The Nottoway, in their own language Cheroenhaka, Cherohakah, Cheroohoka or Tcherohakaʔ, are an Iroquoian-language tribe of Virginia Indians living mainly in the region around Southampton, Virginia. Although neither state nor federally recognized today, the tribe has been recognized since colonial times by regional governments, as attested by numerous treaties.
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Name
The meaning of the name Cheroenhaka (Tuscarora: Čiruˀęhá•ka•ˀ[1]) is uncertain. The late Iroquoianist Dr. Blair Rudes analyzed the second element as -hakaʔ meaning "one or people who is/are characterized in a certain way", and conjectured that the first element was related to Tuscarora čárhuˀ, "tobacco".[2] It is also interpreted as "People at the Fork of the Stream".[3]
The term Nottoway derives from an Algonquian term sometimes applied to other Iroquoian- or Siouan-speaking tribes as well, Nadawa or Nadowessioux meaning "adders". Another form of this same term gave rise to the ethnonym "Sioux" used for the Plains Dakota tribe.
Another Algonquian term applied to the Nottoway, Meherrin and Tuscarora — "Mangoak" or "Mangoags" — appears in English records from 1584 to 1650. This same term (Mengwe) is also seen in the Dutch names for the Susquehannocks ("White Minquas") and Eries ("Black Minquas") — as well as in the later name Mingo in reference to descendants of these tribes that had been partly assimilated into the Six Nations.
Language
The Nottoway language became extinct well before 1900.[4] At the time of European contact (1650), speakers numbered only in the hundreds. From then until 1735, a number of fluent interpreters inluding Thomas Blunt, Henry Briggs and Thomas Wynn acted for the Virginia Colony in an official capacity. These interpreters also served the adjacent Meherrins, hard by the river of that name, as well as the Nansemonds, who spoke Nottoway in addition to their own Algonquian dialect of Powhatan.[5] The last two interpreters were dismissed in 1735, since the Nottoways were by then using English.
By 1820, there were said to be only three elderly speakers of Nottoway remaining.[6] In that year John Wood collected over 250 word samples from one of these, Chief "Queen" Edie Turner. He sent them to Thomas Jefferson, who shared them with Peter DuPonceau. These two men, in their correspondence, quickly confirmed the language as Iroquoian. Several additional words, for a total of about 275, were collected by James Trezvant after 1831, and published by Albert Gallatin in 1836. Hewitt (1910) and Hoffman (1959) analyzed the vocabulary in comparison with Tuscarora, and found them closely related.
History
The Cheroenhaka, like their close neighbours and relatives, the Meherrin and Tuscarora, lived just west of the fall line.
They were first visited and described by explorer Edward Bland on an expedition from Fort Henry, as he recorded in his journal for August 27, 1650. At the time, the people numbered no more than four or five hundred. Bland visited two of their three towns, on Stoney Creek and Rowantee Branch of Nottoway River in what is now Sussex County. These were led by two brothers, Oyeocker and Chounerounte.
The Nottoway and Meherrin became friendly to the English, and were the only tribes to send warriors to help the English against the Susquehannock in 1675. Following Bacon's Rebellion, both tribes signed the Treaty of Middle Plantation in 1677, thereby becoming Tributary Nations to the Virginia Colony. By 1681, hostile tribes caused the Nottoway to relocate southward to Assamoosick Swamp in modern Surry County. In 1694 they moved again, to the mouth of a swamp in what is now Southampton County. Around this time, they absorbed the remnants of the Weyanokes — an Algonquian-language tribe that had formerly been part of the Powhatan Confederacy.[7]
Although never numerous, the Nottoway were able to keep their organization. They did not disappear from records, merge into other tribes, or get pushed too far from their original homeland. Scholars believe the early Nottoway were similar to the Tuscarora and Meherrin.
The tribe depended on the cultivation of staples, such as the three sisters — maize, squash, and beans. This cultivation was typically done by women, while the men hunted game and fished in the rivers. They built multi-family dwellings known as longhouses, in communities protected by stockade fences.
The Nottoway population was first reduced by various epidemics of new diseases, to which they had no immunity, brought about by European contact. Tribal warfare and encroaching colonists also lowered their numbers. When the Tuscarora migrated northward ca. 1720 to become the Sixth Nation of the Iroquois Confederacy in New York, some Nottoway also migrated there, while others remained in Virginia. It is probable that some Iroquois descendants, especially among the Tuscarora in New York and Canada, also have Nottoway ancestry.
Some Nottoway returned to the South, with bands of Tuscarora and Meherrin joining and merging with them. These groups went to South Carolina.
References
- ^ Rudes, Blair A. Tuscarora English Dictionary Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999
- ^ Rudes, Blair Sketch of the Nottoway Language from a Historical-Comparative Perspective, University of Chicago Press, 1981.
- ^ Cheroenhaka Nottoway Indian Tribe History
- ^ Rudes, Sketch of the Nottoway Language.
- ^ Helen Rountree, Pocahontas's People p. 108.
- ^ Rudes, Sketch of....
- ^ Thomas C. Parramore, 1978, Southampton County p.1-5.
Additional reading
- "Cheroenhaka (Nottoway) State and Federal Recognition", Cheroenhaka website
- Swanton, John R. The Indian Tribes of North America. Smithsonian Institution Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 145. Washington DC.: Government Printing Office, 1952.
- Hodge, Frederick W. Handbook of North American Indians. Washington, DC.: Government Printing Press, 1910.
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