Patawomeke

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A group of Algonquian-speaking Native American people who lived along the Potomac River in what is now Virginia
2. An Indigenous Algonquian people historically settled on the banks of the Potomac River in colonial-era Virginia
3. The name of an Algonquian tribe that inhabited the Potomac River region of Virginia before European colonization

Etymology: Captain John Smith recorded "Patawomeke" in 1608 as the name of a Native village on the Potomac River, and his 1612 map applied it to the people living there. The word is Algonquian, and its exact meaning is uncertain. A common gloss, linked to the Potomac name, is roughly "where things are brought," which suggests a place of gathering or exchange. English settlers later used the same root for the river, where it survived as Potomac, with spellings such as Patowmack and Potowmack varying in colonial records. The village and its people, by contrast, largely vanished from the written record as colonial settlement pushed them out of the region.