The annual payment of tribute by Virginia's Indians has been a long-standing practice that still occurs today. In 1646, Necotowance, "the King of the Indians" as the English referred to him, signed a treaty to end the third Anglo-Indian War. Annual payment of tribute to the colonial governor (as the representative of the king) was to be 20 beaver skins "att the goeing away of Geese." The tribute demonstrated that Necotowance and his people were under the dominion of the English king who would provide them protection from other tribes and also from encroaching European settlers. Thirty-one years later, in 1677, Cockacoeske, the weroansqua or chief of the Pamunkey, signed the Treaty of Middle Plantation. That treaty recognized the authority of the colonial government, and also acknowledged property, land use, and hunting rights of the Virginia Indians.
More than 300 years later, those treaties continue to shape and govern the relationship between the Commonwealth, the state-recognized Virginia Indian tribes, and the federally recognized Virginia Indian tribes. The Mattaponi and Pamunkey represent the original treaty signers and they continue to pay tribute to the Commonwealth's government in a ceremony each November.
This photograph was taken on December 4, 1989. It shows Governor Gerald L. Baliles accepting a tribute of wild turkey from Herman A. Dennis (left) and Tecumseh Deerfoot Cook (right) of the Pamunkey Indian tribe in a ceremony on the steps of the Virginia Executive Mansion in Richmond. On Thanksgiving that year, Baliles hosted the chiefs of Virginia's then eight state-recognized Virginia Indian tribes at a dinner at the Executive Mansion.
Citation: Indian Tribes Pay Tribute Taxes to Governor Baliles, 1989, Visual Studies Collection, Special Collections, Library of Virginia.
Read the 1646 treaty online at Encyclopedia Virginia.
This photograph shows a deerskin mantle that was believed to have been presented by Paramount Chief Powhatan (whose given name was Wahunsonacock) to Captain Christopher Newport of the Virginia Company in 1608. The mantle is embroidered with shells and depicts a man and two deer. It would have been worn like a cloak or hung on a wall. The amount of detail that went into creating the mantle indicates that its owner would have been considered a person of stature and wealth.
At the time of the arrival of the English colonists in 1607, Powhatan ruled Tsenacomoco, an alliance of about thirty tribes and petty chiefdoms anchored by the Powhatan Indians. The mantle was part of a ceremony that Newport hoped would improve the strained relationship between colonists and Indigenous Virginians by recognizing Powhatan’s status among the tribes while also showing that he was subordinate to King James I. John Smith warned Newport that Powhatan would not recognize the king's authority over him because he saw himself as a king in his own right. Powhatan refused to travel to Jamestown for the ceremony so Newport and the English traveled to Werowocomoco, the place of Powhatan leadership, along the north side of the York River.
During the ceremony, Powhatan was presented with several gifts including a bedstead and clothing in the English style. In return, he presented Newport with the deerskin mantle and a pair of his old moccasins. When it came time to present Powhatan with his crown, he refused to bend his head so Newport and Smith leaned on his shoulders to force his knees to bend and the crown was placed on his head.
The attempts at alliance failed and relations between the English and the tribes deteriorated. The marriage of Powhatan's daughter Pocahontas to settler John Rolfe in 1614 brought a short period of peace before Powhatan's death in 1618.
The original deerskin mantle presented to Newport is held in the permanent collection of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, England. This photograph was part of a collection of large photograph albums prepared by the Virginia State Chamber of Commerce to display at the Virginia Room at the 1939 World's Fair in New York.
Citation: Virginia New York World's Fair Commission. Deer-skin mantle presented to Captain Christopher Newport by King Powhatan. 1939 World's Fair Photograph Collection, Library of Virginia.
In 1906, Robert Baden-Powell presented this bust of John Smith to the Commonwealth of Virginia. Although best known as the founder of the Boy Scout movement, Baden-Powell was also an artist of considerable skill. The family of Baden-Powell's mother claimed descent from Captain John Smith, with whom Baden-Powell had much in common. Both were military men, authors, and key figures in British colonial affairs.
Captain John Smith was an English explorer who helped establish Jamestown, the first permanent English colony in North America. Smith worked as a soldier of fortune before joining the Virginia Company of London in 1606. He sailed to the New World on the Susan Constant, one of three ships containing crew and supplies. During this journey Smith was arrested for mutiny by the ship's captain, Christopher Newport. Smith was nearly executed, but was saved by the intercession of a chaplain and the captain of one of the sister ships.
