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Why Did Native American Settlers Make West Virginia Their Home

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First making Appalachia their home were the Native American people. The Paleo-Indians living around 10,000 B.C. were the first ever known people to make West Virginia their home. After them, West Virginia was lived in by native people until the 17th century. A little before European settlers found their way into the Appalachian Mountains, the Indian people dispersed. Reasons aren’t too clear but it’s reasoned to be due to European disease and tribal conflict. The tribes most often associated with West Virginia are the Shawnee, Delaware, and Cherokee. Also associated were the Iroquoian-speaking groups like the Seneca, Tuscarawas, Susquehannock, and Mingo. There were also multiple non-resident tribes that would pass through the region while …show more content…

There are important reasons for this. Identification with the Cherokee over other Indian tribes is in many cases probably due to the greater familiarity with the Cherokee. They were one of the largest and most powerful tribes in the Southeast and a factor in Western Virginia throughout the frontier era. As for gender, it was culturally easier for Indian women to marry white men than for Indian men to marry white women. Further, most tribes in Appalachia were matrilineal, with descent and inheritance traced through the mother rather than the …show more content…

Surnames often held by Melungeons are common throughout southern West Virginia. The United Cherokee Indian Tribe of West Virginia is a tri-racial group that has members of Cherokee and Eastern Siouan descent. It is a branch of the Buffalo Ridge Cherokee, a tri-racial band in Amherst County, Virginia, whose members can trace their Eastern Siouan ancestry back to the late 1600s. Many of the Native Americans now living in West Virginia are from tribes outside Appalachia, and have come here for the same myriad of reasons that people of other ethnic groups have. Indian mobility increased in the mid-20th century. The Bureau of Indian Affairs began its relocation program in 1954, and more Indians began moving off reservations to other areas. While large concentrations of American Indians remain on the major reservations, especially in the West, others live throughout the country and relocate for employment, retirement, and other

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