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Nansemond

March 03, 2023

The Nansemond are the indigenous people of the Nansemond River, a 20-mile long tributary of the James River in Virginia. Nansemond people lived in settlements on both sides of the Nansemond River where they fished (with the name "Nansemond" meaning "fishing point" in Algonquian), harvested oysters, hunted, and farmed in fertile soil.

Nansemond
Regions with significant populations
Virginia
Languages
Algonquian (Historical), English
Religion
Traditional Religion, Christianity
Related ethnic groups
Nottoway, Chowanoke, Chesapeake, Pamunkey, Mattaponi, Chickahominy, Meherrin, Haliwa-Saponi

Gradually pushed off their lands in the colonial and following periods, the Nansemond struggled to maintain their culture. They reorganized in the late 20th century and gained state recognition from Virginia in 1985.[1] They gained federal recognition in 2018 after Congress passed a bill.[2] Many members of the tribe still live on former ancestral lands in Suffolk, Chesapeake, and surrounding cities.

Language

The Nansemond language is believed to have been Algonquian, similar to that of many other Atlantic coastal tribes. But only six words have been preserved, which are not enough to identify it.[3] The six words, which may have been corrupted in memory by the time they were written down in 1901, are nĭkătwĭn (one), näkătwĭn (two), nikwásăti (three), toisíaw’ (four), mishä́naw (five), and marímo (dog).[4]

History

The Nansemond people were members of the Powhatan Paramount Chiefdom, which consisted of about 30 tribes, estimated to have numbered more than 20,000 people in the coastal area of what became Virginia. They paid fealty to a paramount chief, known as the Powhatan.[5] They lived along the Nansemond River, an area they called Chuckatuck.[5] In 1607, when a group of settlers led by the explorer John Smith arrived on the north side of the James River and established the settlement of Jamestown, the Nansemond were initially wary.[6]

In 1607, the Jamestown settlers had begun to explorer the Nansemond River, following the river's oyster beds. Relationships between the colonists and the Nansemond, already strained by Indian raids, deteriorated further in 1609 when a group of Jamestown settlers were sent to the Indians to trade ratchets and copper for food. The colonists never returned. A search party was formed and coming upon some Indians, were told the group was sacrificed, their brains cut and scraped from their skulls with mussel shells. In retaliation the colonists went to Dumpling Island, where the head chief lived and where the tribe's temples and sacred items were kept.[7] The raiding party destroyed the burial sites of tribal leaders and temples. Houses and religious sites were ransacked for valuables, such as pearls and copper ornaments, which were customarily buried with the bodies of leaders.[5] By the 1630s, colonists had begun to encroach on Nansemond lands. The two peoples had differing ideas about the concept of ownership of land.[6]

Marriage of John Bass and Elizabeth

 
Members of the Nansemond tribe, mostly members of the Weaver and Bass families, c. 1900, Smithsonian Institution

John Bass, a colonist in early 17th-century Virginia, married Elizabeth, the daughter of the leader of the Nansemond Nation. After she was baptized into the established Anglican Church of the colony, they married on August 14, 1638. Bass had been born 7 September 1616; he died in 1699.[8] They had eight children together (Elizabeth, John, Jordan, Keziah, Nathaniel, Richard, Samuel, and William). Although Christianized, Elizabeth likely raised their children in Nansemond culture. The tribe had a matrilineal kinship system in which the children were considered to be born into their mother's clan and people.

Some Nansemond claim descent from this marriage.[5] Based on her research, Dr. Helen C. Rountree says that all current Nansemond descend from this marriage.[6]

William H. Weaver is sitting; Augustus Bass is standing behind him. The Weaver family were indentured East Indians (from modern-day India and Pakistan) who were free in Lancaster County by about 1710. By 1732 they were "taxables" [note: free blacks (generally free people of color) and Indians (Native Americans) had to pay a tax] in Norfolk County, and taxable "Mulatto" landowners in nearby Hertford County, North Carolina by 1741. By 1820 there were 164 "free colored" members of the family in Hertford County. In the 1830s some registered as Nansemond Indians in Norfolk County. Smithsonian Institution, "Nansemond Indians, ca. 1900."[9]

