The Powhatan (also spelle Powatan and Powhaten), or Powhatan Renape (literally, the "Powhatan Human Beings"), is the name of a Native American tribe. It is also the name of a powerful confederacy of tribes that they dominated. Also known as Virginia Algonquians, they spoke an eastern-Algonquian language also known as Powhatan, and lived in what is now the eastern part of Virginia at the time of the first European-Native encounters there. The name is believed to have originated from a village near the head of navigation on a major river, each of which was also called "Powhatan."