Pamunkey

The Pamunkey Indian Tribe is a federally recognized tribe of Pamunkey people in Virginia. They control the Pamunkey Indian Reservation in King William County, Virginia. Historically, they spoke the Pamunkey language. They are one of 11 Native American tribes in Virginia and an Indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands. The tribe became the Commonwealth of Virginia's first federally recognized tribe receiving its status in January 2016. The Pamunkey people were part of the Powhatan Confederacy, made up various nations in Tsenacommacah. The Powhatan Confederacy was made up of over 30 nations, estimated to total about 10,000 to 15,000 people at the time the English arrived in 1607. The Pamunkey nation comprised about one-tenth to one-fifteenth of the total. They numbered about 1,000 persons in 1607. When the English colonists arrived, the Pamunkey were one of the most powerful nations in the Powhatan Confederacy. They inhabited the coastal tidewater of Virginia on the north side of the James River near Chesapeake Bay. The Pamunkey Tribe is one of only two that retain the reservation lands assigned by the 1646 and 1677 treaties with the English colonial government. Their reservation is located on some of their ancestral land on the Pamunkey River adjacent to present-day King William County.