After reaching the Chesapeake Bay in 1607, Smith served as one of the governing councilors for the new colony. The first few months of the colony's existence were extremely difficult, and many of Smith's companions died of illness or in fighting with the Indigenous people who lived there.
Late in 1607, Smith was captured by the brother of the Powhatan chief. Smith later recorded that he had been rescued from certain death by Powhatan's daughter, Pocahontas, but the accuracy of this account is debated. The event is sometimes interpreted as a ritual ceremony of execution and rescue that served to symbolically make Smith and the English subordinate to Powhatan.
Smith became the president of the council at Jamestown in the fall of 1608. He established trading relations with several Indigenous tribal leaders and put the settlers to work by enforcing his unpopular rule that "he that will not worke shall not eate." While Smith was able to improve conditions, the colonists failed to produce enough food and they were dependent on trade with the nearby Powhatan Indians. Smith was forced to travel back to England in 1609 after a stray match lit his powder bag and set his clothing aflame, resulting in severe burns. Smith published his Generall Historie of Virginia in 1624, and it remains an important source for those studying this period of American history.
Citation: Baden-Powell, Robert S. S. John Smith. ca. 1905. Bronze. Virginia State Artwork Collection, Library of Virginia, Visual Studies Collection.
VS.1, VS. 3, USI.1, USI. 4, USI. 5, VUS.1, VUS.2, VUS.3
This map is attributed to Captain John Smith (1580–1631) and is one of the earliest representations of Virginia. Smith began a three-month exploration of the Chesapeake Bay and its adjacent waterways in June 1608. He interacted with Indigenous peoples and relied on them for information about the region, including areas that he did not visit. The names and locations of Indigenous tribes living in the tidewater region they called Tsenacomoco are included on the map, thereby preserving Indigenous knowledge of the land and the people living there.
Smith intended the map to build interest and support for the Virginia Company's settlement of the colony and the search for exploitable resources for financial gain. While his exploring party never found gold, the lost colony of Roanoke, or a passage to the Pacific Ocean, he did gather enough information to produce a map that accurately delineated the Chesapeake Bay and the tidewater region of Virginia, one of the earliest maps to do so. The map shows the Chesapeake Bay and four major rivers: the Powhatan, Pamunk, Tappahannock, and Patowomec, as they were named by the Indigenous tribes. The English renamed the rivers as the James, York, Rappahannock, and Potomac, respectively. Vignettes on the outside of the map include an illustration of Paramount Chief Powhatan in his lodge.
In November 1608, Smith sent several documents to England, including a “Mappe of the bayes and rivers.” In 1611, he engaged William Hole to engrave the map of Virginia to accompany his pamphlet entitled A Map of Virginia. With a Description of the Countrey, the Commodities, People, Government and Religion (1612). Smith's map was the most accurate and detailed map of the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic coastline produced in Europe until 1673. It was the source for virtually all printed maps of Virginia for more than sixty years and is considered to be one of the most significant maps of colonial America.
To learn more about the map from the perspective of Virginia Indian tribes, watch this video (4:23 min.) on Indigenous Reflections on Smith's Map and the Recovery of Tribal Pasts.
Citation: Virginia / Discovered and Discribed by Captayn John Smith 1606; Graven by William Hole. G3880 1624 .S5 Voorhees Collection, Library of Virginia.
History: VS.1, VS.2 VS.3, VS.4, USI.1, USI.2, USI.3, USI.4, WHII.4, VUS.1, VUS.2, VUS.3
Science: 4.9, 5.6, ES.1, ES.8
Preview Activity
Look at it: What geographic area is shown on the map? What features on the map are different from maps we use today? What do you notice about the map's orientation? Why might John Smith have presented the map in that way?
Post Activity
STEM Stat: English explorers like John Smith did not have much information about the land they named Virginia. What is included in this map? What kinds of things are drawn in detail? What is missing from this map? What can the map tell us and what can it not tell us about this time period?
Analyze: How would this map be useful for people seeking to travel to Virginia or invest in new colonies?
Food For Thought: If you were to draw a map of a place you had never visited, how would you gather information about that place? What would you do differently if you were to draw a map of your home town or city? What would you include and think is important enough to point out to people unfamiliar with the area?
