A state highway marker recognizing the Kiskiak Indians has been approved by the Virginia Department of Historic Resources for placement in Mathews County on Route 3, Twiggs Ferry Road, near the foot of the Twigg Bridge. According to the text of the marker, included in a press release, the Kiskiak Indians were once part of the Powhatan Confederacy. They lived on the south side of the York River when European colonists arrived, but withdrew to the Middle Peninsula during the 1630s, when an English settlement encroached on their ancestral homeland.In 1649, they were living on the south side of the Piankatank River in modern-day Mathews when the colonial government allotted them 5,000 acres, extending from Chapel Creek to Harper Creek (located in modern-day Gloucester) and including their two towns. The Kiskiak Indians’ leaders gradually sold off more than half of their land, says the marker, and in 1669, Virginia’s Indian census recorded 15 Kiskiak warriors. After 1677, the Kiskiak seemin...