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Iroquois Towns Cattashowrock, Tonnatorah and Rowantee people are now 2 Tributory State Tribes, The Cheroenhaka (Nottoway) Iroquois signed three treaties: The Treaty of 1646; 1677 and a STAND ALONE Treaty of February 27th, 1713. On February 27, 1713 Colonial Provisional LT Gov. Alexander Spotswood signed a Stand Alone Treaty with the Cheroenhaka (Nottoway) Indian Tribe’s Chief “Ouracoorass Teerheer”, AKA William Edmund (sometimes spelled Edmond), as called by the Colonials. Said Treaty has a “Successor Clause.” Our tribal government (Council) contends that the Successor Clause meant that the recognized relationship the tribe had with the Colonials from 1713 to1775 continued with the Commonwealth of Virginia beginning in 1776 and the Federal Government in 1781 to the present time.
In the mid 1680s, the Cheroenhaka (Nottoway) Indian Tribe, due to encroachment by the Colonials and to avoid war with other tribes, moved from the Nottoway Town of Ta-ma-hit-ton / Tonnatorah in Sussex County to the mouth of the Assamoosick Swamp in what is now Surry County and again in the mid 1690s moved further down the Assamoosick toward present day Courtland and Sebrell in what was then Isle of Wight County - currently Southampton County Virginia.
Northern Iroquoian Languages >Central Iroquoian Languages: Tuscarora, Nottoway
Lake Iroquoian Languages:Mohawk-Oneida Languages,Mohawk,Oneida,
Seneca-Onondaga LanguagesCayuga,Onondaga,Seneca
Huronian Languages:Erie, Huron/Wyandot,Laurentian (St. Lawrence Iroquoian),Susquehannock
Southern Iroquoian Languages:Cherokee (Tsalagi)
Lost/Unattested/Uncertain Iroquoian Languages: Meherrin,Neutral,Petun,Wenro
August 1650 Bland encountered two Cheroenhaka (Nottoway) Indian Villages: The first town located in what is now Sussex County near Rowantee Branch / Creek was “Chounteroute Town.” At that time Chounteroute (Cho-un-te-roun-te) was King /Chief of the Nottoways. The second town, Tonnatorah, was located on the south side of the Nottoway River where the current Sussex - Greenville County line meets the River. The current Chief Brown group moved to the confluence of the Blackwater and Chowan on the north side. In 1650 per the diary entries of James Edward Bland, the Cheroenhaka (Nottoway) Indians were called by the Algonquian Speakers as NA-DA-WA (meaning snake, enemy in their language) which the Colonials reverted to Nottoway.” The tribe’s lodging area was where the Nottoway River fork with The Blackwater River to form the Chowan River – thus “People at the Fork of the Steam.”=
Tribal Warriors of the Cheroenhaka (Nottoway) Indian Tribe joined forces with Bacon in what became known as the infamous Nathaniel Bacon’s Rebellion of May 1676 resulting in the downfall of the Occaneechee Indians at Occaneechee Island / on the Roanoke River. Bacon’s Rebellion was a catalyst to the Woodland Plantation Treaty of 1677.
In 1703, as noted in a sworn statement before the Courts in Prince George County, James Threatte spoke of the three villages of the Cheroenhaka (Nottoway) Indian Tribe – Cattashowrock, Tonnatorah and Rowantee.
In 1705 the House of Burgess granted two tracks of “Reservation Land” to the Cheroenhaka (Nottoway) Indian Tribe – the Circle Track (18,000 acres) and Square Track (23,000 acres) totaling some 41,000 acres of Reservation Land. The two tracks of land fell within the confines of what was then Isle of Wight County – now Southampton and Sussex Counties. Note: Southampton County was annexed from Isle of Wight County in 1749.
In 1711 Colonial Lieutenant Governor Alexander Spotswood met with the Chief and Chief Men of the Cheroenhaka (Nottoway) Tribe offering “Tribute” forgiveness, reference in the Treaty of 1677 (20 Beaver Pelts and 3 Peace Arrows), if the Cheroenhaka (Nottoway) Chief Men would send their sons to the “Brafferton,” a school for Indians at the College of William and Mary. Even though the Cheroenhaka (Nottoway) were fearful their sons would be sold into slavery, ethno-historic records document that Spotswood reported on November 17, 1711 that two of the Cheroenhaka (Nottoway) Indian Chief Men’s sons were attending the “Brafferton.”
