Secotan

Secotan
The village of Secotan (read as Secoton) in Roanoke, painted by Governor John White, c. 1585
Total population
merged into Machapunga[1]
Regions with significant populations
Eastern North Carolina
Languages
Carolina Algonquian language
Religion
Indigenous religion
Related ethnic groups
other North Carolina Algonquians
Watercolor painting by Governor John White, c. 1585, of an Algonkin Indian Chief in what is today North Carolina. (Manteo)

The Secotans were one of several groups of Native Americans dominant in the Carolina sound region, between 1584 and 1590, with which English colonists had varying degrees of contact. Secotan villages included the Secotan, Aquascogoc, Dasamongueponke, Pomeiock (Pamlico) and Roanoac.[2] Other local groups included the Chowanoke (including village Moratuc), Weapemeoc, Chesapeake, Ponouike, Neusiok, and Mangoak (Tuscarora), and all resided along the banks of the Albemarle and Pamlico sounds.[3]

They spoke the Carolina Algonquian language, an Eastern Algonquian language.

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference swanton81 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Miller (2000), pp. 265–266
  3. ^ Names of geographic features and Native American groups have changed over time. The English knew the Albemarle and Pamlico sounds as the Roanoke Sea. The English knew the location of the Mangoaks, but according to the depositions collected from 1707 to 1711, the Tuscarora initiated the sale of the same lands to the Weapemeoc in 1645. This provides evidence that the Tuscarora and Mangoak existed as names for the same group of people. Many commonly used tribe names actually refer to individual villages, which existed within tribes. The Secotan tribal area included the villages of both Roanoke and Croatan, though many sources inaccurately refer to these villages as separate Native American groups. Bernard G. Hoffman, "Ancient Tribes Revisited: A summary of Indian distribution and movement in the North Eastern United States from 1534 to 1779, Parts I-III." Ethnohistory, 14, no. 1 / 2 (1967): 30.