Rassawek

Rassawek is an archaeological site in Fluvanna County, Virginia, located at the confluence of the James River and its tributary, the Rivanna River, near Columbia. The site was previously a village that served as the capital for the Monacans, a Native American tribe, during the early period of British colonization of the Americas. British colonists were first made aware of the village during a 1607 expedition from Jamestown up the James River, though there is no evidence that any Europeans ever visited the village. By the early 18th century, the village was seemingly abandoned and British, and later American, establishments were created around the area, including the Point of Fork Arsenal and the nearby community of Columbia. While the exact location of the Rassawek village is not known with complete certainty, archaeological digs conducted by the Smithsonian Institution in the 1880s and during construction of a gasoline pipeline in the 1980s indicate that the village was most likely on the right bank of the Rivanna, in the strip of land separating the two rivers. In the early 21st century, the county governments of both Fluvanna and Louisa made plans to construct a water pumping station at the Rassawek site, prompting outcry from the Monacan Indian Nation, which had gained federal recognition in 2018. Over the next several years, the Nation and other individuals and organizations, such as Preservation Virginia, pushed back against the development plans, and in 2020, the National Trust for Historic Preservation added the site to its 2020 list of America's Most Endangered Places. Following this, in 2022, the counties agreed to pursue a new location and develop the station at a site upstream of Rassawek.