The Moneton were a historical
Native American tribe from
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 B ...
. In the late seventeenth century they lived in the
Kanawha Valley
The Kanawha River ( ) is a tributary of the Ohio River, approximately 97 mi (156 km) long, in the U.S. state of West Virginia. The largest inland waterway in West Virginia, its valley has been a significant industrial region of the sta ...
, near the
Kanawha and
New Rivers.
Name and language
What the Monetons called themselves is unknown. In the 1670s,
Abraham Wood
Abraham Wood (1610–1682), sometimes referred to as "General" or "Colonel" Wood, was an English fur trader, militia officer, politician and explorer of 17th century colonial Virginia. Wood helped build and maintained Fort Henry at the falls of ...
wrote their name "Moneton" and as another variant, "Monyton."
The eastern slopes of the southern Allegheny Mountains in Virginia are traditionally known as the
Mahock. The Monetans are on the western rim of
Tutelo
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 ...
and "Monasuccapanough"
Siouan
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 enti ...
language groups, as well as
Iroquois dialects
Researchers have speculated that the
Moneton language
The Moneton were a historical Native Americans in the United States, Native American tribe from West Virginia. In the late seventeenth century they lived in the Kanawha Valley, near the Kanawha River, Kanawha and New River (Kanawha River), New R ...
was part of the Siouan family, close to
Tutelo
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 ...
.
History
James Mooney
James Mooney (February 10, 1861 – December 22, 1921) was an American ethnographer who lived for several years among the Cherokee. Known as "The Indian Man", he conducted major studies of Southeastern Indians, as well as of tribes on the G ...
declared the Moneton lived in the western part of
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 ...
and said their name was an eastern
Siouan
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 enti ...
word. Some scholars suggest Monetons were part of the Monacan, with the different names being a consequence of variable colonial spelling.
The First Explorations of the Trans-Alleghany Region by the Virginians 1650–1674
The word Monetons is Siouan, though it may be Cherokee instead. The Mohetan told Batts and Fallam that their villages were about halfway between Peters' Mountain and the Ohio River. Hale and Mooney defines Siouan "Mon", "Ma" and "Man" as meaning a people's land. "Mone" has also been defined to mean water, and "ton" means large. Doctor Rankin observed that the Tutelo of Virginia have closer linguistic ties to the Crows of Montana than to the Catawbans of Carolina. A recent study of nine thousand pottery shards from Fort Ancient sites in the Kanawha and Ohio River valleys showed that thirty seven percent of them bore corncob impressions similar to those produced in the Siouan villages of Virginia between 1400 and 1600. Doctor Rankin concluded at the 2009 West Virginia Archaeology Annual Meeting that Siouan was probably spoken in the Kanawha Valley.
Using topographic maps, geographic landmarks and travel distances, Briceland demonstrates that Batts and Fallam reached
Matewan
''Matewan'' () is a 1987 American drama film written and directed by John Sayles, and starring Chris Cooper (in his film debut), James Earl Jones, Mary McDonnell and Will Oldham, with David Strathairn, Kevin Tighe and Gordon Clapp in suppor ...
on the
Tug Fork
The Tug Fork is a tributary of the Big Sandy River, long,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed June 13, 2011 in southwestern West Virginia, southwestern Virginia, and eastern ...
. The islands near
Logan resembles the falls of the
James River near Wood's Fort in
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 ...
, though the gravel bar near
Matewan, West Virginia
Matewan () is a town in Mingo County, West Virginia, United States at the confluence of the Tug Fork River and Mate Creek. The population was 499 at the 2010 census. The Norfolk Southern Railway's Pocahontas District passes through the town. It ...
does not resemble these early descriptions of the village's location of Batts and Fallam.
Other inhabitants of the area
![Map of Native American locations in WV by county during the latter half of the 17th Century](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cf/Map_of_Native_American_locations_in_WV_by_county_during_the_latter_half_of_the_17th_Century.png)
Another tribe known as the Tomahittons has been also been reported in the
Ohio Valley
The Ohio River is a long river in the United States. It is located at the boundary of the Midwestern and Southern United States, flowing southwesterly from western Pennsylvania to its mouth on the Mississippi River at the southern tip of Illino ...
. The reports from the Mohetan given to Batts and Fallam regarding this tribe correspond with reports from the Moneton to Arthur. Batts and Falla are credited as having discovered
Kanawha Falls
Kanawha Falls is a waterfall on the Kanawha River in West Virginia that has been a barrier to fish movement for more than 1 million years.
The waterfall is formed by a diagonal sandstone ledge across the river about downstream from the conflue ...
. Ouabano was a band of
Mohicans
The Mohican ( or , alternate spelling: Mahican) are an Eastern Algonquian Native American tribe that historically spoke an Algonquian language. As part of the Eastern Algonquian family of tribes, they are related to the neighboring Lenape, who ...
or Eastern
Lenape who lived within the region. Earlier scholars have this site as found to be on
Campbells Creek near
Belle, West Virginia
Belle is a town in Kanawha County, West Virginia, United States, situated along the Kanawha River. The population was 1,171 at the 2020 census. Belle was incorporated on December 13, 1958 by the Kanawha County Circuit Court. It is the home of ...
.
The
Iroquois League
The Iroquois ( or ), officially the Haudenosaunee ( meaning "people of the longhouse"), are an Iroquoian-speaking confederacy of First Nations peoples in northeast North America/ Turtle Island. They were known during the colonial years to ...
