Kiskiack - History

History

In the mid-16th and early 17th century, the Algonquian-speaking Kiskiack tribe, of the large Powhatan Confederacy, was located near the south bank of the York River on the Virginia Peninsula. The village was a few miles west of what became present-day Yorktown. The Kiskiack had built permanent villages, made up of numerous long-houses or yihakans, in which related families would live, with both private and communal space.

The Kiskiack were one of the original six tribes of the Powhatan Confederacy. Beginning with the arrival of the English colonists at Jamestown in 1607, they were generally one of the most hostile toward the English encroachments. They were reluctant to give away their goods simply at the request of parties sent from Jamestown to collect corn and other foodstuffs during the first few years after English settlement. But, they were one of the few tribes to be relatively friendly to the English in the First Anglo-Powhatan War.

Kiskiack was only about 15 miles (24 km) from Jamestown, but it was across the Peninsula and along the York River. This area did not receive as many English colonists as did the waterfront along the James River. Their settlements kept advancing to the west. In 1612, John Smith estimated the Kiskiack population included about 40-50 warriors. William Strachey recorded the name of their weroance as Ottahotin.

The Kiskiack took part in the Indian Massacre of 1622, when they helped kill colonists. The next year the colonists retaliated against them and other nearby tribes, killing about 200 men by giving them poison at a supposed friendly meeting. Some time before 1627, the Kiskiack left their village to migrate west; the English colonists occupied the site in 1629 and retained the name for some time.

By 1649 the Kiskiack had settled along the Piankatank River, when the English "granted" their weroance Ossakican (or Wassatickon) a reservation of 5,000 acres (20 km2). In 1651, the Kiskiack exchanged this land for another 5,000-acre (20 km2) tract farther upriver. Soon the English began to encroach on the reservation in Gloucester County as well. In 1669 the Kiskiack had only 15 bowmen. They last appeared in historical records during Bacon's Rebellion. They seem then to have merged with other groups, probably the Pamunkey, Chickahominy, or Rappahannock.