Paspahegh

Paspahegh. . When the English colonists arrived in 1607, they landed in Paspahegh Country, which extended westward along the shore of the James River to the Chickahominy River and beyond. The Native Americans who lived here were Algonquin speakers that fished, foraged, farmed, and hunted for a living, Archaeological excavations at the Paspahegh Settlement Site indicate that the English encountered a well-established town, consisting of residences, warehouses, and temples scattered loosely across the landscape, that may have been home to as many as 620 people., Thousands of artifacts, including pottery, projectile points, and copper ornaments, document Paspahegh life during the Late Woodland period (AD 1000 to 1600), and offer insight into the social, economic, and political worlds in which they lived. Faunal and skeletal remains show that the Paspahegh were relatively healthy, and that their diet consisted largely of corn, although they ate a variety of wild foods, including nuts, small grains, fruits, deer, small mammals, reptiles, and fish., Given their proximity to Jamestown, the Paspahegh were early and convenient trading partners for the English, but in 1610, the colonists raided the Paspehegh town killing nearly all of its residents, burning their residences, and destroying their crops. The Paspahegh who survived were forced to abandon their territory and seek refuge in other Indian nations., (captions) , Captain John Smith’s map of Jamestown Island and its environs in 1606 showing Paspahegh country on either side of the Chickahominy River., This Paspahegh town is re-created in part at the Jamestown Settlement history museum, and is based upon the archaeological investigations conducted at the Paspahegh Settlement Site (44JC308) in the 1990s.