Monacan people

The Monacan is one of several Native American tribes recognized by the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. The Monacan Tribe has not been recognized as an Indian tribe by the federal government. They are located primarily in Amherst County, Virginia near Lynchburg, Virginia. As of 2009 there are approximately 2,000 members of the tribe.^[1] There are satellite groups in West Virginia, Maryland, and Ohio.

The contemporary Monacan people claim to be descendants of an Eastern Siouan tribe of American Indians by the same name. The historic Monacan tribe, first recorded in 1607 in Virginia, was related to the Siouan Tutelo, Saponi and Occaneechi.

There is no conclusive evidence linking members of the contemporary tribe with the historic tribe.

17th century

Historical marker near the site of the Monacan village of Monasukapanough in northern Albemarle County, Virginia.

When the English first explored the James River in May 1607, they learned that the James River Monacan (along with their northern Mannahoac allies on the Rappahannock River) controlled the area between the Fall line in Richmond and the Blue Ridge Mountains, who were hostile to the Powhatan confederacy. They called their territory Amai Amañuhkañ (“The Country of the People of the Land”). The weroance Parahunt, son of paramount chief Powhatan, persuaded Captain Christopher Newport not to continue beyond the falls into Monacan country. The determined Newport made an expedition into their country in November 1608. On a 40-mile (64 km) march, the English found two Monacan towns, called Massinacak and Mowhemenchough'. Unlike the Powhatan, who had given the English lavish welcomes, the Monacan largely ignored them and went about their business. The English captured their chief and forced him to conduct them around his kingdom. On November 26, 1608, Peter Wynne, a member of Newport's exploration party to the Monacan villages, wrote a letter to John Egerton, informing him that some members of Newport's party believed the pronunciation of the Monacans' language resembled "Welch", which Wynne spoke, and asked Wynne to act as interpreter.^[2]

Mowhemencho, their easternmost outpost, was between Bernard's Creek and Jones Creek in the eastern tip of Powhatan County, while Massinacak (Mahock) was at the mouth of Mohawk Creek, a mile south of Goochland. Their capital was Rassawek, at the point within the two branches of the upper James and Rivanna Rivers. Tributary to them were the Monahassanugh (later Nahyssan, i.e. Tutelo), whose town was near Wingina, and Monasukapanough (later Saponi), living near Charlottesville. All these groups were closely related with the Siouan Manahoac to the north.

In 1656 several hundred Nahyssan, Mahock, and 'Rechahecrians' (possibly Erie) threatened both the Powhatan tribes and the English by camping near the falls. A combined force of English and Powhatan was sent to dislodge them in a bloody battle in which the Pamunkey chief Totopotomoi was slain.

The Monacan towns of Mowhemencho and Mahock were still in the area in 1670, when they were visited by John Lederer and Major Harris, who found that the men possessed muskets. Lederer recorded their tradition that they had settled in the area on account of an oracle 400 years earlier, having been driven from the northwest by an enemy nation. They told him they had found it occupied by the Doeg, whom they eventually displaced, in the meantime teaching them the art of growing corn. Another Monacan tradition he records as follows: "From four women, viz. Pash, Sepoy, Askarin, and Maraskarin, they derive the race of mankinde; which they therefore divide into four tribes, distinguished under those several names."

At the time of Lederer's visit, the tribe had about 30 bowmen, out of a total population of perhaps 100. Lederer also noted the towns of Sapon and Pintahae on the Staunton River; Swanton considers this last to be a Nahyssan village, which Batts and Fallam recorded as Hanahaskie in 1671. The Nahyssan settled on an island at the junction of the Stanton and Dan Rivers, above the Occaneechis, around 1675.

In 1677, the Monacan chief Surenough was one of several native signatories to the Treaty of Middle Plantation following Bacon's Rebellion. The English and Pamunkey encountered them, and the Manahoac, on the Upper Mattaponi and North Anna rivers in 1684.

By 1699, they had abandoned their homeland. The former site of Mowhemencho was occupied by French Huguenot pioneers. First promised land at Jamestown, they were forced above the falls on the James River when they came in 1700. They renamed the village "Manakin-Town".

Although a few Monacan lingered in the area as late as 1702, the core remnant seems to have merged with the Nahyssan and other closely related Virginia Siouan tribes, by then known generally as Tutelo-Saponi. Under this collective name, the travels of the bulk of the tribe may be traced to North Carolina (1702), back to Virginia (Fort Christanna, 1714). They headed north to join the Iroquois for protection, and were noted in Pennsylvania (Shamokin, by 1740); and in New York (Coreorgonel) by 1753, where they joined the Cayuga. They participated with them in the American Revolutionary War as allies of the British against the colonists. After the war, the Monacan went with the Iroquois to Canada. They were settled at the (Six Nation Reserve of the Grand River First Nation) in present-day Ontario. Their settlement Tutelo Heights was noted in 1779. By the early 20th century, their descendants in Ontario had been largely absorbed by the Cayuga tribe through intermarriage.