Affected by encroaching colonists throughout the seventeenth century, the Nansemond tribe eventually split apart. Those who had become Christians adopted European manners of living and stayed along the Nansemond River as farmers. The other Nansemond, known as the "Pochick," engaged in an unsuccessful war with New England colonists in 1644, and the survivors of the conflict fled southwest to the Nottoway River, where they were assigned a reservation by the House of Burgesses. By 1744 they had ceased using the reservation and gone to live with the Nottoway Indians [note: this was an Iroquoian-language tribe] on another reservation nearby ... The Nansemond sold their reservation in 1792 and were known as "citizen" Indians.[6]

Restoration of Mattanock

 
Aerial View of Mattanock the Day After the 31st Annual Nansemond Indian Pow Wow

In 2013 the Nansemond came to an agreement with the City of Suffolk, which transferred 100 acres (0.40 km2) to them from an 1,100-acre (4.5 km2) riverfront park along the Nansemond River, their ancestral territory.

The agreement was the result of many years of discussion. The City of Suffolk established a task force to consider the project, which supported giving the site to the Nansemond despite being composed mostly of non-Indians. The tribe had to supply detailed plans for the project, including drawings, and they also had to submit documentation to the Mattanock Town task force explaining the type of non-profit foundation that would be created once the deed to the land was given to the tribe.[10] Helen C. Rountree, whose research helped identify the location of Mattanock Town, helped the tribe, which planned to base their reconstruction on archaeological and other research to ensure that longhouses and other structures had the proper historic dimensions.[10]

In November 2010, the Suffolk City Council agreed to transfer this land back to the Nansemond. In June 2011, everything stalled because of concerns that the tribe had with the proposed development agreement. In August 2013, the City of Suffolk transferred Nansemond ancestral lands back to the tribe.[11] That November, members of the Nansemond Tribe gathered at the historic site of Mattanock Town and blessed the land.[12]

The tribe will use this site to reconstruct the settlement of Mattanock, as well as a community center, museum, pow wow ground, among other facilities. They plan to attract tourists by demonstrating their heritage.[13] This project was developed, explored and negotiated between the tribe and city over a period of more than ten years.

Description

The Nansemond have about 400 tribal members.[13] As a "citizen tribe", they gained state recognition in 1984[14] and federal recognition in 2009. The current chief is Keith Anderson.[13]

They hold monthly tribal meetings at the Indiana United Methodist Church (which was founded in 1850 as a mission for the Nansemond). The tribe hosts an annual pow wow every year in August. The tribe has also operated a museum and gift shops.[7]

Federal recognition

The Nansemond and other landless Virginia tribes did not gain federal recognition until Congress passed a bill for it in 2018. A bill to recognize six tribes was introduced into both houses of Congress. It covered the following: the Chickahominy Indian Tribe; Eastern Chickahominy Indian Tribe; Upper Mattaponi Tribe; Rappahannock Tribe, Inc.; Monacan Indian Nation; and Nansemond Indian Tribe.[15]

These landless tribes had each applied for federal recognition since the late 20th century through the regular process of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, in the Department of Interior. They had difficulty showing cultural and political continuity since the period of their tribes' dealings with the colony and state. In part this was due to racial discrimination by the European Americans, magnified by Virginia's having been a slave society. As the Nansemond and other tribal peoples intermarried with whites or African Americans, European Americans assumed they were no longer "Indian". But if the mother was Nansemond, she usually raised her children in their tradition. During the early 20th century, Virginia passed a law establishing a binary system of the "one drop rule", requiring each individual to be classified as white or colored (the latter covered anyone with any known African ancestry, regardless of other ancestry or cultural context). Administrators refused to acknowledge families who claimed to be Indian and generally classified them as black, destroying the continuity of records. By contrast, tribal members who were Catholic continued to be registered by churches as Indian for baptisms, marriages and funerals.

