NATIVE AMERICAN TRIBES IN
AUGUSTA COUNTY, VA
Extracted from the History of Augusta County, VA
By J. LEWIS PEYTON
1882

Submitted by: Barb Ziegenmeyer

ABORIGINAL POPULATION
At the period, 1716, of Col. Spotswood's discovery of the Valley, it was the camping, hunting ground or residence of numerous tribes of Indians. These tribes, while wandering in pursuit of game from place to place during a considerable part of the year, possessed a few scattered villages, comprising a limited number of habitations, of the most imperfect construction, where they were in the Habit of passing their winters and where they left their wives, children and old men during their absence. Round about these rude villages some feeble and ill directed attempts at agriculture announced the more frequented and permanent haunts of savage life.
Many learned disquisition's exist as to the origin of these red men, and it cannot be denied that the origin, history, languages, and condition of the aborigines present ample materials for speculation. Among the Central and South American nations, notably in Mexico and Peru, many evidences exist of a regular, but limited civilization, but for the most part the tribes of both North and South America were, on the discovery of Columbus, composed of roving savages in a brutal state of abasement
Notwithstanding the greater progress among some of the aborigines, and certain physical differences, the Patagonians being generally over six feet high and the Esquimaux less than five feet, a race of deformed and diminutive savages who tremble at the sound of arms, the varieties of complexion, etc., those scholars whose opinions are entitled to most respect are agreed that there are sufficient points of general resemblance in all the nations of North and South America to justify the belief that they are sprung from one primitive pair. Religion, philosophy, geology, history and tradition combine to teach that man was created in Asia, and that his home after the flood continued in the high lands and lofty mountain regions of the Eastern continent.
While much obscurity rests on the question of the origin of the American tribes, it may be stated as the settled opinion that our continent was peopled from different quarters of the old world. Space will not permit us to enter into an examination of this subject, of the causes which drove the Asiatic tribes from their native seats, which impelled their march towards the northeastern portion of the Eastern continent, and finally brought them to the shores of the New World. In their route to America there was no particular obstacle. Behring's Straits, the water they are believed to have crossed, is only 39 miles wide; in it there are two islands, and in winter it is frozen over, so that quadrupeds as well as man can pass. And it has been well said that water is the highway of the savage, to whom, without an axe, the jungle is impervious. Even civilized man migrates by sea and rivers, and has ascended 2,000 miles above the mouth of the Missouri, while interior tracts in Virginia, New York and Ohio are still a wilderness. To the uncivilized man, no path is free but the sea, the lake and the river.
On supposed analogies of customs and language, some have thought the aborigines of the Tennessee Valleys and the plains of the Cordilleras were the descendants of the lost tribes of Israel, "who took counsel to go forth into a further country, where never mankind dwelt".
Dr. Lang suggests the possibility of an early communication between the Polynesian world and South America, and while it is possible that it may have taken place, the better opinion is, as mentioned, that it was by Behring's Straits that America received her first inhabitants.

The following is a list of the various tribes who resided in or resorted to the Valley of Virginia in 1716-32, and they all spoke the same language or a dialect of it This was the mother tongue of the natives from North Carolina to Massachusetts. This mother tongue received from the French the name of Algonquin, and under it all the wild tribes of this region were grouped:

I. The Shawanese, the most considerable of the Algonquin tribes, had their principal villages east of the Alleghanies, near the present town of Winchester, but their possessions extended west to the Mississippi river, Foote asserts (Second Series, p. 159) that the Shawanese owned the whole Valley of Virginia, but had abandoned it. He gives no authority for the statement, and we have found none in our researches. Of all the Indian tribes with whom our ancestors came in contact, the Shawanese were the most bloody and terrible, holding all other men, as well Indians as whites, in contempt as warriors in comparison with themselves. This estimate of themselves made them more restless and fierce than any other savages, and they boasted that they had killed ten times as many white people as any other Indians did. They were a well formed, active and ingenious people, capable of enduring great privations and hardships, were assuming and imperious in the presence of others not of their own nation, and sometimes very cruel.
II. The Tuscaroras, whose villages were near Martinsburg, in the present county of Berkeley.
III. The Senedos, who occupied the north fork of the Shenandoah until 1732, when it was exterminated by hostile natives from the South.
