Tsenacommacah
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Tsenacommacah (variously spelled as Tenakomakah, Attanoughkomouck, and Attan-Akamik) was a territory in present-day Tidewater Virginia that was controlled by the Powhatan Confederacy in the early 17th century when English colonists arrived. Its area extended roughly 100 miles inland from Cape Henry to the west and north, and included the areas east of the fall line on the rivers emptying into the southern Chesapeake Bay.
The Powhatan (also spelled Powatan and Powhaten) were a powerful confederacy of Native American tribes speaking an Algonquian language, and united under Chief Powhatan (c. 1547 - c.1618) — whose proper native name was Wahunsunacock.
When Wahunsunacock created a powerful empire by unifying much of eastern Virginia, he called his lands Tsenacommacah and himself the Powhatan. Besides the capital town of Powhatan, at the fall of the James River, present-day Richmond, another capital of this confederacy was called Werowocomoco and was located in Gloucester County on the north bank of today's York River.
 |
This section may stray from the topic of the article into the topic of another article, Powhatan. Please help improve this section or discuss this issue on the talk page. (help) |
Contents |
[edit] History
The original six constituent tribes in Wahunsunacock's Powhatan confederacy were: the Powhatans proper, the Arrohatecks, the Appamattucks, the Pamunkeys, the Mattaponis, and the Chiskiacks. He added the Kecoughtans to his fold by 1598. Another closely-related tribe in the midst of these others, all speaking the same language, was the Chickahominy, who managed to preserve their autonomy from the confederacy.
To the north of Tsenacommacah, around what is now Washington, DC lived the Doeg or Dogue tribe of Bacon's Rebellion fame, also known as the Piscataway or Nakotchtank. Sources such as Captain John Smith of Jamestown gave the northern limit of Tsenacommacah as Aquia Creek along the Potomac River, (Ohquiough or Akwaya); however, creeks to the north of there, Chopawamsic and Yosococomoco (today Powell's Creek) seem to have names in the Powhatan language and not the Doeg language. The Neabsco and Occoquan creeks were clearly in Dogue territory ('Tauxenent' or 'Tauxuntania' etc. in Smith's writings). To the west were the Iroquois-speaking Monacans.
[edit] Characteristics
The Powhatan lived east of the fall line in Tidewater Virginia. Their houses were made of poles, rushes, and bark, and they supported themselves primarily by growing crops, especially maize, but also by some fishing and hunting. Villages consisted of a number of related families organized in tribes that were led by a king or queen, who was a client of the Emperor and a member of his council.
[edit] Powhatan today
In the 21st century, approximately 3,000 Powhatan people remain in Virginia. Some of them live today on two tiny reservations, Mattaponi and Pamunkey, found adjacent to King William County, Virginia. However, the Powhatan language is now extinct. Attempts have been made to reconstruct the vocabulary of the language; the only sources are word lists provided by Smith and by William Strachey.
[edit] Powhatan in film
The Powhatan people are featured in the Disney animated film Pocahontas (1995). An attempt at a more historically accurate representation of them appears in The New World (2005), although the storyline is highly fictionalized.
