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Werowocomoco Was Principal Residence of Powhatan

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Werowocomoco Was Principal Residence of Powhatan erowocomoco was principal residence of Powhatan, afterwards Werowocomoco began to emerge as a ceremonial paramount chief of 30-some Indian tribes in Virginia’s A bird’s-eye view of Werowocomoco as it appears today in Gloucester W and political center for Algonquian-speaking communities coastal region at the time English colonists arrived in 1607. County. Bordered by the York River, Leigh Creek (left) and Bland Creek (right), the archaeological site is listed on the National Register of Historic in the Chesapeake. The process of place-making at Archaeological research in the past decade has revealed not Places and the Virginia Historic Landmarks Register. Werowocomoco likely played a role in the development of only that the York River site was a uniquely important place social ranking in the Chesapeake after A.D. 1300 and in the during Powhatan’s time, but also that its role as a political and origins of the Powhatan chiefdom. social center predated the Powhatan chiefdom. More than 60 artifacts discovered at Werowocomoco Power, Landscape and History – projectile points, stone tools, pottery sherds and English Landscapes associated with Amerindian chiefdoms – copper – are shown for the fi rst time at Jamestown that is, regional polities with social ranking and institutional Settlement with archaeological objects from collections governance that organized a population of several thousand of the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation and the Virginia – often include large-scale or monumental architecture that Department of Historic Resources. transformed space within sacropolitical centers. Developed in cooperation with Werowocomoco site Throughout the Chesapeake region, Native owners Robert F. and C. Lynn Ripley, the Werowocomoco communities constructed boundary ditches Research Group and the Virginia Indian Advisory Board, and enclosures within select towns, marking the exhibition also explores what Werowocomoco means spaces in novel ways. The earthworks to descendent Virginia Indian communities today. James at Werowocomoco represent City County has provided funding in support of this special prominent landscape features exhibition. that defi ned the location as a similarly powerful Werowocomoco’s Place in History place, perhaps drawing Werowocomoco was an important Native community in spaces and structures that they built and modifi ed. A cultural Wahunsenacawh to establish Tidewater Virginia and the capital of the Powhatan chiefdom landscape involves not simply buildings constructed for utilitarian his residence there. The during the early 17th century. The town purposes, but also includes the expression of ideas and meanings remarkable constructions that also was the location of events at the there. constitute Werowocomoco are just beginnings of the English colonial The cultural landscapes associated with North American one expression of a widespread experience in the Americas. It was at centers of authority demonstrate that elites often recognized Amerindian practice that links power, Werowocomoco that the Powhatan the ideological power of place, transforming settlements into landscape and history. leader Wahunsenacawh (also known politicized locations by segmenting sacred space and by as Powhatan) fi rst met with English constructing monumental architecture. The Werowocomoco colonists from Jamestown. investigations have focused on fi nding evidence of the Other American Indian “seats of power” are cited in the exhibition. Pictured is Black-on-White painted pottery English historical accounts settlement’s spatial organization, exchange relations, and from Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, A.D. 900-1050. provide a limited perspective on subsistence patterns during the periods immediately before and Private Collection. Werowocomoco and the Native people after Jamestown’s settlement, and to understand how social who lived there, and new archaeological power came to be concentrated within, and exercised from, research of the site offers the opportunity Werowocomoco. St. Albans quartz projectile point to explore the “deep history” of a (left), Early Archaic, 6800 to 6500 powerful Native place. The Early History of Werowocomoco B.C., and a Palmer quartzite Excavations at the Werowocomoco site have focused on the projectile point (far left), Early Archaic, 8000-7200 B.C. Courtesy Archaeology at development of the site’s cultural landscape during the late pre- of Robert F. and C. Lynn Ripley. Werowocomoco contact centuries of circa A.D. 1300-1600. However, the earliest The archaeological traces of occupation at Werowocomoco date to the Archaic research at Werowocomoco period (circa 8000 to 1200 B.C.). It was not until the subsequent emphasizes a community- Late Woodland period that the site began its rise to prominence oriented perspective on the within Tsenacommacah, the Powhatan name for the Virginia development of the Powhatan coastal plain. chiefdom. A key idea behind this The Werowocomoco site contains evidence of dispersed approach is the notion of a “cultural Native communities existing there by about A.D. 1250. Soon A Townsend pottery sherd from Werowocomoco dating to A.D. landscape,” understood as the 900-1600 is positioned in an artist’s imprint of past societies on the Detail from “Their Manner of Praying With Rattles About the Fire,” Theodor de rendering of a pot. Courtesy of Bry, 1590. Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation collection. Robert F. and C. Lynn Ripley. Werowocomoco and Our Cover: Powhatan at Werowocomoco, detail from John Smith’s Map JAMESTOWN SETTLEMENT Understanding of Virginia’s Past of Virginia, 1612. Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation collection. Archaeological and documentary evidence provides SPECIAL EXHIBITION a basis for a deeper sense of Werowocomoco as a Native Werowocomoco and the Virginia Indian Community place, a place that is not recognizable from English historical May 15 through November 15, 2010 accounts alone. Archaeological investigations indicate that, Virginia’s Indian community has an enduring and powerful approximately 300 years before the English came to Virginia, connection to Werowocomoco not just as the historic center the residents of Werowocomoco changed and reorganized of the Powhatan chiefdom, but also as a modern place for their town as it became an important regional center, renewing Virginia Indians’ infl uence on representations of constructing an earthwork enclosure there to separate the the Native past. The Werowocomoco Research Group – a residential portion of the town from what appears to be a collaboration of researchers from the Fairfi eld Foundation, the ceremonial enclosure. Later, in the early Virginia Department of Historic Resources and the College 17th century, a large structure was built of William and Mary – has worked over the past decade within this enclosure, providing clear to develop an archaeological project built around close evidence of status differences within partnerships with representatives from six of the Powhatan the settlement. descendent communities. At Werowocomoco, new forms of collaborative and consultative archaeology are emerging that A large quantity of copper recovered from the combine indigenous values with academic research. This site is of European manufacture and has the special exhibition makes it accessible to the public. ❖ same chemical composition as similar copper pieces found at Jamestown. Copper alloy pieces, shown here rolled into a bead and in a sheet, found at Werowocomoco, 17th century, Europe. Courtesy of Robert F. and C. Lynn Ripley. Learn More The story of Powhatan Indians in 17th-century Virginia is examined in Jamestown Settlement permanent gallery Captain John Smith’s Journey exhibits and a re-created Powhatan Indian village, to Werowocomoco where historical interpreters discuss and demonstrate the In December 1607, Captain John Smith Powhatan way of life. was captured by Opechancanough, the brother of Wahunsenacawh, paramount chief of the Powhatan. In the following weeks Smith was taken by a circuitous route to Werowocomoco, designed by his captors to both teach Smith about the Powhatan world and to bring Jamestown Settlement and Yorktown Victory Center living-history WEROWOCOMOCO: him, through ritual and symbolism, into museums are administered by the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation, a new relationship with that world. an educational institution of the Commonwealth of Virginia, SEAT OF On his part, Captain John Smith accredited by the American Association of Museums, that fosters Ivory diptych compass and saw his captivity as an opportunity awareness and understanding of the early history of the United States sundial, German, early 17th to develop a different sort of and the enduring legacies bequeathed to the nation. century. Jamestown-Yorktown relationship with the Virginia Indians Foundation collection. Jamestown Settlement interprets the founding of Jamestown, POWERPOWER that would serve the interests of America’s fi rst permanent English settlement, and the diverse At the time Jamestown, America’s fi rst permanent the Jamestown colonists. In effect, cultures, including Powhatan Indian, African and European, that English colony, was founded in 1607, the center of Smith presented the Powhatan Indians with a competing world converged in 17th-century Virginia. The Yorktown Victory Center view based on European concepts of science, geography and tells the story of the American Revolution and the development of power in coastal Virginia was at Werowocomoco, history. One of the ways Smith communicated with the Indians the new nation. principal residence
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