DC’s Vanished Indians?

Case of the Disappeared

Copyright 2024 by Michael Auld

The issue of Native American survival in the USA is fraught with disappearance stories. Murdered and Disappeared Native Women is not covered in the media.  This phenomenon is not unusual, since, because of educational avoidance,  Americans are totally oblivious of its Indigenous people and ignorant of their history. So, it is not rocket science that the District of Columbia’s residents don’t know anything about its Indigenous Dogue (also called Tauxenent), as well as the leading nation in the DMV’s Powhatan Paramountcy, the Pamunkey, who also have America's oldest reservation. 

Most Americans are schooled by fairy tales of a "Princess Pocahontas" without being told that, as a Pamunkey,  her father, "Powhatan's" actual territorial domain included Washington. DC. Some, however, may be aware of the only other historic tribe from Southeast DC neighborhood's *Nacotchtank of Anacostia who Captain John Smith said upon arrival in 1608, were "once a part of the Powhatan Paramountcy." Unfortunately, they were driven out in 1688, of what became the Federal City, by an attack by the Patawomeck of Stafford County, Virginia and their British allies' bombardment of their town. The English invaders in Jamestown envied the Nacotchtank's thriving beaver pelt industry. Incidentally in England, warm beaver hats from Russia were all the rage. It is recorded that their remnant survivors moved to the Tauxenent's Roosevelt Island in the Cohonkaruton or Potomac River, for one year, then they moved on to disappear in Ohio.

The prevailing belief is that DC’s “Indians” became extinct. Sorry to burst the ignorance bubble, but here are some Pamunkey and Dogue/Tauxenent members, who were born in DC, graduated from all grades of the DC Public Schools (and even taught there), as well as from three of its universities. (See a DC teacher-administrator, and mother from a family of 18+ city's siblings, and her daughter below).

THE SURVIVORS

Pamunkeys in DC:  (L-R) late Pamunkey Chief Willian (Bill) "Swift Eagle" Miles (stooping). 
Back row: Bill's late wife, Ann Miles; Bill's late cousin, DC-born Georgia Mills Boston Jessup (Pamunkey) an artist, DCPublic Schools teacher/Administrator; Georgia's daughter, DC-born, resident Rose Powhatan  (Tauxenent/Pamunkey); a woman representative of the Islamic Center of Washington, DC. Bill and Ann were visiting from the Pamunkey Reservation, and stayed with Georgia in her Maryland home while on an official 1980s tribal business with the Islamic Center who had offered medical care for the reservation.

Today, hundreds of descendants of Native Americans who have been Indigenous to the DMV for thousands of years have "disappeared" from public records. Some have direct descent from the leaders of the Powhatan Paramountcy. DC also had Queen Cockacoeske of the city and of Pamunkey (See the Washington Post's article by Rose Powhatan about her ancestral cousin, Cockacoeske). The disappearance of DC's "Indians" is directly the result of the 1924 Racial Integrity Act's racist attempt, to destroy all vestiges of Native Americans in Virginia. The Act was imported in DC from Richmond, Virginia. It had great governmental influence over DC’s Indigenous families since most of their origins were centered in Virginia’s Powhatan Paramountcy. One Delaware Indian, Sacagawea Harmon of a store-owing Georgetown family, fell victim to suicide when fired from the Federal Government because she placed "Native American" on her intake form.

The Powhatan Paramountcy stretched from North Carolina, through Eastern and Northern Virginia, Southern Maryland, into Washington, DC. Interestingly. the only Powhatan Paramountcy's member school children know, is one of Wahuncenachaw's minor daughters, Amonute or Matoaka, popularly known by her pet name and Disney's fictitious Pocahontas cartoon and The New World movie. Factually, she was a little girl of 11-years old when 27-year-old Captain John Smith arrived in the Powhatan Paramountcy in 1607.

The DC Newcomer Phenomenon

There is a scramble by outside tribes to claim Washington, DC. This Metropolitan Area has the distinction of being a portion of the Nation's Capital within the historic Powhatan Paramountcy. And is also very attractive to Native Americans from other parts of the country who come here for jobs. According to the Maryland Government, their Piscatawy tribe which was created in 1706, was forced out of the state by arriving English Catholics. "In 1701 they signed a treaty with William Penn and moved to Pennsylvania under the protection of the Iroquois".  After the Washington Redskins football team out of shame, changed their names, a group of Southern Marylanders whom sociologist called "Tri-racial Isolates" (meaning, a remnant of its citizens mixed with White, Black, and Indian survivors in the state), have had their sites on becoming "DC's Indians." This is a disrespect for DC's true Indigenous family's and their history and is the most egregious attack on the city's Native American story.

