Notes compiled by Phillip W. Evans for the First Colony Foundation

Early Contact: 1584-1586

The Chowan River basin first appears in the historical record of English exploration and colonization of America in 1584 with the report of Arthur Barlowe on the first of the voyages made under a charter Queen Elizabeth I granted to Walter Raleigh that same year. Between the time of that reference and the documented, permanent English settlement of the Chowan River basin in the third quarter of the 17th century, there are several instances where reports of English interest and presence in the region are still extant. What we know from the written record needs to be augmented by the archaeological record.

In 1584 Barlowe wrote the English were informed that “great Towne, called Chowanoake” stood beside a river called “Nomopana.”¹ It is not clear whether this “Nomopana” was a name for the Chowan River, a name for the northern shore of what is now Albemarle Sound, or a name for the confluence of the modern Chowan and Roanoke Rivers. Barlowe further reported that “the Lorde of that Towne and Country, is called Pooneno: this Pooneno is not subject to the King of Wingandacoa, but is a free Lorde.” Barlowe went on to report that “Beyonde this countrey, there is another King, whome they call Menatoan….” Pooneno did not reappear in the accounts of the Roanoke voyages, and is difficult understand whether he was a Chowanoke, Weapemeoc, or Moratuc. Menatoan (or Menatonan) was prominently mentioned in the accounts of the 1586 English exploration of the Chowan. Barlowe tried to make clear that Pooneno and Menatoan were independent allies, but not subjects of Wingina, the reported “king” of Wingandacoa. The English believed “Wingandacoa” was the name of the region stretching from Roanoke Island southwest to Secotan on or near the modern Pamlico.

Under the continued sponsorship of the newly knighted Sir Walter Raleigh, the English returned the region in the summer of 1585. They proceeded to establish a colony in the newly named “Virginia,” as well as venture from Roanoke Island up the modern Albemarle Sound. The journal of the ship Tiger recorded that on 2 August 1585 “The Admirall was sent to Weapemeoke” on the north shore of that waterway. The admiral here was likely not the flagship, the Tiger, as it would almost certainly have drawn too much water for exploration in the interior waters. The term “Admirall” referred to Philip Amadas, who was listed as the “Admirall of the countrie.” Amadas had commanded with Barlowe the voyage of the year before. He probably sailed one of the smaller pinnaces or boats that accompanied the little fleet commanded by Sir Richard Grenville, and Amadas is believed to have returned to Roanoke Island before 8 September 1585. How far up the sound he went and what was done there was not recorded. Amadas remained with the Roanoke Island colony under the command of Ralph Lane after Grenville’s return to England.

How much other English exploration of the Chowan region occurred in the fall of 1585 and winter of 1586 is unknown. In reporting on his spring 1586 entrance of the Roanoke River, Ralph Lane reported the Moratiks (Moratuc) abandoned their towns even though “they had ever dealt kindly with us,” which suggests some interaction had occurred in the preceding months. Lane attributed the retreat of the Moratuc and the neighboring Mangoaks to the machinations of Wingina and not to any previous conflicts between the English and the inhabitants of the lands along the Roanoke River.

Lane’s March 1586 voyage of exploration partially up both the Chowan and Roanoke Rivers was very eventful and extremely informative for the English. Lane stated that Menatonan, the “King” of Choanoke “gave me more understanding and light of the Country then I had received by all the searches and salvages that before I or any of my companie had had conference with….” Lane’s complete narrative of the exploration will not be recounted here, but it is important to note that he describes the region in considerable detail (“I have set downe this voyage somewhat particularly…”) and strongly argues in favor of continued exploration for “the discovery of a good mine…or a passage to the Southsea, or some way to it….” Lane further stated that only discovery of one of these would make the other potential commodities to be raised or collected really worth the cost of their shipping.

