Opinion: Tribes left mark in Virginia as they were pushed out

Wednesday, June 15, 2011  

"Sometimes, traveling along Ashburn's carefully tended parkways, I try to imagine how this area might have looked 400 years ago, before the Europeans arrived. The land must have been, as now, partly wooded, with a gentle topography and abundant water, a mild climate, and plenty of wildlife. It must have provided an abundant good life for those early natives. Seventeenth century woodcarvings show that they lived in villages with log houses, raised corn and tobacco, and in the winters went into the western hills to fish and hunt game.

The historical record is ambiguous about exactly who they were. One tribe mentioned in the old documents is the Patowmacks, who, one account says, were “a sub-tribe within the Powhattan confederacy.” But Chief Powhattan – real name Wahunsenacawh – ruled mostly to the south and west. In fact, it seems our locals took his daughter Pocahontas prisoner when she came here to collect tribute, and sold her to the English. She rapidly embraced English ways, converted to Christianity, became known as Rebecca, married John Rolfe, and actually lived her last years in England. It must also be said, too, that John Smith, whom she supposedly saved from a head-smashing execution, was a notable storyteller who once claimed that his life was saved by another maiden in Ohio.

In any case, the Patowmacks were evidently a successful Algonquian-speaking people who were quite capable of fending off both the Sioux to the south and west and the migrant Iroquois passing through.

But where are those Indians now, and what are their relics?"

Get the Story:
Conrad Geller: The Indians of Ashburn (The Ashburn Patch 6/15)