Weroance
leader among the Powhatan confederacy of the Virginia coast and Chesapeake Bay region
Weroance ([we:ɹoanz] or [we:ɹoans] or [we:ɹoəns]) is an Algonquian word meaning leader or commander which was used throughout the Chesapeake Bay region including in the Powhatan Confederacy and the Piscataway Confederacy. Weroances within these confederacies were under paramount Weroances called Mamantowick and Tayac respectively. Like their predecessors, each member/weroancy of the Powhatan Confederacy was led by their own Weroance often chosen by their leader, the Mamantowick, from their relatives or partners. Most foreign writers who have come across a Weroance only did so on a special occasion. This is the case because a foreigner's presence was special. John Smith noted that there are few differences between Weroances and their citizens. Present day leaders of Chesapeake nations, such as Chief Anne, no longer use the title Weroance, using the english word chief instead.
In older texts, especially from the time of the early Jamestown settlers, spelling was not standardized, so the following spellings are used in different texts:
Weeroance
Weroance
Werowance
Werowans
Wyroance
Wyrounce
Wyrounnces
A Weroansqua is a female Weroance. Spellings of this word also vary. Many Weroansquas were notable for their humanitarian and environmental efforts, helping protect their land and communities from colonial control and exploitation.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Weroance” as leader among the Powhatan confederacy of the Virginia coast and Chesapeake Bay region. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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This entry incorporates text from “Weroance” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.