IV. The Catawbas, whose headquarters were on the Catawba river in South Carolina.
V. The Delawares, who frequented the Susquehanna river in Pennsylvania.
VI. The Susquehanoughs, who originally occupied the headwaters of the Chesapeake bay, but were driven out by the Cinela tribe and took up their residence on the upper waters of the Potomac, supposed to be one of their favorite places of residence, as the remains of their villages are more numerous in this region than elsewhere in the Valley.
VII. The Cinelas, on the Upper Potomac.
VIII. The Pascataway tribe, on the headwaters of the Chesapeake.
IX. The Cherokees, who occupied the Upper Valley of the Tennessee river and the high lands of Carolina, Georgia and Alabama. The Cherokees were the tallest and most robust of the Southern tribes, their complexions brighter than usual with the red men, and some of their young women were nearly as fair and blooming as European women. They owed allegiance to the Muscogulges, who stood at the head of a confederacy composed of Cherokees, Seminoles, Chickasaws, Choctaws and Creeks, and it is probable that bands from all of these tribes, or at least warriors, accompanied the Cherokees in their annual visits to the Valley. Without exception, these Southern Indians were proud, haughty and arrogant, brave and valiant in war, ambitious of conquest, restless and perpetually exercising their arms, yet magnanimous and merciful to a vanquished enemy when he submitted and sought their friendship and protection.

These vagrant tribes camped or resided at great distances from each other, were widely dispersed over a vast country, and any connection between them and particular localities was of so frail a texture that it was broken by the slightest accident. The different tribes or nations were small in number as compared with civilized societies in which industry, arts, agriculture and commerce have united a vast number of individuals whom a complicated luxury renders valuable to each other. No accurate information exists as to the numbers composing these tribes, but it is most probable they did not exceed a few hundred warriors each. At the landing of the Pilgrims in 1620, the number of Indians in New England did not exceed 123,000, and a few years later the number was greatly reduced by a plague. It is probable that the Indian population of Virginia was larger at this time, as the climate of our Valley and State is generally better adapted to the wants of man than that of New England. Bancroft, however, ventures the opinion that the whole Indian population east of the Mississippi and south of New England did not, in 1620, exceed 180,000.
Detached parties of armed barbarians from the Northern and Western tribes occasionally came to the Valley, and the Massawomees penetrated to Eastern Virginia and were a terror to the low-land tribes Armed parties also visited the Valley from the five nations situated on the rivers and lakes of New York the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas and Senecas. There was little difference in character and person between these wild men of whatever tribe, and the remark of Capt. Jno. Smith in his general history. Vol. 1, p 120, that the Cinelas were of gigantic size, is now rejected as incredible a statement as little to be believed as the fabulous origin assigned by the Goths to their enemies, the Huns, namely: that the witches of Scythia had copulated in the desert with infernal spirits, and that the duos were the offspring of this execrable conjunction.
We distrust whatever is marvelous, but it is proper to mention in this connection that the historian of the Valley gives an account, in his second chapter, of the discovery, in Hardy county, of the under jaw bone of a human being of great size, with eight teeth in each side of enormous size, and the teeth standing in the jaw bone transversely! What is repugnant to experience and common sense we discredit, and consequently have little faith in this story, though given upon the authority of a gentleman who represented that he had himself seen the jaw bone. Within the present year mastodon bones have been excavated on the Kentucky Central railroad. The supposed human jaw bone found in Hardy, was doubtless the fossil remain of some extinct animal of the genus mammiferous.
That portion of the Valley now embraced within the County of Augusta, is not known to have been the home or fixed residence of any tribe of Indians at the period of its settlement, nor is it known that it was not the home of some tribe or branch of a tribe. Such red men as Lewis met on entering Augusta, in 1732, were friendly, and so continued for over twenty years.
That the country had been, previous to 1732, permanently occupied, is indicated by the remains of barrows, cairns and ramparts, composed of mingled earth and stones, found at different points in the county notably near Waynesboro, on Lewis creek, a few miles below Staunton; on Middle river near Dudley's mill, and at Jarman's Gap, north of Rock-fish. The cairn at Jarman's Gap is probably sepulchral, and may have been intended and used as a place of worship. In the lower Shenandoah Valley and the country west of the Alleghanies in fact over every part of North America, especially in the Mississippi Valley there are remains of fortifications, mounds and other monuments of a primitive race, bearing marks of great antiquity, which " whisper mysteriously of a shadowy race, populous, nomadic, not altogether uncivilized, idolatrous," worshipping " in high places." It does not come within the scope and design of this volume, however, to investigate the question whether they were the work of the progenitors of the Indians or of a race long since extinct. That and all similar matters must be left to those who have taste and leisure for such abstruse inquiries. We may remark, however, that no remains exist in the Valley which indicate labor on a large scale or which were worthy, in Jefferson's opinion, to be styled Indian monuments. He would not dignify with that name their stone arrow points, pipes, &c.