Part of Lane’s discourse on his exploration outlines his plan to search out the bay with a good anchorage to the north of Chowan that Menatonan had discussed in their conferences. Lane projected building on this bay a “mayne forte” that would be connected with the upper reaches (“the head of the River”) of the Chowan by a series of sconces with small trenches and palisades “upon the top of it….” He intended to site each sconce at a cornfield, which suggests he intended to place them adjacent to small Chowan towns or hamlets. He also intended to keep boats on the Chowan River so that he could both maintain the connection with Roanoke Island and continue the exploration of the Roanoke (Moratico) River.

Lane was never able to carry out this plan in the late spring and summer of 1586. The failure of Raleigh’s supply vessels to arrive as early as Lane expected, conflict with the Roanoke in late May- early June, and the arrival of Sir Francis Drake on a storm tossed sea all combined to conclude the first English colony and their planned explorations into the interior with a somewhat hurried embarkation for a return voyage to England.

Drake’s ships (with Lane’s colonists) were barely over the eastern horizon when a supply ship from Raleigh arrived. There is no record that they ventured into the interior. Shortly after their departure, Sir Richard Grenville arrived. He is reported to have traveled “up into divers places of the Countrie” before deciding to land fifteen men “with all maner of provision for two yeeres” on Roanoke Island before returning to England.

“Into the maine” – 1587 and 1590

When another group of English settlers arrived in Raleigh’s Virginia, they included not just men, but women and children too. Their governor, John White, contended that their pilot, Simao Fernandes, was supposed to take them to settle on the Chesapeake Bay, but he instead compelled them to disembark and begin their colonization on Roanoke Island where the previous English groups had lived. They found no survivors from the party of fifteen men left by Grenville. About a month after their late July 1587 arrival, these people became anxious for someone to return to England to oversee their re-supply in 1588, and they pressed John White to do this. White’s account of this related that the colonists intended to move “50 miles into the maine” soon after he set sail back to England, but no other specific information on their destination was given.

When White eventually returned in August 1590, he found the word “CROATOAN” carved at a palisade entrance. Although this did not indicate removal to a site fifty miles into the mainland, White again noted that had been the intent of the colonists in 1587.

Post-Roanoke/Pre-Jamestown Contacts: 1590-1606

Little record survives of searches for the colony between 1590 and 1602. In 1602 Samuel Mace made a voyage for Sir Walter Raleigh, but he did not come into the area of the Chowan or Roanoke Rivers. Mace made another voyage in 1603, but no record survives of what occurred on the voyage or where Mace might have landed.² A contemporaneous voyage by Bartholomew Gilbert does not appear to have come any closer than the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. Gilbert was reported unable to enter the bay and was later killed somewhere on the Atlantic shore north of modern Cape Charles, Virginia.

Throughout the documentation of this early period of exploration and colonization there was a continual interest in the discovery of “silk grass.” Although Thomas Hariot identifies yucca as a potential for the production of a silk-like grosgrain, the greater interest seems to have focused on milkweed or Asclepias syriaca. One watercolor of this plant is part of the John White portfolio at the British Museum. It is labeled Wysauke. There is another contemporary watercolor in the British Museum’s Sloane manuscripts labeled Wisakon. Milkweed is not mentioned in Hariot’s Brief and True Report and it may be one of the two secret commodities which Hariot alluded that.Herbalist John Gerard depicted it as Wisanck in his Herball of 1597, where he postulated that the English colonists were still surviving “if neither vntimely death by murdering, or pestilence, corrupt aire, bloodie flixes, or some other mortall sicknes hath not destroied them.”³

Information gathered from the voyages of Samuel Mace and other presently unknown sources appear to have indicated that either English colonists or native peoples friendly to the English could be found along the coast of Raleigh’s Virginia and that a profitable trade for American plant materials could be undertaken. The primary plant material sought by the French licensed, English voyagers on the “Castor and Pollux” and her unnamed consort in 1604-1605 was “Oyssan” or “Bissanque.”⁴ The French cape merchant reported to their Spanish captors that “when the Englishman ‘Guaterrale’ (Walter Raleigh) came to settle some Englishmen, they took some of the said grass to England and announced that the Indians spun it to make cloth, and they worked it in England and saw that it was silk, like that from China….”⁵ English interest in the collection of this “silk grass was to remain strong into the early decades of the 1600s.