,
Huron Confederacy, and Conestoga(Andaste being a French word that was obtained via the Wendat)(Sultzman) are well reported as blocking the
Nation du Chat from attaining fire arms. The Conestoga served as middlemen to the French and Dutch trade, and the
Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People E ...
provided the Conestoga with fire arms. Their neighbor to the east, in the Allegheny Mountains, were the Conestoga (English language or usage/
Quaker for Andaste), also called Susquehannocks by Virginians. The Conestoga are first mentioned in the Voyages of Samuel Champlain for 1615, and he calls one of their some twenty villages "Carantouan". Carantouan was close to the
New York and
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...
border on the tributaries of the
Susquehanna River on his map approaching towards the region from the
Saint Lawrence Seaway
The St. Lawrence Seaway (french: la Voie Maritime du Saint-Laurent) is a system of locks, canals, and channels in Canada and the United States that permits oceangoing vessels to travel from the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes of North Ameri ...
.
Grant County, West Virginia
Grant County is a county in the U.S. state of West Virginia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 10,976. Its county seat is Petersburg. The county was created from Hardy County in 1866 and named for Civil War General Ulysses S. Grant.
...
,
Hampshire County, West Virginia
Hampshire County is a County (United States), county in the U.S. state of West Virginia. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 23,093. Its county seat is Romney, West Virginia, Romney, West Virginia's oldest town ( ...
and
Hardy County, West Virginia
Hardy County is a county in the U.S. state of West Virginia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 14,299. Its county seat is Moorefield. The county was created from Hampshire County in 1786 and named for Samuel Hardy, a distinguished V ...
as well as
Allegany County, Maryland possess archaeological sites having Conestoga Ceramics. A Conestoga site is also located at
Moorefield, West Virginia.
The tribes on the south eastern Allegheny Mountains of West Virginia in a region of the Blue Stone and Greenbrier river tributaries can be found in Batts and Fallows' September, 1671 Expedition. The records the arrival of the Les Tionontatacaga or
Guyandotte, named for the
Guyandotte River
The Guyandotte River is a tributary of the Ohio River, approximately 166 mi (267 km) long, in southwestern West Virginia in the United States. It was named after the French term for the Wendat Native Americans. It drains an area of t ...
in
Cabell County. This journal does not identify the "Salt Village" on the Kanawha, but, that the Mehetan were associated with these sites, and may not have been associated with sites further down the
Ohio River.
Protohistory
![1670 Augustin Herrman 1621-1686-bohemiensis map](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a8/1670_Augustin_Herrman_1621-1686-bohemiensis_map.JPG)
Anthropologist
James B. Griffin concluded in 1942 that no historical evidence existed to indicate that Siouan speaking tribes resided there. On the other hand, James Mooney, in a monograph surveying "The Siouan Tribes of the East," lists Mohetan as one of at least nine groups clearly Siouan.
"Calicuas" were reported at Cherokee Falls (
Valley Falls) in 1705. Indian trader Charles Poke's trading post dates from 1731 with the remnant Calicuas of Cherokee Falls still in the region from the previous century. The Monetons may also be a distant Cherokee branch, partially evidenced by their antipathy for the Shawnees,), who were located on both sides of the Ohio in the vicinity of the mouth of the
Scioto River
The Scioto River ( ) is a river in central and southern Ohio more than in length. It rises in Hardin County just north of Roundhead, Ohio, flows through Columbus, Ohio, where it collects its largest tributary, the Olentangy River, and meets t ...
.
[Chapter: "The Discovery of Kentucky" Pp. 125, "Register of the Kentucky State Historical Society", By Kentucky Historical Society Published by The Society, 1922, Item notes: v.20 (1922) index:v.1-20 Original from Harvard University Digitized Jan 23, 2008]
Related Nations
*
Akenatsi
*
Catawba Catawba may refer to:
*Catawba people, a Native American tribe in the Carolinas
*Catawba language, a language in the Catawban languages family
*Catawban languages
Botany
*Catalpa, a genus of trees, based on the name used by the Catawba and other N ...
*
Cheraw
*
Mosopelea
The Mosopelea, or Ofo, were a Siouan-speaking Native American people who historically inhabited the upper Ohio River. In reaction to Iroquois Confederacy invasions to take control of hunting grounds in the late 17th century, they moved south to t ...
*
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 ...
*
Sewee
*
Tutelo
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 ...
*
Waccamaw
The Waccamaw people were an Indigenous people of the Southeastern Woodlands, who lived in villages along the Waccamaw and Pee Dee rivers in North and South Carolina in the 18th century.Lerch 328
Language
Very little remains of the Waccam ...
See also
*
History of West Virginia
The history of West Virginia stems from the 1861 Wheeling Convention, which was an assembly of northwestern Virginian Southern Unionists, who aimed to repeal the Ordinance of Secession that Virginia made during the American Civil War (1861–1 ...
*
Prehistory of West Virginia
The Prehistory of West Virginia spans ancient times until the arrival of Europeans in the early 17th century.
*
Protohistory of West Virginia
*
West Virginia Waterways
Notes
References
*Demallie, Raymond J. "Tutelo and Neighboring Groups." Sturtevant, William C., general ed. Raymond D. Fogelson, volume ed. ''Handbook of North American Indians: Southeast.'' Volume 14. Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution, 2004. .
{{authority control
Algonquian ethnonyms
Extinct Native American tribes
Native American tribes in West Virginia
Pre-statehood history of West Virginia