When a small ice age hit, many tribes wanted to move south to have better land. In the Tidewater, Piedmont, and Richmond regions of what would eventually be known as virginia these tribes formed 3 indian languages. They were algonquien, siouan, and iroquois. Eventually six or nine small tribes and chiefdoms (a territory or state ruled by a chief) were having trouble fending off other tribes and formed what is called a paramount chiefdom. This was called Tsenacomoco. When Powhatan took over Tsenacomoco in the mid to late 1500’s, he extended its borders by both diplomacy (dealing with people in a sensible way.) and violence to include 28 - 32 chiefdoms. The tribes of Tsenacomoco sometimes respected Powhatan’s authority and sometimes did not. The chickahominy Indians defied Powhatans rule, even though they lived in the center of Tsenacomoco on the Chickahominy river. Other tribes like the patawomeck and the accomac lived on the outskirts of the chiefdom, sometimes paying tribute, and sometimes not. The people of Tsenacomoco lived in towns situated near the regions wide, tidal rivers which made for good farming, good fishing, better means of transportation, and more efficient communication. Tsenacomoco extended from the James river (called the Powhatan river by the Indians) in the north to the south bank of the Potomac River. It was bounded by the fall line in the west, and the Atlantic Ocean in the east. The colonists co-opted these boundaries and they became the unofficial borders of Virginia. By the early 1600’s, before the colonists arrived, the population was between 13,000 and 22,000.