Native American Reservations in Virginia

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the Mattaponi Reservation on the Mattaponi River is on the opposite side of King William County from the Pamunkey Reservation on the Pamunkey River
Source: ESRI, ArcGIS Online

Virginia has two state-recognized reservations, both located on tributaries of the York River. The land within those two reservations was first designated in the 17th Century as an area where the remnants of Powhatan's paramount chiefdom would retain control, but the original acreage has been reduced substantially since then.

No Federal reservations for Native Americans have ever been created in Virginia, because no treaties were signed between Virginia's tribes and the Federal government to end a war. Reservations west of the Mississippi River were usually commitments of land made by the Federal government during treaty negotiations. Federal officials promised to cease fighting and to provide supplies, in exchange for promises by defeated Native American groups to move to reservations.

The last major military conflict involving Native Americans in Virginia occurred in Bacon's Rebellion in 1676, a century before the United States was created. The Treaty of Middle Plantation at the end of that conflict was signed in 1677 and expanded to include more tribes in 1680. Section III defined the colonial 'land for peace' strategy:¹

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That all Indians who are in Amity with Us, and have not Land sufficient to Plant upon, be (upon Information) forthwith provided for, and Land laid out and Confirmed to them as aforesaid, never to be disturbed therein, or taken from them, so long as they own, keep and maintain their due Obedience and Subjection to His Majesty, His Governour and Government, and Amity and Friendship towards the English.

By the time the Articles of Confederation were ratified in 1781 and Virginia officially became part of new nation, various Native American groups in Virginia already had been destroyed, expelled, or restricted to very limited areas by state and local officials. The Native American wars and displacement in Virginia were conducted by state and local officials. The US Congress never ratified any treaties with Virginia-based tribal groups, and no reservations were created within the state through any Federal process.

When Virginia's colonial leaders made decisions about where Native Americans could live within the state, the closest thing to a national government at that time was a committee of officials in London who had been appointed by the king to oversee the colonies. Whenever Virginia officials revised/ignored various promises and approved the sale of lands that were supposed to be preserved for Native American occupation, the tribes could not invoke any Federal treaties to obtain oversight or protection by the national government.

The Pamunkey Reservation, first created in 1646, was divided between two tribal groups in 1894. The Mattaponi tribal reservation is located on the Mattaponi River, while the Pamunkey tribal reservation is about ten miles southwest on the Pamunkey River at Pamunkey Neck.

Most of the lands once defined as 'reserved' for Native Americans has been transferred out of their control. The General Assembly gave a 5,000-acre grant in Gloucester County on the Piankatank River to the Kiskiaks (Chiskiaks) in 1649, but colonists encroached on that property and by 1683 there was no longer an organized Kiskiak tribe. Reservations established for the Wiccocomico, Gingaskin, and Nottoway also have disappeared.²

Pamunkey Neck in King William County, site of today's reservation for the Pamunkey tribe on the Pamunkey River
Source: US Fish and Wildlife Service, Wetlands Mapper

Colonists acquired title to lands controlled by Native Americans in various ways. Unlike the English who landed at Jamestown, William Penn initially purchased lands from the original occupants. By the 1700's, that tradition in Pennsylvania was replaced with acquisitions through deceit, such as the Walking Purchase and treaties with Native American groups with only a marginal claim to lands being ceded.

Teedyuscung, who claimed to be the 'King of the Delawares' and encouraged Native American opposition to the British during the French and Indian War, made clear in a 1756 speech that warfare was triggered by the land hunger of the colonists. He offered an alternative solution to displacing the tribes (emphasis added):³

The Land is the cause of our Differences[,] that is our being unhappily turned out of the land is the cause, and tho the first settlers might purchase the lands fairly yet they did not act well nor do the Indians Justice for they ought to have reserved some place for the Indians

English officials claimed ownership of lands in North America through the Right of Discovery, a legal concept that justified occupation without compensation. Virginia colonists gradually obtained title to nearly all Native American lands through conquest, through legally-adopted treaties with the tribes, and through a variety of extra-legal mechanisms that forced people to abandon territory used for settlements, farming, hunting, and gathering of wild foods.

For example, in the 1600's colonists who settled near Native American towns could release pigs and horses that destroyed Native American corn fields which were not protected from grazing by fences. When occupants of a Native American town left on a seasonal hunt in the Fall, nearby settlers could claim the land had been abandoned and obtain colonial land patents to establish new ownership and start planting tobacco.

Some colonists were granted patents in anticipation of Native Americans abandoning their towns. The Portobacco group crossed the Potomac River in the 1650's to avoid the increasing number of colonists arriving in Maryland, and settled near the Rappahannock River. That Portobacco settlement survived until 1704, over 50 years since a patent had been issued to an English claimant. The owner of that patent ultimately spurred the remnants of the Portobaccos to move elsewhere, after the Virginia governor declined to protect the Native American claim to the land.⁴

land-hungry colonists pushed several different Native American groups, including the Rappahannocks, to Portobago in the second half of the Seventeenth Century
Source: ESRI, ArcGIS Online

A formal reservation provided more legal protection of community land. Virginia officials have created and abolished more formal reservations than still remain. Communal reservations for the Gingaskin, Nottoway, and Wiccocomico were converted into private land.

Once a reservation was officially abolished by the Virginia General Assembly, community ownership was terminated. Land parcels that were occupied within the reservation boundaries were allocated to individuals, and that allowed non-natives to purchase the parcels from Native Americans one by one as families needed money. Such sales ultimately displaced all of the original Native American inhabitants from former reservation sites.

Starting in the 20th Century, some Native American tribes have acquired land to establish a base of operations for communal activities in Virginia. The Monacans were the first, when they obtained title to lands on Bear Mountain in Amherst County adjacent to the Episcopalian Mission School established in 1908 for their education.

the Monacan Tribe has re-estab

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