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The Monacan Indian Nation is one of eleven Native American tribes recognized since the late 20th century by the U.S. state of
Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...
. In January 2018, the
United States Congress The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the U.S. Capitol in Washing ...
passed an act to provide federal recognition as tribes to the Monacan and five other tribes in Virginia. They had earlier been so disrupted by land loss, warfare, intermarriage, and discrimination that the main society believed they no longer were "Indians". However, the Monacan reorganized and asserted their culture.Vincent Schilling, "Six VA Tribes Slotted For Federal Recognition as Senators Warner & Kaine Secure Bill Passage"
''Indian Country Media Network'', January 16, 2018; accessed February 16, 2018
In the 21st century, the Monacan nation is located primarily in their traditional territory of Virginia's
Piedmont region it, Piemontese , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1_info1 = , demographics1_title2 ...
, particularly in Amherst County near Lynchburg. As of 2018 the Monacan Indian Nation has approximately 2,000 members. There are satellite groups in
West Virginia West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian, Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States.The Census Bureau and the Association of American Geographers classify West Virginia as part of the Southern United States while the Bur ...
,
Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...
,
Tennessee Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...
, and
Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...
. The Monacan nation was first recorded by Jamestown settlers in
colonial Virginia The Colony of Virginia, chartered in 1606 and settled in 1607, was the first enduring English colonial empire, English colony in North America, following failed attempts at settlement on Newfoundland (island), Newfoundland by Sir Humphrey GilbertG ...
. Their native language is a
Siouan language Siouan or Siouan–Catawban is a language family of North America that is located primarily in the Great Plains, Ohio and Mississippi valleys and southeastern North America with a few other languages in the east. Name Authors who call the entire ...
which is extinct. The people are related to other Siouan-speaking tribes of the inland in this region, such as the
Tutelo The Tutelo (also Totero, Totteroy, Tutera; Yesan in Tutelo) were Native Americans in the United States, Native American people living above the Atlantic Seaboard fall line, Fall Line in present-day Virginia and West Virginia. They spoke a Siouan d ...
,
Saponi The Saponi or Sappony are a Native American tribe historically based in the Piedmont of North Carolina and Virginia.Raymond D. DeMaillie, "Tutelo and Neighboring Groups," pages 286–87. They spoke a Siouan language, related to the languages of ...
and
Occaneechi The Occaneechi (also Occoneechee and Akenatzy) are Native Americans who lived in the 17th century primarily on the large, long Occoneechee Island and east of the confluence of the Dan and Roanoke rivers, near current-day Clarksville, Virginia. ...
.


