Machapunga
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| Extinct as a tribe (very few descendants) | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Eastern North Carolina | |
| Languages | |
| Algonquian (estimate) | |
| Religion | |
| Native American | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Yeopim Weapemoc, Chowanoke |
The Machapunga were a small Native American tribe of the Algonquian language family, one of a number in the territory of North Carolina. Previously they were known under the name Secotan. They were a group who had migrated south from the Algonquian peoples of the Powhatan Confederacy in present-day Virginia. They are now extinct as a separate tribe. They spoke an Algonquian language and historically occupied a coastal area of northeastern North Carolina.
Indigenous peoples of varying cultures lived along the waterways throughout the South. Over time they gave rise to the historical tribes known at the time of European encounter. Other peoples migrated into the area as well.
The early 20th-century ethnographer Frank Speck believed that the historical Machapunga and other Algonquian tribes in North Carolina had probably been earlier connected to the larger population based in coastal Virginia. He believed the tribes in North Carolina were part of an early and large Algonquian migration in a southerly direction in historical times. He noted the presence of Algonquian-speaking tribes on the Northeast coast and in eastern and central Canada.
One of a number of small, Algonquian-speaking tribes in coastal North Carolina, the Machapunga (meaning "bad dust" or "much dirt," which sounds like an exonym given by a competing tribe, rather than an autonym they would identify with) lived in the Pungo River area. Many lived in a village called Mattamuskeet on the shore of Lake Mattamuskeet in present-day Hyde County. In 1701 English colonists described the tribe as containing roughly 100 members.
In 1711 they participated in the Tuscarora War against the colonists. By 1715, the remaining members of the Coree, who lived to the south, had been merged into the Machapunga and lived together with them in Mattamuskeet.
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