Jamestown Searches for the Lost Colony: 1607-1609

The Jamestown colonists arrived in Virginia in the spring of 1607. Late that year John Smith was captured by the Pamunkey and taken to Indian leader or “weroance,” Opechancanough. Smith recorded that in their conversations, this highly placed and influential member of the Powhatan paramount chiefdom, related information on “certain men at a place called Ocanahonan, clothed like me.”⁶ Smith was subsequently taken to meet Powhatan at Werowocomoco on the modern York River. There Smith was informed that two (or six?) days south of Tsenacommacah or the region controlled by Powhatan, were lands of the “Mangoage,” “Chawwonock,” and “Roanoke.” He was also told of a place called “Anone,” where the inhabitants has an “abundance of Brasse, and houses walled like ours (i.e. the English at Jamestown.)⁷

At some point Smith also heard from Wowinchopunk, a Paspahegh, of English people to the south. After 1 January 1608, Wowinchopunk was to lead some unnamed Jamestown settlers south to these Englishmen. How far they went and what they saw is unclear, but notations on a sketch or manuscript map, now called the “Zuniga map,” sent to England in June 1608 gives some idea of what they learned or expected to learn. A notation on the map shows a place on the south shore of the James River at or near the modern Pagan River as “here paspahegh and 2 of our men landed to go to panawiock.” This “panawiock” is shown near a watercourse that seems best interpreted as either the later Cashie River or Salmon Creek in Bertie County. At this locale the map has another written notation stating “here the king of the paspahegh reported our men to be and went to see.” Further to the south was a notation “here remain the 4 men clothed that came from roonock to okanahowan.”

The deciphering of what is meant by these notations has consumed the energies of several historians since the map was discovered in a Spanish archive in the late 1800s. Most interpretations have explored the possibilities that they refer to survivors of the Sir Walter Raleigh’s 1587 colony that landed and settled initially on Roanoke Island. The 1593 account of the 1590 John White voyage as mentioned above suggested that the colonists had relocated from Roanoke Island. The notations on the ‘Zuniga map’ seem to suggest that at least some of the colonists may have ended up at places named “okanhowan, pakerakanick, and panawiock.” How many went, when they went, and why they chose these places was not indicated. As yet there is no physical or archaeological evidence confirming the relocation of any of the colonists to any site noted on the ‘Zuniga’ map or anywhere else. Some archaeological evidence may be viewed a suggestive, but the colony is still lost.⁸

Search for the lost colonists was then deferred when Christopher Newport turned to exploring up the James River and into the Virginia piedmont in October 1608. After his return to England in December, John Smith talked with Tackonekintaco, a Warraskoyack leader about the possible location of survivors from the Raleigh colonies. A few weeks later (January 1609), Michael Sicklemore, was sent to Chowanoke with two Warraskoyack guides to look for Raleigh’s lost colonists and silk grass. He returned with “little hope and less certainetie of them [that] were left by Sir Walter Rawley,” Sicklemore reported the river to be “not great, the people few, the country mostly over growne with pynes, where there did grow here and there straglingly Pemminaw, we call silke grasse. But by the river the ground was good and exceeding furtill.” Details on how long Sicklemore was in the Chowan region, where exactly he traveled, and with whom he might have talked were not recorded. There was also no mention of him engaging in any trade activities with the inhabitants of Chowan River region. By the fall of the year he was reported dead in Nansemond and no further report of his trip to Chowan is extant.⁹

Soon after or simultaneously with the search by Sicklemore (February or March, 1609), John Smith sent Nathaniel Powell and Anas Todkill to obtain information on the lost colonists from the Mangoaks. Accurate identification of the “Mangoaks” is sometimes difficult, but it is likely that this referred to groups south of the James River that were outside control or direct influence of the Powhatan paramount chiefdom (e.g. Nottoway, Meherrin, Tuscarora). Smith reported discouraging results. He simply said “Nothing we could learn but that they were all dead.” This would seem to settle the matter, but a later report published in London suggested more may have been encountered by Powell and Todkill.

