Kiskiack

Kiskiack, a name understood as “wide land” or “broad place,” was a Powhatan town on the south bank of the York River. Its people lived in longhouses shared by related families and were among the early members of the Powhatan Confederacy. Across the peninsula lay the English settlement at Jamestown, founded in 1607.

The Kiskiack took part in the attack on English settlements in 1622. The following year colonists retaliated, poisoning people at a supposedly friendly meeting. Before 1627 the Kiskiack left their town, and English settlers occupied the site in 1629. They later lived along the Piankatank River, where land granted to their leader was also encroached upon by colonists. By 1669 the community was recorded as having only fifteen bowmen, a measure of the losses suffered in the intervening years.