2026 SESSION
ENROLLED
SENATE JOINT RESOLUTION NO. 25
Commending the Wiccocomico Pinn lineage of Northumberland County; recognizing documented leadership, descendant families, and land continuity; and honoring the contributions of Gail Janeen Smith Toliver, the Northern Neck Indigenous Heritage Council, and the Northern Neck Indigenous Heritage Foundation.
Agreed to by the Senate, January 15, 2026
Agreed to by the House of Delegates, January 19, 2026
WHEREAS, the Wiccocomico people of Virginia, distinct from the similarly named Maryland Wicomico, occupied ancestral homelands along the lower Northern Neck, including the north bank of Dividing Creek in present-day Northumberland County, as documented in early colonial maps and records; and
WHEREAS, Captain John Smith, in 1608, recorded the Wiccocomico among the Indigenous peoples of Virginia and described Virginia Indians as having tawny brown skin, lighter than the Moors or slaves and darker than the Irish or Spaniards, establishing early English recognition of their distinct Indigenous identity; and
WHEREAS, William Strachey, secretary of the Virginia colony, further described Wiccocomico and allied Virginia Indian families, noting that infants were carried on their mothers' backs and that children were born with white skin but within one month turned a tawny brown, a trait observed even when mothers bore children with English colonists, reflecting early colonial understanding of Native identity distinct from African descent; and
WHEREAS, Sir William Berkeley, Governor of Virginia, oversaw treaties and land arrangements prior to 1776, including the 1646 Articles of Peace and the 1677 Treaty of Middle Plantation, which shaped the reservation era and legal status of Virginia Indian communities including the Wiccocomico; and
WHEREAS, Robert Beverley, Jr., writing in 1705, stated that in Northumberland the Wiccocomico had but three men living who yet kept up their Kingdom, identifying Pinn, Taptico, and Conchinchimo as the remaining leaders maintaining Wiccocomico political continuity at the close of the seventeenth century; and