Smaller bands are believed to have split off in North Carolina, and at several locations across Virginia.

Origins and legends of modern tribe

After Peter Wynne's expedition of 1608, the Monacan are one of the groups who have been conjectured to be "Welsh Indians"^{[citation needed]}. Historians have found no evidence for that and treat it as myth^{[citation needed]}. The Monacan language was part of the Siouan language family.

In 1831-1833, William Johns, an ancestor of some of today's Monacan, purchased 452 acres (1.83 km²) of land on Bear Mountain for a settlement of families related to him. In 1850, the census recorded 29 families there.^[3][4]

Mongrel Virginians: The WIN Tribe was a study of a mixed-race group in the Blue Ridge Mountains, published by the Carnegie Institution. The author described the group as "degenerate". (Some claim the authors studied the Monacan.)^{[citation needed]} The author referred to the group as the WIN tribe, for White-Indian-Negro, because he was disguising the name of the group, the surnames of its members, the county which was studied - every fact about them. Some contemporary academic reviewers strongly criticized and ridiculed the book and its reliance on community anecdotes to make judgments about families and individuals.^[5]

When ancestors of current Monacan families entered the U.S. military, they resisted accepting the classification of "colored." ^[4]

In 1946 the researcher William Harlan Gilbert, Jr. described the Monacan in his "Memorandum Concerning the Characteristics of the Larger Mixed-Blood Racial Islands of the Eastern United States". Edward T. Price had a study in 1953, "A Geographical Analysis of White-Negro-Indian Racial Mixtures in the Eastern United States ". Both used the former name for the group, "Issues", generally used to refer to free people of color, including mixed-race, who were free before the Civil War. Both authors considered the Issues (sometimes called "old Issues") to be triracial.

The Episcopal Church ran a primary school (Bear Mountain Indian Mission School) for the children of the community at Bear Mountain near Amherst, Virginia. There was no high school education available. In 1963, Amherst County proposed a $30,000 bond to build a school for the mission community. The proposal was voted down, and 23 students applied for transfer to public schools. The state approved their applications and the mission school closed.

Historians believe that most early Monacan fled from encroaching white colonial settlement, with few remaining behind. There is no conclusive evidence connecting the people who today claim to be Monacan descendants with the historical Monacan tribe.

Paul Heinegg is a late 20th-century researcher who believes that, rather than seeking ties to the historic Monacan people, historians should consider the contemporary group as one of a number of tri-racial isolate groups of multicultural ancestry, formed mostly from descendants of African Americans free during the colonial period in Virginia. With their European-American neighbors, such free people of color followed migration paths to where land was more affordable on the frontier in Virginia and North Carolina. These areas also gave them more freedom from racial strictures than in the plantation communities. Most of such free people of color had their origins as descendants of white women and African or African American men in the decades before the lines of slavery were hardened. They were born free because of the status of their mothers. Some had ancestors who were slaves freed as early as the mid-17th century.^[6]

Claims and recognition as Native American

In the early 1980s, Peter Houck, a local physician, published Indian Island in Amherst County, in which he speculated that the free people of color in the region during the antebellum era were descendants of the Monacan tribe.^[7] While this population had been claiming an Indian identity since the turn of the 20th century, Houck was the first to link some of them to the Monacan Tribal identity. Prior to Houck's book, most people claiming Native American ancestry in that vicinity had identified as Cherokee. Many of the local families continue to claim Cherokee instead of Monacan ancestry.^[8]

In 1988, the Monacan Tribe incorporated as a nonprofit organization, and in 1989, the tribe was officially recognized by the State of Virginia. Other tribes recognized by the state include the Chickahominy, Eastern Chickahominy, Mattaponi, Nansemond, Pamunkey, Rappahannock, Upper Mattaponi, Patawomeck, Nottoway, and Cheroenhaka (Nottoway) tribes. The Monacan Tribe has not been recognized as an Indian tribe by the federal government, although they have sought such recognition.

Celebration

Today the Monacan Tribe operates a yearly powwow in May, and a homecoming celebration in October. A model of an ancient Monacan village has been created as part of the tourist spot Natural Bridge (Virginia), in nearby Rockbridge County.

References

Further reading

• Houck, Peter W. Indian Island in Amherst County. Lynchburg: Lynchburg Historical Research Co., 1984.
• Estabrook, Arthur H. & McDougle, Ivan E. Mongrel Virginians: The Win Tribe. Washington: Carnegie Institution, 1926.

External links

• Monacan Nation, official site