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Saponi Nation of Ohio

Saponi Nation of OhioSaponi Nation of OhioSaponi Nation of Ohio

937-971-2060

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Saponi Nation of Ohio

Saponi Nation of OhioSaponi Nation of OhioSaponi Nation of Ohio

937-971-2060

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filler@godaddy.com

  • Home
  • Our History
    • Our History
    • Resources
  • Tribal Affairs
    • Chief & Council
    • Land + Natural Resources
    • Community Health
    • Enrollment
  • Contact Us
  • For Tribal Members
    • Saponi Drum Newsletter
    • Culture & Virtual Events
    • Yesa:sahį Language Class
    • Tribal Directory
    • Forms & Documents
    • Meetings
    • Shop

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The History of our name

What We Call Ourselves

Yésą; Yésah, Yesą́, Yesah, Yesan, Yesá ̨̨, Essaw, Isswa, Nahyssan


These are the endonyms for the eastern Siouan peoples otherwise called the Tutelo, Saponi, Occaneechi, Monacan, Eno, Cheraw, and others, who live contemporarily in tribal nations and communities throughout Ohio, Maryland, Virginia, and the Carolinas -- and in diasporic hubs or urban communities elsewhere. 

What We Have Been Called

Saponi, Pony (see: Mt. Poney), Paneese, Paanese, Sa-paahese, Sa-poonese, Sapon, Sappony, Sapony, Sapiny, Sapong, Sapona, Sapoones, Sapponces, Sapponnee, Sapokanikan, Sapohanikan, Saponies, Sapenys, Nahyssan, Oniasont, Honniasont, Tisepan, Monasuccapanough, Monahassanugh, Tutelo, Tudelars, Toderochrone, Totero, Kattera, Shatteras, Christanna Indians, Christian Saponi, Spotswood’s Indians


In Ohio, some members of our community have been called the ‘Darke County Mestizos,” “the Occaneechi of Greene County,” “the Carmel Indians in Highland County,” and the “Vinton County Indians.”

A Brief History of the Ohio Saponi

Origins in the Ohio River Valley

Origins in the Ohio River Valley

Origins in the Ohio River Valley

Since time immemorial, we Yésą have stewarded and occupied a vast territory along the Appalachian foothills, ranging from the Ohio & Kanawha River Valleys across the Blue Ridge Mountains to the Piedmont Plateau.  In Yésa:sahį (the Monacan-Tutelo-Saponi language), the Ohio Valley is called the oka:huk ama:i – the land of all lands - and is the ancestral homeland of all Eastern Siouan peoples. 


We Yesą́  (also: Yesah, Yesą́, Yessa, Isswa; Issaw/Essaw; Yesą́n; Yesą́ng) are  Eastern Siouan peoples; people of the eastern woodlands, who have been present in the Ohio River Valley and Great Lakes region since time before memory. We have ancestral representation in the Adena (500-100 BCE) and Fort Ancient (1000-1750 CE) cultures and have maintained a continuous presence in the region to this day. 


Burial mound-building, of both the accretional earth and individual stone-covered type, is part of Yesą́ culture and has been retained through the historic period and into today as the practice of hillside/hilltop burials marked with stone cairns.


We are still here now, and retain our cultural and kinship connections. We will continue to fight to assert our sovereignty, and to preserve our ties to the land and each other.


Early Contact & the Wars

Origins in the Ohio River Valley

Origins in the Ohio River Valley

Yésą communities were deeply impacted by the depopulation events that followed European Contact in the 1500s, including the destabilizing Beaver Wars and the Indian Slave Trade of the 1600s and early 1700s. 


We became central to the shifting political landscape of the Indigenous East Coast through the 1700s, at which time the effects of the Indian Wars of the Southern British Colonies, including the Tuscarora War (1711 - 1715), the Yamasee War (1715 - 1717), and later Pontiac's War (1763–66), Lord Dunmore's War (1774) and eventually the American Revolution (1775–1783) collectively scattered Yésą communities across Canada, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina.

Return to the Homelands

Saponi in the 20th Century

Saponi in the 20th Century

In the early 1800s, increasing anti-Indigenous violence and racist oppression by landowners and slaveholders in the antebellum South forced some Yésą families to flee to rejoin their kin back in the Ohio Country. 


The  majority of families departed from communities located in Halifax, Northampton, Warren, Robeson, Pasquotank, Bertie, Alamance, Person, and Orange counties in North Carolina; others came from Halifax, Louisa, Amherst, Rockbridge, Greensville and Brunswick counties in Virginia. 


Oral histories shared by descendants of the Yesą́  who made the journey recount two paths of departure: (1) some traveled due west, toward the Cumberland Gap, while (2) others headed north, toward Monacan territories in the Blue Ridge Mountains, before crossing toward the Ohio Country. 


Despite the dangers posed by Indian removal in Ohio, from the 1840s through the 1890s, a series of court cases in Ohio demonstrate that Yesą́  in this region fought consistently to affirm their identiy and assert their rights as American Indians. The areas of law in which these cases arose were primarily around schooling and voting rights, with key cases including: Parker Jeffries vs. Ankeny et al. (1840); Parker Jeffries vs. Ankeny et al. (1842); Thomas Lane vs. Baker (1843); Jeffries vs. Ohio Board of Education (1880).


Consistently and constantly, our ancestors sought the promise of a safe state for Indians in the ancestral homelands of the Ohio Country, rebuilding our small communities across the lands that would eventually become the states of Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan.

Saponi in the 20th Century

Saponi in the 20th Century

Saponi in the 20th Century

Through the first half of the 20th century, our communities remained tightly-knit, rural, and private. Our main homesteads were in the areas around Pine Hill and Poke Patch, and community elders fondly remember childhoods spent together in community.


By the late 1980s, a more formal tribal governance structure coalesced, with meetings originally held around the dining room table of one of our members in Pine Hill. Records from this time affirm the community’s presence under the name of the Saponi Nation of Ohio (SNO), and the reorganized government began to petition the State of Ohio for recognition. 


In 1997, the tribe filed an Intent to Petition for Federal Acknowledgement as an Indian Entity. In 2001, a concurrent resolution, H.C.R. 5, was introduced in the 124th General Assembly (2001-2002) regular session, entitled “To Grant Official State Recognition to the Saponi Nation of Ohio” – however, the resolution was not moved out of the House State Government Committee. 


The resolution was reintroduced and a hearing was held in the 125th General Assembly (2003-2004) regular session; however, it again floundered in committee. Thus, efforts to affirm state and federal recognition for the Saponi Nation of Ohio continue today.

Copyright © 2025 Saponi Nation of Ohio - All Rights Reserved.

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