For as long as 18,000 years, Native American peoples have lived along Chesapeake’s waterways, and the surrounding land reflects this deep history. Outside is the Pamunkey (York) River, part of a network of streams that flows into the Chesapeake Bay and then into the Atlantic Ocean. By early 1600s, 15,000 Native Americans were living in this region speaking Algonquian, Iroquoian, and Siouan languages. To Algonquian speakers, eastern Virginia was known as Tsenacomacoh. Ten miles upstream sits Werowocomoco, the capital of Tsenacommacah, home of Wahunsenacawh, or Chief Powhatan, the political and spiritual leader of the Powhatan Native Americans. The historic Powhatans of Tsenacomacoh depicted their world in intriguing ways, including the Conjuration Circle, a diagram drawn by Pamunkey priests during the era just after European contact that shows a circle of cornmeal representing Tsenacomacoh, corn kernels standing for the edges of the ocean, and sticks representing European colonists who had crossed into Tsenacomacoh. The Native Chesapeake comprises waterways as the main pathways for travel, wetlands as a primary source of food, and riverfronts as principal places of residence. The Powhatans, consisting of 32 tribes, often named places based on their relation to nearby streams, wetlands, and fishing grounds; for example, Wayanock, a town on the Powhatan (James) River, can be translated as the place around which the River winds itself. Native presence along these waterways continues today and includes the Pamunkey and Mattaponi reservations established in the 1600s.

Photo: Brandon D Cross

Gloucester Point, Virginia · USA