On the north bank of the Pamaunke river, which the English renamed the York River, the paramount chief Powhatan lived in a community called Werowocomoco. This Virginian Algonquian leader and his community occupied this land at the time of the English settlement in Jamestown. The Powhatan confederacy encompassed much of coastal Virginia with a population in excess of 15,000 people. English settler John Smith met Powhatan at this site after he was captured by Powhatan’s brother in 1607. It is from this meeting at Werowocomoco that John Smith likely invented the tale or misinterpreted events when he later recounted that Powhatan’s daughter, Pocahontas, saved him from execution.
After a range of frustrating and sometimes hostile confrontations, Powhatan and his community abandoned the area, seeking a less accessible site from which to withdraw from dealings with the colonists. They initially moved to Orapakes, a swamp near the Chickahominy river, and then moved still further north.
While knowledge of the English settlement at Jamestown looms large in American history and memory, the exact location of Werowocomoco and its importance to the area’s Native peoples were soon lost to the colonists. It was not until the twenty-first century that archaeologists recovered the site. Eastern Virginian tribes continue to oversee this work in conjunction with other entities. Since archeological excavations began, evidence of a large town have emerged, including earthen ditches that date to the year 1400. The National Park Service acquired the site in 2016, and it is currently closed while the NPS develops a plan and design for the future park. Today, the reservations of both the Pamunkey and Mattaponi tribes are located on tributaries of the York River, upstream from Werocomoco.
Nearby sites of interest:
-A new historical marker to the site stands on Highway 17 near its juncture with Hickory Fork Road.
-This site has recently been added to the Captain John Smith Chesapeake Historic Trail, a trail whose very name showcases the ways in which the English have been privileged in this historical narrative: https://www.nps.gov/cajo/index.htm.
To learn more:
-Linwood “Little Bear” Custalow and Angela “Silver Star” Daniel, The True Story of Pocahontas: The Other Side of History (2007)
-Frederic Gleech, Powhatan’s World and Colonial Virginia (1997)
-Karenne Wood, editor, The Virginia Indian Heritage Trail
http://virginiahumanities.org/files/2011/12/Heritage-Trail_2ed.pdf