Rappahannock

The Rappahannock River flows eastward through Virginia to Chesapeake Bay. In the early seventeenth century the Rappahannock people held towns on both banks, with their principal settlement at Topahanocke. They spoke an Algonquian language and stood on the margins of the Powhatan Confederacy. John Smith met them during his explorations of the river country in 1607 and 1608.

English settlement along the river increased in the 1650s, and the Rappahannock withdrew from its southern bank. Their leader Taweeren was killed in a dispute with colonists in 1654; further boundary disputes followed under his successor Wachicopa. By 1669 the people had moved to the headwaters of the Mattaponi River. In 1684 the Virginia colonial government ordered them to join the Portobacco people farther up the Rappahannock.