Anglo-Native Interaction in Virginia’s Potomac River Valley

Summary

Trade played a crucial role in the relationships that formed between European colonists and Native Americans during the early colonial period. In the 17th-century Potomac River Valley the interactions between Natives and Europeans laid the foundations for the emergence of a truly creolized society. This paper examines the influence of Native Americans on the early settlement of Virginia's Potomac Valley from 1647-1666 using the Hallowes site (44WM6) as an example. Analyses of the faunal remains, artifacts, and a rich historical context are used to indicate trading relationships that existed among the European residents of the site and local Native Americans. These intercultural interactions, facilitated through trade, had far-reaching social, demographic, and economic consequences for both Native Americans in the region and European colonizers that reverberated throughout the remainder of the 17th century.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Indigenous Landscapes of the Middle Chesapeake   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2018

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 252