were able to furnish a band of ninety warriors, while the tribe having its seat near the junction of the rivers could muster three hundred. There were forty warriors at Werowocomoco, and forty at Chiskiack. The whole military strength of this portion of the Powhatan Confederacy amounted, if Smith is correct, to four hundred and seventy warriors, which, by the ratio previously applied, would indicate a population of fourteen hundred and fifty persons. At Pyanketank there were sixty warriors, or two hundred persons. On the Rappahannock there were at Corotoman thirty warriors; at Moraughtacund, eighty; at Rappahannock, one hundred; and at a second Corotoman, twenty. On the south side of the same river there were at Montaughtacund one hundred and fifty warriors. This would signify that there were in the lower valley of the Rappahannock an Indian population of twelve hundred. The total number of aboriginal inhabitants in this division of country tributary to the lower sections of the three great streams, the Powhatan, the ancient Pamunkey, and the Rappahannock, would, therefore, be five thousand five hundred.
The correctness of this enumeration depends upon the extent of the information which Smith possessed as to all the towns on the Indian Pamunkey and Rappahannock. Not only does he fail to include many of the aboriginal settlements on the Pamunkey, and in the adjacent region mentioned by Strachey, but he also makes certain statements in the course of his general narrative which do not on their face confirm the justness of his figures even as to the valley of the Powhatan. Thus he declares incidentally that a thousand savages[1] were observed along the banks of
- ↑ The language used by Smith respecting the “plaines” along the Nansemond River is: “in these plaines are planted aboundance of houses
