Doeg people

Last updated
Doeg
Pomeiooc.in.1585.png
Watercolor by John White depicting an Algonquian village similar in appearance to villages in Tsenacommacah.
Total population
Extinct as a tribe
Regions with significant populations
Virginia and Maryland
Languages
Piscataway or Nanticoke (historical)
Religion
Native American religion
Related ethnic groups
Nanticoke, Pamunkey, Chickahominy

The Doeg (also called Dogue, Taux, Tauxenent) [1] were a Native American people who lived in Virginia. They spoke an Algonquian language and may have been a branch of the Nanticoke tribe, historically based on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. The Nanticoke considered the Algonquian Lenape as "grandfathers". The Doeg are known for a raid in July 1675 that contributed to colonists' uprising in Bacon's Rebellion.

Contents

Background

The Doeg (or Dogue) tribe of Virginia were part of the coastal Algonquian language family. They probably spoke Piscataway or a dialect similar to Nanticoke.

According to one account, the Doeg had been based in what is now King George County, but about 50 years before the founding of Jamestown (ca. 1557), they split into three sections, with groups going to Caroline County and Prince William County, and one remaining in King George. [2] :4

When Captain John Smith visited the upper Potomac River in 1608, he noted that the Taux lived there above Aquia Creek, with their capital Tauxenent located on "Doggs Island" (also known as Miompse or May-Umps, now Mason Neck, Virginia.) They gathered fish and also grew corn. Other hamlets were at Pamacocack (later anglicized to "Quantico"), along Quantico Creek; Yosococomico (now Powells Creek); and Niopsco (Neabsco Creek). Associated with them were other nearby Algonquian peoples — the Moyauns (Piscataway) on the Maryland side, and the Nacotchtank (Anacostan) in what is now the Washington, DC area. Smith's map also shows a settlement called Tauxsnitania, thought to be near present-day Waterloo in Fauquier County, within the territory of the Siouan-speaking Manahoac tribe.

John Lederer, who visited the Piedmont region of Virginia in 1670, wrote that the entire area had been

"formerly possessed by the Tacci, alias Dogi, but... the Indians now seated here, are distinguished into the several nations of Mahoc, Nuntaneuck alias Nuntaly, Nahyssan, Sapon, Managog, Mangoack, Akernatatzy and Monakin etc." [3]
Further, "The Indians now seated in these parts are none of those whom the English removed from Virginia, but a people driven by the enemy from the northwest, and invited to sit down here by an oracle above four hundred years since, as they pretend for the ancient inhabitants of Virginia were far more rude and barbarous, feeding only upon raw flesh and fish, until they taught them to plant corn..." [3]

Frontier

In the 1650s, as English colonists began to settle the Northern Neck frontier, then known as Chicacoan (Secocowon), some Doeg, Patawomeck and Rappahannock began moving into the region as well. They joined local tribes in disputing the settlers' claims to land and resources. In July 1666, the colonists declared war on them. By 1669, colonists had patented the land on the west of the Potomac as far north as My Lord's Island. By 1670, they had driven most of the Doeg out of the Virginia colony and into Maryland—apart from those living beside the Nanzatico/Portobago in Caroline County, Virginia. [1] :97

Tensions between English colonists and the Doeg on the Northern Neck continued to grow. In July 1675, a Doeg raiding party crossed the Potomac and stole hogs from Thomas Mathew, in retaliation for his not paying them for trade goods. Mathew and other colonists pursued them to Maryland and killed a group of Doeg, as well as innocent Susquehannock. A Doeg war party retaliated by killing Mathew's son and two servants on his plantation. [4]

A Virginian militia led by Nathaniel Bacon entered Maryland, attacked the Doeg and besieged the Susquehannock. This precipitated the general reaction against natives by the Virginia Colony that resulted in "Bacon's Rebellion". Following this conflict, the Doeg seem to have become allied with the Nanzatico tribe, who paid for the release of some Doeg jailed for killing livestock in early 1692. [1] :104 The Doeg maintained a presence near Nanzatico at "Doguetown" (around Milford in Caroline County) as late as 1720. [2] :43

"Welsh" identity

A centuries long investigation into the existence of “Welch Indians” has connected the Doeg to an apocryphal 12th century Welsh prince named Madoc, who, according to folklore, visited North America.[ citation needed ] The theory followed claims during the late 17th century [5] that people calling themselves "Doeg", living in the Province of North-Carolina,[ citation needed ] understood the Welsh language.

