It is assumed that the medal was presented by Virginia General Assembly to the Machodoc Chief ca. 1662 in compliance with an act of the General Assembly respecting Indian badges (passports or tokens of amity). In March 1661/62 (Old Style, New Style), the Virginia General Assembly authorized "that badges, silver plates and copper plates with the name of the [Indian] towne graved upon them, be given to all the adjacent [Indian] kings within our protection." Although ostensibly honorific, Indians could not enter English settlements without the badges, which served as passports, and enabled English colonists to assign blame for any depredations made by visiting Indians.
This Machodoc badge was uncovered at Camden, Caroline County, Virginia in November, 1964 during excavations at an Indian site conducted by the Upper Rappahannock Chapter of the Archeological Society of Virginia working under the supervision of Howard W. McCord, Archeologist on the staff of the Virginia State Library. Silver badges were worn by chiefs as passports for entering English settlements; warriors wore copper badges.
The Virginia Historical Society also has the badge for the chief of the Potomacs (1834.1). Colonial Williamsburg has one marked "Pamunkie" and the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation has the only copper one, marked "Appamattuck". An act of 1661 read "If any damage or injury be done to any Englishman by them or any of them, that then the king or great man of the place the badge denote shall be answerable for it." The badges, therefore, enabled the colonists to pinpoint blame if a visiting tribesman violated their hospitality.