The Monacan Indian Nation is one of eleven Native American tribes recognized since the late 20th century by the U.S. Commonwealth of Virginia. In January 2018, the United States Congress passed an act to provide federal recognition as tribes to the Monacan and five other tribes in Virginia. They had earlier been so disrupted by land loss, warfare, intermarriage, and discrimination that the main society believed they no longer were "Indians". However, the Monacans reorganized and asserted their culture.
In the 21st century, the Monacan nation is located primarily in their traditional territory of Virginia's Piedmont region, particularly in Amherst County near Lynchburg. As of 2018 the Monacan Indian Nation has approximately 2,000 members. There are satellite groups in West Virginia, Maryland, Tennessee, and Ohio.
The Monacan nation was first recorded by Jamestown settlers in colonial Virginia. Their native language is a Siouan language which is extinct. The people are related to other Siouan-speaking tribes of the inland in this region, such as the Tutelo, Saponi and Occaneechi.
17th century
When Jamestown settlers first explored the James River in May 1607, they learned that the James River Monacan (along with their northern Mannahoac allies on the Rappahannock River) controlled the area of the Piedmont between the Fall Line (where present-day Richmond developed) and the Blue Ridge Mountains. The Monacan were hostile competitors with the Powhatan confederacy, a group of thirty Algonquian-speaking tribes who controlled much of the Tidewater and coastal plain. The weroance Parahunt, son of paramount chief Powhatan of the Powhatan confederacy, persuaded Captain Christopher Newport not to venture beyond the James River falls into Monacan country.
However, the determined Newport made an expedition into Monacan country the following year in November 1608. On a march, the settlers found two Monacan towns, whose names they recorded as Massinacak and Mowhemenchough. Unlike the Powhatan, who had given the settlers lavish welcomes, the Monacan largely ignored them and went about their business. The settlers captured their chief and forced him to guide them around his territory. On November 26, 1608, Peter Wynne, a member of Newport's party to the Monacan villages, wrote a letter to John Egerton informing him that some members of the party believed the pronunciation of the Monacans' language resembled "Welch" (Welsh), which Wynne spoke. Newport had asked Wynne to act as interpreter, but the language was not Welsh and he could not understand it.
Mowhemencho, the Monacan nation's easternmost outpost, was between Bernard's Creek and Jones Creek in the eastern tip of present-day Powhatan County. Massinacak (Mahock) was at the mouth of Mohawk Creek, a mile south of present-day Goochland. The Monacan capital was Rassawek, located at the point within the two branches, Point of Fork, of the upper James and Rivanna rivers. Tributary to them were the Monahassanugh (later known as the Nahyssan, i.e. Tutelo), whose town was near what later developed as Wingina, and the Monasukapanough (later known as the Saponi), living near present-day Charlottesville. All these groups were closely related with the Siouan Manahoac to the north.
In 1656 several hundred Nahyssan, Mahock, and Rechahecrians (possibly Iroquoian-speaking Erie from present-day Pennsylvania) threatened both the Powhatan tribes and the settlers by camping near the James falls. A combined force of the Powhatan and settlers was sent to dislodge them. The Pamunkey chief Totopotomoi was slain in the resulting battle. Historically the Monacan and Erie were trade allies, especially copper.
The Monacan towns of Mowhemencho and Mahock were still occupied in 1670, when John Lederer and Major Harris recorded visiting them; they found that the men possessed muskets. Lederer recorded their tradition that they had settled in the area on account of an oracle 400 years earlier, having been driven from the northwest by an enemy nation. They told him they had found it occupied by the Doeg, whom they eventually displaced, in the meantime teaching them the art of growing corn.
He recorded another Monacan tradition as follows: "From four women, viz. Pash, Sepoy, Askarin, and Maraskarin, they derive the race of mankinde; which they therefore divide into four tribes, distinguished under those several names."