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Indian settlements in Maryland

Maryland Historical Society

Maryland's Chesapeake Bay watershed was home to a number of different Indian groups. Algonquian-speaking people inhabited the coastal area, while Iroquois-speaking groups lived in Maryland's Piedmont and mountains. Details of their cultures, histories, and ways of life survive in the writings of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century English colonists and emerge with new archaeological discoveries. Algonquians and Iroquois shared an economy based on growing corn, beans, squash, sunflowers, and tobacco. They also gathered a variety of wild plant foods and materials from the woods and rivers. Indians lived in the summer and fall in farming villages. Most Algonquian houses were spread among the farm fields. Fortified villages, surrounded by log palisades, were located at the boundaries of their territories or in the leaders' villages. In winter, families left for winter quarters in the interior of their territories. Here they hunted deer, turkey, and other animals for food, clothing and other needs. As food supplies became depleted by spring, Algonquians traveled to fishing and oyster-gathering camps. By the end of June they moved back to their farming villages to live.

The establishment of the Jamestown colony in 1607 and Captain John Smith's exploration of the Chesapeake Bay in1608 brought more contact and interaction between the native people and the English. William Claiborne established the first permanent English colony in Maryland on Kent Island in 1631, in order to trade for beaver skins with the Iroquois-speaking Susquehannock Indians. Henry Fleet of Virginia established a trade for beaver furs with the Potomac River Algonquian Indians in 1631. These successful beaver trades led to the establishment of the colony of Maryland on the Potomac River in 1634. The Algonquian Indian societies' histories from that time forward are too complex to detail here, but a summary of the major chiefdoms, tribes, and their locations follows.

Algonquian Indians - Western Shore of Maryland
The most powerful Algonquian political organization on the Western Shore was the Piscataway chiefdom located along the Potomac River. The name Piscataway Creek reflects the location of the principal territory of the tayac, the supreme chief of the Piscataway nation. On the north shore of the Potomac River, five Indian chiefdoms owed allegiance to the Piscataway. They were as follows:

Anacostians (Anacostia River): Their territory was in today's Washington, D.C., western Prince Georges County, and Alexandria, Virginia. They lived in fortified villages on the Algonquians' western frontier.

Piscataway (Piscataway Creek): Their territory extended along the Potomac River in Prince Georges County from Broad Creek to Piscataway Creek to Pomonkey Creek. The major village was fortified.

Mattawomen (Mattawomen Creek): John Smith recorded them by the name of Pamacocack located around Mattawomen Creek in Charles County and Quantico Creek in Prince William County, Virginia. They stayed in this area until 1735. Their descendents may be the Piscataway Indians of today who live in southern Maryland.

Nanjemoy (Nanjemoy River): Their territory extended from Mallows Bay on the Potomac River to Nanjemoy Creek in Charles County. Sites in this area demonstrate the use of oysters in this saltier part of the river.

Potapoco (Port Tobacco River): Smith noted three villages along the Port Tobacco River in Charles County. These Indians migrated in the latter seventeenth century to the Rappahannock River in Virginia.

The archaeological evidence of the Piscataway paramount chiefdom consists of triangular arrow points made mostly of quartz and pottery of the Moyaone, Potomac Creek, and Camden types.

On the lower Potomac River northern shore were two independent Algonquian governments or chiefdoms:

Chaptico (Choptico Creek): Smith called them the Cecomocomoco and noted their territory as including Cuckhold Creek, Wicomico River and Brenton Bay. They continued to have a werowance (chief) and tribal organization until at least 1707, after which families continued to live in the area and may be part of the population today.

Yoacomaco (St. Mary's River): The Yoacomaco, who suffered attacks by the Susquehannocks, welcomed the new Maryland English settlers in 1634 and agreed to sell to the English 30 miles of their territory around the St. Mary's River. The English moved into their eastern village where they learned farming and fishing methods from the Yoacomaco. They migrated to the southern shore of the Potomac River in 1642, when the English killed their werowance, but continued to hunt in Maryland into the 1650s.

To the north, along both shores of the Patuxent River, John Smith recorded seventeen Indian villages of Algonquian speaking Indians: They included:

Pawtuxant (Patuxent River). Located in today's Calvert County from Solomon's Island to Hunting Creek, they were the most powerful of the chiefdoms on the Patuxent. They migrated upriver to a reservation in the 1650s, then moved in with the Chaptico Indians in 1692.

Acquintanack (Patuxent River): Located in today's St. Mary's County, their territory extended from the mouth of the river to Swanson Creek. They lost their territory to the expanding English in the 1640s and moved in with the Pawtuxants after that time.

