Piscataway (tribe)
Encyclopedia
The Piscataway are a subtribe of the Conoy Native American
tribe of Maryland
. At one time, they were one of the most populous and powerful Native polities of the Chesapeake Bay
region. They spoke Algonquian
Piscataway
, a dialect of Nanticoke
. Today three groups represent Piscataway descendants, the Piscataway Indian Nation and Tayac Territory, the Piscataway Conoy Tribe of Maryland, and the Cedarville Band of Piscataway Indians. They are all located in Southern Maryland
, and none has state or federal recognition.
was part of the Algonquian
language family. A Jesuit mission compiled Piscataway language materials in the early 17th century, and Father Andrew White
translated the Catholic Catechism
into Piscataway in 1610.
in what is now Prince George's County, Maryland
, according to John Smith's 1608 map. Their settlements appear in that same area on maps through 1700. The Piscataway independently inhabit part of their traditional homelands on the Western Shore of Maryland's Chesapeake Bay in the areas of Charles County, Prince George's County, and St. Mary's County, located near two metropolitan areas, Baltimore
and Washington, D.C.
None of the tribes has a reservation.
Piscataway villages were company and protected by palisade
s. Traditional houses were rectangular and typically 10 feet high and 20 feet long, with barrel-shaped roofs, covered with bark or woven mats. A hearth occupied the center of the house with a smoke hole overhead.
ancestors of the Piscataway came to the Potomac River
region roughly 10,000 years ago. They believe the peoples coalesced into the Piscataway nation, comprising numerous settlements, sometime in the 14th or 15th century CE
. After excavating ancient sites, archaeologists have posited that sometime around 800 CE, peoples living along the Potomac had begun to cultivate maize
as a supplement to their ordinary hunting-gathering diet of fish, game, and wild plants.
Some evidence suggests that the Piscataway migrated from the Eastern Shore
, or from the upper Potomac, or from sources hundreds of miles to the north. It is fairly certain, however, that by the 16th century, the Piscataway were a distinct polity with a distinct society and culture, who lived year-round in permanent villages.
The onset of a centuries-long "Little Ice Age
" after 1300 had driven Algonquian and Iroquoian peoples from upland and northern communities southward to the warmer climate of the Potomac basin. Growing seasons there were long enough to cultivate maize. As more tribes occupied the area, they competed for resources and had increasing conflict.
By 1400, the Piscataway and their Algonquian
tribal neighbors had become increasingly numerous because of their sophisticated agriculture, which provided calorie-rich maize
, beans and squash. These crops added surplus to their hunting-gathering subsistence economy and supported greater populations. The women cultivated and processed numerous varieties of maize and other plants, breeding them for taste and other characteristics. The Piscataway and other related peoples were able to feed their growing communities. They also continued to gather wild plants from nearby freshwater marshes. The men cleared new fields, hunted, and fished.
By 1600, incursions by Iroquoian peoples from the north had almost entirely destroyed many of the Piscataway and other Algonquian settlements above present-day Great Falls, Virginia
. The villages below the fall line survived by banding together for common defense. They gradually consolidated authority under hereditary chiefs who exacted tribute, sent men to war, and coordinated the resistance against northern incursions and rival claimants to the lands. A hierarchy of places and rulers emerged: hamlets
without hereditary rulers paid tribute to a nearby village
. Its chief
, or werowance, appointed a "lesser king" to each dependent settlement. Changes in social structure occurred and religious development exalted the hierarchy. By the end of the 16th century, each werowance on the north bank of the Potomac was subject to the paramount chief
: the ruler of the Piscataway known as the Tayac.
The English explorer Captain John Smith first visited the upper Potomac River
in 1608, and he recorded the Piscataway by the name Moyaons, after their "king's house", i.e., capital village or Tayac's residence, also spelled Moyaone. Closely associated with them were the Nacotchtank
people (Anacostans) who lived around present-day Washington, DC, and the Taux (Doeg
) on the Virginia side of the river. Rivals and reluctant subjects of the Tayac hoped that the English newcomers would alter the balance of power in the region.
In search of trading partners, the Virginia Company
, and later, Virginia Colony, consistently allied with enemies of the Piscataway. Their entry into the dynamics began to shift regional power. By the early 1630s, the Tayac's hold over some of his subordinate werowances had weakened considerably.
But, when the English began to colonize what is now Maryland in 1634, the Tayac Kittamaquund managed to turn the newcomers into allies. He had come to power that year after killing his brother Wannas, the former Tayac. He granted the English a former Indian settlement, which they re-named St. Mary's City after their own monarch. The Tayac intended the new colonial outpost to serve as a buffer against the Iroquoian Susquehannock
incursions from the north. Kittamaquund and his wife convert
ed to Christianity
in 1640 by their friendship with the Jesuit missionary, Father Andrew White, who also performed their marriage. Their only daughter Mary Kittamaquund became a ward of colonist Margaret Brent
, who became influential in St. Mary's City and saw to the girl's education, including learning English.
At a young age, Mary Kittamaquund married the much older English colonist Giles Brent, one of Margaret's brothers. After attempting to claim Piscataway territory, the couple next moved south across the Potomac to live at Aquia Creek
in present-day Stafford County, Virginia
. A recently approved historical highway marker in the area memorializes Mary Kittamaquund and notes her marriage to Brent. They were said to have had three or four children together. Mary died young, at about age 22, as Brent married again in 1654.
Benefits to having the English as allies and buffers were short-lived. The Maryland Colony was initially too weak to pose a significant threat. Once the English began to develop a stronger colony, they turned against the Piscataway. By 1668 the western shore Algonquian
were confined to two reservations: one on the Wicomico River; the other, on a portion of the Piscataway homeland. Refugees from dispossessed Algonquian nations merged with the Piscataway.