This map engraved by Theodor de Bry (1528–1598) was published in 1590 to accompany his reprint of Thomas Harriot's A Brief and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia, which he issued in Latin, German, French, and English to ensure the book received wide circulation. Entitled "That part of America, now called 'Virginia'," the map includes the names of Indigenous settlements in the area around Roanoke Island in present-day North Carolina and documents the geography of the Outer Banks and the Pamlico and Albemarle Sounds. The entrance to the Chesapeake Bay ("Chesepiooc Sinus") was also named for the first time on a published map.
De Bry's engraving was based on earlier watercolor drawings and maps created by English colonial governor, explorer, artist, and cartographer John White (d. 1593), who, in 1585, was part of a failed colonizing expedition to Roanoke Island, which became known as the Lost Colony. John White's maps were oriented on a north/south axis, but de Bry reoriented his version, so that west is at the top of the map. Many early maps showed west at the top as it was how the area would have looked when arriving by ship from Europe.
This map portrays sea life and Indigenous people (both on land and in canoes on the water). The use of this type of imagery comes from the medieval tradition in which maps provided a visual record of the inhabitants as well as natural features such as animals and plants of an area. De Bry's engravings were used in other publications of the time, written by those who were part of expeditions to the New World to justify further colonization and exploration efforts.
Theodore de Bry was born in Liege, Flanders (now part of the Netherlands), to a wealthy Protestant family and was trained as a goldsmith and engraver. As the Spanish and British began to explore North and South America, de Bry became interested in producing illustrations of the early descriptions from the reports provided by the explorers. He wanted to create images that could be marketed and sold to anyone. The ten volumes of narratives and engravings related to travel in the Americas produced by de Bry and his sons revived English interest in colonization after the failure of the Roanoke colony and served as an important source of information for Europeans who were interested in learning more about the New World.
Citation: Americae pars, nunc Virginia dicta: primum ab Anglis inuenta, sumtibus Dn. Walteri Raleigh, Equestris ordinis Viri, Anno Dn̄i. MDLXXXV regni Vero Sereniss. nostrae Reginae Elisabethae XXVII, hujus vero Historia peculiari Libro descripta est, additis etiam Indigenarum Iconibus. G3880 1590.W4 Voorhees Collection, Library of Virginia.
History: USI.1, USI.2, USI.4, VUS.2, WG.1, WG.3, WHII.1, WHII.2
Science: 4.9, 5.6, ES.1, ES.8
Preview Activity
Look at It: Look at the map. What do you notice about it? How is it different from other maps you have seen?
Post Activities
STEM Stat: On the map there is an image of a caliper or divider used for measuring distances on a map. What is the measurement being used for this map? How might this information be used by someone who wanted to chart a course to a new location? How might the orientation of the map have affected its overall usefulness?
Analyze: There are a number of items depicted on the map. Why would they have been included? P
Indigenous Virginians and the English colonists conceived landownership in different ways. Tribal members did not "own" land individually, but lived in small communities and hunted, planted, and gathered food or other materials in the larger surrounding area. The English colonists patented their land and claimed exclusive right to that property. Treaties signed between Virginia tribes and the colonial government during the 17th century granted land to the tribes but did not contain patents or legal rights to ownership of the land.
In 1723, Meherrin tribal members petitioned the royal governor, Hugh Drysdale (d. 1726). They informed the governor that Englishmen were taking their land and threatened "to take our corn" that they had grown. Describing themselves as obedient subjects, they asked for the governor's help by putting a stop to such harassment and theft.
The Meherrin, an Iroquois people, lived on the banks of the Meherrin River in southeastern Virginia, near present-day Emporia. At the end of the 17th century they had complained to the governor that colonists were encroaching on their land and sought to obtain ownership of it. In 1705, the Virginia Assembly assigned the boundaries of a reservation for the Meherrin and ordered that offenses committed by the English within the reservation to be handled by the county court. The reservation was in an area of dispute between Virginia and North Carolina, and after the border was finalized the Meherrin became tributaries of North Carolina in 1729. The Meherrin received formal tribal recognition from the North Carolina government in 1986.
Citation: Virginia (Colony), Colonial Papers, Petition of the Meherrin Indians, Sept. 9, 1723. Accession 36138. State Government Records Collection, Library of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia.