All about the ancient tribes
One source states that Kanawha is a Shawnee word meaning “new water,” while another claims it is a Catawba word meaning “friendly brother.”
The names of the West Virginia tribes included the the Cherokee, Iroquois, Manahoac, Meherrin, Monacan, Nottaway, Occaneechi, Saponi and Shawnee.
Kanawha. Kanawha was the first name lawmakers considered. But western Virginia already had a county named after the Kanawha River. The river, in turn, got its name from an Indian tribe that lived in the area.
There are no federally recognized Indian tribes in West Virginia today. Due to discrimination and the Indian Removals of the 1800’s, most Native Americans in West Virginia either hid their Native heritage or were relocated to Oklahoma or other western states.
Pocatalico is a name derived from a Native American language meaning “river of fat doe”. The United States Board on Geographic Names settled on ” Pocatalico River” as the stream’s name in 1907. According to the Geographic Names Information System, it has also been known historically as: Paca River. Poca River.
The New River flows north-northeast into Virginia and West Virginia, where it joins the Gauley River to form the Kanawha River.
All Indians are subject to federal income taxes. However, whenever a member of an Indian tribe conducts business off the reservation, that person, like everyone else, pays both state and local taxes. State income taxes are not paid on reservation or trust lands.
From the founding of the United States through the late 1800s, the federal government took more than 1.5 billion acres from Native Americans. Today, many Native Americans live in reservations. These are self-governing, which means they’re not subject to state laws, but they’re not quite sovereign nations, either.
Cherokee language, Cherokee name Tsalagi Gawonihisdi, North American Indian language, a member of the Iroquoian family, spoken by the Cherokee ( Tsalagi ) people originally inhabiting Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Kentucky, and Tennessee.
In 1861, as the United States itself became massively divided over slavery, leading to the American Civil War (1861–1865), the western regions of Virginia split with the eastern portion politically, and the two were never reconciled as a single state again.
Kanawha was originally proposed as the state’s name. In the wake of Virginia’s secession, a convention of delegates from western Virginia met in Wheeling in 1861 for the purpose of forming the “State of Kanawha,” which incorporated 39 counties.
People who live in West Virginia or who come from West Virginia are called West Virginians.
The Pine Ridge Reservation is home to the lowest life expectancy, and a number of the poorest communities in the United States. The average life expectancy on Pine Ridge is 66.81 years, the lowest in the United States. There are 3,143 counties in the United States.
The Cherokee are considered to be part of the later Pisgah Phase of Southern Appalachia, which lasted from circa 1000 to 1500 and the original home of the Cherokee, linguistically a branch of the Iroquois, was the southern Appalachian Mountains, including western North and South Carolina, northern Georgia and Alabama,
About the Shawnee Tribe The Shawnee Tribe is a federally recognized sovereign nation with about 3,200 tribal citizens as of 2020. Shawnee citizens reside not only in Oklahoma, but also live and work throughout the world.