Scholars believe that thousands of years ago, in the Ohio River Valley, the Siouan-speaking people lived as a unified group, and that eventually the tribes moved both east and west, separating into the Eastern and Western Siouan speakers. Monacan Indians spoke a language related to other Eastern Siouan tribes, such as the Tutelo. The Monacan people are also related to the Occaneechi and Saponi peoples located in present-day North Carolina, and they were affiliated with the Mannahoac Indians, who occupied the northern Piedmont in what is now Virginia.
Like other Virginia Indians, the Monacans struggled to preserve their identity and culture early in the twentieth century. The Racial Integrity Act of 1924 and subsequent legislation banned interracial marriage in Virginia and asked for voluntary racial identifications on birth and marriage certificates. "White" was defined as having no trace of African ancestry, while all other people, including Indians, were defined as "colored." To accommodate elite Virginians who claimed Pocahontas and John Rolfe as ancestors, the law allowed for those who had "one-sixteenth or less of the blood of the American Indian and have no other non-Caucasic blood [to] be deemed to be white persons." The laws essentially erased Virginia Indians as a category of people.
Time Line
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September 1608 - Christopher Newport and 120 men set out to explore the territory beyond the falls of the James River. They visit two Monacan Indian towns, Mowhemicho and Massanack, and map three others.
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ca. 1754 - Indians may have been observed conducting a ceremony at a burial mound on the Rivanna River in Albemarle County.
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ca. 1784 - Thomas Jefferson directs an archaeological excavation of a burial mound on the Rivanna River in Albemarle County. He publishes his findings in Notes on the State of Virginia.
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ca. 1868 - A log cabin is built on Monacan land near Bear Mountain in Amherst County and is used for church services.
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1908 - The Episcopal minister Arthur P. Gray Jr. establishes Saint Paul's Mission and the Bear Mountain Indian Mission School on Monacan land in Amherst County.
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March 20, 1924 - Governor E. Lee Trinkle signs "An act to Preserve Racial Integrity," a law aimed at protecting whiteness on the state level. It prohibits interracial marriage, defines a white person as someone who has no discernible non-white ancestry, and requires that birth and marriage certificates indicate people's races.
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1930 - A fire at Saint Paul's Mission on Monacan land in Amherst County leaves only a schoolhouse intact.
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February 14, 1989 - The Monacan tribe receives official state recognition.
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1995 - The Episcopal Diocese, which in 1908 had established Saint Paul's Mission on Monacan land in Amherst County, returns the land to the tribe.
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1997 - A log cabin built sometime around 1868 on Monacan land near Bear Mountain in Amherst County is added to the National Register of Historic Places.
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2000 - After learning of the possibility of nearby development, the Monacan Indian Nation conducts a blessing ceremony at the site of Jefferson's Mound, an excavated burial mound that some believe to be associated with Monacan Indians.
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2007 - A Virginia Historical Highway Marker is erected on the site of a log cabin built sometime around 1868 on Monacan land near Bear Mountain in Amherst County.
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January 29, 2018 - The Thomasina E. Jordan Indian Tribes of Virginia Federal Recognition Act is signed into law, granting official federal recognition to the Chickahominy, Eastern Chickahominy, Monacan, Nansemond, Rappahannock, and Upper Mattaponi tribes.
References
Further Reading
External Links
Cite This Entry
- APA Citation:
Encyclopedia Virginia staff Monacan Indian Nation. (2019, March 11). In Encyclopedia Virginia. Retrieved from http://www.EncyclopediaVirginia.org/Monacan_Indian_Nation.
- MLA Citation:
Encyclopedia Virginia staff. "Monacan Indian Nation." Encyclopedia Virginia. Virginia Humanities, 11 Mar. 2019. Web. READ_DATE.
First published: March 28, 2013 | Last modified: March 11, 2019
Contributed by Encyclopedia Virginia staff.