Warraskoyack Indians

K-244

The Warraskoyack Indians, members of the Powhatan paramount chiefdom, lived near the mouth of the Pagan River and along its tributaries. Their town of Mokete likely stood in the vicinity of present-day Rescue, while Mathomauk was probably situated along Burwell Bay. The principal settlement of Warraskoyack was located further inland, perhaps east of modern Smithfield. John Smith traded with the Warraskoyack as early as the fall of 1607, obtaining corn for the newly arrived English colonists. By 1610, however, hostilities had broken out. The English attacked the Warraskoyack, burned their homes, and destroyed their cornfields.

Department of Historic Resources, 2016

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References/Bibliographic Citation:

Ben C. McCary, John Smith’s Map Of Virginia in E. G. Swem, ed., Jamestown 350th Anniversary Historical Booklets, 3 (Williamsburg: Virginia 350 Anniversary Celebration Corporation, 1957); John Bennett Boddie, Seventeenth Century Isle of Wight County, Virginia; a history…(Baltimore, Md., Genealogical Publishing Company, 1980 [1938]), 1-4; Segar Cofer Dashiell, Smithfield: A Pictorial History (Norfolk, Va.: Donning Company, 1978), 7-8; Helen Havery King, Historical Notes on Isle of Wight County, Virginia (Isle of Wight County: Isle of Wight Board of Supervisors, 1993), 1-5; Helen C. Rountree, The Powhatan Indians of Virginia: Their Traditional Culture (Norman, Ok. and London: University of Oklahoma Press, 1989), 9,15; Helen C. Rountree, Pocahontas’s People: The Powhatan Indians of Virginia Through Four Centuries (Norman, Ok. and London: University of Oklahoma Press, 1990); Philip L. Barbour, ed., The Complete Works of John Smith (1580-1631) in Three Volumes, (Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 1986), I 37, 100, 186; E. Randolph Turner, III and Antony F. Opperman, Searching for Virginia Company Period Sites: An Assessment of Surviving Archaeological Manifestations of Powhatan-English Interactions, A.D. 1607-1624 (Forthcoming publishing), Chapter 3.