About the same time these Jamestown colonists were exploring to the south of the James River, two Powhatans, Namontack and Machumps, were visiting London. During the winter of 1609 Machumps spoke with William Strachey, who later came to Virginia and served as the colony’s secretary, about affairs in Virginia and possible English survivors from the 1587 Roanoke colony. Reference was made to the survival of several English at a place termed ‘Rittanoe,” where four men, two boys and one “young maid” were believed living under the protection of a leader or ‘wiroane’ (weroance) named Eyanoco. The English were said to be processing (‘beating’) copper at this town located somewhere well south of the James River and likely south of the Roanoke River. Some histories interpret these statements by Machumps to infer that the English at Ritanoe were slaves, hostages, or somehow in bondage to Eyanoco but there is also the plausible inference that these few people were being protected by Eyanonco from outside Powhatan related threats. Machumps related that they had fled up the Chowan from a “slaughter at Roanoak” about the time of the arrival of the initial Jamestown colonists in the spring of 1607.¹⁰

The name ‘Eyanoco’ is also subject to some confusion. Other sources referred to a ‘Gepanacon,’ and it likely these are two versions of the same name. Whether the name is Algonkian, Iroquoian, or some hybrid (i.e. an Algonkian trying to pronounce an Iroquoian name) is unclear.

Machumps made reference to two other locales in his comments on the fate of the lost colonists: ‘Ocanahonan’ and ‘Pakerakanick.” Needless to say, it would be very beneficial to know the exact modern locations of these towns, but they have not yet been located with real specificity. About the best that can be said is the ‘Ocanahonan’ was somewhere on the lower Roanoke River (then called the Moratuc or Moratico River) between modern Roanoke Rapids and the Albemarle Sound, while ‘Pakerakanick’ was likely somewhere on the modern Tar River between Tarboro and Chocowinity.

By May of 1609, the Virginia Company of London envisioned establishing a principal colonial settlement at or near Ocanahonan so there could be access to reputed “rich Coppermines” at Ritanoe, abundant “silke grasse,” and perhaps some contact with the four men “left by Sir Walter Ralegh.” Later in the year, London saw the publication of A True and Sincere Declaration, which related the two men (Powell and Todkill?) had discovered within fifty miles of Jamestown some evidence of survivors of Raleigh’s lost colony. It was stated that these two men were denied direct or indirect contact with any of the reported survivors, but that they saw “crosses and letters the assured testimonies of Christians” cut into trees.¹¹

Late 1609 also saw the outbreak of what is termed the First Anglo-Powhatan War and an apparent ten- year interruption in English exploration of the Chowan and Roanoke River regions. As Virginia’s economy as became grounded on the growth and export of the tobacco cash crop, interest in a potential copper source near Jamestown appears to have quickly diminished.

Occasional and Sporadic Interest and Contact: 1620 – 1640

In March, 1620, a committee of the Virginia Company adopted the recommendation of Sir George Yeardley, governor of Virginia, that Marmaduke Rayner be employed to explore the surrounding region in a logical manner “which would produce good benefit to the Plantation.” In the summer Rayner made his exploration “to the Southward to Roanoke.” In July, 1621, an account of this was read to the officers of the company in London. No copy of the account is known to survive, so it is also unknown whether Rayner entered the Chowan River area.¹²

John Pory, another secretary to the Virginia colony, made a February 1622 journey to Chowanoke. A report of Pory’s journey was “preached” by the Reverend Patrick Copland in a London church on 18 April 1622. It was said Pory had found a “fruitfull Countrie blessed with abundance of Corne, reaped twise a yeere,” pine forests, and a “great deale of silk grass.” Pory was also reported to have received a piece of copper from the natives. There was no report that Pory gained any information on the fate of the Roanoke colonists.¹³

The outbreak of war, the Second Anglo-Powhatan war in March of 1622 again interrupted English involvement in the Chowan River region. Almost a decade and half passed before there was record of further English presence in the area. Surprisingly the new interest focused not on copper, “silk grass,” or Raleigh’s colonists, but on the pine forests already mentioned. And the record of this interest was generated in 1658 New York court records regarding a dispute about a swamp in Long Island, New York.

