| Title | The Great Chief Menatonon |
| Origtitle | Indian in Body Paint |
| Caption | The Indian chief Menatonon, with whom Ralph Lane and the colonists under his charge came into contact. |
| Source | virtualjamestown.org |
| Date | 1585 |
| URL | http://www.virtualjamestown.org/images/white_debry_html/white47.html |
| Creator | John White |
| Type | Watercolor |
| Copyright | British Museum |
| Origin | Internet |
Menatonon (fl. 1580s):; Menatonan was the king of the Choanac Indians, who lived in a town on the upper Chowan River, neighboring the territory occupied by the 1586 Roanoke Colony. He was at this time rather aged, and was revered by the Algonquian Indians and acknowledged by the Indians and colonist alike to be the most wise, knowledgeable and influential of the various chiefs among the Algonquians in the territory surrounding the Roanoke Colony. Though he was regarded as friendly to the English by Lane, and seemed to have acted in a consistently friendly and diplomatic manner, Lane and his men feared attack when exploring and visiting Menatonan’s town and territory, and so they held Menatonan himself prisoner while in his town. Upon leaving, they took Skiko, Menatonan’s grown son, with them as a hostage. Menatonon, picking up on the colonists’ lust for precious metals and pearls, evidently told the English stories concerning a king to the North East who harvested great numbers of pearls, as well as rumors of a mine from which the Algonquians obtained their copper. ;
Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, ed. William S. Powell. (Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 1991), s.v. “Menatonan.”