Paspahegh
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| Extinct as tribe | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Virginia, Charles City and James City counties | |
| Languages | |
| Algonquian | |
| Religion | |
| Native | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Powhatan Confederacy |
The Paspahegh tribe were tributaries to the Powhatan paramount chiefdom, incorporated into the chiefdom around 1596 or 1597. The Paspahegh Indian tribe lived in present-day Charles City and James City counties, Virginia. The Powhatan tribes were a group of Native Americans who spoke a branch of Algonquian language.
The Paspehegh sub-tribe was among the earliest to have interaction with the English colonists, who established their first permanent settlement in the Virginia Colony at Jamestown in their territory, beginning on May 14, 1607. Because of conflict with the English and likely exposure to infectious diseases, they appear to have been destroyed as a tribe by early 1611 and disappeared from the historical record.
It is noteworthy that the organization of Native Americans of the United States in the Tidewater Region of Virginia has often been mischaracterized by historians as the "Powhatan Confederacy." This group of allied Algonquian tribes was not, in fact, a confederacy, which is more or less a unification of entities which are superior in self-governance to the central point of power. Chief Powhatan's organization is more accurately described by anthropologists as a chiefdom, and he (as well as his several successors) were clearly the central ruler. During the period from 1607 until his death in 1618, these Native Americans are most correctly described as being of Powhatan's "paramount chiefdom."
The original capital of the Paspahegh Indians, present-day Sandy Point in Charles City County, was settled by the English in 1617, who called it Smith's Hundred. After 1619, they renamed it Southampton Hundred. St. Mary's Anglican Church was established there prior to the Powhatan Uprising of 1622. The English later called this series of surprise attacks the Indian Massacre of 1622.
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