The records reflect that William Purrier and James Reeve ventured into the Chowan seeking “sperrits resin” or turpentine in 1636. Somewhere there they met William Salmon, Thomas Reeve, Thomas Terrill, Thomas Benedict, Henery Whitney and others who had come from the “Summer Isles” (Bermuda).¹⁴ The venture apparently failed because too many people had become involved. It is not sure how far any of them went in seeking to distill pine sap or resin before they redirected their interests to Long Island.¹⁵ This court record was as follows:

March ye 18th, 1658
Swearinge be Ye Holy Evangelists that he with his now father-in-law William Purrier, and his brother in law, James REEVE did go adventuring in ye Chowan Country for sperrits resin in ye yeare 1636 and there did meet William Salmon, Thomas Reeve, Thomas Terrill, Thomas Benedict, Henery Whitney and others who had come hither from ye Summer Isles and ye said adventure failinge through ye overplus of adventurers, who had come hither prior to their coeing. They did set sale with one Sunderland to a country the said Sunderland had from his master one James Ffarrett by letters patent from ye Earle of Starlinge. And ye said Osman does farther depose that ye said company with others whose names he has forgotten did set downe on ye necke called Hashammomack and did ingage in distillinge sperrits resin from ye trees in ye greate swampe and further Sunderland, Salmon, Whitney, and Benedict did from ye beginning owne ye said necke in equal shares and did so from our first sittingse down in year 1636-7.
Signed: Thomas Osman in ye presence of: Barnabas Horton, Thomas Moor.

War Comes to the Chowan: 1640-1650

Perhaps more frustrating than the absence of historical documentation is when extant historical documentation disagrees with itself. This seems to be the case with notes recorded in an early Nansemond County, Virginia prayer book. Around 1644 someone wrote in the Basse family prayer book: “Edward Basse sonne of Nath’ll & Mary Basse yt unregenerated by the Spirit of God took in marriage one virtuous Indian mayd’n by the Christian name of Mary Tucker and went to live amongst the Shownanocs in Carolina in 1644 A.D. He went to Carolina in later years in persute of trade and
not in 1644.”

Did Edward Basse and Mary Tucker Basse move from Nansemond to the Chowan in 1644 as the first note indicates or did Edward come later so that the second note was a real correction? Where exactly would Edward and Mary have resided with the Chowan in 1644? Was this move in any way motivated by the outbreak that year of the Third Anglo-Powhatan War?¹⁶

The English victory/Powhatan defeat in that war rearranged the map of Indian nations south of the James River. These notes will not try to untangle the knotted story of which Powhatan groups went where, why they relocated, or what happened later. One result of the war and relocations appears to have been the commencement of what is styled the Anglo-Chowanoc War of 1646. What little that is known about the war centers on the two-pronged attack of the English under Major General Richard Bennett and Colonel Thomas Dew. Bennett, a Nansemond County planter and probable Virginia Puritan, took the overland approach. Dew, probably also from Nansemond or elsewhere in south side Virginia, was reported to have taken a water route. This would likely have taken him through later Albemarle Sound and into the Chowan River.

