Pocahontas Island Historic District | |
.jpg) Pocahontas Island welcome sign | |
   | |
| Location | Pocahontas, Witten, Rolfe, Logan, and Sapony Sts., Petersburg, Virginia |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 37°14′19″N 77°23′59″W / 37.23861°N 77.39972°W |
| Built | 1952 |
| Architect | Lee, William Edward, Jr. |
| Architectural style | Federal, Bungalow/Craftsman |
| NRHP reference No. | 06000977 [1] |
| VLR No. | 123-0114 |
| Significant dates | |
| Added to NRHP | November 03, 2006 |
| Designated VLR | September 6, 2006[2] |
Pocahontas Island is a peninsula in Petersburg, Virginia, once on the opposite side of the Appomattox River from Petersburg. Since 1915 a new channel for the river separated it from Chesterfield County and the former channel no longer separates it from the city. Once a warehouse and wharf-filled urban landscape initially platted in 1749, the island was devastated by a 1993 tornado before citizen involvement caused creation of the Pocahontas Island Historic District, which in 2006 achieved listing on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) as a historic district because of its significance in African-American history and for its prehistoric indigenous archeological assets.
Archeologists found evidence of prehistoric Native American settlement dating from 6500 B.C.[3] The indigenous Appomattoc people inhabited this region and encountered European colonists by the early 18th century, when the first enslaved Africans were brought to work here.
In the 19th century, Pocohontas Island became a notable freedom colony,[4] the first predominately free black settlement in the state and, by mid-19th century, one of the largest in the nation (although enslaved people also lived on the island, and some free blacks owned slaves).[5] In 1860 slightly more than half of Petersburg's population was black, and 3,224 or one-third of those people were free; they constituted the largest free black population of the time. During the 20th century, the island's population declined as people moved north in the Great Migration. In 1975 residents secured renewed residential zoning to protect their neighborhoods from industrial development proposed by the city.[5]
- ^ https://www.dhr.virginia.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/123-0114_Pocahontas_Island_HD_2006_NRHP_nomination_final.pdf123-0114/ [dead link]
- ^ "Virginia Landmarks Register". Virginia Department of Historic Resources. Archived from the original on September 21, 2013. Retrieved March 19, 2013.
- ^ "Pocahontas Research Project" Archived 2007-02-02 at the Wayback Machine, Petersburg, VA Official Website, 2006, accessed 29 Dec 2008
- ^ "One man's quest to preserve the haunting black history of Pocahontas Island". Washington Post. Retrieved July 17, 2018.
- ^ a b Janice H. Cosel and Laura Jo Leffel, "A Case Study of Pocahontas Island: Resistance to Post-Impact Evacuation in a Historic Black Community Virginia", Electronic Journal of Emergency Management, Number 1, 1999, accessed 27 Dec 2008