The Valley of Virginia was, in 1716, when visited by Spotswood, without extensive forests, but the margins of streams were fringed with trees; there were pretty woodlands in the low grounds, and the mountain sides were densely covered with timber trees. The wood destroyed by Autumnal fires was replaced by a luxuriant growth of blue grass, white clover and other natural grasses and herbage. The spontaneous productions of the earth were everywhere numerous and abundant, and there were many varieties of game and wild animals. The luxuriance of the vegetation evinced the fertility of a soil which required only the hand of art to render it in the highest degree subservient to the wants of man. But the nomads of the Valley were averse to improvement; their indolence refused to cultivate the earth, and their restless spirit disdained the confinement of sedentary life. To prevent the growth of timber and preserve the district as pasture, that it might support as much game as possible, and that the grass might come forward in the early Spring, the savages, before retiring into Winter quarters, set on fire the dry grass and burnt over the country. The absence of trees in an extensive quarter of the county N. W. of Staunton led our ancestors to style it "The Barrens," a name that it still bears, though it is interspersed at this time by handsome woodlands, the growth of the last eighty years.
As we shall speak in a subsequent page of the physical character and resources of the present county, nothing further need be now said beyond this, that the climate of the region west of the mountains was found by the first settlers to be mild and agreeable, the winds light and bracing, the rain fell ample, storms and mists rare, the soil fertile, producing trees and grass, and the earth apparently rich in ores, as indicated by mineral springs.
The two principal non-resident tribes who frequented this fine country in 1716-1745, were the Delawares from the North and the Catawbas from the South. At the time Augusta was settled, 1732, a bloody war was progressing between these tribes, and the Valley was the theater of action. In this war other tribes now and again participated as the allies of one or the other party, and it was at a battle on the North fork of the Shenandoah, in the county now bearing that name, that the Senedos tribe was exterminated. There is a burial place there eighteen to twenty feet high and sixty feet in circumference, filled with human bones, which testify to the truth of this tradition.
Wars between the tribes who frequented the Valley were of constant occurrence, and much speculation has been indulged in as to their origin some inclining to the opinion that there is a natural state of hostility of man against man. It is more probable, that these wars resulted from the restless and turbulent nature of mankind, the ambition of leaders and disputes as to the hunting grounds. Such, indeed, was the red man's martial and independent spirit, his love of arms, that he considered war and rapine as the pleasure and glory of mankind. It was the wars of the Iroquois and Massawomees, on the Ohio, which gave that beautiful stream its significant name of the " River of Blood." The war-paths conducting into the Valley were through Rockfish and Jarman's gaps, thence by the present site of Staunton and down the Valley, branching at different points.
Armed parties during this period constantly passed and repassed the white settlements without disturbing them. Sometimes they spent the night near the whites, and, when in need, asked for food and other supplies, which were always given them. If in want of provisions, and no white was near to supply them, they would kill pigs or cattle running at large, which they considered lawful game. The settlers were too few and too wise to resent these liberties, and continued on amicable terms with both Catawbas and Delawares when those tribes were, in 1732, and for many years subsequently, at war with each other. And it is worthy of remark that neither tribe sought to involve the colonists in their quarrels. When a single Indian, or a party of two or three, called at the hut of a white for victuals, rest or social conversation, he confidently approached the door and said, " I am come." Soon the whites set before them food and drink. After eating and drinking they lit their pipes, and while smoking conversed. This over, they arose and said, " I go," and off they walked, to stop without an introduction or invitation at the next habitation the appearance of which they liked. The sententious brevity with which they announced their arrival and departure may be ascribed to their limited English vocabulary rather than rudeness, though it must be allowed that the easy and graceful manners of a gentleman are not innate. The gradual process by which they are arrived at are summarized in Pope's line: " He marries, bows at court and grows polite."
