The Manahoac, also recorded as Mahock, a…

The Manahoac, also recorded as Mahock, a small group of Siouan-language natives in northern Virginia at the time of European contact, numbered approximately one thousand and lived primarily along the Rappahannock River west of modern Fredericksburg and the fall line and east of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

They united with the Monacan, the Occaneechi, the Saponi and the Tutelo.

John Smith, who had met with a sizable group of Manahoac in 1608 above the falls of the Rappahannock River, recorded that they were living in at least seven villages to the west of where he had met them.

He also noted that they were allied with the Monacan, but opposed to the Powhatan.

Because of raids by enemy tribes to the north and probably disease from European contact, they had been reduced by the 1669 census to only fifty bowmen in their former area; their remnants seem to have joined their Monacan allies to the south immediately afterward.

John Lederer recorded the "Mahock" along the James River in 1670.

Lederer passes directly through their former territory in 1671 and makes no mention of any inhabitants.

Around the same time, the Seneca nation of the Iroquois begin to claim the land as their hunting grounds by right of conquest, though they do not occupy it.