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Hey, you Saponis; I would like to know what you think about the Rickahockens that settled briefly above the Falls of the James in Va.
I know what Swanton says about them and I know what it says in Christopher Gist’s Journal. They do not agree. What do you guys think?
Ca. 1755 Christopher Gist went to live beside a large Cherokee village at the present site of North Wilkesborough N.C. so he should know what he was talking about.
Dan Akin.
Why don’t you fill us in on what Swanton has to say, whereabouts is the Falls of the James (what modern town is nearby) so we can see what you’re getting at.
Linda; The Falls of the James are in Richmond Va. Just below is where Powhaton had his village and above the falls were the Monacans.
The Rickahockins appeared there in 1654/55 and defeated a joint force of English and Pawmunkys.
Swanton claims they were Manahoacs and Tutelos.
In Gist’s Journals they are “…strange indians… doubtless were fugitives of the tribe known as the Eries, or the Nation of the Cat, whose country was on the south shore of Lake Erie. The Fathers called the tribe Riguehronnous, or those of the Cat Nation. The cinciderable number of the defeated Eries or Rickahickans appear to have reached Va. in 1655, about the time the Iriquois completed their conquest. … lately set down near the Falls of the James River to the number of six or seven hundred.”
So you have historians claiming them as two maybe three different things.
Mooney claimed they were Cherokees.
Who were they?
Dan.
I’ll go post this on the Mingo e-list. The founder of the group believes the initial group that became known as the Mingo, were Eries.
I wonder what conquest Gist is referring to. I know I’ve just been studying up on the 1670s. That’s when the Iroquois defeated the Susquehannah and a portion of the latter flooded into Virginia with lots of guns and cause havoc (Bacon’s Rebellion which sounded the death knell on the political power of the VA Siouan). If there was an earlier wave of desparate refugees in the 1650s who defeated the British and Pamunkey, what became of them? Obviously their conquest was temporary, or we wouldn’t be having this conversation. 😎
Just something I read in an old PA history online, circa mid-late 1800’s. Logan’s father was reported in this article to have been Susquehannock. He was placed in Shamokin as chief by the Iroquois, because they felt that he, being a different tribe, would do a better job of leading the mixed group of refugees from the south who were living there than would a member of the Iroquois tribes.
Techteach
What I’ve heard is that Logan’s father was Schickellamy, a Cayuga who was actually a white who’d been adopted as a child. His second wife was Tutelo. The man I referred to above, Thomas, has researched Logan pretty thoroughly and wrote a chapter that’s in a book I have. There’s tons of misinformation and legend about him. I can look that up when I get a chance.
A fellow on that list I was talking about replied to my inquiry:
Linda,
In my opinion, I doubt seriously that they were Cherokee. In Trigger’s book on the Indians of the Northeast, there are a few references to Rickahockins (Riquehronnons,Rigueronnons) meaning “the people of the village Rigue’,which was an Erie village on the southeastern shore of Lake Erie in 1655-1656 (JR 42:186). There is also a reference to remnants of the Erie surrendering to the Iroquois near Virginia in about 1680 (JR 62:71). This is all covered in the chapter on the Erie. In the chapter on the Powhatans,it notes evidence of a Powhatan attack on the “Rickohockans” in 1655-1656. If you can find this book,maybe it would help sort this all out.
Joe
Linda; Thank you! I have my own opinion about the Rickahockens but I wondered what you guys might know.
If the Rickahockens were Iriquoian speakers and somehow related to the Cherokees then their connection may have come from an earlier time in the Ohio Valley. You can find reference to a prehistory migration of the Cherokees out of the Ohio Valley through present Va. and down to Middle Cherokee settlements on the Little Tn. river.
Their are two maps from 1671 that show the Rickahockens living due west of the headwaters of the Roanoke river and beyond the Saula/Sauna or Blue Ridge Mountains.
One map was done by the order of the Lords Proprietors of Carolina and the other by Lederer.
Why then did the English have a treaty on the James river with a group they call the Rickahockens in the 1650’s and 1670’s maps show a group with the very same name but just at a new location? This would lead me to think they are the same people.
From Mooney’s book where he states that the Cherokees claim to have lived for a time around the Peaks of Otter on the headwaters of the James river you can speculate that this may have been the Rickahockens.
A little known fact is the great Cherokee village located on the Yadkin river at present North Wilkesboro N.C. It was there in the 1750’s when the Moravians were surveying their lands and when Christopher Gist opened his trading post by their village.
A history of Wilkes county states that it must have been a Cherokee capital.
So, for a stretch, is it possible the Rickahockens were an Iriquoian speaking people that quickly removed from the James river to the area of present southwest Va. then located on the Yadkin river for a time in the mid 1700’s before joining the main Cherokee settlements on the Tn. river after the Cherokee War in the 1760’s?
Well, to me it’s possible.
Dan Akin.
Well that answers several questions that I have had re. the Cherokee locations prior to the 1760’s…. iam sure that there must have been a good sized population in NC and VA for so many people to have that ID. and still not be related to the Qualla people and those in Oklahoma.
Thanx again.
There was a Fort Royal, that was originally called Fort Rickahack.
Indians in Seventeenth Century Va. by Ben C. McCary.
Tom; Thank you. Do you know any more about Fort Royal. I know Abraham Woods’ fort was near the Appomattox town near the mouth of the Appomattox river where it empties into the James.
There was a Powhaton Confederacy town called Rickahock that is shown on John Smith’s map of 1624.
There is a Fort Royal Va. in Caroline county on the Rapidan river and just north of Fort A.P. Hill.
It may, or may not, be significant that the Appomattoc, Peracute, led Abraham Woods’ trading expeditions to the Cherokee Rickahockens.
Dan.
Hello DAn ,Iam sorry I don’t know any more about Fort Royal.
In doing a search you may want to have a look at the Draper manuscripts and any books on expanding early America.
I did see a book once that had a map of each decade, rail, roads and trails.
Also in any thing pretaining to the french Indian wars, aswell as the archaeologists etc on any digs etc.
Iam sure if you look you’ll find something.
I’ll look and see if I can be of more help to you.
All the best Tom
Hello dan well I think I have something for you look at the book on the Catawba people along the river by Brown ? It has some huge info on many subjects but there is some on the Rickahokens, they may be the Westoes maybe not. But I have seen a westoe pipe I believe
Let ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK!
Would this be the same group as the Rockahocks??????
They were up around New Kent area and Port Royal which is right by West Point, Pamunkey and Mattaponi grounds.
The Rockahocks seem to be screaming for some lime-light here lately. I have a friend that is the descendant of the Rockahock Plantation in New Kent. It is also a Camp Ground now and from what I hear, absolutely beautiful.
Rockahocks were also at one point living in Surry Co, VA. They were part of the band with the Seacocks which were under the rule of Chief Powhatan’s brother.
Thank you Tom and Crystal; I have been looking at the Westoes and their connections to the Rickahockens. I will take a look at this book. What is the title?
Crystal, thanks for the info. on just where the Rickahocks were placed in the Powhaton Confederacy.
I’m not sure if I agree with some claims that the Westoes are the same Rickahockens that fought with the Pamunkey on the James River. I think it was a different branch of the ancient and dispersed Rickahockene people.
Dan.
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