Editing Goochland County, Virginia (section)

===Native Americans===
''See [[Native American tribes in Virginia]]''

Long before the arrival of Europeans in the 17th century, all of the territory of Virginia, including the [[Piedmont (United States)|Piedmont]] area, was populated by various tribes of [[Native Americans in the United States|Native Americans]]. They were the historic tribes descended from thousands of years of succeeding and varied indigenous cultures. Among the historic tribes in the Piedmont were the [[Monacan people|Monacan]], who were [[Siouan languages|Siouan]]-speaking and were recorded as having several villages west of what the colonists later called [[Manakintown|Manakin Town]] on the James River.

They and other Siouan tribes traditionally competed with and were in conflict with the members of the [[Powhatan Confederacy]], [[Algonquian languages|Algonquian]]-speaking tribes who generally inhabited the coastal [[Tidewater, VA|Tidewater]] area along the Atlantic and the rivers feeding it. They also were subject to raids by [[Iroquois]] nations from the north, who were based south of the [[Great Lakes]] in present-day [[New York (state)|New York]] and [[Pennsylvania]].

By the end of the 17th century, the Monacan had been decimated by warfare and [[infectious diseases]] carried by the mostly [[English colonists]] and traders; their survivors were absorbed into other Siouan tribes.

Portions of the historic [[Three Notch'd Road|Three Chopt Trail]], a [[Native Americans of the United States|Native American]] trail, run through a large portion of the county. The trail was marked by three hatchet chops in trees to show the way. The modern-day [[U.S. Route 250]] roughly follows this route from [[Richmond, Virginia|Richmond]] to [[Charlottesville, Virginia|Charlottesville]].