Page:Archæologia Americana—volume 2, 1836.djvu/117

 SECT. II.] ALGONKIN-LENAPE AND IROQUOIS NATIONS. 81 most southerly Lenape tribes, who were in possession of the low country along the seashores, and those of Albemarle and Pamlico Sounds. Towards the south and the west they ex- tended beyond the river Neuse. They appear to have been known in Virginia, in early times, under the name of Monacans, as far north as James River. A powerful chief of the Chowans is mentioned in the ac- counts of the first attempts to establish a colony on Roanoke Island and its vicinity. Lawson, in his account of the North Carolina Indians, enumerates the Chowans, the Meherrins, and the Nottoways, as having together ninety-five warriors in the year 1708. i3ut the Meherrins or Tuteloes and the Notto- ways inhabited respectively the two rivers of that name, and were principally seated in Virginia. We have but indistinct notices of the Tuteloes. It has been seen that they had mi- grated to the north and joined the Six Nations, who brought them forward, in 1758, as one of the younger members of the confederacy. Evans, in the Analysis of his Map, says that the Six Nations had allotted lands on the Susquehanna to several tribes, amongst which he enumerates the Tuteloes from Me- herrin River in Virginia; and he further states, that they (the Six Nations) laid no claim to the country of the Tuscaroras who had been driven away, but were not so well satisfied as to the lands of the Tuteloes and Meherrins, whom they had re- ceived under their protection. We have no vocabulary t)f that tribe, and no knowledge that they still exist under that name. It appears by Beverly, that the Nottoways had preserved their independence and their numbers later than the Powhatans, and that, at the end of the seventeenth century, they had still one hundred and thirty warriors. They do not appear to have migrated from their original seats in a body. In the year 1820, they are said to have been reduced to twenty-seven souls, and were still in possession of seven thousand acres in Southamp- ton county, Virginia, which had been, at an early date, reserved to them. J. Wood obtained in that year a vocabulary of their language from Edie Turner, who was called their Queen. It was transmitted by Mr. Jefferson to Mr. Du ponceau, who immediately recognised it as an Iroquois dialect. They had till then been supposed to be one of the Powhatan tribes of the Lenape stock. Another vocabulary has been obtained by the Hon. James Tresevant, which corresponds with that of VOL. II. 1 1