17th century

When Jamestown settlers first explored the
James River The James River is a river in the U.S. state of Virginia that begins in the Appalachian Mountains and flows U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map , accessed April 1, 2011 to Chesapea ...
in May 1607, they learned that the James River Monacan (along with their northern
Mannahoac The Manahoac, also recorded as Mahock, were a small group of Siouan-language Native Americans (Indigenous people) in northern Virginia at the time of European contact. They numbered approximately 1,000 and lived primarily along the Rappahannock R ...
allies on the
Rappahannock River The Rappahannock River is a river in eastern Virginia, in the United States, approximately in length.U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed April 1, 2011 It traverses the entir ...
) controlled the area of the
Piedmont it, Piemontese , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1_info1 = , demographics1_title2 ...
between the
Fall Line A fall line (or fall zone) is the area where an upland region and a coastal plain meet and is typically prominent where rivers cross it, with resulting rapids or waterfalls. The uplands are relatively hard crystalline basement rock, and the coa ...
(where present-day
Richmond Richmond most often refers to: * Richmond, Virginia, the capital of Virginia, United States * Richmond, London, a part of London * Richmond, North Yorkshire, a town in England * Richmond, British Columbia, a city in Canada * Richmond, California, ...
developed) and the
Blue Ridge Mountains The Blue Ridge Mountains are a physiographic province of the larger Appalachian Mountains range. The mountain range is located in the Eastern United States, and extends 550 miles southwest from southern Pennsylvania through Maryland, West Virgin ...
. The Monacan were hostile competitors with the
Powhatan The Powhatan people (; also spelled Powatan) may refer to any of the indigenous Algonquian people that are traditionally from eastern Virginia. All of the Powhatan groups descend from the Powhatan Confederacy. In some instances, The Powhatan ...
confederacy, a group of thirty Algonquian-speaking tribes who controlled much of the Tidewater and coastal plain. The ''
weroance Weroance is an Algonquian word meaning leader or commander among the Powhatan confederacy of the Virginia coast and Chesapeake Bay region. Weroances were under a paramount chief called Powhatan. The Powhatan Confederacy, encountered by the coloni ...
'' Parahunt, son of paramount
chief Powhatan Powhatan ( c. 1547 – c. 1618), whose proper name was Wahunsenacawh (alternately spelled Wahunsenacah, Wahunsunacock or Wahunsonacock), was the leader of the Powhatan, an alliance of Algonquian-speaking Native Americans living in Tsenacommaca ...
of the Powhatan confederacy, persuaded Captain
Christopher Newport Christopher Newport (1561–1617) was an English seaman and privateer. He is best known as the captain of the ''Susan Constant'', the largest of three ships which carried settlers for the Virginia Company in 1607 on the way to found the settle ...
not to venture beyond the James River falls into Monacan country. However, the determined Newport made an expedition into Monacan country the following year in November 1608. On a march, the settlers found two Monacan towns, whose names they recorded as ''Massinacak'' and ''Mowhemenchough''. Unlike the Powhatan, who had given the settlers lavish welcomes, the Monacan largely ignored them and went about their business. The settlers captured their chief and forced him to guide them around his territory. On November 26, 1608, Peter Wynne, a member of Newport's party to the Monacan villages, wrote a letter to John Egerton informing him that some members of the party believed the pronunciation of the Monacans' language resembled " Welch" (Welsh), which Wynne spoke. Newport had asked Wynne to act as interpreter, but the language was not Welsh and he could not understand it. ''Mowhemencho'', the Monacan nation's easternmost outpost, was between Bernard's Creek and Jones Creek in the eastern tip of present-day
Powhatan County Powhatan County () is a county located in the Commonwealth of Virginia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 30,033. Its county seat is Powhatan. Powhatan County is included in the Greater Richmond Region. The James River forms the cou ...
. ''Massinacak'' (Mahock) was at the mouth of Mohawk Creek, a mile south of present-day Goochland. The Monacan capital was ''Rassawek'', located at the point within the two branches, Point of Fork, of the upper James and Rivanna rivers. Tributary to them were the Monahassanugh (later known as the Nahyssan, i.e.
