The Rappahannock are located in northern Virginia.  Their pottery is very rare.

1. Jar - LBF

The Rappahannocks first spoke to Captain John Smith in 1608 at their kingstowne, “Cat Point Creek” on the banks of the river bearing their name. They had thirteen villages on the south side of the river and two on the north side. By the late 1600’s, the Rappahannocks were moved off the river and consolidated on to one reserve. Around 1705, the Rappahannocks were driven from their lands at the Portabago Indian town and relocated to a 3,474 acre reserve at Indian Neck in King & Queen County, Virginia, by order of the Colonial Council. The reserve was located on their traditional winter hunting grounds between the Mattaponi and Rappahannock rivers. Descendants of the Rappahannocks have remained in the area until present day. They became the subject of scholarly research and field studies from the late 1800’s to the 1950’s by the Smithsonian Institute, which produced several books and articles.

In an effort to formalize their tribal government, the Rappahannocks incorporated with the State of Virginia in 1921. They were officially recognized as one of the historic tribes of the Commonwealth of Virginia by an act of the General Assembly on March 25, 1983.

With the support of approximately 300 members, the Rappahannocks initiated plans to build a cultural center and museum. In 1995, they began construction of the cultural center project, and completed two phases by 1997. Phase three, a planned museum, is in the planning stages and will be completed for the 2007 ceremonies commemorating the 400th anniversary of America.

In 1998, they elected the first woman Chief to lead in Virginia since the 1700’s, Chief G. Anne Richardson. In the same year, they purchased 119.5 acres to establish a land trust, retreat center and housing development. The housing project is underway and plans are being formulated for the retreat center. The Rappahannocks host their traditional Harvest Festival and Pow Wow annually on the second Saturday in October at their Cultural Center in Indian Neck, Virginia. Their mission is to preserve Rappahannock culture, social and political structures while educating the public on the rich contributions they have made and continue to make to Virginia and the nation.

from: http://indians.vipnet.org/tribes/rappahannock.cfm

Powhatan History

By Dr. Helen C. Rountree

When Europeans and Africans began arriving in what is now Virginia, they met Indian people from three linguistic backgrounds. Most of the coastal plain was inhabited by an Algonquian empire, today collectively known as Powhatan. The southwestern coastal plain was occupied by Iroquoians, the Nottoways and Meherrins. The piedmont was home to two Siouan confederacies, the Monacans and the Mannahoacs. The Virginia mountains, by A.D. 1600, were hunting territory to many peoples and home to few.

The first permanent European settlement, in 1607, was English. English colonies were agricultural, having little of the French emphasis on trading or the Spanish one on mining, militarism and missionizing. The Virginia Indians were therefore soon embroiled in a competition for space -- one which they lost gradually as more Englishmen and Africans came. Although there was fighting at times, the Indians were not so much conquered militarily as as they were flooded out.

The process occurred first on the coastal plain, where by 1700 there were only a handful of tiny Algonquian-speaking islands, and one Iroquoian one, left in a sea of English-speakers. By 1790 only four Algonquian reservations (Pamunkey, Mattaponi, Nansemond, and Gingaskin) and an Iroquoian one (Nottoway) were left. Some of the tribes that lost reservations went on living together nearby, becoming ancestors of the modern "citizen" tribes (Chickahominy, Upper Mattaponi, Rappahannock); others dispersed. In the piedmont, the Siouan tribes saw the handwriting on the wall and withdrew southward, sometimes returning and then leaving again. Non-Indians poured freely into their territory. After the Tuscarora War (1715-16), some Siouans went north with the Tuscarora. Others drifted back into Virginia, less as tribes than as families, and settled in the piedmont and along the Blue Ridge. The population of all of these groups was too small to maintain their languages, even on the reservations. The native tongues of Virginia were practically dead by 1800, none of them having been adequately recorded. The Indians' traditional cultures changed slowly and without direct interference (the Virginia English were not great missionizers), and by 1800 even the reservation people were much Anglicized.

Virginia was a "slave" state before the Civil War and a "Jim Crow" state after it. Indian tribes were neither "superior" whites nor "subservient" blacks. Their anomalous position kept them under continual fire until the Civil Rights Era. Everyone seemed to want them to disappear. In 1792 the Nansemonds sold their reservation. The Nottoway and Gingaskin reservations were terminated soon after -- the Gingaskin being the first true termination in the U.S. (1813). The Pamunkeys/Mattaponis nearly lost their land and tribal status in the 1840's. The "citizen" Indians lay low for most of the period. When anthropologists James Mooney and Frank Speck began working in Virginia (1890's-1920's), some groups reconstituted themselves in a way that was legal and hard for hostile non-Indians to obstruct: they organized as chartered corporations (Chickahominy, Upper Mattaponi, Rappahannock).

The two surviving reservations have always had recognition from the state, though not the federal government since their treaty (dated 1677) is with the Colony of Virginia. They have mixed feelings about federal recognition now that they can get it. The incorporated "citizen" tribes won through to state recognition in 1983, inspiring the Nansemond families to organize and gain recognition the next year. The Siouan-descended Amherst County Indians followed suit, though more slowly, taking the name of some of their probable ancestors, the Monacan. However, further advance to federal recognition is problematic for the "citizen" groups, due to the scarcity of records kept about non-reservation Indians and the burning of many Virginia archives during the Civil War. Meanwhile, all the groups benefit from the federal funds for education and community development that are available today. They are more prosperous now than they have been since the aliens came.

from: http://www.nansemond.org/history2.shtml