At some unidentified place the combatants met in conflict. It is not clear whether the Chowanocs were the identified enemy of the English or whether the fight simply occurred somewhere on the Chowan (Chowanoc) River. The English prevailed in the war and suffered few casualties. The resulting peace of October 1646 saw the Weyanoke of the old Powhatan paramount chiefdom ceding all lands east of the Blackwater River up to the James River. It is unclear whether the peace agreement the English negotiated with the Powhatan leader Necotowance included any lands of the Chowanokes even if it might have caused relocations. It does not seem that Weapemeoc lands were included or ceded as Nathaniel Batts, George Durant, and others purchased land from Weapemeoc or Yeopim leaders in the 1650s. Additional Virginians may have bought land on the lower Chowan River from the Chowan, Weapemeoc, or Moratuc. Henry Plumpton of Nansemond and Thomas Tuke (Took), veterans of the Anglo-Chowanoc war, are said to have acquired land in 1648 from “Moratuck” (Roanoke River) to “Weyanook” (either Wiccacon Creek of Weyanoke Creek on west bank of Chowan River). There is no record that Plumpton or Tuke settled anyone on these lands. Sometime near this time, Colonel Thomas Dew made some exploration between Cape Lookout and Cape Fear, but there was no suggestion that an entrance or approach to the Chowan River was included.¹⁷

Settlement Begins in the 1650s

Interest in English settlement of the Chowan region grew in the early 1650s and the first permanent settler is recorded by the middle of the decade. In 1653, Rev. Roger Green of “Nansemund” acquired a grant of 10,000 acres on “Moratuck or Roanoake river … south side of Choan river and branches thereof.” The bounds of this grant are not today known. Whether it referred to lands on the west (south?) side of the Chowan River or the south side of modern Albemarle Sound and Roanoke River is somewhat unclear. One thousand of these acres were to be set aside for Green. There was a reference to the 10,000 acres being near those who held land by a former grant, but the location of this former grant or who held it was not made stated. This may have been an acknowledgment by Green of the prior actions of Plumpton and Tuke. There is no record that Green settled on his granted lands. In 1656 Green was in Virginia, probably in Jamestown instead of Nansemond, and was advocating for more towns in Virginia.

In 1650 Edward Bland departed Fort Henry or modern Petersburg, Virginia, for an overland trek south to the area of the Roanoke River. He recounted his exploration in his 1651 book The discovery of Newe Brittaine. Interpretations of Bland’s route do not indicate that he came into the Chowan River area even though he came close when he arrived at the falls of the Roanoke River.

In 1654 or 1655, carpenter Robert Bodnam built a house/trading post for Nathaniel Batts at the confluence of the Chowan and Roanoke Rivers. A pictogram on a 1657 map shows the location of this house. Just to the north of the house there was drawn a creek labeled “Flett’s Creek.” We have no information to suggest the source for the word ‘Flett.’ It may be a misreading of ‘Batts.’

Early settlers after 1657 (Batts, George Durant, John Harvey, etc.) were largely Quakers settling on the Perquimans and Pasquotank Rivers. Some people settled on south shore of Albemarle. A map in the 1670s Blathwayt atlas shows English style houses there, but none up the Chowan River north of the Batts House on Salmon Creek. A couple of rare surviving land documents from the mid-seventeenth century record English colonial purchases from Weapemeoc or Yeopim weroance ‘Kiscutanaweh’ or ‘Kilcocanen’ (Kiscocanen or Kifcocanen?). Again there were non-specific references to other settlers. Both of those land purchases were for tracts well to the east of the Chowan River, and may indicate population contraction and group relocation of the Weapemeoc. There may also be some evidence of their growing cultural assimilation with the English in Lower Norfolk County.¹⁸

There is no clear evidence of English settlement and occupation between the 1607 and 1655. There are hints of interest in the area and some efforts toward securing land grants in the area of the lower Chowan, but no evidence of contact longer than very brief explorations, surveys, and military incursions. There is likewise no documentation of English traders becoming established in the region before the arrival of Nathaniel Batts in the 1650s.¹⁹

There is nothing however to preclude trade goods entering the Chowan through undocumented activities, but English interest in the Chowan between 1607 and 1655 would seemingly limit such goods to those types identified through historical and archaeological research as common to the Anglo-Indian trade of the period.