Chowanoke
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The Chowanoke is an Algonquian (also spelled Algonkian) tribe that occupied most or all of the Chowan River in northeastern North Carolina at the time of the first English contacts in 1585/6. According to explorer Ralph Lane, the Chowanokes (Chowanocs, Chawonocs) had 19 villages with the capital being the town of Chowanoke near present-day Harrellsville in Hertford County. Archeological excavation at Chowanoke confirmed Lane’s report of its location. The town was, including fields, a mile long and was home to several hundred Chowanoke people. It is probable that disease from the first English contact weakened the Chowanoke, as it did other coastal Carolina Algonquian peoples, thus allowing the neighboring (but more inland) Tuscarora to expel the Chowanoke from the river.
In 1607, an expedition, acting on orders from Captain John Smith of Jamestown, found the Chowanoke presence on the Chowan to be negligible or non-existent. They had been reduced to one settlement across the Chowan River from the Chowanoke town site in Gates County on Bennett’s Creek.
Several decades later, the Chowanokes had strengthened enough to wage two wars with English settlers in 1644 and 1675-77, meeting defeat each time. After these wars, their settlement on Bennett’s Creek became America’s first Indian reservation. Due to encroachments and violations of treaties, only two Chowanoke families remained in the Bennett’s Creek settlement in 1754, the Bennetts and the Robbinses. Bennett and Robbins males served in the War of Independence. By 1810, only the Robbinses were left and they seem to no longer exist as a separate community by 1822, having dispersed and married peoples of other races.
One group of Robbinses remained intact, first moving to Colerain in Bertie County, down river on the Chowan. Four members this group served in the colored troops of the Union Army. One of the four, Parker D. Robbins, later served as a state representative for Bertie County. Parker Robbins also was a postmaster, inventor, mechanic, sawmill operator, steamboat builder and operator. Many Robbinses are now members of the Meherrin tribe in Hertford County.
