The Accohannock are a Native American tribe. They lived in Virginia, including the counties of Accomack and Northampton in Virginia, in the United States. They may have been members of the Powhatan Confederacy. They spoke an Algonquian language. They ate wild game and vegetables like corn and squash. Grass-roots colonist racism and loss of the landbase eventually caused Indian people to adopt more up to date agriculture to survive—a process that occurred in the late 17th century for the Accomacs and mainly in the 18th century for the Accohannocks. There is no documentary evidence at any time for Accohannocks changing their name to Annamessex. There is no Maryland or Virginia document dated 1659 that mentions the Annamessexes at all. The Accohannocks were still living in Virginia and selling off land, according to the Accomack Countyrecords, and they would do so for at least another decade.
Modern Accohannock
Today, a group calling itself the Accohannock Indian Tribe has headquarters located in Marion Station, Maryland. They have fought unsuccessfully for federal recognition, but were recognized by the state of Maryland in 2017. They have created a living history museum devoted to their purported tribal history. The tribe first sought state recognition in 2010, but were rejected. For their accepted 2017 application, Chief ClarenceLone Wolf Tyler stated he had traced his genealogy back to the Occohannock of Virginia using ancestry.com. A member of the committee said "Quite frankly the history, to me, was solid". However, anthropologist Helen Rountree told the Baltimore Sun that she is skeptical of the Accohannock application. In addition, various Maryland tribe members denounced the decision, stating that the Accohannock's claims are not credible, and stating that the even if the modern "Accohannocks" have native blood, they should regardless be denied state recognition, as they hadn't faced the same discrimination that the other tribes had faced.