Tutelo The Tutelo (also Totero, Totteroy, Tutera; Yesan in Tutelo) were Native Americans in the United States, Native American people living above the Atlantic Seaboard fall line, Fall Line in present-day Virginia and West Virginia. They spoke a Siouan d ...
), whose town was near what later developed as
Wingina Wingina ( – 1 June 1586), also known as Pemisapan, was a Secotan weroance who was the first Native American leader to be encountered by English colonists in North America. During the late 16th century, English explorers Philip Amadas and Arth ...
, and the Monasukapanough (later known as the
Saponi The Saponi or Sappony are a Native American tribe historically based in the Piedmont of North Carolina and Virginia.Raymond D. DeMaillie, "Tutelo and Neighboring Groups," pages 286–87. They spoke a Siouan language, related to the languages of ...
), living near present-day
Charlottesville Charlottesville, colloquially known as C'ville, is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It is the county seat of Albemarle County, which surrounds the city, though the two are separate legal entities. It is named after Queen Ch ...
. All these groups were closely related with the Siouan
Manahoac The Manahoac, also recorded as Mahock, were a small group of Siouan-language Native Americans (Indigenous people) in northern Virginia at the time of European contact. They numbered approximately 1,000 and lived primarily along the Rappahannock R ...
to the north. In 1656 several hundred
Nahyssan The Tutelo (also Totero, Totteroy, Tutera; Yesan in Tutelo) were Native American people living above the Fall Line in present-day Virginia and West Virginia. They spoke a Siouan dialect of the Tutelo language thought to be similar to that of thei ...
, Mahock, and ''Rechahecrians'' (possibly Iroquoian-speaking
Erie Erie (; ) is a city on the south shore of Lake Erie and the county seat of Erie County, Pennsylvania, United States. Erie is the fifth largest city in Pennsylvania and the largest city in Northwestern Pennsylvania with a population of 94,831 a ...
from present-day Pennsylvania) threatened both the Powhatan tribes and the settlers by camping near the James falls. A combined force of the Powhatan and settlers was sent to dislodge them. The Pamunkey chief
Totopotomoi Totopotomoi (c. 1615–1656) was a Native American leader from what is now Virginia. He served as the chief of Pamunkey and as ''werowance'' of the Powhatan Paramount Chiefdom for the term lasting from about 1649-1656, when he died in the Battle ...
was slain in the resulting battle. Historically the Monacan and Erie were trade allies, especially copper. The Monacan towns of Mowhemencho and Mahock were still occupied in 1670, when
John Lederer John Lederer was a 17th-century German physician and an explorer of the Appalachian Mountains. He and the members of his party became the first Europeans to crest the Blue Ridge Mountains (1669) and the first to see the Shenandoah Valley and the ...
and Major Harris recorded visiting them; they found that the men possessed muskets. Lederer recorded their tradition that they had settled in the area on account of an oracle 400 years earlier, having been driven from the northwest by an enemy nation. They told him they had found it occupied by the Doeg, whom they eventually displaced, in the meantime teaching them the art of growing corn. He recorded another Monacan tradition as follows: "From four women, viz. Pash, Sepoy, Askarin, and Maraskarin, they derive the race of mankinde; which they therefore divide into four tribes, distinguished under those several names." At the time of Lederer's visit, the tribe had about 30 bowmen or warriors, out of a total population of perhaps 100. Lederer also noted the towns of ''Sapon'' and ''Pintahae'' on the
Staunton River The Roanoke River ( ) runs long through southern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina in the United States. A major river of the southeastern United States, it drains a largely rural area of the coastal plain from the eastern edge of the App ...
. Batts and Fallam recorded the latter town as ''Hanahaskie'' in 1671. The 20th-century ethnologist Swanton considers this last to be a Nahyssan village. Around 1675 the Nahyssan settled on an island at the confluence of the Stanton and
Dan Dan or DAN may refer to: People * Dan (name), including a list of people with the name ** Dan (king), several kings of Denmark * Dan people, an ethnic group located in West Africa **Dan language, a Mande language spoken primarily in Côte d'Ivoi ...
rivers, upriver of the