Supporters of these tribes gaining federal recognition proposed a bill in 2003, the "Thomasina E. Jordan Indian Tribes of Virginia Federal Recognition Act". In 2009 supporters again proposed this bill and by June 2009, the bill passed the House Committee on Natural Resources and the US House of Representatives. A companion bill was sent to the Senate the date after the bill was voted on in the House. That bill was sent to the Senate's Committee on Indian Affairs. On October 22, 2009 the bill was approved by the Senate committee and on December 23 was placed on the Senate's Legislative calendar.[16][17] The bill had a hold placed for "jurisdictional concerns" by Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK), who urged they apply for recognition through the BIA.

But as noted above, the Virginia tribes have lost valuable documentation because of the state's passage of the Racial Integrity Act of 1924, requiring classification of all residents as white or black (colored). As implemented by Walter Plecker, the first registrar (1912–1946) of the newly created Virginia Bureau of Vital Statistics, records of many Virginia-born tribal members were changed from Indian to "colored" because he decided some families were mixed race and was imposing the one-drop rule.[18] After more delays, the bill was finally passed in January 2018, and six tribes in Virginia gained federal recognition.

References

  1. ^ "Secretary of the Commonwealth – Virginia Indians". www.commonwealth.virginia.gov. Retrieved November 14, 2018.
  2. ^ Robert, Wittman (January 29, 2018). "H.R.984 – 115th Congress (2017–2018): Thomasina E. Jordan Indian Tribes of Virginia Federal Recognition Act of 2017". www.congress.gov. Retrieved November 14, 2018.
  3. ^ (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on December 31, 2018. Retrieved December 31, 2018.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  4. ^ A Vocabulary of Powhatan, compiled by Captain John Smith, with two word-lists of Pamunkey and Nansemond from other sources. Evolution Publishing, 1997.
  5. ^ a b c d Waugaman, Sandra F. and Danielle-Moretti-Langholtz, Ph.D. We're Still Here: Contemporary Virginia Indians Tell Their Stories, Richmond, VA: Palari Publishing, 2006 (revised edition)
  6. ^ a b c d Dr. Helen C. Rountree, "Nansemond History" 2011-07-23 at the Wayback Machine, Nansemond Tribal Association, accessed 16 Sep 2009
  7. ^ a b Karenne Wood, ed., The Virginia Indian Heritage Trail 2009-07-04 at the Wayback Machine, Charlottesville, VA: Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, 2007
  8. ^ Sermon Book of John Bass, owned by the Nansemond Tribe.
  9. ^ Heinegg, Paul (1995). Free African Americans of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland and Delaware: Indian Families Bass & Weaver. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing. Retrieved December 24, 2019.
  10. ^ a b Bobby Whitehead, "Nansemond Indians seek to reconstruct Mattanock Town", Indian Country Today, accessed 16 September 2009.
  11. ^ "Nansemond Indian Tribe Reclaims Native Land in Suffolk". publicnewsservice.org. Retrieved September 20, 2015.
  12. ^ "Tribe blesses land – The Suffolk News-Herald". suffolknewsherald.com. November 26, 2013. Retrieved September 20, 2015.
  13. ^ a b c Tribal Leaders Directory. Tribal Leaders Directory | Indian Affairs. (n.d.). Retrieved December 4, 2022, from https://www.bia.gov/bia/ois/tribal-leaders-directory/tribes/nansemond-indian-tribe
  14. ^ Dr. Helen C. Rountree, "Powhatan History" 2011-07-23 at the Wayback Machine, Nansemond Tribe Website, 2009, accessed 16 Sep 2009
  15. ^ "Thomasina E. Jordan Indian Tribes of Virginia Federal Recognition Act of 2003, 108th Congress bill S.1423" 2016-07-04 at the Wayback Machine, introduced by then-Sen. George Allen (R-VA), not enacted.
  16. ^ "H.R. 1385, Thomasina E. Jordan Indian Tribes of Virginia Federal Recognition Act", GovTrack.us
  17. ^ "Statement of Governor Kaine Submitted to the United States Senate Committee on Indian Affairs" 2009-10-24 at the Wayback Machine Official Site of the Governor of Virginia
  18. ^ ABP. "Baptist executives urge federal recognition of Virginia tribes". Baptist News Global – Conversations that Matter. Retrieved September 20, 2015.

