Dasamongueponke

The Dasamongueponke (or Dasamonguepeuk) is the name given to a Native American tribe of Secotan people and also the name of a village encountered by the English during their late 16th century attempts to settle and establish permanent colonies in what is now North Carolina, known at the time as Virginia. Together with the rest of Secotan people they formed a part of the Native American group known as the Carolina Algonquian Indians, and spoke the now extinct Carolina Algonquian language.

Dasamongueponke
Total population
Extinct as a tribe
Regions with significant populations
North Carolina
Languages
Carolina Algonquian language
Religion
Tribal religion (historical)
Related ethnic groups
Secotan, Aquascogoc
The village of Secoton in Roanoke Island in North Carolina, painted by Governor John White c.1585
Watercolor painting by Governor John White c.1585 of an Algonkin Indian Chief in what is today North Carolina.

Roanoke colony

Sir Richard Grenville was the leader of the 1585 expedition which first attempted to land English settlers on Roanoke island. When Grenville left Roanoke, he left behind fifteen men, battle-hardened soldiers. When Governor John White returned in 1587 he searched for the fifteen, but found only bones.[1] White quickly made contact with friendly natives led by Chief Manteo, who explained to him that the lost fifteen had been killed by hostile Secotan, Aquascogoc and Dasamongueponke warriors,[2] choosing a time and place of attack "of great advantage to the savages".[3]

On August 8, 1587 White led a dawn attack on the Dasamongueponkes that went disastrously wrong. White and his soldiers entered the Dasamongueponke village in the morning "so early that it was yet dark",[4] but mistakenly attacked a group of hitherto friendly Indians, killing one and wounding many. "We were deceaved", wrote White in his journal, "for the savages were our friendes". Henceforth relations with the local tribes would steadily deteriorate.[5]

Chief Manteo was granted the title of baron, the Lord of Roanoke and Dasamongueponke - the first peer created by the English in North America.

Legacy

Much of what is known about the lives of the Dasamongueponke and other Algonkin tribes in 16th century North Carolina survives thanks to the watercolor paintings and the journal kept by Governor John White who was commissioned in 1585 to "draw to life" the inhabitants of the New World and their surroundings.[6] During White's time at Roanoke Island, he completed numerous watercolor drawings of the surrounding landscape and native peoples. These works are significant as they are the most informative illustrations of a Native American society of the Eastern seaboard, and predate the first body of "discovery voyage art" created in the late 18th century by the artists who sailed with Captain James Cook. They represent the sole surviving visual record of the native inhabitants of America, encountered by England's first settlers.[6]

White's enthusiasm for watercolor was unusual - most contemporary painters preferred to use oil-based paints.[7] White's watercolors would soon become a sensation in Europe and it was not long before the paintings were engraved by the Flemish master engraver Theodore de Bry,[8] and through the medium of print, became widely known and distributed; published in 1590 under the title "America".[8]

gollark: Text is just numbers in the category of endofunctors.
gollark: Well, you simply throw the data into a pit of incomprehensible linear algebra, and then attain results.
gollark: It would magically™ determine what my screenshots are of, and what text they contain, for search.
gollark: @⁡everyone Does there exist some kind of automated screenshot OCRer/classifier?
gollark: They're just timestamped, no other useful metadata.

See also

Notes
  1. Milton, p.217
  2. Milton, p.218
  3. Milton, p.220
  4. Miller, Lee, p.131 Retrieved April 2011
  5. Milton, p.235
  6. Article in Smithsonian Magazine by Abigal Tucker, December 2008 Retrieved March 2011
  7. Milton, p.199
  8. Milton, p.200

References
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.