Appamatuck

The Appamatuck, or Appomattoc, lived along the lower Appomattox River and belonged to the Powhatan Confederacy. Their villages included Mattica at the river's mouth, surrounded by fields of maize and led by a woman chief, Oppussoquionuske. English explorers under Christopher Newport reached it in 1607 and were welcomed with food and tobacco.

Relations deteriorated as the English colony expanded. In 1611 Thomas Dale seized Oppussoquionuske's village and its cultivated land; another Appomattoc town was destroyed by colonists in 1623. Their people moved to other settlements farther inland. In 1645 the colony built Fort Henry at the river falls, marking a boundary of English settlement. Later, Appomattoc guides led English expeditions beyond the falls, even as the colony's borders and forts increasingly restricted Indigenous movement.