The Machapunga were a small Algonquian language–speaking Native American tribe from coastal northeastern North Carolina.[2] They were part of the Secotan people.[3] They were a group from the Powhatan Confederacy who migrated from present-day Virginia.
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| extinct as a tribe[1] (18th century) | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Eastern North Carolina | |
| Languages | |
| Carolina Algonquian language | |
| Religion | |
| Indigenous religion | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Secotan,[2] other North Carolina Algonquians |
Machpunga is also the name of an early 16th-century village on the Potomac River and of an 18th-century Powhatan Confederacy village in Northampton County, Virginia.[4]
Name
editAnthropologist John Reed Swanton wrote that Machapunga meant "bad dust" or "much dirt" in their Algonquian language.[2]
Language
editThe spoke an Carolina Algonquian language which became extinct.[5]
Territory
editThe Machapunga lived in what is now Hyde County, North Carolina. Their lands may have extended into present-day Beaufort, North Carolina, as well as Washington, Tyrrell, and Dare counties.[2]
In 1700 and 1701, the Machapunga maintained a village named Mattamuskeet.[6] It held 30 warriors and was likely located on the shore of Mattamuskeet Lake in present-day Hyde County.[6][2]
History
editEarly 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 south after European contact. He noted the presence of Algonquian-speaking tribes on the Northeast coast and in eastern and central Canada.[7]
16th century
editWhen the British founded their colonist on Roanoke Island that lasted from 1586 to 1685, displaced Secotan people moved in with the Machapunga.[2]
17th century
editEthnographer James Mooney estimated in 1600 there were 1,200 Machapunga and related tribes.[2]
18th century
editBy 1701, the Machapunga consolidated into a single village named Mattamuskeet.[2][6] In 1701, English explorer John Lawson wrote that the tribe had about 100 members.[2]
In 1711 they participated in the Tuscarora War against the colonists.[1] By 1715, the English colonists assigned a tract of land on Mattamuskeet Lake to the surviving Machapunga and Coree, who lived in a single village.[1] The Coree soon left and joined the Tuscaroras.[8]
From 1718 to 1746, John Squires emerged as a leader on the tract, or Mattamuskeet reservation.[8] John Mackey and Long Tom served as his advisors.[8] His son Charles Squires followed him as a leader; however, his influence declined from 1752 to 1760.[8] A deed to the Mattamuskeet reservation was signed by six Machapunga men in 1761.[8] Even before 1727, Machapunga residents began selling their land until 1761, which the land had all been sold.[8]
Scattered Machapunga families still resided in North Carolina in 1761.[2] Then missionary Rev. Alexander Stewart founded a school for eight Native children and two African-American children.[8] Roanoke and Hatteras people moved into the area.[8] Stewart wrote that he had baptized seven "Attamuskeet, Hatteras, and Roanoke" adults and children. In 1763, he baptized 21 more Native people from that region.[2]
The Machapunga ultimately became extinct as a tribe[1] in the 18th century.
Notes
edit- ^ a b c d Hodge, Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico, p. 349.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Swanton, The Indian Tribes of North America, 81.
- ^ Kupperman, Karen Ordahl (2007). Roanoke: The Abandoned Colony. Plymouth, UK: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. p. 73. ISBN 9780742552630.
- ^ Hodge, Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico, p. 781.
- ^ Snodgrass, Robert E. (1928). Morphology and Mechanism of the Insect Thorax, Vol. 80. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution. p. 6. ISBN 9780598407351.
- ^ a b c Hodge, Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico, p. 822.
- ^ Frank G. Speck, "REMNANTS OF THE MACHAPUNGA INDIANS OF NORTH CAROLINA", American Anthropologist 18 (1916): pp. 271–276, Carolina Algonkian Project, Rootsweb, permission by American Anthropologist, accessed Apr 22, 2010.
- ^ a b c d e f g h Rountree, Helen C. (2021). Manteo's World: World Native American Life in Carolina's Sound Country Before and After the Lost Colony. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. p. 129. ISBN 9781469662947.
References
edit- Hodge, Frederick Webb (1912). Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. pp. 349, 781.
- Swanton, John Reed (1952). The Indian Tribes of North America. Genealogical Publishing. p. 74. ISBN 9780806317304.
External links
edit- Karen Ordahl Kupperman, Roanoke: The Abandoned Colony, Second Edition