Mattaponi Indian Reservation King William County, Virginia Heritage
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1 CONTINUITY WITHIN CHANGE: VIRGINIA INDIANS NATIONAL REGISTER PROJECT UNDERREPRESENTED COMMUNITIES GRANT PROGRAM - HISTORIC PRESERVATION FUND P15AP00020 Mattaponi Indian Reservation King William County, Virginia Heritage Properties of Indian Town: The Mattaponi Indian Baptist Church, School, and Homes of Chiefly Lineages October 2017 College of William & Mary Commonwealth of Virginia Department of Anthropology Department of Historic Resources Williamsburg, Virginia Richmond, Virginia Anthropological Research Report Series Research Report Series Number 7 Number 23 2 PAGE IS INTENTIONALLY BLANK 3 Mattaponi Indian Reservation King William County, Virginia Heritage Properties of Indian Town: The Mattaponi Indian Baptist Church, School, and Homes of Chiefly Lineages Authors Buck Woodard, Ph.D., Co-Principal Investigator Danielle Moretti-Langholtz, Ph.D., Co-Principal Investigator Contributors Martha McCartney Megan Victor, MA Nicholas Belluzzo, MA College of William & Mary Commonwealth of Virginia Department of Anthropology Department of Historic Resources Williamsburg, Virginia Richmond, Virginia Anthropological Research Report Series Research Report Series Number 7 Number 23 4 This material is based upon work assisted by a grant from the Underrepresented Communities Grant Program administered by the Department of the Interior, National Park Service. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Department of the Interior. 5 TABLE OF CONTENTS I. INTRODUCTION AND METHODOLOGY 9–12 Methodology Field Visits to the Mattaponi Indian Reservation Civic-Engagement and Ethnography Archival and Historical Research II. THE MATTAPONI INDIANS’ EARLY HISTORY (BY MARTHA MCCARTNEY) 15–23 Early European Contact The Mattaponi Indians’ Territory, 1607-1610 The Spread of Settlement Expansion and Exclusion The 1646 Articles of Peace The Creation of Tribal Reserves The Mattaponi Make a Treaty Changes in English Policy Native Land Sales Bacon’s Rebellion and the Treaty of Middle Plantation Competition for Land III. INDIAN TOWN AND COUNTRY: NATIVE PLACEMAKING AND SETTLEMENTS 27–32 I V. LIFEWAYS ON THE MATTAPONI AND PAMUNKEY, C.1700-1800 33–43 Colonial-Era Native Dress Participation in the Market Economy Early Education and Christianity V. MATTAPONI TOWN, C.1800-1900 45–66 The Early Republic and Antebellum Era Settlement The American Civil War and Reconstruction Mattaponi Town at the End of the Nineteenth Century VI. MATTAPONI CHIEFS, INDIAN SCHOOL, AND INDIAN BAPTIST CHURCH, C.1880-1980 67–86 Chiefs and Headmen Heritage Properties of Community and Chiefly Lineages, c.1880-1950 The Allmond House The Langston House The King-Custalow House The O.T. Custalow House The Curtis Custalow House Mattaponi Education and Religion: Churches and Schools, c.1917-1966 The Mattaponi Indian School The Mattaponi Indian Baptist Church VII. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 87–88 WORKS CITED 89–101 APPENDIX I: HISTORICAL MATERIALS AND FIELDWORK PHOTOS 103–135 APPENDIX II: MATTAPONI HISTORIC DISTRICT SURVEY 137–154 6 PAGE INTENTIONALLY BLANK 7 CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION AND METHODOLOGY The oral history of the Mattaponi people Places. The activity that is the subject of this report and the documentary record of the Mattaponi Indi- has been financed in part with federal funds from the an Reservation identify multiple historically signifi- National Park Service, U.S. Department of the In- cant heritage properties that reflect broad patterns terior. However, the contents and opinions do not of Native American history within the Common- necessarily reflect the views or policies of the De- wealth of Virginia. Surrounded by the Mattaponi partment of the Interior, nor does the mention of River and King William County, the Mattaponi Indi- trade names or commercial products constitute en- an Reservation is home to Algonquian descendants dorsement or recommendation by the Department of Tidewater’s indigenous peoples and is one of of the Interior. only two extant Native settlements that have been continuously occupied since colonial times. The res- Special thanks and recognition are in order ervation’s hamlet, historically called Indian Town, is for the Mattaponi Tribe, who completed a 2016 the location of the community’s Mattaponi Indian Memorandum of Understanding [MOU] with Baptist Church, their former Indian School, and the DHR in advance of the conducted research. Matta- residences of the tribe’s chiefly lineages. Through poni Chief Mark T. Custalow, Assistant Chief Leon the National Park Service’s Underrepresented Com- Custalow, and Julie V. Langan, State Historic Pres- munities Grant Program, and in collaboration with ervation