Hidden Native American Settlements Described by John Smith for Centuries Unearthed in Virginia – What Secrets Do They Hold?
So, picture this: over 400 years ago, John Smith scribbled down tales of bustling Indigenous villages along Virginia’s Rappahannock River — with all the intrigue of arrow ambushes and hidden gardens that made English bushes jealous. Trouble is, no one could find a single nod to these villages, and plenty of scholars shrugged it off as explorer tall tales. Well, hold onto your hats, because a persistent team from St. Mary’s College of Maryland just uncovered a treasure trove — nearly 11,000 artifacts! These beads, pottery shards, and stone tools aren’t just dusty relics; they’re a mic-drop moment, backing up Smith’s journals and honoring the Rappahannock tribe’s long-held oral history. Who knew archaeology could be this much of a truth bomb? Dive in and see how history just got a smashing rewrite.
Thousands of Indigenous artifacts found along the Rappahannock River provide physical evidence of the villages written about by English explorer John Smith in 1608.
Julia KingA team from St. Mary’s College of Maryland has unearthed 11,000 Indigenous artifacts along the Rappahannock River.
Over 400 years ago, English explorer John Smith wrote of several Indigenous settlements along a river in modern-day Virginia. Smith’s journals also described an attack on his men by Native Americans from one of these villages. Yet, no evidence of them had ever turned up. Some scholars disputed Smith’s claims outright.
Now, however, archaeologists may have vindicated the explorer’s records.
For months, a team of researchers from St. Mary’s College of Maryland has been surveying the land around the Rappahannock River for signs of these early settlements. At first, their work seemed like a lost cause. Then, this summer, the team unearthed thousands of artifacts, including beads, pieces of pottery, stone tools, and tobacco pipes. In total, they uncovered around 11,000 objects that may corroborate John Smith’s journal entries.
Lost Villages On Rappahannock Tribal Land
When Captain John Smith explored the Rappahannock River in 1608, he wrote down his observations of the land belonging to the Rappahannock tribe. Smith’s journals describe a thriving civilization with at least 14 villages mapped along the river’s northern banks, including three heavily fortified towns atop Fones Cliffs: Wecuppom, Matchopick, and Pissacoack.
Smith noted the tribe’s sophisticated use of the terrain, describing villages surrounded by “flat fields” and “cleaner” gardens than those in England. Despite initial hostilities — including an ambush at Fones Cliffs in which warriors camouflaged as bushes rained arrows upon Smith and his men — relations eventually warmed through the mediation of Mosco, a Native American guide.
Public DomainEnglish explorer John Smith wrote extensively of Native American tribes in Virginia.
As the Washington Post notes, the U.S. government only formally recognized the Rappahannock tribe in 2018. The tribe had been trying to reclaim its ancestral land for years, but that effort proved to be difficult.
“Indian people have long known of the land and our history and presence here,” said Rappahannock chief Anne Richardson. “But so often things aren’t considered ‘real’ until they’re found or ‘discovered.’”
John Smith was meticulous in keeping records of his travels across America. He spent much of his time mapping the land and writing about the Native American groups he encountered. But he was also a notorious self-promoter. Most historians agree that his maps and basic observations were largely accurate, but other journal entries — such as his encounters with Pocahontas — are clear embellishments, if not outright fabrications.
Public DomainSmith’s map of Virginia, which shows Native American territories.
This has caused some scrutiny to be applied to his records in more recent years, which has, in part, contributed to the erasure of some of the Rappahannock tribe’s history. Smith wrote about their villages along the river, but since modern researchers had not found any physical evidence to back that up, Smith was dismissed — even when oral histories of the tribe corroborated his account.
“My people have lived here since the beginning,” Richardson explained on the podcast Tribal Truths back in 2022. “Rappahannocks would have been able to look down both sides of the river here and see potential enemies or guests coming before they ever got here. And so this was a very strategic place for them to live, for many reasons.”
The oral history of the tribe was often dismissed as well.
“Oral history gets a bad rap in some quarters because memories are not perfect, but documents aren’t either,” Julia King, a professor of anthropology at St. Mary’s College of Maryland who led the recent excavations at Fones Cliffs, told Live Science. “The strategy is to read both with and against the grain of both sources and to question everything.”
As frustrating as that has been for the Rappahannocks, though, new discoveries between 2022 and 2025 have supported their oral history and Smith’s account.
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