Description
The Chickahominy are a federally recognized tribe of Virginian Native Americans who primarily live in Charles City County, located along the James River. This area of the Tidewater is not far from where they were living in 1600, before the arrival of colonists from England. They were officially recognized by the state in 1983 and by the federal government in January 2018. The Eastern Chickahominy split from the main tribe in 1983 and were recognized as a separate tribe by the state that year, and by the federal government in January 2018. Neither tribe has an Indian reservation, having been displaced from their land by colonial settlement in the 17th century, but they have purchased lands that they devote to communal purposes. The Chickahominy's original territory consisted of the land along the Chickahominy River, from the mouth of the river at its confluence with the James River, near Jamestown in present-day Charles City County, to what is now known as New Kent County, Virginia.
Language
They spoke a dialect of Algonquian and practiced a culture similar to the other Algonquian-speaking Indians of Tsenacomoco, a paramount chiefdom ruled in 1607 by Powhatan.
Culture
They encountered settlers from the first permanent English settlement founded at Jamestown in 1607. The tribe helped the English survive during the first few winters by trading food for English goods, as the settlers were ill-prepared for farming and developing their frontier site. The Chickahominy taught the English how to grow and preserve crops in local conditions. By 1614, the tribe had signed a treaty with the colonists; it required the tribe to provide 300 warriors to fight the Spanish, which had an established colony in Florida and the lower East Coast. They were led by mungai ("great men"), who were part of a council of elders and religious leaders. he tribe living in villages along the river that forms the northern and eastern borders of Charles City County was known as the Chickahominy, or course-ground corn people.