The Patawomecks were among the first Amerindian tribes encountered by English arrivals in America.  At the time of Virginia’s first explorations, they subsisted by harvesting fish from the Potomac and its many tributaries in present day Stafford & King George Counties. They were great hunters of waterfowl, deer, rabbit, squirrels, and raccoon.

(The Manahoacs and Patawomecks raided each other at least annually; strife was reduced when a new threat and a new “tribe,” The English, arrived on the scene.)