Mattapanient (Upper Patuxent River): Their territory was located around the Western Branch of the Patuxent in today's Prince Georges County.

Assacomoco (Upper Patuxent River): Their territory was on the east shore of the river from Hunting Creek in Calvert County to Lyons Creek in southern Anne Arundel County.

The Pawtuxent and allied chiefdoms had a culture similar to that of the lower Potomac and Eastern Shore Algonquians. Indians along the Patuxent River made shell-tempered pottery, called by archaeologists Townsend, Yeocomico, Rappahannock and Sullivan Cove.

Algonquian Indians - Eastern Shore of Maryland
The Eastern Shore of Maryland had several Algonquian chiefdom territories from the Pocomoke River to the Sassafras River. The language of the Nanticoke and the Tockwoghs differed from the Algonquian language spoken on the Western Shore of the bay. Eastern Shore Indian societies were divided into different chiefdoms. The Nanticoke were a paramount chiefdom like that of the Piscataway on the Western Shore.

Assateague (Asseateaque Bay): This was a chiefdom adapted to the maritime and forest resources of the Asseateaque Bay watershed and involved in the manufacture and trade of shell beads. They ended up on a reservation with the Pocomoke Indians on the upper Pocomoke River in Worcester County.

Pocomoke (Pocomoke River): In 1608 John Smith first visited this territory that he called the Wighcocomoco. By the 1660s, the Maryland English noted that the Pocomoke were allied with the Amamesses of the Annemessex River, the Morumsco of Fishing Bay on the Pocomoke, and the Acquiantica Indians of the Pocomoke River. This is in today's Somerset and Worcester Counties.

Nanticoke (Nanticoke, Wicomoco, Monie and Manokin Rivers): The Nanticoke was a large paramount chiefdom located in today's Dorchester, Somerset and Wicomico Counties. They were involved in extensive trade with Indians throughout the region. They included the Nanticoke, Wicomoco, Monie and Manokin chiefdoms that occupied the rivers of the lower eastern shore of the same name.

Choptank (Choptank River): The Choptank Indians were independent of the Nanticoke and were the only Indians who had land granted to them for a reservation, which they retained until sold by the Maryland government in 1822. Their territory fell within today's Talbot, Dorchester and Caroline Counties.

Monoposon and Matapeake (Chester River): These chiefdoms were located on the southern shore of the Chester River in Queen Anne's County on today's Kent Island. They welcomed William Claiborne from Virginia when he established his trading settlement in 1631.

Ozinies (Wicomiss) (Chester River). John Smith noted the Ozinies on the north shore of the Chester River in today's Kent County. They were enemies of the Maryland colony that defeated and dispersed them in the 1660s.

Tockwogh (Sassafras River). John Smith visited their fortified village in 1608 and noted they spoke a different variation of Algonquian from the rest. Allied with the Susquehannock Indians, they lived in today's Kent and Cecil Counties along the Sassafras River. They were not present after 1634 when Maryland was established.

Shawnee (Susquehanna and Upper Potomac Rivers): The Shawnee spoke a variation of Algonquian more typical of the Midwest. They migrated to the Susquehanna River in the 1690s in Cecil County before moving to Allegany County where the lived until the 1730s.

Iroquoian-Speaking Indians of Maryland

Susquehannock (Susquehanna to Patapsco to Sassafras Rivers). In 1608, the Susquehannocks had villages of thousands of people living in today's Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. They controlled by right of conquest the lands from the Patapsco River north on the western shore and the Sassafras River north on the Eastern Shore. In 1675 they moved to Piscataway Creek in Prince Georges County. The English attacked their fort in 1763, forcing them to flee. The remaining people moved back to Pennsylvania and to New York to become part of the Six Nation Iroquois.

Massawomeck (Upper Potomac River). The four different tribes lived in the mountains of Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia, including villages in Allegany County, Maryland. They attacked the Algonquians along the Western Shore of Maryland and the Susquehannocks. They ceased to be mentioned in the historical records after 1635. Their fate is a mystery.

Tuscarora (Monocacy River): This southern Iroquoian-speaking people from North Carolina migrated to Maryland after the Tuscarora War, fought by the Tuscaroras and the English settlers of North Carolina between 1711 and 1713, and lost by the Indians. They arrived in Maryland in Frederick County between 1719 and 1721. After this they migrated north to become the sixth nation of the Iroquois Six Nation Confederation.

—Wayne E. Clark