The Indian villages in the Valley were principally on the upper waters of the Potomac, near the present towns of Martinsburg and Winchester, but at some period previous to the settlement of Augusta, villages had existed at numerous points on the banks of the streams East and West of the mountains. The spots can now be identified in Eastern Virginia by the deposits of oyster and muscle shells, these bivalves constituting a part of their food, and in the Valley by ashes, charred wood, arrow points, tomahawks, pipes and other remains. Their huts or wigwams were built by uniting poles at the top and inserting them at regular distances in the ground. An aperture was left at the top for smoke, and the ribs or rafters were covered with bark, the skins of wild beasts or with the boughs of trees. A small opening was left on one side, and in front of this in warm weather their fires were lit. In Winter the fire was made in the centre of the wigwam, and the savages ranged themselves round it on skins, mats and the leaves of trees. It was their custom, and a wise one it was, to sleep with their feet to the fire. Each family had its own hut, but occasionally they allowed others to enjoy its shelter. Their villages were always located near pure water, and if possible under the protection of a hill or forest. Their wigwams were unfurnished, except a covering of leaves and skins, for the dirt floors on which they slept. They ate without table, chairs, knives or forks.
Their clothing consisted of skins their feet being encased in a kind of sandal made of deer skin or other soft leather, called moccasin. It was, unlike the sandal, with a soft sole, and was ornamented on the upper side. They took fish with hooks made of fish bones or the spear, or caught them in nets. For hunting and in war they used clubs, bows and arrows and tomahawks headed with stone. After the settlement of the whites the heads of tomahawks were made of mescal for their use by the English, with the hammer-head hollowed out to suit the purpose of a smoking pipe, the mouth-piece being in the end of the shaft. The tomahawk was the Indian's most valuable weapon. He used it in time of peace for cutting his firewood, and in war wielded it with deadly effect. Their arrow points and scalping knives were made of flint stone, and many of these are constantly picked up near Staunton and in other parts of that county.
For passing streams the Indians used canoes, which were made of birch bark, sewed together with fibers, or roots. Their treatment of females was cruel and oppressive. They were considered as slaves and treated as such. To the squaw was assigned the labors of the field and the services of domestic care. Chastity was not one of the virtues of the women, but when married, they did not dispense their favors without the consent of their husbands. We have no account of the marriage ceremony, if such a ceremony existed among them, and imagine the association of the sexes was a voluntary union, which might be terminated at any time by consent of the parties. As, however, in all ages and among all people, religion of some kind has prevailed, and a reverence and awe of a Divinity existed, and our red men paid honor and homage to the Great Spirit, we do not feel at liberty to declare that such unions were altogether without religious character. We shall not dwell upon these matters of marital infidelities, as we are not called upon to represent human nature in such colors and lineaments as dishonor her, and do not wish to familiarize the minds of our readers with vice. A slight allusion to them was important to historic truth, which renders it necessary to speak of the vices and failings as well as the virtues of a people. We shall be content with touching thus lightly upon them. The men, who were occupied procuring the means of a precarious subsistence, were not, as may be readily imagined, of a lively disposition. Indeed, much gaiety of temper or a high flow of spirits was altogether inconsistent with their surroundings. These red men were, therefore, in general, grave even to sadness ; had nothing of that giddy vivacity peculiar to some nations of Europe, and they despised it. Though usually silent and gloomy, their aged chiefs and the squaws were, on occasion, fond of conversation, and amused the children with tales of war and hunting. There were professional story-tellers also among them, who imitated the actions of their heroes, and thus increased the interest of their narratives and excited the liveliest interest in their hearers. When tales of bloody fights, or the incidents of buffalo hunts were recounted, the narrators imitating the actors in the scenes, the audience listened with breathless attention. When they related amusing stories, acting out the parts, the groups would break into wild shouts of laughter and applause.
The diseases of the Indians were not numerous; their remedies few and simple, their physic consisting mainly of the bark and roots of trees.
For music they used rude drums, rattles made of gourds, and a cane on which they piped. They were hospitable, and grateful for benefits; brave, but wayward and inconstant. To sum up their character in a few words: They were distinguished in council for gravity and eloquence; in war, for bravery and address. When provoked to anger they were sullen and retired, and when determined on revenge no danger would deter them : neither absence nor time could cool them. If captured by an enemy, they never asked life nor betrayed emotions of fear.