Cheroenhaka (Nottoway) Indians “Surnames” continue to appear on the enrollment roster of the “Brafferton” throughout the 1750s and 1760s.
March 1713 the Colonial Council at Williamsburg, VA ordered that the Meherrin Indians be incorporated with the Cheroenhaka (Nottoway) Indians and that the Nansemond Indians be incorporated with the Saponies. Purpose was to remove them to a place where they would be less liable to have differences with the English and for the convening of instructing their children in Christianity by missionaries at the two settlements.
November 30, 1720, the Colonial Council, in Williamsburg, VA., ordered that a collection of all transaction with Tributary Indians or Foreign Indians be made and that the clerk of the council make a collection of all negotiations with the Indians from first settlement of the Colony.
April 7th & 8th, 1728, William Byrd, II of Westover, visited the Indian Town of the Cheroenhaka (Nottoway) Indian Tribe on the Tribe’s reservation land located in what is now Courtland, Virginia. Byrd described how the men and women looked, danced and dressed, the nature of their Palisade Fort, Longhouses and bedding; to include, the colors that the women were wearing – red, white and blue. Byrd also noted in his diary of 1728 that the Cheroenhaka (Nottoway) was the only tribe of Indians of any consequence still remaining within the limits of Virginia.
August 7th, 1735, the Indian Interpreters, Henry Briggs and Thomas Wynn, for the Cheroenhaka (Nottoway) Indians were dismissed by an Act of the Commonwealth and on the same day the “first” of many land transfer deeds for the “Circle Tract of Land” transpired between the Colonials and the Cheroenhaka (Nottoway) Indian Chief and Chief’s Men and would continue up until November 1953, until both Circle and Square Track of Lands (41,000 Acres of Reservation Lands), were in the hands of the Europeans.
December 19, 1756, George Washington submits letter to The Honorable Robert Dinwiddie expressing an interest among the Cheroenhaka (Nottoway) Indians in engaging some assistance from them.
March 8, 1759 a petition was submitted for pay to Tom Steph, Billy John(s), School Robin, and Aleck Scholar, all of which are Cheroenhaka (Nottoway) Indians who served under George Washington in the French & Indian Wars until the reduction of Fort Duquesne.
In July of 1808 the Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia mandated a “Special” Cheroenhaka (Nottoway) Indian Census be taken of those Indians living on the remaining reservation lands (approx. 7,000 + acres) of the Cheroenhaka (Nottoway) Indian Reservation in what is now Courtland, Virginia. The Special Tribal Census of 1808 was conducted by three “White” Trustees of the Reservation. They were Henry Blow, William Blow, (a descendant of John Blow) and Samuel Blunt. Note: Not all Cheroenhaka (Nottoway) Indians living on the Reservation in Southampton County were enumerated. In 1816, new trustees were appointed for the Cheroenhaka (Nottoway) Indians. These Trustees were empowered to make reasonable rules and regulations for the government of the tribe and for the expenditure of the money held in trust for them, which was to continue so long as any number of the tribe were living. Any funds remaining on hand were then to be paid into the public treasury.
July 7, 1820, Former President Thomas Jefferson procured a copy of the language of the Cheroenhaka (Nottoway) Indians as recorded by John Wood. Wood, a former professor of Mathematics at William & Mary College, recorded the language on March 4th, 1820, from Edie Turner, (her Indian name was Wane Rounseraw) who lived on the tribe’s reservation in Southampton County, Virginia. Jefferson sent a copy of the language to Peter DuPonceau of Philadelphia who recognized the language as Iroquoian. NOTE: On March 17, 1820, Jefferson was quoted in a article that appeared in the Petersburg Newspaper, that the only remains in the state of Virginia of the formidable tribes are the Pamunkeys and Nottoways [Cheroenhaka%E2%80%A6WDB] and a few Mottoponies.
According to Lewis Binford and Albert Gallatin (Gallatin 1836:82), The Honorable James Tresevant (Trezevant) compiled a second recording of the Cheroenhaka (Nottoway) Indian Language in Southampton County, Virginia, between 1831 and 1836. Tresevant reports that the Nottoway name for themselves was Cheroenhaka, sometimes spelled Cherohakah.
In 1823-24, William Bozeman AKA Billy Woodson (name listed on the Special Cheroenhaka (Nottoway) Indian Census of 1808). Note: Billy Woodson’s father was white – Michal Boseman), files petition with Court of Southampton County to have remaining Nottoway Indian Reservation’s Lands divided “Free and Simple” between the Cheroenhaka (Nottoway) Indians.