Occaneechi The Occaneechi (also Occoneechee and Akenatzy) are Native Americans who lived in the 17th century primarily on the large, long Occoneechee Island and east of the confluence of the Dan and Roanoke rivers, near current-day Clarksville, Virginia. ...
people. In 1677, the Monacan chief Surenough was one of several native signatories to the Treaty of Middle Plantation following
Bacon's Rebellion Bacon's Rebellion was an armed rebellion held by Colony of Virginia, Virginia settlers that took place from 1676 to 1677. It was led by Nathaniel Bacon (Virginia colonist), Nathaniel Bacon against List of colonial governors of Virginia, Colon ...
. Virginian settlers and the Pamunkey encountered them, and the Manahoac, on the Upper Mattaponi and North Anna rivers in 1684. By 1699, the Monacan had abandoned their homeland, moving farther away due to European encroachment. The Virginian
House of Burgesses The House of Burgesses was the elected representative element of the Virginia General Assembly, the legislative body of the Colony of Virginia. With the creation of the House of Burgesses in 1642, the General Assembly, which had been established ...
granted much of the former site of Mowhemencho to French
Huguenot The Huguenots ( , also , ) were a religious group of French Protestants who held to the Reformed, or Calvinist, tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, the Genevan burgomaster Be ...
refugees, who were settled on both sides of the James River in 1700 and 1701. First promised land at Jamestown, they were forced by the Virginian colonial government to settle above the falls. In Goochland County, they established the villages of Manakin and Sabot, today known as
Manakin-Sabot, Virginia Manakin-Sabot, consisting of the villages of Manakin and Sabot, is an unincorporated community in Goochland County, Virginia, United States. It is located northwest of Richmond in the Piedmont and is part of the Greater Richmond region. History ...
. Although a few Monacan lingered in the area as late as 1702, the core remnant seems to have merged with the Nahyssan and other closely related Virginia Siouan tribes, by then known generally as
Tutelo The Tutelo (also Totero, Totteroy, Tutera; Yesan in Tutelo) were Native Americans in the United States, Native American people living above the Atlantic Seaboard fall line, Fall Line in present-day Virginia and West Virginia. They spoke a Siouan d ...
-
Saponi The Saponi or Sappony are a Native American tribe historically based in the Piedmont of North Carolina and Virginia.Raymond D. DeMaillie, "Tutelo and Neighboring Groups," pages 286–87. They spoke a Siouan language, related to the languages of ...
. Under this collective name, the bulk of the tribe may be traced to North Carolina (1702), and back to Virginia (
Fort Christanna Fort Christanna was one of the projects of Lt. Governor Alexander Spotswood, who was governor of the Virginia Colony 1710–1722. When Fort Christanna opened in 1714, Capt. Robert Hicks was named captain of the fort and he relocated his family ...
, 1714). They headed north to join the Iroquois around the
Great Lakes The Great Lakes, also called the Great Lakes of North America, are a series of large interconnected freshwater lakes in the mid-east region of North America that connect to the Atlantic Ocean via the Saint Lawrence River. There are five lakes ...
for protection, and were noted in Pennsylvania ( Shamokin, by 1740); and in western New York at
Coreorgonel Coreorgonel was an 18th-century Native American village in what is now Tompkins County, New York. The name has been translated as "Where we keep the pipe of peace." In the early 18th century, a group of Tutelo, a Siouan-speaking people, migrated ...
by 1753, where they joined the Cayuga. They participated with them in the
American Revolutionary War The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...
as allies of the
British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...
against the Patriots. After the war, the Monacan went with the Iroquois to Canada. They were settled at the (Six Nation Reserve of the Grand River First Nation) in present-day Ontario. Their settlement of Tutelo Heights was noted in 1779. By the early 20th century, their descendants in Ontario had been largely absorbed by the
Cayuga tribe The Cayuga ( Cayuga: Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫʼ, "People of the Great Swamp") are one of the five original constituents of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois), a confederacy of Native Americans in New York. The Cayuga homeland lies in the Finger Lakes regi ...
through intermarriage. Smaller bands are believed to have split off in North Carolina, and at several locations across Virginia.