Colonial authorities forced the Piscataway to permit the Susquehannock
, an Iroquoian-speaking people, to settle in their territory after having been defeated in 1675 by the Iroquois Confederacy (Haudenosaunee), based in New York. The traditional enemies eventually came to open conflict in present-day Maryland. With the tribes at war, the Maryland Colony expelled the Susquehannock, after they had been attacked by the Piscataway. The Susquehannock suffered devastating defeat.
Making their way northward, the surviving Susquehannock joined forces with their former enemy, the Haudenosaunee, the five-nation Iroquois Confederacy. Together, the Iroquoian tribes returned repeatedly to attack the Piscataway. The English provided little help to their Piscataway allies. Rather than raise militia to aid them, the Maryland Colony continued to compete for control of Piscataway land.
Piscataway fortunes declined as the English
Maryland colony grew and prospered. They were adversely affected by epidemics of infectious disease
, and intertribal and colonial warfare. After the English tried to remove tribes from their homelands in 1680, the Piscataway fled from encroaching English settlers to Zekiah Swamp
in Charles County, Maryland
. There they were attacked by the Iroquois
but peace was negotiated.
In 1697, the Piscataway relocated across the Potomac and camped near what is now The Plains, Virginia
in Fauguier County
. Virginia settlers were alarmed and tried to persuade the Piscataway to return to Maryland, though they refused. Finally in 1699, the Piscataway moved north to what is now called Conoy Island in the Potomac near Point of Rocks, Maryland
. They remained there until after 1722.
. They were spread along the western edge of the Pennsylvania Colony, along with the Algonquian Lenape
who had moved west from modern New Jersey, the Tutelo
, the Shawnee
and the Iroquois
. The Piscataway were said to number only about 150 people. They sought the protection of the powerful Haudenosaunee, but the Pennsylvania Colony also proved unsafe.
Most of the surviving tribe migrated north in the late eighteenth century and were last noted in the historical record in 1793 at Detroit. In 1793 a conference in Detroit reported they had settled in Upper Canada. Today, descendants of the northern migrants live on the Six Nations of the Grand River First Nation reserve in Ontario, Canada
.
Some Piscataway may have moved south toward the Virginia Colony. They were believed to merge with the Meherrin
.
, Christian Feest
, James Rice, and Gabrielle Tayac, have documented that a small group of Piscataway families continued to live in their homeland. Although the larger tribe was destroyed as an independent, sovereign polity, descendants of the Piscataway survived. They formed unions with others in the area, including European indentured servants and free or enslaved Africans. They settled into rural farm life and were classified as free people of color
, but some kept Native American cultural traditions. For years the United States censuses did not have separate categories for Indians. Especially in the slave states, all free people of color
were classified together as black.
In the late 19th century, archaeologists, journalists, and anthropologists interviewed numerous residents in Maryland who claimed descent from tribes associated with the former Piscataway chiefdom
. Uniquely among most institutions, the Catholic Church consistently continued to identify Indian families by that classification in their records. Such church records became valuable resources for scholars and family and tribal researchers. Anthropologists and sociologists categorized the self-identified Indians as a tri-racial community. They were commonly called a name (regarded as derogatory by some) "Wesorts
."
In the late 1990s, after conducting an exhaustive review of primary sources, a Maryland-state appointed committee, including a genealogist from the Maryland State Archives, validated the claims of core Piscataway families to Piscataway heritage. A fresh approach to understanding individual and family choices and self-identification among African-American and American Indian cultures is underway at several research universities. Unlike during the years of racial segregation, when all people of any African descent were classified as black, new studies emphasize the historical context and evolution of seventeenth, eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth century cultures and racial categories.
The Maryland Colony dissolved the Indian reservations in the 18th century. In the 19th century, census enumerators classified most of the Piscataway individuals as "free people of color", "Free Negro
" or "mulatto" on state and federal census records, in part because of their intermarriage with blacks and Europeans. The dramatic drop in Native American populations due to infectious disease
and warfare, plus a racial segregation based on slavery
, led to a binary view of race in the former colony. By contrast, Catholic
parish records in Maryland and some ethnographic reports accepted Piscataway self-identification and continuity of culture as Indians, regardless of mixed ancestry. Such a binary division of society in the South increased after the Civil War and the emancipation
of slaves. Southern whites struggled to regain dominance of their societies during and after the Reconstruction era. They were intent on controlling the freedmen and asserting white supremacy.
Although a few families identified as Piscataway by the early 20th century, prevailing racial attitudes during the 18th and 19th centuries, and Jim Crow
policies of the 20th century, over-determined official classification of minority ethnic groups as black. In the 20th century, Virginia and other southern states enforced the "one-drop rule
", classifying anyone with a discernible amount of African ancestry as "negro
", "mulatto
", or "black
". The authorities dismissed other ancestry or identification. In addition, Southern states at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th passed new constitutions and legislation that made voter registration and voting more difficult, effectively disfranchising blacks and minorities, and poor whites for decades. This left them unable to affect state policies. The disfranchisement effectively lasted well into the 1960s, until the civil rights movement
gained federal passage and enforcement of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
, was born in 1895. Proctor revived the use of the title tayac, a hereditary office which he claimed had been handed down to him. Turkey Tayac was instrumental in the revival of American Indian culture among Piscataway and other Indian descendants throughout the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast. He was allied with the American Indian Movement
Project for revitalization.
Chief Turkey Tayac
was a prominent figure in the early and mid-twentieth century cultural revitalization movements. His leadership inspired tribes other than the Piscataway, and revival has also occurred among other Southeastern American Indian
communities. These include the Lumbee
, Nanticoke
, and Powhatan
of the Atlantic coastal plain. Assuming the traditional leadership title "tayac" during an era when American Indian identity was being regulated to some extent by blood quantum, outlined in the Indian Reorganization Act
, Chief Turkey Tayac organized a movement for American Indian peoples that gave priority to their self-identification.