For over a hundred years after the settlement at Jamestown the colonists from Virginia to Massachusetts were harassed by the Indians. The friendly relations, which existed for a short time after the landing of the English, soon changed, and the Indians became hostile and relentless in their enmity. During their wars with the whites they practiced every possible cruelty, burnt their houses, shot them down in their fields when at work, and now and again met them hand to hand in battle. They were entirely unreliable, neither respecting in peace the faith of treaties nor in war the dictates of humanity. They tortured their prisoners to death, and some of the tribes notably, the Miamis, ate the flesh of their captives.
War, if not brought on by an accidental rencontre, was preceded by a formal declaration of hostilities. This was made with great ceremony. The chief, having determined on fighting, sent wampum, or belts of beads, to his allies, inviting them to come and destroy their enemies, and to the enemy a belt painted red, or a bundle of bloody sticks, as a defiance. A great fire was then lit and the war dance took place. These ceremonies observed, the braves issued forth singing to the women a farewell hymn. If they surprised a village of their foes, while the flower of the nation was absent, they massacred the women, children and helpless old men, or made prisoners of such as had strength to be useful to them. Their prisoners were treated with inconceivable barbarity, thus exhibiting to what an extremity men's passions lead them when unrestrained by reason and uninfluenced by the dictates of Christianity. These savage acts make us more sensible, too, of the value of commerce, the arts of civilized life, and the lights of literature, which, if they abate the force of some of the natural virtues by the luxury which attends them, have taken out likewise the sting of our natural vices and softened the ferocity of the human race.
The Indians were not without a certain species of government, which prevailed, with little variation, over the continent. Though free, they did not despise all sorts of authority. They were attentive to the voice of wisdom, which experience had conferred on the aged, and they enlisted under the banners of their chiefs with child-like confidence chiefs in whose valor and military address they had learned to repose their trust. His power, however, was rather persuasive than coercive; he was reverenced as a father, rather than feared as a monarch. He had no guards, no prisons, no officers of justice; but, relying upon the respect, confidence and esteem of his people, he lived unthreatened by Nihilist cabals and unterrified by dynamite and infernal machines. Few modern European rulers do this. The elders in every tribe constituted a kind of aristocracy, and were always consulted on grave occasions by the chief and people. They possessed no power except the influence they exerted by reason of their age and experience, and the further, fact that they constituted a kind of hereditary nobility. Among the Indians age alone acquired respect, influence and authority, because age brings experience, and experience is the chief source of knowledge among a people without literature.
Their religious belief consisted of traditions mingled with many superstitions. They believed in two Gods, the one Good, who was the superior, and whom they styled the Great Spirit; the other Evil. They worshipped both, but principally the latter, the Good Spirit, in their opinion, needing no prayers to induce him to aid and protect his creatures. Besides these, they worshipped various other deities, such as fire, water, thunder, anything which they supposed to be superior to themselves and capable of doing them injury. They believed in a future state, in a tranquil and happy existence with their ancestors and friends, spending their time in those exercises in which they delighted when on earth.
From the picturesque situations of their villages, they are supposed to have admired the grand and beautiful in Nature. That they possessed to a considerable degree the poetic sentiment, is inferred from the names given to the rivers and mountains, their war songs, and the speeches of some of their chiefs.
Such, in short were the wild red men of the forest, on whose lands the early settlers pitched their tents. The barbarian heroes of our border wars have been depicted with so much fidelity and graphic power by one of our greatest writers, that in the defect of materials strictly historical, they may to a certain extent supply their place. Nowhere can the moody, taciturn and sententious red man be more delightfully studied than in the pages of Fenimore Cooper. These delineations of Cooper should not be rejected because given to the world in his fictitious writings. Historical facts are often rendered the more agreeable by being conveyed in a story of adventure designed for the entertainment of the reader. Novels frequently approach to the nature of history, and history often partakes of the character of romance. Histories, in general, are full of chimerical and extravagant details, especially as they ascend to periods of great antiquity and are connected with the origin of nations, and it has been oftener than once said that even Livy is but a romance. Yet who would give up such histories ? We read them with deep interest, though we feel that they are but a compound of truth and fiction. We linger over the harangues which the characters in history never made, and delight in the eloquence of Logan, though persuaded that the author of his eloquence was an educated white man.

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