Chiskiack

Kiskiack

Total population
40-50 warriors (150-200 people) Now extinct
Regions with significant populations
Virginia Peninsula
defunct as tribe
Languages
Powhatan language
Religion
Native (indigenous)
Related ethnic groups
Pamunkey, Chickahominy, Mattaponi, Rappahannock, and other Powhatan Algonquian peoples

Kiskiack (or Chisiack or Chiskiack) was a Native American tribal group of the Powhatan Confederacy in what is present-day York County, Virginia. The name means "Wide Land" or "Bread Place" in the native language, one of the Virginia Algonquian languages. It was also the name of their village on the Virginia Peninsula.

Later English colonists adopted the name for their own village in that area. The site was later developed for the US Naval Weapons Station Yorktown in York County. The settlement was 11 miles (18 km) from Werowocomoco, capital of the Powhatan Confederacy.

In the mid-16th and early 17th century, the Algonquian-speaking Kiskiack tribe, part of the large Powhatan Confederacy, was located near the south bank of the York River on the Virginia Peninsula, which extended into the Chesapeake Bay. The present-day city of Yorktown developed a few miles east of here. The Kiskiack had built permanent villages, made up of numerous long-houses or yihakans, in which related families would live. The longhouses had both private and communal space.

The Kiskiack were one of the original six tribes of the Powhatan Confederacy, which by the early 17th century included 30 tributary tribes. Beginning with the arrival of the English colonists at Jamestown in 1607, the Kiskiack were generally one of the most hostile toward the English encroachments. They were reluctant to give away their goods to English parties from Jamestown who sought corn and other foodstuffs in order to survive during their first difficult years. But, the Kiskiack were one of the few tribes to be relatively friendly to the English in the First Anglo-Powhatan War.

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Wikipedia