After Chief Turkey Tayac died in 1978, the Piscataway split into the Piscataway Conoy Confederacy and Subtribes (PCCS), the Cedarville Band of Piscataway Indians, and the Piscataway Indian Nation. These three organizations have disagreed over seeking state and federal tribal recognition, developing casinos on their land if recognition were gained, and over which groups were legitimately Piscataway.
Three organized Piscataway groups have formed:
None of these groups has state or federal recognition. In the 1990s, the State of Maryland appointed a panel of anthropologists, genealogists, and historians to review primary sources related to Piscataway genealogy. The panel concluded that some contemporary self-identified Piscataway descended from the historic Piscataway.
In 1996 the Maryland Commission on Indian Affairs (MCIA) suggested granting state recognition to the Picataway Conoy Confederacy and Subtribes. Critics were concerned about some of the development interests that backed the Piscataway Conoy campaign, and feared gaming interests. (Since the late twentieth century, many recognized tribes have established casinos and gaming entertainment on their reservations to raise revenues.) Gov. Parris Glendening
, who was opposed to gambling, denied the tribe's request.
In 2004, Gov. Bob Erlich also denied the Piscataway Conoy's renewed attempt for state recognition, stating that they failed to prove that they were descendants of the historical Piscataway Indians, as required by state law. Throughout this effort, the Piscataway Conoy have stated they have no intent to build and operate casinos.
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
tribe of Maryland
Maryland
Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...
. At one time, they were one of the most populous and powerful Native polities of the Chesapeake Bay
Chesapeake Bay
The Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in the United States. It lies off the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by Maryland and Virginia. The Chesapeake Bay's drainage basin covers in the District of Columbia and parts of six states: New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and West...
region. They spoke Algonquian
Algonquian languages
The Algonquian languages also Algonkian) are a subfamily of Native American languages which includes most of the languages in the Algic language family. The name of the Algonquian language family is distinguished from the orthographically similar Algonquin dialect of the Ojibwe language, which is a...
Piscataway
Piscataway language
Piscataway is an extinct Algonquian language formerly spoken by the Piscataway, a dominant chiefdom on the Western Shore of Chesapeake Bay, in present-day Maryland, United States. Piscataway, also known as Conoy , is considered a dialect of Nanticoke.This designation is based on the scant evidence...
, a dialect of Nanticoke
Nanticoke
Nanticoke may refer to:* Nanticoke people in Delaware, United States* Nanticoke language, an Algonquian language* Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape, a state-recognized tribe in New Jersey-Place names:United States* Nanticoke River in Delaware and Maryland...
. Today three groups represent Piscataway descendants, the Piscataway Indian Nation and Tayac Territory, the Piscataway Conoy Tribe of Maryland, and the Cedarville Band of Piscataway Indians. They are all located in Southern Maryland
Southern Maryland
Southern Maryland in popular usage is composed of the state's southernmost counties on the "Western Shore" of the Chesapeake Bay. This region includes all of Calvert, Charles and St. Mary's counties and sometimes the southern portions of Anne Arundel and Prince George's counties.- History...
, and none has state or federal recognition.
Name
The Piscataway are also known as the Pascatowies, Paschatoway, Pazaticans, Pascoticons, Paskattaway, Pascatacon, Piscattaway, and Puscattawy.Language
The Piscataway languagePiscataway language
Piscataway is an extinct Algonquian language formerly spoken by the Piscataway, a dominant chiefdom on the Western Shore of Chesapeake Bay, in present-day Maryland, United States. Piscataway, also known as Conoy , is considered a dialect of Nanticoke.This designation is based on the scant evidence...
was part of the Algonquian
Algonquian languages
The Algonquian languages also Algonkian) are a subfamily of Native American languages which includes most of the languages in the Algic language family. The name of the Algonquian language family is distinguished from the orthographically similar Algonquin dialect of the Ojibwe language, which is a...
language family. A Jesuit mission compiled Piscataway language materials in the early 17th century, and Father Andrew White
Andrew White (missionary)
Andrew White, S.J. was an English Jesuit missionary who was involved in the founding of the Maryland colony. He was a chronicler of the early colony, and his writings are a primary source on the land, the Native Americans of the area, and the Jesuit mission in North America...
translated the Catholic Catechism
Catechism
A catechism , i.e. to indoctrinate) is a summary or exposition of doctrine, traditionally used in Christian religious teaching from New Testament times to the present...
into Piscataway in 1610.
Geography
The Piscataway were settled on the north bank of Potomac RiverPotomac River
The Potomac River flows into the Chesapeake Bay, located along the mid-Atlantic coast of the United States. The river is approximately long, with a drainage area of about 14,700 square miles...
in what is now Prince George's County, Maryland
Prince George's County, Maryland
Prince George's County is a county located in the U.S. state of Maryland, immediately north, east, and south of Washington, DC. As of 2010, it has a population of 863,420 and is the wealthiest African-American majority county in the nation....
, according to John Smith's 1608 map. Their settlements appear in that same area on maps through 1700. The Piscataway independently inhabit part of their traditional homelands on the Western Shore of Maryland's Chesapeake Bay in the areas of Charles County, Prince George's County, and St. Mary's County, located near two metropolitan areas, Baltimore
Baltimore
Baltimore is the largest independent city in the United States and the largest city and cultural center of the US state of Maryland. The city is located in central Maryland along the tidal portion of the Patapsco River, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay. Baltimore is sometimes referred to as Baltimore...
and Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
None of the tribes has a reservation.
