Patawomecks were semi-independent rivals to the Powhatan Confederacy of Chief Powhatan to the south, and were friendly with the English colonists (Captain Samuel Argall in particular), often providing them crucial assistance when the Powhatans would not. However, while the colonists faced starvation at Jamestown in 1609, Francis West, sent to buy corn from the Patawomeck, beheaded two of them and absconded directly to England in the pinnace. Argall made peace with them in 1612, during the First Anglo-Powhatan War, and in April 1613, he captured Pocahontas, daughter of Chief Powhatan, when she visited the Patawomeck village.
The Patawomecks continued to be friendly to the English in their conflicts with the Powhatans in 1622 (even after Captain Isaac Madison took their weroance prisoner), and in 1644. Settlers began moving into their area in the 1650s, and disputes followed. In 1662, their weroance Wahanganoche was taken prisoner by Colonel Giles Brent; the colony ordered him released. In 1666, the colonists declared war against several tribes in the Northern Neck, including the Patawomecks; after this they do not again appear in any records, however, a silver badge issued to Wahanganoche in 1662, found near Portobago, may indicate that they merged with the Portobacco Indians, as did several other tribes[2].
Twentieth century
In 1928, Frank Speck wrote of the Indian population living around the original Patawomeck capital, assumed to be remnants of the old Patawomeck nation, though without solid proof they were not from another tribe. He named them the "Potomac".[3].
The tribe's chief today is Robert "Two Eagles" Green, who advised the filmmakers and appeared in the film in a non-speaking role in The New World. He also provided large numbers of wild turkey feathers and deer antlers for the purposes of costuming the American Indian characters in the film. Green is a resident of Clearview Heights, a district of Fredericksburg, Virginia, and is originally from White Oak, Virginia. His son Jason also appears in the film, as a Powhatan warrior.
The tribe's language, in the Algonquian language family, is no longer spoken, but some tribal members are interested in revitalizing the language with the help of audio and printed materials prepared by the linguist Blair Rudes for The New World in an effort to reconstruct the Algonquian language as it was spoken in coastal Virginia in the early 17th century.
References
- ^ A Study of Virginia Indians and Jamestown: The First Century, chapter 2
- ^ Helen C. Rountree, Pocahontas's People, p.122.
- ^ Rountree p. 216