Weyanoke people

Weyanoke

Total population
extinct
Regions with significant populations
Virginia, United States
Languages
unattested Eastern Algonquian language
Related ethnic groups
Powhatan Confederacy, Nottoway

The Weyanoke people (/ˈwaɪənɒk/ WYE-ə-nok[1]) were an Indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands.

Name

Their name is also spelled Weyanock,[2] as British colonist John Smith recorded on his map.[3] Alternative spellings include Weanoc,[4] Weanock, Winauh, Winauk, Wynauh, and Wynauk.[3] Their name may mean "at the bend" of a river,[2] coming from either the Eastern Niantic or Nipmuck language.[3]

Territory

The general location of 17th-century Weyanock territory marked by present-day Charles City County, Virginia.

Their lands were located along the James River[5] and west of the mouth of Appomattox River, near present-day Weyanoke, Virginia.[4] Their main capital settlement was at Weyanoke Point in Charles City County, Virginia.[2] Their second primary settlement was at the head of Powell's Creek in Prince George County, Virginia.[2]

History

At the beginning of the 17th century, when the tribe had early contact with English colonists, the Weynock traded with Wahunsenacawh (Powhatan, c. 1547–c. 1618).[6] Some historians considered them to be a part of the Powhatan Confederacy.[5]

Their population was 500 in 1608.[5] After attacks by the Iroquois Confederacy at the end of the 17th century, they migrated out. They signed the Treaty of Middle Plantation with the Virginia Colony in 1677.

Remnants of the Weyanock and the Nansemond joined the Nottoway in the early 18th century.[7]

By 1727, they lived along the Nottoway River.[5]At the end of the 18th century, the Weyanock merged completely into the Nottoway, with the surnames Wynoake and Wineoak occasionally appearing on public documents.[8]

Notes

1. "Virginia's First People: The Weyanoke—A World of Water and Land". YouTube. November 10, 2017. Retrieved 9 November 2022.
2. Rountree, The Powhatan Indians of Virginia, 9.
3. Rountree, The Powhatan Indians of Virginia, 154.
4. Swanton, John Reed (1952). The Indian Tribes of North America. Baltimore, MD: Genealogical Publishing Company. p. 70. ISBN 9780806317304.
5. Hodge, Handbook of North American Indians, 926.
6. Rountree, The Powhatan Indians of Virginia, 111.
7. Rountree, "The Termination and Dispersal of the Nottoway Indians of Virginia," 194.
8. Rountree, "The Termination and Dispersal of the Nottoway Indians of Virginia," 199.

References

• Hodge, Frederick W. Handbook of North American Indians. Washington, DC.: Government Printing Press, 1912.
• Rountree, Helen C. (2013). The Powhatan Indians of Virginia: Their Traditional Culture. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 9780806176864.
• Rountree, Helen C. (April 1987). "The Termination and Dispersal of the Nottoway Indians of Virginia". The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography. 95 (2): 193–214. JSTOR 4248941.