Traditional culture
The Piscataway relied more on agriculture than many of their neighbors, and they grew crops such as corn, beans, and pumpkins. Men hunted bears, deer, squirrels, partridges, wild turkeys, and other small game with bows and arrows. They used fishing, gathering oysters, and harvesting nuts to supplement their diets.Piscataway villages were company and protected by palisade
Palisade
A palisade is a steel or wooden fence or wall of variable height, usually used as a defensive structure.- Typical construction :Typical construction consisted of small or mid sized tree trunks aligned vertically, with no spacing in between. The trunks were sharpened or pointed at the top, and were...
s. Traditional houses were rectangular and typically 10 feet high and 20 feet long, with barrel-shaped roofs, covered with bark or woven mats. A hearth occupied the center of the house with a smoke hole overhead.
Precontact
Some archaeologists contend that the indigenousIndigenous peoples
Indigenous peoples are ethnic groups that are defined as indigenous according to one of the various definitions of the term, there is no universally accepted definition but most of which carry connotations of being the "original inhabitants" of a territory....
ancestors of the Piscataway came to the Potomac River
Potomac River
The Potomac River flows into the Chesapeake Bay, located along the mid-Atlantic coast of the United States. The river is approximately long, with a drainage area of about 14,700 square miles...
region roughly 10,000 years ago. They believe the peoples coalesced into the Piscataway nation, comprising numerous settlements, sometime in the 14th or 15th century CE
Common Era
Common Era ,abbreviated as CE, is an alternative designation for the calendar era originally introduced by Dionysius Exiguus in the 6th century, traditionally identified with Anno Domini .Dates before the year 1 CE are indicated by the usage of BCE, short for Before the Common Era Common Era...
. After excavating ancient sites, archaeologists have posited that sometime around 800 CE, peoples living along the Potomac had begun to cultivate maize
Maize
Maize known in many English-speaking countries as corn or mielie/mealie, is a grain domesticated by indigenous peoples in Mesoamerica in prehistoric times. The leafy stalk produces ears which contain seeds called kernels. Though technically a grain, maize kernels are used in cooking as a vegetable...
as a supplement to their ordinary hunting-gathering diet of fish, game, and wild plants.
Some evidence suggests that the Piscataway migrated from the Eastern Shore
Eastern Shore
Eastern Shore refers to many places, including:* Eastern Shore of Maryland* Eastern Shore of Virginia* Eastern Shore * Eastern Shore , of Mobile BayOther uses, a United States Navy cargo ship in commission from 1918 to 1919...
, or from the upper Potomac, or from sources hundreds of miles to the north. It is fairly certain, however, that by the 16th century, the Piscataway were a distinct polity with a distinct society and culture, who lived year-round in permanent villages.
The onset of a centuries-long "Little Ice Age
Little Ice Age
The Little Ice Age was a period of cooling that occurred after the Medieval Warm Period . While not a true ice age, the term was introduced into the scientific literature by François E. Matthes in 1939...
" after 1300 had driven Algonquian and Iroquoian peoples from upland and northern communities southward to the warmer climate of the Potomac basin. Growing seasons there were long enough to cultivate maize. As more tribes occupied the area, they competed for resources and had increasing conflict.
By 1400, the Piscataway and their Algonquian
Algonquian peoples
The Algonquian are one of the most populous and widespread North American native language groups, with tribes originally numbering in the hundreds. Today hundreds of thousands of individuals identify with various Algonquian peoples...
tribal neighbors had become increasingly numerous because of their sophisticated agriculture, which provided calorie-rich maize
Maize
Maize known in many English-speaking countries as corn or mielie/mealie, is a grain domesticated by indigenous peoples in Mesoamerica in prehistoric times. The leafy stalk produces ears which contain seeds called kernels. Though technically a grain, maize kernels are used in cooking as a vegetable...
, beans and squash. These crops added surplus to their hunting-gathering subsistence economy and supported greater populations. The women cultivated and processed numerous varieties of maize and other plants, breeding them for taste and other characteristics. The Piscataway and other related peoples were able to feed their growing communities. They also continued to gather wild plants from nearby freshwater marshes. The men cleared new fields, hunted, and fished.
17th century and English colonization
Great Falls, Virginia
Great Falls is a census-designated place in Fairfax County, Virginia, United States. The population was 15,427 at the 2010 census.Although primarily a bedroom community for Washington, D.C., one major attraction is Great Falls Park which overlooks the Great Falls of the Potomac River, for which...
. The villages below the fall line survived by banding together for common defense. They gradually consolidated authority under hereditary chiefs who exacted tribute, sent men to war, and coordinated the resistance against northern incursions and rival claimants to the lands. A hierarchy of places and rulers emerged: hamlets
Hamlets
Hamlets is the name of an open source system for generating web-pages originally developed by René Pawlitzek at IBM...
without hereditary rulers paid tribute to a nearby village
Village
A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet with the population ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand , Though often located in rural areas, the term urban village is also applied to certain urban neighbourhoods, such as the West Village in Manhattan, New...
. Its chief
Tribal chief
A tribal chief is the leader of a tribal society or chiefdom. Tribal societies with social stratification under a single leader emerged in the Neolithic period out of earlier tribal structures with little stratification, and they remained prevalent throughout the Iron Age.In the case of ...
, or werowance, appointed a "lesser king" to each dependent settlement. Changes in social structure occurred and religious development exalted the hierarchy. By the end of the 16th century, each werowance on the north bank of the Potomac was subject to the paramount chief
Paramount chief
A paramount chief is the highest-level traditional chief or political leader in a regional or local polity or country typically administered politically with a chief-based system. This definition is used occasionally in anthropological and archaeological theory to refer to the rulers of multiple...
: the ruler of the Piscataway known as the Tayac.
