Occaneechi

The Occaneechi are Indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands whose historical territory was in the Piedmont region of present-day North Carolina and Virginia.

In the 17th century, they primarily lived on the large, 4-mile (6.4 km) long Occoneechee Island and east of the confluence of the Dan and Roanoke rivers, near current-day Clarksville, Virginia. They possibly spoke a Siouan-Catawban or Algonquian language and were related to the Saponi, Tutelo, and Eno

In 1676, in the course of Bacon's Rebellion, the tribe was attacked by militias from the Colony of Virginia and decimated. Also under demographic pressure from European settlements and newly introduced infectious diseases, the Saponi and Tutelo came to live near the Occaneechi on adjacent islands. By 1714 the Occaneechi moved to join the Tutelo and Saponi people living on a 36-square-mile (93 km) reservation in current-day Brunswick County, Virginia. It included a fort called Christanna. The Natives had been drastically reduced to approximately 600 people. Fort Christanna was closed in 1717, after which there are few written references to the Occaneechi. Colonists recorded that they left the area in 1740 and migrated north for protection with the Haudenosaunee.