Rassawek

Rassawek, near Columbia at the confluence of the James and Rivanna rivers, was a major Monacan village and political center in early colonial Virginia. Known to English colonists by 1607 and mapped by John Smith in 1612, it was the leading Monacan community, a place of tribute, trade, and gathering, with a substantial early 17th-century population and settlement. Archaeological work linked the village to the land between the rivers and also showed the site had been occupied for thousands of years before colonization. In the 21st century, the Monacan Indian Nation and preservationists helped protect this deeply important ancestral place from development.

Virginia · United States