External links

  • Official website
  • "Virginia Indian Heritage Program" 2011-11-12 at the Wayback Machine, Virginia Foundation for the Humanities

March 03, 2023
nansemond, indigenous, people, river, mile, long, tributary, james, river, virginia, people, lived, settlements, both, sides, river, where, they, fished, with, name, meaning, fishing, point, algonquian, harvested, oysters, hunted, farmed, fertile, soil, region. The Nansemond are the indigenous people of the Nansemond River a 20 mile long tributary of the James River in Virginia Nansemond people lived in settlements on both sides of the Nansemond River where they fished with the name Nansemond meaning fishing point in Algonquian harvested oysters hunted and farmed in fertile soil NansemondRegions with significant populationsVirginiaLanguagesAlgonquian Historical EnglishReligionTraditional Religion ChristianityRelated ethnic groupsNottoway Chowanoke Chesapeake Pamunkey Mattaponi Chickahominy Meherrin Haliwa SaponiGradually pushed off their lands in the colonial and following periods the Nansemond struggled to maintain their culture They reorganized in the late 20th century and gained state recognition from Virginia in 1985 1 They gained federal recognition in 2018 after Congress passed a bill 2 Many members of the tribe still live on former ancestral lands in Suffolk Chesapeake and surrounding cities Contents 1 Language 2 History 2 1 Marriage of John Bass and Elizabeth 2 2 Restoration of Mattanock 3 Description 4 Federal recognition 5 References 6 External linksLanguage EditThe Nansemond language is believed to have been Algonquian similar to that of many other Atlantic coastal tribes But only six words have been preserved which are not enough to identify it 3 The six words which may have been corrupted in memory by the time they were written down in 1901 are nĭkătwĭn one nakătwĭn two nikwasăti three toisiaw four misha naw five and marimo dog 4 History EditThe Nansemond people were members of the Powhatan Paramount Chiefdom which consisted of about 30 tribes estimated to have numbered more than 20 000 people in the coastal area of what became Virginia They paid fealty to a paramount chief known as the Powhatan 5 They lived along the Nansemond River an area they called Chuckatuck 5 In 1607 when a group of settlers led by the explorer John Smith arrived on the north side of the James River and established the settlement of Jamestown the Nansemond were initially wary 6 In 1607 the Jamestown settlers had begun to explorer the Nansemond River following the river s oyster beds Relationships between the colonists and the Nansemond already strained by Indian raids deteriorated further in 1609 when a group of Jamestown settlers were sent to the Indians to trade ratchets and copper for food The colonists never returned A search party was formed and coming upon some Indians were told the group was sacrificed their brains cut and scraped from their skulls with mussel shells In retaliation the colonists went to Dumpling Island where the head chief lived and where the tribe s temples and sacred items were kept 7 The raiding party destroyed the burial sites of tribal leaders and temples Houses and religious sites were ransacked for valuables such as pearls and copper ornaments which were customarily buried with the bodies of leaders 5 By the 1630s colonists had begun to encroach on Nansemond lands The two peoples had differing ideas about the concept of ownership of land 6 Marriage of John Bass and Elizabeth Edit Members of the Nansemond tribe mostly members of the Weaver and Bass families c 1900 Smithsonian Institution John Bass a colonist in early 17th century Virginia married Elizabeth the daughter of the leader of the Nansemond Nation After she was baptized into the established Anglican Church of the colony they married on August 14 1638 Bass had been born 7 September 1616 he died in 1699 8 They had eight children together Elizabeth John Jordan Keziah Nathaniel Richard Samuel and William Although Christianized Elizabeth likely raised their children in Nansemond culture The tribe had a matrilineal kinship system in which the children were considered to be born into their mother s clan and people Some Nansemond claim descent from this marriage 5 Based on her research Dr Helen C Rountree says that all current Nansemond descend from this marriage 6 William H Weaver is sitting Augustus Bass is standing behind him The Weaver family were indentured East Indians from modern day India and Pakistan who were free in Lancaster County by about 1710 By 1732 they were taxables note free blacks generally free people of color