virginia’s
originstory Learn about Native American heritage
on a visit to our newest state park
BY LARRY BLEIBERG
A
s I drive across the towering George
P. Coleman Memorial Bridge to
Gloucester Point, the York River looks
intimidating, a powerful waterway
pouring into the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay.
What would it have been like 400 years ago,
I wonder, when Pocahontas or her father, Chief
Powhatan, paddled these deep tidal waters in a
dugout canoe?
This river was certainly familiar to the famous
daughter and father. They lived upstream and
would undoubtedly have explored the shoreline,
likely visiting my destination today: a tiny peninsu-
la not far from the bridge.
The small American Indian community who re-
sided there grew corn, beans, and squash, and har-
vested oysters from the waters that surrounded
their home. Archaeological evidence suggests peo-
ple had been inhabiting the area for 10,000 years.
Today, the land is once again a center for Native
American life.
COURTESY VIRGINIA STATE PARKS/BETTY SAXMAN
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meeting Machicomoco
I’m road-tripping to Machicomoco State Park,
Virginia’s newest state park. An Algonquin tribal word,
Machicomoco means “special meeting place.” The
riverfront property provides something visitors can’t
find elsewhere: the most complete look at Virginia’s
story through the eyes of its original inhabitants.
“Never in its existence has the commonwealth
designated a site so replete with rich native histo-
ry as Machicomoco,” said Stephen R. Adkins, chief
of the Chickahominy tribe, at the park’s opening
ceremony last spring. “This offers just a unique, un-
precedented opportunity to tell those stories that
have been held hostage so long.”
Indeed, I don’t remember learning much about
the state’s original Native Americans from my
fourth-grade Virginia history class. I’m happy the
park is giving me another chance.
The 645-acre preserve was developed in consul-
tation with the 11 Native American tribes recognized
by the state of Virginia: the Chickahominy, Eastern
The park’s open-
air steel and wood
interpretive pavillion
was inspired by
traditional Native
American buildings.
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 Clockwise from Chickahominy, Mattaponi, Upper Mattaponi,
left: Algonquin
Monacan, Nansemond, Nottoway, Cheroenhaka
words are
etched into (Nottoway), Pamunkey, Patawomeck, and
steps; Chief Rappahannock. The grounds were designed by
Walter D. Charlottesville-based Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape
“Red Hawk”
Architects, which has worked on award-winning
Brown III of the
Cheroenhaka park and cultural projects around the world.
Nottoway Indian Shaleigh R. Howells, cultural resource direc-
Tribe, at the tor and museum director of the Pamunkey Indian
Machicomoco
Museum and Cultural Center, said Virginia’s other
State Park’s
dedication; parks might typically have a marker mentioning in-
a map shows digenous people. At the new park, the story goes
the reach of much deeper.
the Powhatan “It’s very different, it’s not 1 or 2 signs,” said
Confederacy.
Howells. “It’s solely based around the stories of
Native Americans and how they want to tell their
stories and history.”
Finding Machicomoco, though, proves a little
tricky. I turn off busy US 17 and follow a county
road by farms and rural homes. Just as I begin to
wonder if I’m lost, nearing what feels like a gated
community, I pull up to what I hope is the park’s
entrance booth. (Spoiler alert: It was.)
As I learn, we are lucky even to have a park.
More than a decade ago, the land was sold to
developers, who built the entrance building, a
floating dock, and a 3-mile ring road for a lux-
ury subdivision. But the developer faced finan-
cial challenges, and before ground was broken on
homes, a private foundation purchased the land
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and eventually donated it to the state in 2017 to
make the park.
The area remains a sanctuary of woods, farm
fields, creeks, and low-lying islands that might
have been recognizable to Pocahontas and
her peers.
Tidewater Timeline
While the park offers typical amenities, including
a campground, boat launch, and small gift shop,
it’s the interpretive area that draws me in on this
sunny day. I drive about a mile from the entrance
and stop in a parking area near a rise overlook-
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: LARRY BLEIBERG; COURTESY VIRGINIA STATE PARKS (2)
ing a tidal inlet. In front of me, a timeline of en-
graved stones covering 20,000 years of history
runs across the ground for hundreds of feet.
The story of Machicomoco, I learn, begins in
18,000 BC during the last Ice Age, which creat-