Officer and Director, Virginia Department the state-recognized1 Mattaponi Indian Tribe, the of Historic Resources were signatories to the agree- Virginia Department of Historic Resources [DHR] ment. Mattaponi Tribal Reviewers Brandon Custa- seeks to identify, research, and nominate minority low, Mark T. Custalow, and Denise Custalow Davis populations’ historically significant locales to the offered guidance on the research report, with Coun- state and national registry of historic places. The cilman Brandon Custalow acting as liaison for the DHR project Continuity Within Change: Virginia Indi- project. Formal and informal individual and group ans National Register Project moves that effort forward, interviews and commentary, included members through an archival, ethnographic, and oral history listed above, as well as Christine Custalow, George investigation of the Mattaponi people, with atten- W. Custalow, J.V. Custalow, Peggy Custalow, Mark tion to the tribe’s historic church and school, and Custalow, and Susie Custalow. Other members of the pre-1950 residences of their tribal membership, the broader community, including Debbie Cook, including those of their chiefly lineages. This study, Cynthia Allmond Dunne, Lois Tupponce, and conducted by the Department of Anthropology’s Sheereen Waterlily, provided commentary on select American Indian Resource Center at the College of family histories and photographs. They are thanked William & Mary, provides the supporting materials for their contributions and service, and through ver- necessary for nominating historical Mattaponi heri- bal agreement and MOU, agreeing to share the oral tage properties to the National Register of Historic history of the Mattaponi people. 1 In 1983 The Virginia Legislature passed Joint Resolution 54, extending “state-recognition” to six tribes within the Common- wealth, which included the Mattaponi. However, through the tributary system, Virginia has acknowledged the Mattaponi tribe’s reservation lands and governing body since colonial times. The 1983 legislative recognition has remained a contentious topic for contemporary Mattaponi leaders, as their reservation land and annual tribute to the government of Virginia asserts their continuing sovereignty and treaty status. 8 CHAPTER ONE The Mattaponi are indigenous to the tide- Indian governments and territories as dependent water coastal plain of Virginia, and closely related sovereigns. As stipulated in this and earlier treaties, to the region’s other Algonquian speakers, including the Pamunkey and “severall scattered nations” un- the neighboring Chickahominy, Nansemond, Pa- der them were granted lands to inhabit within “Pa- munkey, Patawomeke, and Rappahannock. In his- munkey Neck” between the Mattaponi and Pamun- torical documents the community’s name appears in key rivers. These communities established multiple several forms, including “Mattapanient,” “Mattapo- “Indian Towns” within the confines of this geogra- ny” and “Mattaponie,” etc. The contemporary spell- phy, including settlements on the Mattaponi River. ing of the name “Mattaponi” has been in standard usage for over a hundred years, both for the name As with other nearby Native communities, of the community and the river. Collectively, the the Mattaponi River “Indian Town” became en- Algonquian speakers of the Chesapeake have been gaged in the agricultural cycles of the region and referred to in the historical literature and by scholars fully invested in the mercantile economy. Like the as the “Powhatan,” based on the seventeenth-centu- Indian settlements on the Pamunkey River, the Mat- ry chiefdom of which many of them were a part. As taponi River Indians became primarily market-based an outcome, confusion can exist about the use of watermen and farmers and developed a rural lifeway multiple terms to describe the Natives of the tide- similar to that of their non-Native neighbors. By the water; the Mattaponi and Pamunkey are both “Pow- nineteenth century, corn and fish were the major hatan,” and both riverine communities are “Algon- Mattaponi staples, alongside the adoption of animal quians.” It is evident from the historical record that husbandry. Christianity become a part of commu- the Mattaponi and Pamunkey riverine communities nity life in the eighteenth century, and eventually de- formed the polity known as the Powhatan chief- veloped into an affiliation with the Baptist Church. dom, alongside communities living on the upper By the beginning of the twentieth century, Virginia James [Powhatan] River. However, chiefly lineages funded separate schooling for the Mattaponi In- from Pamunkey were in power during the sixteenth dians, and upheld their tributary status and reser- and seventeenth centuries, which was the state of vation lands alongside the Pamunkey.