Saponi Native Americans

Before the family name of Lynch was even a passing whisper through the rolling hills of Virginia, the Saponi Native Americans called the land on which Avoca would form home. The Saponi were a widespread group, and it is commonly believed that they inhabited areas throughout the Virginia Piedmont into modern day Salisbury, North Carolina. In the late 17th century, a German explorer by the name of John Ledrer reported that the Saponi were living on the Staunton River. By 1701 English explorer John Lawson wrote that the Saponi were in the Yadkin River area of North Carolina. Reports show that the Saponi often aligned themselves with other Native tribes such as the Nahyssan, Occaneechi, Tutelo, and Keyauwee. In 1714 Virginia Governor Alexander Spotswood conducted a treaty with the Saponi, Occaneechi, and Tutelo that decreed they would settle on a six-mile reservation on the Meherrin River. This reservation would become known as Fort Christanna. Between 1730-1750 the Native Americans would gradually leave the reservation after the Virginia House of Burgesses voted to abandon the fort in 1718. One notable Saponi native named Ned Bearskin is believed to have assisted Colonel William Byrd II in conducting a 1728 survey of the North Carolina/Virginia border. After a history of attacks from white settlers as well as opposing Native groups the Saponi assimilated into the Cayuga tribe. The Saponi were officially adopted into the Cayuga Nation, and therefore the Iroquois Confederacy in 1753.