Historical Highway Markers

Rappahannock Indians

JT-10

Prior to the 17th century, the Rappahannock Indians maintained seasonal residences on the banks of Totuskey Creek. They fished for spawning shad and herring each spring, trapping fish in weirs in the creek's narrows and preparing them for the tribe to consume or trade. When the Rappahannock were forced to begin selling their lands to the English in 1651, part of the tribe moved here to “Totosha” town. In 1667, the Rappahannock sold this town and moved to their hunting grounds on the south side of the Rappahannock River, where they continue to live today.

Department of Historic Resources, 2006

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References/Bibliographic Citation:

Michael Klein and Douglas W. Sanford, “Analytical Scale and Archaeological Perspectives on the Contact Era in the Northern Neck of Virginia,” in Julia King and Dennis Blanton, eds. Contact in Context: New Archaeological, Anthropological and Historical Perspectives on Natives and Europeans in the Mid-Atlantic (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 2004), p.60-74; Rappahannock Tribe, “History and Information”, accessed at http://indians.vipnet.org/tribes/rappahannock.cfm; Helen Rountree, Pocahontas’ People (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1990), p. 117 John Smith, The Generall Historie of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles, 1624, in Philip L. Barbour, ed. The Complete Works of Captain John Smith (1580-1631) 3 vols. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1986), 2: 170-180; Thomas Hoskins Warner, History of Old Rappahannock County Virginia, 1656-1692, with introduction 1608-1656, including the Counties of Essex and Richmond, and parts of Westmoreland, King George, Stafford, Caroline and Spotsylvania Counties, (Tappahannock: P.P. Warner, 1965); “Land Conveyance from Rappahannock Weroance Accopatough to Moore Fauntleroy, April 4, 1651,” transcribed in Bishop William Meade, Old Churches, Ministers, and Families of Virginia, 2 vols. (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1857; reprint, 1910), 2: 478-9; “Fauntleroy’s Monument at Naylor’s Hole,” Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, 35 (April 1927): 204-5; [Old] Rappahannock County Deeds, 3: 356, printed in “Some References to Indians in Colonial Virginia,” The William and Mary Quarterly, 2d. ser., 16 (October 1936): 599.