On February 5, 1849, the Cheroenhaka (Nottoway) Indian Tribe filed suit within the Commonwealth of Virginia Circuit Superior Court of Law and Chancery for the County of Southampton County against Jeremiah Cobb. The suite was filled on behalf of the Cheroenhaka (Nottoway) Indian Tribal Members and other tribal members of said tribe by the tribe’s Trustees (white), James W. Parker, G.N.W. Newsom, and Jesse S. Parham. On November 8th, 1850 Judge Rich H. Baker, Court of Southampton County ruled in favor of the Cheroenhaka (Nottoway) Indian Tribe and on March 3, 1851, as witnessed by Littleton R. Edwards, Clerk of said court, awarded the tribe $818.82 with interest from June 1, 1845. As a result of the successful Court Case in 1851, the Commonwealth of Virginia in the Circuit Superior Court of Law and Chancery for the County of Southampton County, Virginia RECOGNIZED the Cheroenhaka (Nottoway) Indian Tribe, Southampton County, as a Tribe and hence The State of Virginia or the Federal Government, has never, since said time, by way of Law, Act, Bill or Policy negated its Recognition Status as a sovereign Nation/Tribe..
In 1850s as the final parcels of the Tribe’s Reservation Lands was disappearing into the hands of the Europeans many Tribal members (Artist, Bozeman, Turners, Rogers, Woodson, Brown) relocated to what became known as “Artist Town” near what is now Riverdale Road in Southampton County, Virginia. Their descendants continue to live there as a tribal communal group up until the late 1990s sharing their Native American Traditions and Customs – hunting, trapping, tanning hides, fishing, farming, and raising hogs (as a tribal tradition they notched the right ear and cut the tails of each hog) The Cheroenhaka (Nottoway) Indian Tribe is the only “Iroquoian Tribe” still residing in the Commonwealth of Virginia claiming a prior documented continual existing “STATE RECOGNIZED” and FEDERAL RECOGNIZED Status. [Cheroenhaka (Nottoway) Indian Tribe Vs Jeremiah Cobb, March 3rd, 1851, Circuit Superior Court of Law and Chancery for the County of Southampton County].
In 1877 the remaining 575 acres of the Tribe’s former 41,000 acre Reservation Land in Southampton County was divided between five Cheroenhaka (Nottoway) Indian families whose descendents still reside in Southampton County.
In 1965, 66, & 69 an excavation of what became known as the Hand Site Settlement (44SN22), in Southampton County, Virginia, off Hwy 671 (General Thomas Hwy and Handsom Road) was conducted; wherein, some 131 “Documented” grave remains of Cheroenhaka (Nottoway) Indian Bones were removed, put in “shoe boxes” and placed on a shelf at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, Washington, DC. All non skeletal remains are housed at the Department of Historical Resources, Richmond, Virginia. NOTE: Gerald Smith, Project Field Director for the Hand Site Excavation, documented the site as a Cheroenhaka (Nottoway) Indian Burial Ground and Settlement.
The Hand Site Excavation (44SN22) – in Southampton County carbon dates the ancestors of the Cheroenhaka (Nottoway) Indian Tribe in Southampton County, Virginia to around 1580. It is believed this site existed in 700 AD. NOTE: On November 2, 2009, a State Historical Marker commemorating the Hand Site was placed on the corner of General Thomas Hwy and Hansom Road in Southampton County. The marker notes that the site was “long claimed” by the Cheroenhaka (Nottoway) Indian Tribe. In 1607 the tribe was called Man-goak or Men-gwe by the Powhatan Confederation’s “Algonquian Speakers” and further listed in the upper left hand quadrant on Capt. John Smith’s 1607 map of Virginia by the same name in what is now Nottoway County. (Chero = Ashe, -en-ha-ka - People of the Stream===and called Meghwe by the Algonquians and a mispronunciation as Mongoak by the English. – thus “People at the Fork of the Steam.” The name Cheroenhaka is noted in the papers of Lewis Binford and in the book by Albert Gallatin and the papers of James Tresevant (Trezevant), Esq. The War Department Papers of 1796 refer to the Nottoway as Cheroenhaka. The Honorable James Tresevant (Trezevant) in 1831 stated that the true name of the Nottoway Indians is Cheroenhaka. (Che-ro-en-ha-ka)