A clergyman of Welsh origins, the Reverend Morgan Jones, told Thomas Lloyd, lieutenant-governor of the Province of Pennsylvania that he had been captured in 1669, by members of a tribe that called themselves "Doeg". Jones said that his life had been spared by his captors only after their chief heard Jones speaking Welsh, a language that the chief understood. Jones reportedly claimed that he had stayed with the Doeg for months and preached to them in Welsh. Jones later returned to the English colonies and, much later, in 1686 wrote an account of his adventures.[ citation needed ] However, Welsh historian Gwyn A. Williams commented (in 1979) that the anecdote was "a complete farrago and may have been intended as a hoax". [6] :76 Apart from the improbability of their connection with Madoc (if he existed), the "Doeg" encountered by Jones were described as a sub-group of Tuscarora – a people with little if any connection to the Doeg proper.

See also a prior similar confusion of a neighboring Native American people’s tongue with Welsh in 1608 among the Christopher Newport party exploring the Province of Virginia between the area that would later become Richmond and the Piedmont. A native Welch speaker, Peter Wynne, had been sent along as a translator, [7] and could not understand the local Monacan language.

Legacy

Dogue, Virginia is named in honor of this tribe. Dogue Creek, a tributary of the Potomac River in Fairfax County, Virginia is also named after this tribe.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Occoquan, Virginia</span> Town in Virginia

Occoquan is a town in Prince William County, Virginia. The population was 934 at the 2010 United States Census. The current mayor is Earnest W. Porta Jr.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nathaniel Bacon (Virginia colonist)</span> Colonist of the Virginia Colony and leader of Bacons Rebellion

Nathaniel Bacon was an English merchant adventurer who emigrated to the Virginia Colony, where he sat on the Governor's Council but later led Bacon's Rebellion, which collapsed after his death from dysentery.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Susquehannock</span> Indigenous people of the Eastern Woodlands

The Susquehannock, also known as the Conestoga, Minquas, and Andaste, were an Iroquoian people who lived in the lower Susquehanna River watershed in what is now Pennsylvania. Their name means “people of the muddy river.”

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nanticoke people</span> Native American people

The Nanticoke people are a Native American Algonquian people, whose traditional homelands are in Chesapeake Bay and Delaware. Today they live in the Northeastern United States and Canada, especially Delaware; in Ontario; and in Oklahoma.

The Machapunga were a small Algonquian language–speaking Native American tribe from coastal northeastern North Carolina. They were part of the Secotan people. They were a group from the Powhatan Confederacy who migrated from present-day Virginia.

Turkey Tayac, legally Philip Sheridan Proctor (1895–1978), was a Piscataway leader and herbal medicine practitioner; he was notable in Native American activism for tribal and cultural revival in the 20th century. He had some knowledge of the Piscataway language and was consulted by the Algonquian linguist, Ives Goddard, as well as Julian Granberry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Piscataway Indian Nation and Tayac Territory</span> State-recognized tribe in Maryland that claims descent from the historic Piscataway tribe

The Piscataway Indian Nation, also called Piscatawa, is a state-recognized tribe in Maryland that is descended from the historic Piscataway people. At the time of European encounter, the Piscataway was one of the most populous and powerful Native polities of the Chesapeake Bay region, with a territory on the north side of the Potomac River. By the early seventeenth century, the Piscataway had come to exercise hegemony over other Algonquian-speaking Native American groups on the north bank of the river. The Piscataway nation declined dramatically before the nineteenth century, under the influence of colonization, infectious disease, and intertribal and colonial warfare.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rappahannock people</span>

The Rappahannock are a federally recognized tribe in Virginia and one of the eleven state-recognized tribes. They are made up of descendants of several small Algonquian-speaking tribes who merged in the late 17th century. In January 2018, they were one of six Virginia tribes to gain federal recognition by passage of the Thomasina E. Jordan Indian Tribes of Virginia Federal Recognition Act of 2017.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Piscataway people</span> Native American ethnic group

The Piscataway or Piscatawa, are Native Americans. They spoke Algonquian Piscataway, a dialect of Nanticoke. One of their neighboring tribes, with whom they merged after a massive decline of population following two centuries of interactions with European settlers, called them the Conoy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yaocomico</span> Group of indigenous people native to North America

The Yaocomico, also spelled Yaocomaco, were an Algonquian-speaking Native American group who lived along the north bank of the Potomac River near its confluence with the Chesapeake Bay in the 17th century. They were related to the Piscataway, the dominant nation north of the Potomac.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Piscataway language</span> Extinct Algonquian language of Maryland, US

Piscataway is an extinct Algonquian language formerly spoken by the Piscataway, a dominant chiefdom in southern Maryland on the Western Shore of the Chesapeake Bay at time of contact with English settlers. Piscataway, also known as Conoy, is considered a dialect of Nanticoke.