Some of these new arrivals attempt to lay claim on DC since they are ignorant of the actual local indigenous families of American Indian descent who are mainly those from the original Powhatan Paramountcy. This DMV conflict is as old as before the formation of the Powhatan Paramountcy itself. Its creator was Wahunsenacawh’s father, the first Powhatan (meaning “Principal Dreamer”). Wahunsenacawh’s dad had organized the eight original Algonquian nations to join him in Virginia's Chesapeake area, to defend themselves from tribal outliers. The need was for his son's expansion to over 32 Algonquian nations (from North Carolina to Washington, DC) ended before 1607, and began again in 1609 with the First Anglo-Powhatan War of Homeland Security against the British, formally under Captain John Smith. However, the need for its protection continued for 68 years, after three Anglo-Powhatan Wars which began in 1609, and ended with Queen Cockacoeske signing of the Treaty of Middle Plantation (Williamsburg, Virginia) in 1677. These wars had begun just two years after the English first set foot on Powhatan territory. However, the battle over DC continues with newly arriving Native Americans, both from next-door Southern Maryland's Piscataway and other tribal newcomers from distant states.

For the past centuries, moving in and out of the city proper by DC's Indigenous families, to live, work, or for schooling on all levels, was the norm. Local and Federal Government jobs were later obtained, starting with the hard work in local DC stone quarries (one in the National Zoo off Quarry Road, NW) whose stones were used in building DC structures like the interior of the Washington Monument, Smithsonian buildings, the eves of the Capitol Rotunda, canals, and even Georgetown's "Exorcist steps". After the 1924 Racial Integrity Act, these Indigenous families, because of racial discrimination, learned to keep their heads down, but still passed on their indigenous pride to the next generation through family stories, poetry, the visual arts, movies, and area powwows.

PART 1: (Below)
A DC Indigenous family's Native traditions continued.

Above: [Top;] (L-R) Georgia Mills Boston Jessup (Pamunkey) in front of Powhatan Museum's "Still Here:" and Pamunkey logo T-shirts.; Daughter, Rose Powhatan (Pamunkey/Tauxenent); Her son, Kiros Auld (Pamunkey/Tauxenent/Yamaye Taino) as a warrior in a Jamestown Festival Park movie.

Bottom row: (L-R) A Chickahominy dancer with Kiros' infant son, Ashkii at their annual powwow/festival, Virginia; Middle-schooler, Ashkii, (Navajo/Pamunkey/Tauxenent/Yamaye Taino), at another powwow, next to the Powhatan Mantle's panther totem. His older brother. Nat'aa'ni (Navajo/Pamunkey/Tauxenent/Yamaye Taino): Young Kiros at President Bill Clinton's Inauguration Parade, representing Washington, DC's indigenous Native Americans on the city's float, January 20, 1993.  

PART 2: (Below) THE MOVIES

The New World movie set with Colin Farrell as Capt. John Smith & Rose Powhatan as a Native American (Pamunkey) clan mother.

Rose Powhatan with actor, Colin Farrell to the right, a New World movie producer at a Chickahominy powwow near the movie set located next to the Chickahominy River, Virginia. They are next to her Powhatan Totem poles.  

PART 3: (Below)

Some Accomplished Family Artists

 Photos (Top) Georgia Mills Boston Jessup (Pamunkey) with her painting, "Rainy Night Downtown", Permanent Collection of National Women in the Arts, Washington, DC.

(Middle) Bernie Boston (Tauxenent Councilman), White House photographer for the LA Times, with his Pulitzer nominated Vietnam Era photo "Flower Power".

(Bottom) Back & front book cover of a novel by Rose Powhatan's son, a Lawyer for the Arts,  podcaster & author, of 13 novels, Alexei Auld (Pamunkey/Tauxenent/Taino), born and educated in Washington, DC, a Columbia School of Law graduate. He is also a Howard University graduate like his grandmother, Georgia Mills Boston Jessup, mother Rose Powhatan, aunt Marsha Jessup, father, Michael Auld, and his two brothers, Ian and Kiros.

Another Chief's Family of Indigenous DMV Descendants

All were proudly aware of their descent from the Dogue/Tauxenent, Wampanoag, and Pamunkey, the leading nation in the Powhatan Paramountcy with America's oldest reservation in King William County, Virginia, three counties in Southern Maryland (the current township of Pomonkey, MD). The Pamunkey counted Wahunsenacawh, his brother, Opichancanough, the War Chief, his niece Cockacoeske (the Queen of Pamunkey & DC), and Pocahontas as tribal members. Their Paramountcy fought thee Anglo-Powhatan Wars of Homeland Security, signing pivotal treaties with the spreading British Empire.

 Like many surviving Amerindians one must know the names common to certain tribes, like Begay of the Navajo. or Mills/Miles and Cook of the Pamunkey, or Custalow of the Mattaponi Reservation, and more. And Washington, DC is no different. Arriving in DC for university in 1962, I met many Indigenous descendants and became a part of one of these extensive families with over 18 siblings with over 29 practitioners in the visual and performing arts. So taken by the arts accomplishments of these related families, I wrote a manuscript titled "29 and Counting", documenting many members who had accomplished great national, international, and local heights in music, opera, drama, podcaster, author, arts education, the visual arts, biomedical communication, arts law, and art therapy.

