Rassawek

Rassawek was the principal town of the Monacan people, on the Piedmont above the fall line near the meeting of the James and Rivanna rivers. Monacan towns in the surrounding country gave it tribute, and the river fork made it a gathering place for families and traders within a homeland that reached from the James River falls toward the Blue Ridge. John Smith placed Rassawek and other Monacan towns on his map of Virginia, published in 1612, drawing on information gathered during English journeys upriver. The English settlers who spread into the Piedmont in the early eighteenth century gradually scattered the Monacan from their homeland, and the town ceased to be important.