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Concept
Chowanoke
Summary
The Chowanoke, also spelled Chowanoc, were an Algonquian-language Native American tribe who historically inhabited the coastal area of the Upper South of the United States. At the time of the first English contacts in 1585 and 1586, they were the largest and most powerful Algonquian tribe in present-day North Carolina, occupying most or all of the coastal banks of the Chowan River in the northeastern part of the state. Their peoples had occupied their main town since 825 AD. Earlier Indigenous cultures occupied the area from 4500 BC.
After warfare, in 1677 English colonists set aside a reservation for the tribe near Bennett's Creek. The Chowanoke suffered high mortality due to infectious disease, including a smallpox epidemic in 1696. Descendants with Chowanoke ancestry survived but merged with other groups, and they lost the last of their communal land in 1821. Chowanoke descendants lived in Gates and Chowan counties.
The Algonquian peoples who developed in what is now known as North Carolina likely migrated from northern coastal areas, and developed a culture modified by local conditions. The numerous tribes occupied an approximately area of Carolina Algonqkian territory in northeastern North Carolina, from the Neuse River to the Chesapeake Bay. Tribes included the Chowanoke, Weapemeoc, Poteskeet, Moratoc, Roanoke, Secotan (Secoughtan), Pomuik, Neusiok, Croatan and possibly the Chesepiooc.
Archeological excavation in the 1980s at the site of Chowanoke confirmed Lane's report of its location and elements of his description. The town had been occupied by humans for nearly 1000 years, with radiocarbon dating establishing 825 AD as the earliest date of culture related to the Chowanoke people. The town was a mile long, including large agricultural fields for cultivated crops. It was home to several hundred Chowanoke people and possibly as many as 2,100. Near the north end of what the archeologists called Area B, they found a precinct for the ruler and nobility of elite residences, public buildings, temples, and burials.
Official source
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