Above: A photo of the late Tauxenent’s Chief Keziah Boston, also a musician, who had 91 living descendants, and was elected to that position along with two Assistants to the Chief, Billy Payne and Rose Powhatan. She, her assistants, and the tribe's council were the first installed since her ancestor, the recorded weroansqua, Keziah Powhatan and her Fairfax County warriors burned down the county’s courthouse around 1744. Chief Keziah Boston was of Dogue, Pamunkey, and Wampanoag descent, marking the revival of Northern Virginia’s tribal nation, the northernmost national member of the historic 32-34 members of the historic Powhatan Paramountcy. These nations continued to intermarry over the centuries, creating multiple kinships.

Above: Son of the Chief, an Assistant to the Chief, Billy Payne (Tauxenent/Pamunkey).

Assistant to the Chief, Rose Powhatan (Tauxenent/Pamunkey)

The Tauxenent/Dogue Weroansqua, Keziah Powhatan was memorialized by her descendant, Rose Powhatan. She stands next to her totem and the National Gallery of Art's Washington, DC's exhibition banner, in a 2023-2024 Native American art exhibition, her hometown and ancestral territory, the northernmost segment of the historic Powhatan Paramountcy.

Here are just some from this family's over 30+ other arts practitioners.

(Above) DC's lyric soprano Madam Lillian Evanti (Lillian Evans 1890-1967) was an  international opera singer.

David Mills (Pamunkey) was a journalist for both the Washington Times, and NewYork Times, He was also a writer for HBO miniseries "NYPD Blue", 'The Corner", "Kingpin", and "Treme".

 

Top: Juaquin Jessup (Pamunkey) was the lead guitarist for the Mandrill band's  Mohamed Ali album, (He is in the photo with the band at the bottom left.
Bottom: (L) Kiros Auld (Tauxenent/Pamunkey/Taino) a writer, with his uncle, (R) musician Juaquin Jessup (Pamunkey).

Washington, DC residents (Middle and Right): Michon Boston (Tauxenent) and older sister Tequena Boston (Tauxenent) drama graduates of Howard University and Oberlin University, podcasters of the "Boston Sisters" show.

Painter, James Whitley III (Pamunkey) with his artworks which include a large painting on the right, of his Aunt Georgia Mills Boston Jessup (Pamunkey).

Dr, Phoebe Mills Farris (Pamunkey) art therapist, Native American journalist, and photographer in front of the Pamunkey Reservation's Tribal Office, King William County, Virginia.

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NOTES:

(1) "Surviving Document Genocide" an article by Rose Powhatan) to read a blog on an Indigenous DC resident on her experiences with trying to make her a disappeared DC Native American. 

(2) Cockacoeske: The Queen of DC and Pamunkey

An illustration of the Queen Cockacoeske of Washington, DC and Pamunkey with her signature. Made by Michael Auld (Yamaye Taino) using the likeness of her family descendant Georgia Mills Boston Jessup (Pamunkey).

(3) Fairfax County: The Royal Gift

Above: Land belonging to the Right Honorable Thomas Lord Fairfax Baron Cameron, bounded within the Bay of Chesapeake and between the Rivers Rappahannock and Potowamack [Potomac] in Virginia.

 DAR Plaque about the burning of the Fairfax County Courthouse

D.A.R. Plaque, Tyson's Corner, Vienna, Virginia commemorating the act of Werowansquaw
Keziah Powhatan and her warriors as "Indian hostilities".

(4) Document Genocide: (https://yamaye-mike.blogspot.com/2019/10/surviving-document-genocide_31.html) The systematic governmental erasure of Native American links to contemporary Virginia families. The practice was codified by the 1924 Racial Integrity Law enacted by the Virginia Government under the influence of Dr., Walter Ashby Plecker, Director of the state's Vital Statistics. The law, upon the pain of imprisonment, forbade the documenting of Virginia Indian's racial designation as "Indian". The Eugenics Movement copied by Plecker and Germany's Nazi Party was responsible for the denial of genetic descent from Virginia's Amerindian people. The victims off the reservation were deemed Non-Indian or "colored", a designation which led to "Negro" then "Black". Plecker's influence reached beyond Richmond, Virginia into the surrounding states and the District of Columbia.

(5)  Place of the Caucus

A composite image commemorating Powhatan's love for the Tiber Creek on today's Capitol Hill in the territory of the Tauxenent/Dogue, where he loved to caucus with the surrounding nations. Next to him is one of his totems. a black panther which is reputed by guards to appear in the halls of the Capitol  as a gigantic "black cat" during troubled times.

(6) Maps of the Virginia Territory and the Powhatan Paramountcy:

[a]. Captain John Smith's map of the Powhatan Paramountcy.

John Smith's Map of the Virginia Territory includes Powhatan's domain of 32-34 nations known historically as a Kingdom, Confederacy, or "Chiefdom", along with the "tribes" of the area.

[b] Washington Post's 2007 maps

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  Enlargement of the Washington Post's 2007 map of the Powhatan Confederacy's Dogue or Tauxenent Territory that included parts of today's Northern Virginia and Washington, DC.

1607: Powhatan Land and Water Areas which equals over 18,000 square miles [Note: The Washington Post map was by mapmaker Gene Thorpe dated December 13, 2006, showed that the above land and water areas were between 18,700 to 19,250 square miles.]