Description
The Wicocomico, Wiccocomoco, Wighcocomoco, or Wicomico (originally called the Wicacoan) lived in Northumberland County, Virginia, at the head and slightly north of the Little Wicomico River. They were the first native people on the mainland encountered by Captain John Smith, prior to his famous interaction with Pamunkey and Pocahontas of the Powhatan people. The Northumberland County Court began manipulating and interfering in the governance of the local tribes by the mid-17th century. After June 1719 and the death of William Taptico, the last Wicocomico tribal chief, the colonial government confiscated the lands by force.
Language
Algonquian
Culture
Peoples of the Northeast formed loosely organized bands and villages based on shared language and cultural traits. Bands tended to be smaller and to live in places where wild foods such as wild rice, salmon, or shellfish were plentiful. Their diet was a wide variety of cultivated, hunted, and gathered foods, including corn (maize), beans, squash, deer, fish, waterbirds, leaves, seeds, tubers, berries, roots, nuts, and maple syrup. Rivers in the northern and eastern parts of the culture area had annual runs of fish such as salmon.