The English explorer Captain John Smith first visited the upper Potomac River
Potomac River
The Potomac River flows into the Chesapeake Bay, located along the mid-Atlantic coast of the United States. The river is approximately long, with a drainage area of about 14,700 square miles...
in 1608, and he recorded the Piscataway by the name Moyaons, after their "king's house", i.e., capital village or Tayac's residence, also spelled Moyaone. Closely associated with them were the Nacotchtank
Nacotchtank
The Nacotchtank were a native Algonquian people who lived in the area of what is now Washington, D.C. during the 17th century. Their principal village was situated within the modern borders of the District of Columbia, on the eastern bank of a small river that still bears an anglicised variant of...
people (Anacostans) who lived around present-day Washington, DC, and the Taux (Doeg
Doeg (tribe)
The Doeg were a Native American tribe who lived in northern Virginia. They spoke an Algonquian language and may have been a branch of the Nanticoke tribe, historically based on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. The Nanticoke considered the Algonquian Lenape as "grandfathers"...
) on the Virginia side of the river. Rivals and reluctant subjects of the Tayac hoped that the English newcomers would alter the balance of power in the region.
In search of trading partners, the Virginia Company
Virginia Company
The Virginia Company refers collectively to a pair of English joint stock companies chartered by James I on 10 April1606 with the purposes of establishing settlements on the coast of North America...
, and later, Virginia Colony, consistently allied with enemies of the Piscataway. Their entry into the dynamics began to shift regional power. By the early 1630s, the Tayac's hold over some of his subordinate werowances had weakened considerably.
But, when the English began to colonize what is now Maryland in 1634, the Tayac Kittamaquund managed to turn the newcomers into allies. He had come to power that year after killing his brother Wannas, the former Tayac. He granted the English a former Indian settlement, which they re-named St. Mary's City after their own monarch. The Tayac intended the new colonial outpost to serve as a buffer against the Iroquoian Susquehannock
Susquehannock
The Susquehannock people were Iroquoian-speaking Native Americans who lived in areas adjacent to the Susquehanna River and its tributaries from the southern part of what is now New York, through Pennsylvania, to the mouth of the Susquehanna in Maryland at the north end of the Chesapeake Bay...
incursions from the north. Kittamaquund and his wife convert
Convert
The convert or try, in American football known as "point after", and Canadian football "Point after touchdown", is a one-scrimmage down played immediately after a touchdown during which the scoring team is allowed to attempt to score an extra one point by kicking the ball through the uprights , or...
ed to Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
in 1640 by their friendship with the Jesuit missionary, Father Andrew White, who also performed their marriage. Their only daughter Mary Kittamaquund became a ward of colonist Margaret Brent
Margaret Brent
Margaret Brent , an English immigrant to the Colony of Maryland, was the first woman in the English North American colonies to appear before a court of the Common Law. She was a significant founding settler in the early histories of the colonies of Maryland and Virginia...
, who became influential in St. Mary's City and saw to the girl's education, including learning English.
At a young age, Mary Kittamaquund married the much older English colonist Giles Brent, one of Margaret's brothers. After attempting to claim Piscataway territory, the couple next moved south across the Potomac to live at Aquia Creek
Aquia Creek
Aquia Creek is a tributary of the tidal segment of the Potomac River and is located in northern Virginia. The creek's headwaters lie in southeastern Fauquier County, and it empties into the Potomac at Brent Point in Stafford County, south of Washington, D.C....
in present-day Stafford County, Virginia
Stafford County, Virginia
Stafford County is a county located in the Commonwealth of Virginia, a U.S. state, and just across the Rappahannock River from the City of Fredericksburg. As of the 2000 census, the population was 92,446, increasing to 128,961 in 2010.. Its county seat is Stafford. In 2006, and again in 2009,...
. A recently approved historical highway marker in the area memorializes Mary Kittamaquund and notes her marriage to Brent. They were said to have had three or four children together. Mary died young, at about age 22, as Brent married again in 1654.
Benefits to having the English as allies and buffers were short-lived. The Maryland Colony was initially too weak to pose a significant threat. Once the English began to develop a stronger colony, they turned against the Piscataway. By 1668 the western shore Algonquian
Algonquian peoples
The Algonquian are one of the most populous and widespread North American native language groups, with tribes originally numbering in the hundreds. Today hundreds of thousands of individuals identify with various Algonquian peoples...
were confined to two reservations: one on the Wicomico River; the other, on a portion of the Piscataway homeland. Refugees from dispossessed Algonquian nations merged with the Piscataway.
Colonial authorities forced the Piscataway to permit the Susquehannock
Susquehannock
The Susquehannock people were Iroquoian-speaking Native Americans who lived in areas adjacent to the Susquehanna River and its tributaries from the southern part of what is now New York, through Pennsylvania, to the mouth of the Susquehanna in Maryland at the north end of the Chesapeake Bay...
, an Iroquoian-speaking people, to settle in their territory after having been defeated in 1675 by the Iroquois Confederacy (Haudenosaunee), based in New York. The traditional enemies eventually came to open conflict in present-day Maryland. With the tribes at war, the Maryland Colony expelled the Susquehannock, after they had been attacked by the Piscataway. The Susquehannock suffered devastating defeat.
Making their way northward, the surviving Susquehannock joined forces with their former enemy, the Haudenosaunee, the five-nation Iroquois Confederacy. Together, the Iroquoian tribes returned repeatedly to attack the Piscataway. The English provided little help to their Piscataway allies. Rather than raise militia to aid them, the Maryland Colony continued to compete for control of Piscataway land.