Nanticoke is an extinct Algonquian language formerly spoken in Delaware and Maryland, United States. The same language was spoken by several neighboring tribes, including the Nanticoke, which constituted the paramount chiefdom; the Choptank, the Assateague, and probably also the Piscataway and the Doeg.

The Nacotchtank were an indigenous Algonquian people who lived in the area of what is now Washington, D.C., during the 17th century. The Nacotchtank village was within the modern borders of the District of Columbia along the intersection of the Potomac and the Anacostia river.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mattawoman</span> Native American people

The Mattawoman were a group of Native Americans living along the Western Shore of Maryland on the Chesapeake Bay at the time of English colonization. They lived along Mattawoman Creek in present-day Charles County, Maryland. They were also recorded in the early 17th century by explorer John Smith at Quantico Creek in Prince William County, Virginia. He called them Pamacocack.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Protohistory of West Virginia</span> Protohistorical period

The protohistoric period of the state of West Virginia in the United States began in the mid-sixteenth century with the arrival of European trade goods. Explorers and colonists brought these goods to the eastern and southern coasts of North America and were brought inland by native trade routes. This was a period characterized by increased intertribal strife, rapid population decline, the abandonment of traditional life styles, and the extinction and migrations of many Native American groups.

Mary Kittamaquund, daughter of the Piscataway chieftain Kittamaquund, helped establish peaceful relations between English immigrants to the Maryland and Virginia Colonies and their native peoples.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kittamaqundi</span> Piscataway village in Maryland

The history of Native Americans in Baltimore and what is now Baltimore dates back at least 12,000 years. As of 2014, Baltimore is home to a small Native American population, centered in East Baltimore. The majority of Native Americans now living in Baltimore belong to the Lumbee, Piscataway, and Cherokee tribes. The Piscataway people live in Southern Maryland and are recognized by the state of Maryland. The Lumbee and Cherokee are Indigenous to North Carolina and neighboring states of the Southeastern United States. Many of the Lumbee and Cherokee migrated to Baltimore during the mid-20th century along with other migrants from the Southern United States, such as African-Americans and white Appalachians. The Lumbee are state recognized in North Carolina as the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina, but have no state recognition in Maryland. The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians in North Carolina are a federally recognized tribe. There are three state recognized tribes in Maryland; the Piscataway-Conoy Tribe of Maryland, the Piscataway Indian Nation and Tayac Territory, and the Accohannock Indian Tribe. Maryland has no federally recognized tribes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Indigenous peoples of Maryland</span>

The land that is now the State of Maryland in the United States of America was widely populated by Indigenous peoples prior to European arrival, however only 2% of the state's population self-reported as being some part Native American in the 2020 US census. Native Americans have inhabited the area since c. 10,000 BC, with Capt. John Smith surveying and making contact with groups in the Chesapeake Bay in the early 1600s. European settlers first began to inhabit Maryland in 1634, but as the century progressed, violence and hostility between Native Americans and European settlers increased. Various treaties and reservations were established in 1600s and 1700s, but many Native peoples left the area in the mid-to-late 18th century. Today, there are Native American populations around the state, including a sizable Lumbee population in Baltimore.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Rountree, Helen C. (January 1996). Pocahontas's people: the Powhatan Indians of Virginia through four centuries. University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN   978-0-8061-2849-8 . Retrieved 18 August 2011.
  2. 1 2 Campbell, Thomas Elliott (1954). Colonial Caroline: a history of Caroline County, Virginia. Dietz Press. ISBN   9780875170398 . Retrieved 18 August 2011.
  3. 1 2 Alvord, Clarence Walworth; Bidgood, Lee (1912). The first explorations of the Trans-Allegheny region by the Virginians, 1650–1674. Arthur H. Clark. p.  pp. 141-142 . Retrieved 18 August 2011.
  4. Schmidt, Ethan A. (1 April 2015). The Divided Dominion: Social Conflict and Indian Hatred in Early Virginia. University Press of Colorado. ISBN   978-1-60732-308-2.
  5. Owen, Nicholas (1777). British remains: or, A collection of antiquities relating to the Britons. J. Bew. p.  110 . Retrieved 18 August 2011.
  6. Williams, Gwyn A. (1979). Madoc, the making of a myth. Eyre Methuen. ISBN   978-0-413-39450-7 . Retrieved 17 August 2011.
  7. Mullaney, Steven The Place of Stager, University of Michigan Press 1995 ISBN   978-0-472-08346-6 p. 163