ed the Tidewater river systems that shaped Native
American life here.
Walking the timeline, I see the American Indian
story unfold. Thousands of years later, hunter-
gatherers began to appear in coastal Virginia,
eventually forming large settlements in the
Chesapeake floodplains. Then came contact with
Europeans, beginning with Spanish missionaries
in 1570, leading to wars with the British, forcible
removal from land, and, finally, centuries later, the
park’s dedication.
Along the way, I pass native plants like sage,
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The park honey locust, and bluestem grass, and reach a
overlooks tidal shelter, inspired by the longhouses favored by
creeks and inlets
Virginia’s American Indians.
that lead to the
York River. The traditional buildings were constructed from
saplings bent into hoops and then covered with
bark and woven mats. Machicomoco’s modern
version is made from steel and black locust timbers
topped by metal panels.
The park’s location is significant because it was
the gateway to Werowocomoco, the Powhattan
Confederacy’s capital and ceremonial center,
which was located about 10 miles upstream.
(Considered sacred by Native Americans, the for-
mer capital is now owned by the National Park
Service and closed to the public as it undergoes
extensive archaeological research.)
That makes Machicomoco the best spot to
learn about the Powhatan Confederacy. The group,
which included 15,000 people from 30 tribes, be-
Read about gan to form in the 1200s, and grew at its peak
things to to cover 16,000 square miles, stretching from
do around Washington, D.C., to the North Carolina border.
Machicomoco in Prime real estate, then and now.
the digital-extra Werowocomoco is also where Captain John
version of this Smith, the founder of Jamestown, was taken af-
article at ter his capture. During his time there, Powhatan,
aaa.com known as the “chief of chiefs,” offered to sell him
/explorer. the land that’s now Machicomoco park.
Land of 5 seasons
The new park features 3 rental yurts and 5 miles
of paths. Its handicap-accessible launch offers
kayakers access to creeks and the York River,
which American Indians called the Pamunkey. But
throughout Machicomoco are places to learn
about the land’s original inhabitants.
Strolling through the park, I find Algonquin
words etched into boardwalks and steps. The
culture begins to come alive through words like
pissacoack, which means, “muddy place,” or mat-
tapanient, which translates as “stopping place on
a path.”
In another area, a panel describes the indige-
nous Virginian’s 5 seasons. Why, I suddenly wonder,
did I assume there had to be 4?
For the Native Americans, living in the coast-
al plain meant an early spring period for planting
and fish runs; summer for foraging wild plants; late
summer and early fall for harvesting; late fall for
feasts and ceremonies; and winter for forest hunts.
Earlier, I had asked Howells, the Pamunkey mu-
seum director, how best to experience the park.
Take time to absorb it, she told me. Reflect on its
complex history and admire the waterfront land-
scape, home to deer, foxes, turkeys, and, as I saw,
an eagle’s nest with a commanding river view.
“It is culturally significant land for Native
Americans,” she said. But there’s more to it. “It’s
also really pretty.”
Looking out to the inlets, where pods of bot-
tlenose dolphins often congregate and the sun
gleams off the shifting water, I can’t disagree. And
for all that has changed in the last 400 years, I have
to believe that Powhatan and Pocahontas must
have enjoyed the view too.
Freelance writer LARRY BLEIBERG lives in
Charlottesville, Virginia—land once home to the
Monacan Indian Nation.

More Native sites in Virginia

Take a 50-mile drive northwest of Machicomoco to visit the
Pamunkey Indian Museum and Cultural Center. The
Pamunkey Indians were part of the Powhatan Confederacy,
and this decades-old institution was the first opened by a
Virginia tribe. Located on its 1,200-acre reservation, exhibits
Head to the mountains to learn about tribal traditions at the
Monacan Ancestral Museum. Near Lynchburg, the museum honors
the Sioux-speaking Monacan, who once controlled much of Virginia’s
Piedmont area and were rivals of the Powhatan Confederacy. The
museum features an 1870 log cabin schoolhouse and a century-old
LARRY BLEIBERG

at the museum include a dugout canoe, ancient stone mission church. Exhibits include pottery, baskets, beadwork, and
points, and a treaty signed with the English in 1677. Open by photographs. Open Tuesday to Saturday. Call for appointment.
appointment. (804) 843-4792; pamunkey.org. (434) 946-5391; monacannation.com/ancestral-museum.html.

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