Piscataway fortunes declined as the English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
Maryland colony grew and prospered. They were adversely affected by epidemics of infectious disease
Infectious disease
Infectious diseases, also known as communicable diseases, contagious diseases or transmissible diseases comprise clinically evident illness resulting from the infection, presence and growth of pathogenic biological agents in an individual host organism...
, and intertribal and colonial warfare. After the English tried to remove tribes from their homelands in 1680, the Piscataway fled from encroaching English settlers to Zekiah Swamp
Zekiah Swamp
Zekiah Swamp is part of the Wicomico River basin in Charles County, Maryland in the United States. It is largely protected with the Zekiah Swamp Natural Environment Area a and sits at an elevation of .. The Maryland Department of Natural Resources has the authority to purchase an additional for...
in Charles County, Maryland
Charles County, Maryland
Charles County is a county in the south central portion of the U.S. state of Maryland.As of 2010, the population was 146,551. Its county seat is La Plata. This county was named for Charles Calvert , third Baron Baltimore....
. There they were attacked by the Iroquois
Iroquois
The Iroquois , also known as the Haudenosaunee or the "People of the Longhouse", are an association of several tribes of indigenous people of North America...
but peace was negotiated.
In 1697, the Piscataway relocated across the Potomac and camped near what is now The Plains, Virginia
The Plains, Virginia
The Plains is a town in Fauquier County, Virginia, United States. The population was 266 at the 2000 census. It is centered around Virginia Route 55 and Virginia Route 245...
in Fauguier County
Fauquier County, Virginia
As of the census of 2000, there were 55,139 people, 19,842 households, and 15,139 families residing in the county. The population density was 85 people per square mile . There were 21,046 housing units at an average density of 32 per square mile...
. Virginia settlers were alarmed and tried to persuade the Piscataway to return to Maryland, though they refused. Finally in 1699, the Piscataway moved north to what is now called Conoy Island in the Potomac near Point of Rocks, Maryland
Point of Rocks, Maryland
Point of Rocks is a community in Frederick County, Maryland. It is named for the striking rock formation on the adjacent Catoctin Mountain, which were formed by the Potomac River cutting through the ridge in a water gap, a typical formation in the Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians...
. They remained there until after 1722.
18th century
In the 18th century, some Piscataway, as well as other Algonquian groups migrating away from English settlements, relocated north of the Susquehannah River. These migrants from the general area of Maryland are referred to as the Conoy and the NanticokeNanticoke
Nanticoke may refer to:* Nanticoke people in Delaware, United States* Nanticoke language, an Algonquian language* Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape, a state-recognized tribe in New Jersey-Place names:United States* Nanticoke River in Delaware and Maryland...
. They were spread along the western edge of the Pennsylvania Colony, along with the Algonquian Lenape
Lenape
The Lenape are an Algonquian group of Native Americans of the Northeastern Woodlands. They are also called Delaware Indians. As a result of the American Revolutionary War and later Indian removals from the eastern United States, today the main groups live in Canada, where they are enrolled in the...
who had moved west from modern New Jersey, the Tutelo
Tutelo
The Tutelo were Native people living above the Fall Line in present-day Virginia and West Virginia, speaking a Siouan dialect of the Tutelo language thought to be similar to that of their neighbors, the Monacan and Manahoac nations...
, the Shawnee
Shawnee
The Shawnee, Shaawanwaki, Shaawanooki and Shaawanowi lenaweeki, are an Algonquian-speaking people native to North America. Historically they inhabited the areas of Ohio, Virginia, West Virginia, Western Maryland, Kentucky, Indiana, and Pennsylvania...
and the Iroquois
Iroquois
The Iroquois , also known as the Haudenosaunee or the "People of the Longhouse", are an association of several tribes of indigenous people of North America...
. The Piscataway were said to number only about 150 people. They sought the protection of the powerful Haudenosaunee, but the Pennsylvania Colony also proved unsafe.
Most of the surviving tribe migrated north in the late eighteenth century and were last noted in the historical record in 1793 at Detroit. In 1793 a conference in Detroit reported they had settled in Upper Canada. Today, descendants of the northern migrants live on the Six Nations of the Grand River First Nation reserve in Ontario, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
.
Some Piscataway may have moved south toward the Virginia Colony. They were believed to merge with the Meherrin
Meherrin
The Meherrin Nation is one of eight state-recognized Nations of Native Americans in North Carolina. They reside in rural northeastern North Carolina, near the river of the same name on the Virginia-North Carolina border. They received formal state recognition in 1986. The Meherrin have an...
.
19th century
Numerous contemporary historians and archaeologists, including William H. Gilbert, Frank G. Speck, Helen Rountree, Lucille St. Hoyme, Paul Cissna, T. Dale Stewart, Christopher GoodwinChristopher Goodwin
Christopher Goodwin is an American actor, playwright, and director. He is currently performing with Steve Silver's Beach Blanket Babylon at Club Fugazi in San Francisco, California.- Early years :...
, Christian Feest
Christian Feest
Christian Feest , is an Austrian ethnologist and ethnohistorian.Feest specialized in the Native Americans of the Northeast and in the Native American anthropology of art...
, James Rice, and Gabrielle Tayac, have documented that a small group of Piscataway families continued to live in their homeland. Although the larger tribe was destroyed as an independent, sovereign polity, descendants of the Piscataway survived. They formed unions with others in the area, including European indentured servants and free or enslaved Africans. They settled into rural farm life and were classified as free people of color
Free people of color
A free person of color in the context of the history of slavery in the Americas, is a person of full or partial African descent who was not enslaved...
, but some kept Native American cultural traditions. For years the United States censuses did not have separate categories for Indians. Especially in the slave states, all free people of color
Free people of color
A free person of color in the context of the history of slavery in the Americas, is a person of full or partial African descent who was not enslaved...
were classified together as black.
