Accohannock people
Traditional Territory
Accomack and Northampton counties in Virginia, specifically on the Eastern Shore of Virginia near present-day Cheriton, Virginia, on Cherrystone inlet in Northampton County
Overview
The Accomac people were a historic Native American tribe in Accomack and Northampton counties in Virginia who were loosely affiliated with the Powhatan Confederacy. Archeological and historical records suggest trading relationships between the Accomacs and the Powhatans as well as other related groups. The term Accomac was eventually applied to a larger group of related Indigenous peoples living on the Eastern Shore of Virginia.
Historical Notes
The Accomac were recorded in 1608 when English colonists first arrived. By 1700, their population had declined by approximately 90 percent due to introduced diseases and violence. They maintained communal lands through 1812. A subgroup, the Gingaskins, were forcibly expelled from their homelands after Nat Turner's Rebellion in 1831.
Federal Recognition
The Accohannock people are not currently listed as federally recognized by the US Bureau of Indian Affairs, though they have documented historical presence in the United States. Non-recognition does not negate a people's historical existence, cultural continuity, or ancestral claims to land and identity. The federal recognition process has historically been difficult to navigate, and many groups with genuine Indigenous heritage are not on the current BIA list.
Indigenous peoples had inhabited North America for at least 15,000 years before European contact, developing complex societies across every region of the continent. The Mississippian culture, centered on the city of Cahokia near present-day St. Louis, reached its peak around 1100 AD with a population estimated at 10,000 to 20,000 — larger than contemporary London. The Ancestral Puebloans built multi-story stone complexes at Chaco Canyon and Mesa Verde between the 9th and 13th centuries. The Iroquois Confederacy, formed between roughly 1450 and 1600, united five nations under a constitution that influenced later American democratic thinking. Across the eastern woodlands, the Great Plains, the Pacific Coast, and the Southwest, hundreds of distinct nations maintained sophisticated trade networks, agricultural systems, and governance structures. European contact beginning in the late 15th century introduced epidemic disease — smallpox, measles, influenza — which devastated Indigenous populations by an estimated 50 to 90 percent within a century.
Content adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Source: Wikipedia.
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