and Indians Native Americans had to pay a tax in Norfolk County and taxable Mulatto landowners in nearby Hertford County North Carolina by 1741 By 1820 there were 164 free colored members of the family in Hertford County In the 1830s some registered as Nansemond Indians in Norfolk County Smithsonian Institution Nansemond Indians ca 1900 9 Affected by encroaching colonists throughout the seventeenth century the Nansemond tribe eventually split apart Those who had become Christians adopted European manners of living and stayed along the Nansemond River as farmers The other Nansemond known as the Pochick engaged in an unsuccessful war with New England colonists in 1644 and the survivors of the conflict fled southwest to the Nottoway River where they were assigned a reservation by the House of Burgesses By 1744 they had ceased using the reservation and gone to live with the Nottoway Indians note this was an Iroquoian language tribe on another reservation nearby The Nansemond sold their reservation in 1792 and were known as citizen Indians 6 Restoration of Mattanock Edit Aerial View of Mattanock the Day After the 31st Annual Nansemond Indian Pow Wow In 2013 the Nansemond came to an agreement with the City of Suffolk which transferred 100 acres 0 40 km2 to them from an 1 100 acre 4 5 km2 riverfront park along the Nansemond River their ancestral territory The agreement was the result of many years of discussion The City of Suffolk established a task force to consider the project which supported giving the site to the Nansemond despite being composed mostly of non Indians The tribe had to supply detailed plans for the project including drawings and they also had to submit documentation to the Mattanock Town task force explaining the type of non profit foundation that would be created once the deed to the land was given to the tribe 10 Helen C Rountree whose research helped identify the location of Mattanock Town helped the tribe which planned to base their reconstruction on archaeological and other research to ensure that longhouses and other structures had the proper historic dimensions 10 In November 2010 the Suffolk City Council agreed to transfer this land back to the Nansemond In June 2011 everything stalled because of concerns that the tribe had with the proposed development agreement In August 2013 the City of Suffolk transferred Nansemond ancestral lands back to the tribe 11 That November members of the Nansemond Tribe gathered at the historic site of Mattanock Town and blessed the land 12 The tribe will use this site to reconstruct the settlement of Mattanock as well as a community center museum pow wow ground among other facilities They plan to attract tourists by demonstrating their heritage 13 This project was developed explored and negotiated between the tribe and city over a period of more than ten years Description EditThe Nansemond have about 400 tribal members 13 As a citizen tribe they gained state recognition in 1984 14 and federal recognition in 2009 The current chief is Keith Anderson 13 They hold monthly tribal meetings at the Indiana United Methodist Church which was founded in 1850 as a mission for the Nansemond The tribe hosts an annual pow wow every year in August The tribe has also operated a museum and gift shops 7 Federal recognition EditThe Nansemond and other landless Virginia tribes did not gain federal recognition until Congress passed a bill for it in 2018 A bill to recognize six tribes was introduced into both houses of Congress It covered the following the Chickahominy Indian Tribe Eastern Chickahominy Indian Tribe Upper Mattaponi Tribe Rappahannock Tribe Inc Monacan Indian Nation and Nansemond Indian Tribe 15 These landless tribes had each applied for federal recognition since the late 20th century through the regular process of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in the Department of Interior They had difficulty showing cultural and political continuity since the period of their tribes dealings with the colony and state In part this was due to racial discrimination by the European Americans magnified by Virginia s having been a slave society As the Nansemond and other tribal peoples intermarried with whites or African Americans European Americans assumed they were no longer Indian But if the mother was Nansemond she usually raised her children in their tradition During the early 20th century Virginia passed a law establishing a binary system of the one drop rule requiring each individual to be classified as white or colored the latter covered anyone with any known African ancestry regardless of other ancestry or