In the late 19th century, archaeologists, journalists, and anthropologists interviewed numerous residents in Maryland who claimed descent from tribes associated with the former Piscataway chiefdom
Chiefdom
A chiefdom is a political economy that organizes regional populations through a hierarchy of the chief.In anthropological theory, one model of human social development rooted in ideas of cultural evolution describes a chiefdom as a form of social organization more complex than a tribe or a band...
. Uniquely among most institutions, the Catholic Church consistently continued to identify Indian families by that classification in their records. Such church records became valuable resources for scholars and family and tribal researchers. Anthropologists and sociologists categorized the self-identified Indians as a tri-racial community. They were commonly called a name (regarded as derogatory by some) "Wesorts
We-Sorts
We-Sorts is a name for a group of Native Americans in Maryland who are from the Piscataway tribe. Piscataways have always claimed to be Native American people. The Piscataway were powerful at the time of European encounter...
."
In the late 1990s, after conducting an exhaustive review of primary sources, a Maryland-state appointed committee, including a genealogist from the Maryland State Archives, validated the claims of core Piscataway families to Piscataway heritage. A fresh approach to understanding individual and family choices and self-identification among African-American and American Indian cultures is underway at several research universities. Unlike during the years of racial segregation, when all people of any African descent were classified as black, new studies emphasize the historical context and evolution of seventeenth, eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth century cultures and racial categories.
The Maryland Colony dissolved the Indian reservations in the 18th century. In the 19th century, census enumerators classified most of the Piscataway individuals as "free people of color", "Free Negro
Free Negro
A free Negro or free black is the term used prior to the abolition of slavery in the United States to describe African Americans who were not slaves. Almost all African Americans came to the United States as slaves, but from the earliest days of American slavery, slaveholders set men and women free...
" or "mulatto" on state and federal census records, in part because of their intermarriage with blacks and Europeans. The dramatic drop in Native American populations due to infectious disease
Infectious disease
Infectious diseases, also known as communicable diseases, contagious diseases or transmissible diseases comprise clinically evident illness resulting from the infection, presence and growth of pathogenic biological agents in an individual host organism...
and warfare, plus a racial segregation based on slavery
Slavery
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...
, led to a binary view of race in the former colony. By contrast, Catholic
Catholic
The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...
parish records in Maryland and some ethnographic reports accepted Piscataway self-identification and continuity of culture as Indians, regardless of mixed ancestry. Such a binary division of society in the South increased after the Civil War and the emancipation
Emancipation
Emancipation means the act of setting an individual or social group free or making equal to citizens in a political society.Emancipation may also refer to:* Emancipation , a champion Australian thoroughbred racehorse foaled in 1979...
of slaves. Southern whites struggled to regain dominance of their societies during and after the Reconstruction era. They were intent on controlling the freedmen and asserting white supremacy.
Although a few families identified as Piscataway by the early 20th century, prevailing racial attitudes during the 18th and 19th centuries, and Jim Crow
Jim Crow laws
The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws in the United States enacted between 1876 and 1965. They mandated de jure racial segregation in all public facilities, with a supposedly "separate but equal" status for black Americans...
policies of the 20th century, over-determined official classification of minority ethnic groups as black. In the 20th century, Virginia and other southern states enforced the "one-drop rule
One-drop rule
The one-drop rule is a historical colloquial term in the United States for the social classification as black of individuals with any African ancestry; meaning any person with "one drop of black blood" was considered black...
", classifying anyone with a discernible amount of African ancestry as "negro
Negro
The word Negro is used in the English-speaking world to refer to a person of black ancestry or appearance, whether of African descent or not...
", "mulatto
Mulatto
Mulatto denotes a person with one white parent and one black parent, or more broadly, a person of mixed black and white ancestry. Contemporary usage of the term varies greatly, and the broader sense of the term makes its application rather subjective, as not all people of mixed white and black...
", or "black
Black people
The term black people is used in systems of racial classification for humans of a dark skinned phenotype, relative to other racial groups.Different societies apply different criteria regarding who is classified as "black", and often social variables such as class, socio-economic status also plays a...
". The authorities dismissed other ancestry or identification. In addition, Southern states at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th passed new constitutions and legislation that made voter registration and voting more difficult, effectively disfranchising blacks and minorities, and poor whites for decades. This left them unable to affect state policies. The disfranchisement effectively lasted well into the 1960s, until the civil rights movement
Civil rights movement
The civil rights movement was a worldwide political movement for equality before the law occurring between approximately 1950 and 1980. In many situations it took the form of campaigns of civil resistance aimed at achieving change by nonviolent forms of resistance. In some situations it was...
gained federal passage and enforcement of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Revitalization: 20th century to present
Phillip Sheridan Proctor, later known as Turkey TayacTurkey Tayac
Turkey Tayac, legally Philip Sheridan Proctor , Piscataway Indian leader and herbal doctor; he was notable in Native American activism for tribal and cultural revival in the twentieth century...
, was born in 1895. Proctor revived the use of the title tayac, a hereditary office which he claimed had been handed down to him. Turkey Tayac was instrumental in the revival of American Indian culture among Piscataway and other Indian descendants throughout the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast. He was allied with the American Indian Movement
American Indian Movement
The American Indian Movement is a Native American activist organization in the United States, founded in 1968 in Minneapolis, Minnesota by urban Native Americans. The national AIM agenda focuses on spirituality, leadership, and sovereignty...
Project for revitalization.
Chief Turkey Tayac
Turkey Tayac
Turkey Tayac, legally Philip Sheridan Proctor , Piscataway Indian leader and herbal doctor; he was notable in Native American activism for tribal and cultural revival in the twentieth century...
was a prominent figure in the early and mid-twentieth century cultural revitalization movements. His leadership inspired tribes other than the Piscataway, and revival has also occurred among other Southeastern American Indian
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
communities. These include the Lumbee
Lumbee
The Lumbee belong to a state recognized Native American tribe in North Carolina. The Lumbee are concentrated in Robeson County and named for the primary waterway traversing the county...
