Thomas Jefferson and Powhatan
Thomas Jefferson’s parents, Peter Jefferson and Jane Randolph owned a plantation, where he was born, called Shadwell in present-day Powhatan, Virginia.
The former President’s connections to the Powhatan Confederacy run deeper than historical accounts often acknowledge. While Jefferson himself wasn’t a direct descendant of Pocahontas, his family’s intricate web of marriages intertwined with the Powhatan royal family.
One such example is Thomas Mann Randolph Junior, who married Jefferson’s daughter Martha and was a direct descendant of Jane Rolfe and her grandmother, Pocahontas. He came from the Randolph family, like Jefferson’s mother, making them both descendants of Thomas Randolph, Earl of Moray.
Indigenous History
The Powhatan people were among the most powerful Native American groups in eastern Virginia, exerting considerable influence over the region — even the Cherokee. Known to the colonists as the Powhatan Confederacy, the Powhatan Empire controlled more than 30 clans or tribes.
Based on this table published by Thomas Jefferson, we can see that Powhatan, proper never moved from its ancestral seat in the area that is now known as Henrico County. [1] Powhatan’s Seat, the Royal residence of King Powhatan is located in Virginia’s capital Richmond, Henrico County, Virignia.
My family comes from Macon (rhymes with Bacon…’s Rebellion), Township in Powhatan County. Based on our grandfather’s census in the 1780s, we are from Monacan country.
Specifically the land traditionally belonging to the Mohemencho clan. Some of my ancestors were also born in the lands belonging to the Monasiccapano, Monahassano and Massinacae clans.
We’re also of ethnic Powhatan ancestry from Richmond, Henrico County, Virginia. [2] So it should be noted the difference between Powhatan, Monacan Nation and Powhatan, proper.
Slavery
My branch of the Jefferson family was enslaved in a place called, “My, Powhatan,” at the residence of Brockenbrough Starke Morrison and Mary G. Royall.
This residence is associated with the Hemings family through Eliza Hemings, and possibly Monticello. The 1860 slave schedule features Eliza Heming and Mary G. Royall owning slaves together in Powhatan. [3]
Thanks to my DNA matching the famous Jefferson and Hemings y-chromosome via 23andMe, I have proof our enslavement and Thomas Jefferson being our grandfather.
Two women owning slaves is a historical quirk. The circumstances of this branch of the Jefferson family’s enslavement is unknown due to lack of testimony.
The Rappahannock Nation has records online showing that they did business with William E. Royall regarding “division of land in Caroline and Powhatan County”. [4] William E. Royall is listed as one of the slaveowners in Powhatan County. [5] His relationship to Mary G. Royall is unknown. However, the Rappahannock eventually split into the Rappahannock Nation of Virginia and the Powhatan Renape of New Jersey.
Some of the land my family owns that comprises our Powhatan reservation (out of a collective 184 acres) still has my great-aunt’s name on it: Elizabeth Royall. Her husband’s relationship to Mary G. Royall is unknown. I’m assuming he was a Royall bastard.
Brockenbrough Starke Morrison died long before his wife. The slaves that chose to take his name, in the form of Morris, were men like my third great-grandfather, Thomas Morris Jefferson IV. The Royall man that married my great-aunt could have been descended from one of the slaves that didn’t have a positive or any such relationship with Brockenbrough while he was alive.
You can find a post tracing my roots back to Elizabeth Royall’s father, Elijah Johnson, here. He married a Jefferson: Lelia Morris Jefferson!
“There remain of the Mattaponies three or four men only, and they have more negro than Indian blood in them. They have lost their language, have reduced themselves, by voluntary sales, to about fifty acres of land, which lie on the river of their own name, and have, from time to time, been joining the Pamunkies…” — Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia
Powhatan and the rest of the Virginia Indians went the way of Puerto Rico. Generally, Puerto Ricans only have an average of 15% Indigenous ancestry and are a combination of various races to recreate their indigenous, Taino look. [6]
Powhatan is the only North American Native American tribe with a royal family. Making their culture more similar to the Aztecs and Mayas of Mexico and the Incas of South America (Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, Argentina, Colombia) than that of Powhatan’s siblings the Cherokee or Navajo.
Ethnic Powhatans have a history of contact with Mexicans and other Indigenous peoples throughout the Americas before and after European contact. [7] Powhatan’s father was driven out of the West Indies, which includes countries like Colombia, in the late 1500s long before the famous Pocahontas story unfolded.
Why Powhatan?
It’s clear that Thomas Jefferson, or one of the Hemings bastards, wanted to preserve another secret Jefferson male. Whether Thomas Jefferson wanted an Indigenous or Indian son, to, let’s say, supplant the royal Powhatan family, or just because is unknown.
It’s unclear if Thomas Jefferson Jr. shared any relationship at all with Brockenbrough, Mary G. Royall’s husband, the Powhatan couple who would go on to own his son.
Morris is a bastard’s name in Virginia for Welsh-sounding Indian. Many of the never-enslaved Morris’ of Gloucester County sport this surname. However, it is eerily close to Brockenbrough’s English surname: Morrison.
The Morris-Jeffersons never left Powhatan, considering it was their ancestral home. There exists no testimony of enslavement in my family. [8]
On 23andMe, I matched with a woman with the surname Royall of unknown ancestry with a Native American maternal chromosome. It’s unclear if Brockenbrough and Mary themselves were of Native American ancestry.
Thomas Jefferson owned a tavern known as “French’s Tavern” in Powhatan, adding another layer to his connections with his hometown of Powhatan and its multiracial residents. [9]
Read more about The Fall of the Powhatan Empire.