Origins and legends of modern tribe

After Peter Wynne's expedition of 1608, the Monacan are one of the groups who have been conjectured to be " Welsh Indians". Historians have found no evidence for that and treat it as myth. The Monacan language was part of the Siouan language family. In 1831–1833, William Johns, an ancestor of some of today's Monacan, purchased of land on Bear Mountain for a settlement of families related to him. In 1850, the census recorded 29 families there.Monacan Indian Nation
, accessed May 6, 2008
Over time, Native Americans in Virginia intermarried with Europeans and African Americans. Whites assumed that meant that they no longer identified as Indians, but were mistaken. In 1924, Virginia passed a Racial Integrity Act, which instituted a binary system of racial classification as black or white only. It also included the
one-drop rule The one-drop rule is a legal principle of racial classification that was prominent in the 20th-century United States. It asserted that any person with even one ancestor of black ancestry ("one drop" of "black blood")Davis, F. James. Frontlin" ...
, requiring classification as black of a person with any known African ancestry. The director of the department of vital records insisted on reclassifying specific families as black, although they had long been recorded as Indian. This program ignored how people identified socially and culturally, and disrupted decades of records, causing American Indians in Virginia to lose historical continuity. But they kept their culture and community, and reorganized in the 20th century to regain recognition as Native American peoples. In 1926 ''Mongrel Virginians: The WIN Tribe'', a study of a
mixed-race Mixed race people are people of more than one race or ethnicity. A variety of terms have been used both historically and presently for mixed race people in a variety of contexts, including ''multiethnic'', ''polyethnic'', occasionally ''bi-ethn ...
group in the Blue Ridge Mountains, was published by the
Carnegie Institution The Carnegie Institution of Washington (the organization's legal name), known also for public purposes as the Carnegie Institution for Science (CIS), is an organization in the United States established to fund and perform scientific research. T ...
. The author described the group as "degenerate". The author referred to the group as the WIN tribe, for White-Indian-Negro, because he was disguising the name of the group, the surnames of its members, the county which was studied – every fact about them. Some contemporary academic reviewers strongly criticized and ridiculed the book and its reliance on community anecdotes to make judgments about families and individuals. When ancestors of current Monacan families entered the U.S. military to serve in the world wars, they resisted accepting the classification of "colored", which the state of Virginia had tried impose on them. In 1946 the researcher William Harlan Gilbert Jr. described the Monacan in his
Memorandum Concerning the Characteristics of the Larger Mixed-Blood Racial Islands of the Eastern United States
. Edward T. Price had a study in 1953,
A Geographical Analysis of White-Negro-Indian Racial Mixtures in the Eastern United States
. Both used the former name for the group, "Issues", generally used to refer to
free people of color In the context of the history of slavery in the Americas, free people of color (French: ''gens de couleur libres''; Spanish: ''gente de color libre'') were primarily people of mixed African, European, and Native American descent who were not ...
, most of whom were
mixed-race Mixed race people are people of more than one race or ethnicity. A variety of terms have been used both historically and presently for mixed race people in a variety of contexts, including ''multiethnic'', ''polyethnic'', occasionally ''bi-ethn ...
, who were free before the Civil War and general emancipation. Both authors considered the Issues (sometimes called "Old Issues") to be
tri-racial Melungeons ( ) are an ethnicity from the Southeastern United States who descend from Demographics of Europe, Europeans, Native Americans in the United States, Native American, and sub-Saharan Africans brought to America as indentured servants and ...
. The Episcopal Church ran a primary school (
Bear Mountain Indian Mission School Bear Mountain Indian Mission School is a historic Native American missionary school in Amherst, Virginia. The school was used by the Monacan tribe since: 1868, hena parcel of land was donated for a meeting place for the Indian people. At ...
) for the children of this community at Bear Mountain near
Amherst, Virginia Amherst (formerly Dearborn) is a town in Amherst County, Virginia, Amherst County, Virginia, United States. The population was 2,231 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Amherst County, Virginia, Amherst County. Amherst is part of the Lync ...
. There was no high school education available. In 1963, Amherst County proposed a $30,000 bond to build a school for the mission community. The proposal was voted down, and 23 students applied for transfer to public schools. The state approved their applications and the
mission Mission (from Latin ''missio'' "the act of sending out") may refer to: Organised activities Religion *Christian mission, an organized effort to spread Christianity *Mission (LDS Church), an administrative area of The Church of Jesus Christ of ...
school closed.


