A succession of indigenous peoples occupied the Chesapeake and Tidewater region, arriving according to archeologists' estimates from roughly 3,000 to 10,000 years ago. People of Algonquian stock, which ultimately coalesced into the Piscataway nation, lived in the Potomac River drainage area since at least 1300 CE.[18] Sometime around 800 CE, peoples living along the Potomac had begun to cultivate maize as a supplement to their ordinary hunting-gathering diet of fish, game, and wild plants.
Some evidence suggests that the Piscataway migrated from the Eastern Shore, or from the upper Potomac, or from sources hundreds of miles to the north. It is fairly certain, however, that by the 16th century, the Piscataway were a distinct polity with a distinct society and culture, who lived year-round in permanent villages.
The onset of a centuries-long "Little Ice Age" after 1300 had driven Algonquian and Iroquoian peoples from upland and northern communities southward to the warmer climate of the Potomac basin. Growing seasons there were long enough for them to cultivate maize. As more tribes occupied the area, they competed for resources and had increasing conflict.
By 1400, the Piscataway and their Algonquian tribal neighbors had become increasingly numerous because of their sophisticated agriculture, which provided calorie-rich maize, beans and squash. These crops added surplus to their hunting-gathering subsistence economy and supported greater populations. The women cultivated and processed numerous varieties of maize and other plants, breeding them for taste and other characteristics. The Piscataway and other related peoples were able to feed their growing communities. They also continued to gather wild plants from nearby freshwater marshes. The men cleared new fields, hunted, and fished.
17th century and English colonization[edit]
By 1600, incursions by the Susquehannock and other Iroquoian peoples from the north had almost entirely destroyed many of the Piscataway and other Algonquian settlements above present-day Great Falls, Virginia on the Potomac River.[citation needed] The villages below the fall line survived by banding together for common defense. They gradually consolidated authority under hereditary chiefs who exacted tribute, sent men to war, and coordinated the resistance against northern incursions and rival claimants to the lands. A hierarchy of places and rulers emerged: hamlets without hereditary rulers paid tribute to a nearby village. Its chief, or werowance, appointed a "lesser king" to each dependent settlement. Changes in social structure occurred and religious development exalted the hierarchy. By the end of the 16th century, each werowance on the north bank of the Potomac was subject to the paramount chief: the ruler of the Piscataway known as the Tayac.
The English explorer Captain John Smith first visited the upper Potomac River in 1608. He recorded the Piscataway by the name Moyaons, after their "king's house", i.e., capital village or Tayac's residence, also spelled Moyaone. Closely associated with them were the Nacotchtank people (Anacostans) who lived around present-dayWashington, DC, and the Taux (Doeg) on the Virginia side of the river. Rivals and reluctant subjects of the Tayac hoped that the English newcomers would alter the balance of power in the region.
In search of trading partners, particularly for furs, the Virginia Company, and later, Virginia Colony, consistently allied with enemies of the settled Piscataway. Their entry into the dynamics began to shift regional power. By the early 1630s, the Tayac's hold over some of his subordinate werowances had weakened considerably.
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