cultural context Administrators refused to acknowledge families who claimed to be Indian and generally classified them as black destroying the continuity of records By contrast tribal members who were Catholic continued to be registered by churches as Indian for baptisms marriages and funerals Supporters of these tribes gaining federal recognition proposed a bill in 2003 the Thomasina E Jordan Indian Tribes of Virginia Federal Recognition Act In 2009 supporters again proposed this bill and by June 2009 the bill passed the House Committee on Natural Resources and the US House of Representatives A companion bill was sent to the Senate the date after the bill was voted on in the House That bill was sent to the Senate s Committee on Indian Affairs On October 22 2009 the bill was approved by the Senate committee and on December 23 was placed on the Senate s Legislative calendar 16 17 The bill had a hold placed for jurisdictional concerns by Senator Tom Coburn R OK who urged they apply for recognition through the BIA But as noted above the Virginia tribes have lost valuable documentation because of the state s passage of the Racial Integrity Act of 1924 requiring classification of all residents as white or black colored As implemented by Walter Plecker the first registrar 1912 1946 of the newly created Virginia Bureau of Vital Statistics records of many Virginia born tribal members were changed from Indian to colored because he decided some families were mixed race and was imposing the one drop rule 18 After more delays the bill was finally passed in January 2018 and six tribes in Virginia gained federal recognition References Edit Secretary of the Commonwealth Virginia Indians www commonwealth virginia gov Retrieved November 14 2018 Robert Wittman January 29 2018 H R 984 115th Congress 2017 2018 Thomasina E Jordan Indian Tribes of Virginia Federal Recognition Act of 2017 www congress gov Retrieved November 14 2018 Archived copy PDF Archived from the original PDF on December 31 2018 Retrieved December 31 2018 a href Template Cite web html title Template Cite web cite web a CS1 maint archived copy as title link A Vocabulary of Powhatan compiled by Captain John Smith with two word lists of Pamunkey and Nansemond from other sources Evolution Publishing 1997 a b c d Waugaman Sandra F and Danielle Moretti Langholtz Ph D We re Still Here Contemporary Virginia Indians Tell Their Stories Richmond VA Palari Publishing 2006 revised edition a b c d Dr Helen C Rountree Nansemond History Archived 2011 07 23 at the Wayback Machine Nansemond Tribal Association accessed 16 Sep 2009 a b Karenne Wood ed The Virginia Indian Heritage Trail Archived 2009 07 04 at the Wayback Machine Charlottesville VA Virginia Foundation for the Humanities 2007 Sermon Book of John Bass owned by the Nansemond Tribe Heinegg Paul 1995 Free African Americans of Virginia North Carolina South Carolina Maryland and Delaware Indian Families Bass amp Weaver Baltimore Genealogical Publishing Retrieved December 24 2019 a b Bobby Whitehead Nansemond Indians seek to reconstruct Mattanock Town Indian Country Today accessed 16 September 2009 Nansemond Indian Tribe Reclaims Native Land in Suffolk publicnewsservice org Retrieved September 20 2015 Tribe blesses land The Suffolk News Herald suffolknewsherald com November 26 2013 Retrieved September 20 2015 a b c Tribal Leaders Directory Tribal Leaders Directory Indian Affairs n d Retrieved December 4 2022 from https www bia gov bia ois tribal leaders directory tribes nansemond indian tribe Dr Helen C Rountree Powhatan History Archived 2011 07 23 at the Wayback Machine Nansemond Tribe Website 2009 accessed 16 Sep 2009 Thomasina E Jordan Indian Tribes of Virginia Federal Recognition Act of 2003 108th Congress bill S 1423 Archived 2016 07 04 at the Wayback Machine introduced by then Sen George Allen R VA not enacted H R 1385 Thomasina E Jordan Indian Tribes of Virginia Federal Recognition Act GovTrack us Statement of Governor Kaine Submitted to the United States Senate Committee on Indian Affairs Archived 2009 10 24 at the Wayback Machine Official Site of the Governor of Virginia ABP Baptist executives urge federal recognition of Virginia tribes Baptist News Global Conversations that Matter Retrieved September 20 2015 External links EditOfficial website Virginia Council on Indians Virginia Indian Heritage Program Archived 2011 11 12 at the Wayback Machine Virginia Foundation for the Humanities Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Nansemond amp oldid 1129699166, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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