Claims and recognition as Native American

In the early 1980s, Peter Houck, a local physician, published ''Indian Island in Amherst County'', in which he speculated that the
free people of color In the context of the history of slavery in the Americas, free people of color (French: ''gens de couleur libres''; Spanish: ''gente de color libre'') were primarily people of mixed African, European, and Native American descent who were not ...
in the region during the
antebellum Antebellum, Latin for "before war", may refer to: United States history * Antebellum South, the pre-American Civil War period in the Southern United States ** Antebellum Georgia ** Antebellum South Carolina ** Antebellum Virginia * Antebellum ...
era were in part descendants of the Monacan tribe. While this population had claimed an Indian cultural identity since the turn of the 20th century, Houck was the first to link some of them to the Monacan tribal identity. Prior to Houck's book, most people claiming Native American ancestry in that vicinity had identified as
Cherokee The Cherokee (; chr, ᎠᏂᏴᏫᏯᎢ, translit=Aniyvwiyaʔi or Anigiduwagi, or chr, ᏣᎳᎩ, links=no, translit=Tsalagi) are one of the indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, t ...
, which were well-known in the Southeast. Many of the local families continue to claim Cherokee instead of Monacan ancestry. In 1988, the Monacan Tribe incorporated as a nonprofit organization to establish its presence. In 1989, the tribe was officially recognized by the State of
Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...
. Other tribes recognized by the state include the Chickahominy,
Eastern Chickahominy The Chickahominy are a federally recognized tribe of Virginian Native Americans who primarily live in Charles City County, located along the James River midway between Richmond and Williamsburg in the Commonwealth of Virginia. This area of the ...
,
Mattaponi The Mattaponi () tribe is one of only two Virginia Indian tribes in the Commonwealth of Virginia that owns reservation land, which it has held since the colonial era. The larger Mattaponi Indian Tribe lives in King William County on the reser ...
, Nansemond, Pamunkey, Rappahannock,
Upper Mattaponi The Mattaponi () tribe is one of only two Virginia Indian tribes in the Commonwealth of Virginia that owns reservation land, which it has held since the colonial era. The larger Mattaponi Indian Tribe lives in King William County on the reserv ...
,
Patawomeck Patawomeck is a Native American tribe (Native American), tribe based in Stafford County, Virginia, along the Potomac River. ''Patawomeck'' is another spelling of Potomac. The Patawomeck Indian Tribe of Virginia is a state-recognized tribe in Vi ...
, Nottoway, and Cheroenhaka (Nottoway) tribes. On January 30, 2018, federal recognition status was granted to the Monacan Nation and five other tribes in Virginia through passage by Congress of the Thomasina E. Jordan Indian Tribes of Virginia Federal Recognition Act of 2017. President Trump signed the bill approved by both houses of Congress."Trump signs bill giving recognition to 6 Virginia tribes"
Associated Press, January 30, 2018


Celebration

Today the Monacan Tribe operates a yearly powwow in May, and a homecoming celebration in October. A model of an ancient Monacan village has been constructed as part of
Natural Bridge (Virginia) Natural Bridge is a geological formation in Rockbridge County, Virginia, comprising a natural arch with a span of . It is situated within a gorge carved from the surrounding mountainous limestone terrain by Cedar Creek, a small tributary of ...
State Park, in nearby
Rockbridge County Rockbridge County is a county in the Shenandoah Valley on the western edge of the Commonwealth of Virginia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 22,650. Its county seat is the city of Lexington. Rockbridge County completely surrounds the ...
.


References


Further reading

* Houck, Peter W. ''Indian Island in Amherst County''. Lynchburg: Lynchburg Historical Research Co., 1984. * Estabrook, Arthur H. & McDougle, Ivan E. ''Mongrel Virginians: The WIN Tribe''. Washington: Carnegie Institution, 1926.


External links


Monacan Indian Nation
official site {{authority control Native American tribes in Virginia Federally recognized tribes in the United States African–Native American relations Siouan peoples Native American tribes in West Virginia Native American tribes in Maryland Native American tribes in Ohio State-recognized tribes in the United States