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'Werowocomoco' was the political center of the Powhatan Confederacy of Native American tribes, speaking an Algonquian language, who lived in what is now Virginia at the time of the first English-Native encounters during the establishment of Jamestown and the Virginia Colony in the early 17th century.
The Powhatan capital of Werowocomoco was located along the north bank of the the present-day York River in Gloucester County, Virginia, in all likelihood barely 15 miles away geographically from Jamestown. Culturally, the capitals and their inhabitants were quite literally many worlds apart.

Contents

Powhatan Confederacy

Pocahontas and Captain John Smith

Smith describes location

Wicomico, Powhatan's Chimney

Purtan Bay; ongoing archaeological work

Gloucester County

References

External links

Powhatan Confederacy

The 'Powhatan' (also spelled 'Powatan' and 'Powhaten') were a powerful chiefdom headed by Wahunsunacock (the Chief Powhatan). When this chief created a paramount chiefdom by conquering much of coastal Virginia, he called his lands "Tsenacommacah" and he himself was referred to as "Powhatan", often assumed to be his given name, but actually a place-name (see article Powhatan).
The name "Werowocomoco" comes from Powhatan ''werowans'' (weroance) "chief" and ''komakah'' (-comoco) "settlement". In addition to Werowocomoco, Tsenacommacah maintained another headquarters at the village of Powhatan (in the eastern portion of the present site of Richmond, Virginia).

Pocahontas and Captain John Smith

Werowocomoco is best known as the location of the well-known and oft-told story of English soldier and colonist John Smith's rescue by Pocahontas after he was captured by Opchanacanough, the younger brother of Chief Powhatan while foraging along the Chickahominy River. The captured Englishman was brought to Werowocomoco and brought before
Tsenacommacah (Chief Powhatan).
According to Smith's account, Pocahontas, Chief Powhatan's daughter, prevented her father from executing Smith. However, if it indeed happened at all, it is also believed that this could have been a ritual intended to adopt Smith into the tribe. (Smith made no mention of the incident for over twenty years in his own writings). The story is unclear after 400 years and various dramatic and romanticized versions in book and film.
Despite the general geographic proximity of the two capitals, it has long been clear that they were literally in different worlds culturally. Werowocomoco was abandoned as a capital by Chief Powhatan in less than 3 years after the 1607 establishment of Jamestown, as around 1609-1610, he moved it to a more secure location further inland on the Chickahominy River. The original site lost its significance, and as the Native American lifestyle was overcome by the English and the patenting of land into plantations, specific knowledge of the former location of Werowocomoco was lost.

Smith describes location

The site of Werowocomoco was lost during the 17th century, after it was abandoned around 1609-1610. The current site of West Point (a town established at the confluence of the Pamunkey River and Mattaponi River at the headwaters of the York River clearly meets a description in writings of John Smith, and early leader at Jamestown. From there, a distance downstream to Werowocomoco was provided.

Wicomico, Powhatan's Chimney

It was long thought that Werowocomoco was located near Wicomico, which is the site of Powhatan's Chimney, and is about 25 miles east of present-day West Point, Virginia, based largely upon the mileage figure provided by
According to Smith's writing (sic):
"Fourteene myles from the river Powhatan is the river Pamunkee, which is navaginable 60 or 70 myles, but with Cathes and small Barkes 30 or 40 myles further.At he ordinary flowing of the salt water, it divideth itself into two gallent branches. On the South side inhabited the people Toughtamand (?), who haue about 60 men for warres. On the North branch Mattapoment, who has 30 men. Where the river is divided the Country is called Pamaunkee, and nourisheth neare 300 able men. About 25 myles lower on the North side of this river is Werawocomoco, where their great king inhibited when I was delivered him prisioner; yet there are not past 40 able men."
However, also according to Smith, when Jamestown was established by the English colonists in 1607, it was 12 miles away from Werowocomoco as the crow flies. The long-thought location near Wicomico is much further from Jamestown than that.

