Chowanoke

The Chowanoc, also Chowanoke, were an Algonquian-speaking Native American tribe who historically lived near the Chowan River in North Carolina. At the time of the first English contact in 1580s, they were a large and influential tribe and remained so through the mid-17th century. In 1677, after the Chowanoc War, English colonists set aside a reservation for the tribe near Bennett Creek.

The Chowanoc suffered high mortality due to infectious disease, including a smallpox epidemic in 1696. By 1733 descendants of the Chowanoc had assimilated with the Tuscarora. In 1775, James Adair, an Irish-born trader and historian, noted ‘Chowan’ as a language still spoken within the Catawba Nation in South Carolina. The Chowanoc are academically considered to have ceased to exist as an independent entity by, at the latest, 1820.