New-river-mountains-fog - West Virginia - ForestWander

The Moneton were a historical Native American tribe from

West Virginia West Virginia is a mountainous U.S. state, state in the Southern United States, Southern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States.The United States Census Bureau, Census Bureau and the Association of American ...

. In the late 17th century, they lived in the Kanawha Valley near the Kanawha and New Rivers.

Name

Their name translates to "Big Water" people. In the 1670s,

Abraham Wood Abraham Wood (1610–1682), sometimes referred to as "General" or "Colonel" Wood, was an English fur trader, militia officer, politician and explorer of 17th century colonial Virginia. Wood helped build and maintained Fort Henry at the falls o ...

wrote their name "Moneton" and as another variant, "Monyton."

Territory

The Moneton lived in southern West Virginia, along the

Kanawha River The Kanawha River ( ) is a tributary of the Ohio River, approximately 97 mi (156 km) long, in the U.S. state of West Virginia. The largest inland waterway in West Virginia, its watershed has been a significant industrial region of th ...

. Their settlements were near the

Manahoac The Manahoac, also recorded as Mahock, were a Indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands, who lived in northern Virginia at the time of European contact. They spoke a Siouan language and numbered approximately 1,000. They lived primarily a ...

, Moneton, and

Tutelo The Tutelo (also Totero, Totteroy, Tutera; Yesan in Tutelo) were Native American people living above the Fall Line in present-day Virginia and West Virginia. They spoke a dialect of the Siouan Tutelo language thought to be similar to that of th ...

Siouan language Siouan ( ), also known as Siouan–Catawban ( ), is a language family of North America located primarily in the Great Plains, Ohio and Mississippi valleys and southeastern North America with a few other languages in the east. Name Authors who ...

–speaking tribes of

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States between the East Coast of the United States ...

.John R. Swanton
''Indian Tribes of North America''
p. 61.

History

Map of Native American locations in WV by county during the latter half of the 17th Century

The Moneton may have been a

Fort Ancient culture The Fort Ancient culture is a Native American archaeological culture that dates back to . Members of the culture lived along the Ohio River valley, in an area running from modern-day Ohio and western West Virginia through to northern Kentucky ...

,Rice and Brown, ''West Virginia'', p. 9. an Indigenous culture that thrived from 1000 to 1750 CE in the Ohio River Valley. They might have been related to the

Shawnee The Shawnee ( ) are a Native American people of the Northeastern Woodlands. Their language, Shawnee, is an Algonquian language. Their precontact homeland was likely centered in southern Ohio. In the 17th century, they dispersed through Ohi ...

, an Algonquian-speaking people. The first written mention of the Moneton was made by English settler Thomas Batts in 1671. In 1674, English colonist

sent his servant Gabriel Arthur from Fort Henry in

Wheeling, West Virginia Wheeling is a city in Ohio County, West Virginia, Ohio and Marshall County, West Virginia, Marshall counties in the U.S. state of West Virginia. The county seat of Ohio County, it lies along the Ohio River in the foothills of the Appalachian Mo ...

to visit local tribes to expand the

fur trade The fur trade is a worldwide industry dealing in the acquisition and sale of animal fur. Since the establishment of a world fur market in the early modern period, furs of boreal ecosystem, boreal, polar and cold temperate mammalian animals h ...

.Rice and Brown
''West Virginia''
p. 13. Arthur visited them and described their capital as "a great town," which might be Saint Albans or Buffalo, West Virginia. That is the last contemporary mention of them. They likely merged into other Siouan-speaking tribes in the

Piedmont region of Virginia The Piedmont region of Virginia is a part of the greater Piedmont physiographic region which stretches from the falls of the Potomac, Rappahannock, and James Rivers to the Blue Ridge Mountains. The region runs across the middle of the state from ...

Language

The Moneton language was a

and likely related to the

, Monacan, and

Ofo language Ofo ( ), also known as Mosopelea, is a language formerly spoken by the Ofo people, also called the Mosopelea, in what is now Ohio, along the Ohio River, until about 1673. The tribe moved south along the Mississippi River to Mississippi, near the ...

Notes

References

* Demallie, Raymond J. "Tutelo and Neighboring Groups." Sturtevant, William C., general ed. Raymond D. Fogelson, volume ed. ''Handbook of North American Indians: Southeast.'' Volume 14. Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution, 2004. . * * {{authority control Extinct Native American tribes Native American tribes in West Virginia Pre-statehood history of West Virginia Extinct languages of North America Indigenous languages of the North American eastern woodlands Unattested languages of North America Western Siouan languages

Name

Territory

History

Language

See also

Notes

References