Purtan Bay; ongoing archaeological work

A location some distance from Wicomico on Purtan Bay was first identified in 1977 as the possible location by Daniel Mouer, an archaeologist at Virginia Commonwealth University. An associate professor at Virginia
Commonwealth University in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Dr. Mouer collected artifacts from the surface of plowed fields and along the beach. He found fragments of Indian ceramic from the Late Woodland/Contact Period and determined that this area was the "possible site of Werowocomoco. ^[1]
After years of collecting artifacts at ground level, a later landowner authorized additional archaeological exploration. Between March 2002 and April 2003 archaeologists conducted an archaeological survey of a portion of the property. Initial testing included digging 603 test holes, 12 to 16 inches deep and 50 feet apart, where thousands of artifacts, including a blue bead that may have been made in Europe for trading, were found. ^[2] There, along with historical descriptions, suggest the farm was the site of Werowocomoco. We believe we have sufficient evidence to confirm that the property is indeed the village of Werowocomoco," said Randolph Turner, director of the Virginia Department of Historic Resources' Portsmouth Regional Office in 2003.
^[3]
The Purtan Bay site is less than 25 miles from West Point. However, although far less than 25 miles downstream from West Point, it is only 15 miles distant from Jamestown, and is additionally supported by studying the early mapping evidence
Two Gloucester-based archaeologists, Thane Harpole and David Brown, were instrumental in the work at the site since 2002 and are involved in the excavations there. [1] Starting that year, the Werowocomoco Research Group began excavations at the Werowocomoco site. The Research Group is a collaborative effort of the College of William and Mary, the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, and Virginia tribes descended from the Powhatans. The excavations have identified a dispersed village community occupied from A.D. 1200 through the early seventeenth century. Artifacts recovered during the excavations include Native pottery, stone tools, as well as floral and faunal remains from a large residential community. The Research Group has also recovered large numbers of English trade goods produced from glass, copper, and other metals originating from Jamestown. The colonists' accounts of interaction at Werowocomoco emphasize Powhatan's efforts to obtain large numbers of English objects, particularly copper, during the early days of the Jamestown colony.
It is notable that, unlike some earlier projects, at this site, the archaeologists and other researchers have carefully incorporated ongoing consultation with members of the local Native American tribes, the Mattaponi and Pamunkey, who are prominent among the decedents of the Powhatan Confederacy, as such sites which include burial artifacts are sacred to these tribes.
:"When I step on this site folks...I just feel different. The spirituality just touches me and I feel it." Stephen R. Adkins, chief of the Chickahominy Tribe and a member of the Virginia Indian advisory board ^[4]

Gloucester County

Even through the controversy over years of beliefs, Gloucester County has been able to embrace the fact that Werowocomoco and a lot of other significant Powhatan heritage are portions of the county's history. It has been noted that both the newly identified site on Purtan Bay and the site of Powhatan's Chimney at Wicomico, also thought to have been the site of Werowocomoco, are both located within an area that the Native Americans may have considered as Werowocomoco. It has been noted in the minutes of the Gloucester County Board of Supervisors that the village of the chief in the Algonquian language was not a place name, but more correctly translated, a reference to the lands where he lived, and the lifestyle included frequent relocations of various quarters within a general area.^[5]

References

1. http://powhatan.wm.edu/aboutProject/index.htm
2. http://powhatan.wm.edu/aboutProject/archaeologicalSurvey.htm
3. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/05/07/national/main552771.shtml
4. http://www.wm.edu/news/?id=3841
5. http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:2PCIpDGXwyMJ:www.gloucesterva.info/board/BOS2006MeetingMinutes/November8.pdf+Wicomico+Gloucester+County+Powhatan%27s+Chimney&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=4&gl=us

External links

★ Werowocomoco Research Project - Excavation group's site

★ National Geographic Magazine Jamestown/Werowocomoco Interactive

★ News story about Werowocomoco

★ The Anglo-Powhatan Wars

★ John Smith's map of Virginia

★ Update from excavations, Jun 21 2006