Beckley, United States

Beckley is a city in and the county seat of Raleigh County, West Virginia, United States. It was founded on April 4, 1838. This city is the home of the West Virginia University Institute of Technology or West Virginia University, Beckley Campus.

The area surrounding Beckley was long home to many indigenous peoples. Early encounters describe the land as being an ancestral home of the Catawba-speaking Moneton people, who referred to the surrounding area as Okahok Amai, and were allies of the Monacan people. The Moneton's Catawba speaking neighbors to the south, the Tutelo (since absorbed into the Seneca-Cayuga Nation) may have absorbed surviving Moneton communities, and claim the area as ancestral lands. Cherokee and Shawnee and Yuchi peoples also claim the area as included in their traditional lands. Waves of conflict and displacement connected to European settler-colonial conquest also resulted in varied communities finding home and refuge in southern West Virginia, becoming identified as Mingo — remote affiliates of the Iroquois Confederacy.