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Historic Buckingham, Inc.
P.O. Box 152
Buckingham, Va. 23921
Photo Gallery
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Cowboy Day 2011
Spooky Hollow 2011
Monacan Nation
Buckingham County, Virginia ……
When we drive in the country, have you wondered what it was like when the first settlers arrived in Jamestown in 1607?
I certainly have and found out some very interesting facts. If we were to look at a map of that period we would see that we are living in the heart of the Monacan nation.
Who were these people?
These Indians belonged to a vast Powhatan autocracy and spoke Algonquian languages. In the piedmont and mountain regions of this area lived Siouan Indians of the Monacan and Mannahoac tribes, arranged in a confederation ranging from the Roanoke River Valley to the Potomac River, and from the Fall Line at Richmond and Fredericksburg west through the Blue Ridge Mountains.
At this time, the Virginia Siouans numbered more than 10,000 people. They were an agricultural people who grew the “Three Sisters” crops of corn, beans and squash, and they had domesticated a wide variety of other foods, including sunflowers, fruit trees, wild grapes and nuts. They lived in villages with palisaded walls, and their homes were dome-shaped structures of bark and reed mats. These Monacan ancestors hunted deer, elk and small game, and they would leave their villages every year to visit their hunting camps.
The Monacans traded with the Powhatans to the east and the Iroquois to the north. They mined copper, which they wore in necklaces, and which the Powhatans prized greatly. The Monacans also buried their dead in mounds, a tradition that differentiates them from neighboring Indian nations. Throughout the piedmont and mountain regions, thirteen mounds have been identified and many excavated, yielding interesting information about the lives of these First Americans, whose ancestors inhabited this region for more than 10,000 years.
Unlike the Powhatans, who maintained an appearance of friendly relations with the colonists, the Monacan people appeared to want little contact with the English. A number of explorers visited their towns and described them, but none remained to learn the Monacan languages, and thus the historical record of these people is poor in contrast to Powhatan history.
Between 1607 and 1720, a series of encounters are recorded, and the Monacans gradually moved westward, away from the advancing settlers. Some stayed for several years at Fort Christanna, in Brunswick County, and these people eventually moved into Pennsylvania and finally to Canada, where they were adopted by the Cayugas, a division of the Iroquois Confederacy.
In the 1750s, Thomas Jefferson described a party of passing Indians on his property (near Monticello) who visited a burial mound there. They stayed at the mound for quite some time, with expressions of sorrow on their faces, and then went on their way. Because the Monacans of Amherst County were the only Siouan Indians remaining in the mound region at this time, it is assumed that they were these travelers. The episode shows that the Monacan people knew their ancestors were buried in the mounds and still visited them to grieve. Jefferson later excavated this mound, finding numerous graves inside. He has become known as “the father of American archaeology” because he documented his findings.
Lewis Evans published a map, in 1755, showing the Monacans and Tuscaroras located in the Amherst, Nelson and Bedford areas. There were two villages of Monacan Indians located nearby, one near White Rock Hill and one on the opposite side of the river. These Indians were peaceful and did not harm their new neighbors, the settlers.
However, other Monacan people were disturbed by the arrivals. The Town of Lynchburg was established in 1786. Prior to this, a settlement had developed at Bethel, on the James River, and both Indian and white people were known to live there. According to one source, “It is common knowledge among older people of the area that the graveyard (at Bethel) contains a mixture of Whites and Indians who have lived in the vicinity for the past two centuries.” By 1807, the settlement of Monacan ancestors on Johns Creek had been named “Oronoco,” after a type of dark-leaf tobacco grown in the area. One source has suggested that the Indians helped their new neighbors to grow this tobacco, thus contributing greatly to one of the greatest tobacco markets in the world at that time, which became the City of Lynchburg. The settlement at Oronoco was listed as a post town on a map of the county, and from this settlement grew the modern Monacan Nation
The Monacan Nation, headquartered in Amherst County, has survived almost four hundred years since the first settlers landed at Jamestown. Today the tribe numbers nearly 1700 people, as more descendants discover their heritage and return to Amherst to celebrate their Indian culture. The tribe operates numerous programs designed to assist tribal members and to educate the general public. It has paid off its land purchase on Bear Mountain and acquired new parcels as well. The Monacan Nation, one of the few American Indian nations that still remain in their ancestral homeland, has made significant contributions to Virginia's history and development, and it continues to be a strong group, dedicated to the survival of Indian people in Virginia and throughout the hemisphere.
The Monacan Ancestral Museum is staffed and operated by volunteers within the tribe. committed to preserving the rich legacy of the tribe's history and culture.
Located at: 2009 Kenmore Road
Amherst, VA 24521
(434) 946-5391
This is a synopsis of an article written for The Lee Wayside Historic Village. The entire article is available at the Village along with baskets made by the Monacans and other related artifacts.
Bibliography: Karenne Wood, Program Director, Historical Research Office, Monacan Indian Nation