, Nanticoke
Nanticoke
Nanticoke may refer to:* Nanticoke people in Delaware, United States* Nanticoke language, an Algonquian language* Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape, a state-recognized tribe in New Jersey-Place names:United States* Nanticoke River in Delaware and Maryland...
, and Powhatan
Powhatan
The Powhatan is the name of a Virginia Indian confederation of tribes. It is estimated that there were about 14,000–21,000 of these native Powhatan people in eastern Virginia when the English settled Jamestown in 1607...
of the Atlantic coastal plain. Assuming the traditional leadership title "tayac" during an era when American Indian identity was being regulated to some extent by blood quantum, outlined in the Indian Reorganization Act
Indian Reorganization Act
The Indian Reorganization Act of June 18, 1934 the Indian New Deal, was U.S. federal legislation that secured certain rights to Native Americans, including Alaska Natives...
, Chief Turkey Tayac organized a movement for American Indian peoples that gave priority to their self-identification.
"There are still Indian people in southern Maryland, living without a reservation in the vicinity of US 301 between La PlataLa Plata, MarylandLa Plata is a town in Charles County, Maryland, United States. The population was 6,551 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Charles County.-History:...
and BrandywineBrandywine, MarylandBrandywine is an unincorporated area and census-designated place in Prince George's County, Maryland, United States, although the postal delivery area includes part of Charles County as well near Malcolm....
. They are formally organized into several groups, all bearing the Piscataway name."
After Chief Turkey Tayac died in 1978, the Piscataway split into the Piscataway Conoy Confederacy and Subtribes (PCCS), the Cedarville Band of Piscataway Indians, and the Piscataway Indian Nation. These three organizations have disagreed over seeking state and federal tribal recognition, developing casinos on their land if recognition were gained, and over which groups were legitimately Piscataway.
Three organized Piscataway groups have formed:
- Piscataway Indian Nation and Tayac Territory headed by Billy Redwing Tayac, indigenous rightsIndigenous rightsIndigenous rights are those rights that exist in recognition of the specific condition of the indigenous peoples. This includes not only the most basic human rights of physical survival and integrity, but also the preservation of their land, language, religion and other elements of cultural...
activist and son of the late Chief Turkey Tayac; - Piscataway Conoy Tribe of Maryland; and
- Cedarville Band of Piscataway Indians, led by Natalie Proctor.
None of these groups has state or federal recognition. In the 1990s, the State of Maryland appointed a panel of anthropologists, genealogists, and historians to review primary sources related to Piscataway genealogy. The panel concluded that some contemporary self-identified Piscataway descended from the historic Piscataway.
In 1996 the Maryland Commission on Indian Affairs (MCIA) suggested granting state recognition to the Picataway Conoy Confederacy and Subtribes. Critics were concerned about some of the development interests that backed the Piscataway Conoy campaign, and feared gaming interests. (Since the late twentieth century, many recognized tribes have established casinos and gaming entertainment on their reservations to raise revenues.) Gov. Parris Glendening
Parris Glendening
Parris Nelson Glendening , a member of the United States Democratic Party, was the 59th Governor of Maryland from January 18, 1995 to January 15, 2003...
, who was opposed to gambling, denied the tribe's request.
In 2004, Gov. Bob Erlich also denied the Piscataway Conoy's renewed attempt for state recognition, stating that they failed to prove that they were descendants of the historical Piscataway Indians, as required by state law. Throughout this effort, the Piscataway Conoy have stated they have no intent to build and operate casinos.
Additional reading
- Barbour, Philip L. The Three Worlds of Captain John Smith. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1964.
- Barbour, Philip L., ed. The Jamestown Voyages Under the First Charter, 1606-1609. 2 vols. Works issued by the Hakluyt Society, 2nd series nos. 136-137. Cambridge, England, 1969.
- Chambers, Mary E. and Robert L. Humphrey. Ancient Washington—American Indian Cultures of the Potomac Valley. George Washington University, Washington, D.C. 1977.
- Goddard, Ives (1978). “Eastern Algonquian Languages”, in Bruce Trigger (ed.), Handbook of North American Indians, Vol. 15 (Northeast). Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, pp. 70–77.
- Griffin, James B. "Eastern North American Prehistory: A Summary." Science 156 (1967):175-191.
- Hertzberg, Hazel. The Search for an American Indian Identity: Modern Pan Indian Movements. NY: Syracuse University Press, 1971.
- Merrell, James H. "Cultural Continuity Among the Piscataway Indians of Colonial Maryland." William & Mary Quarterly, 3rd series, 36 (1979): 548-70.
- Potter, Stephen R. Commoners, Tribute, and Chiefs: The Development of Algonquian Culture in the Potomac Valley. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1993.
- Rice, James D. Nature and History in the Potomac Country: From Hunter-Gatherers to the Age of Jefferson. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009.
- Rountree, Helen C., Clark, Wayne E. and Mountford, Kent. John Smith's Chesapeake Voyages, 1607-1609, Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2007.
- Tayac, Gabrielle. "National Museum of the American Indian ? 'We Rise, We Fall, We Rise' ? a Piscataway Descendant Bears Witness at a Capital Groundbreaking." Smithsonian 35, no. 6 (2004): 63-66.
External links
- The Piscataway Conoy Tribe of Maryland, Official website
- Piscaway Indian Nation and Tayac Territory, Official website
- The Cedarville Band of Piscataway Indians, Official website
- Piscataway Indians, Catholic Encyclopedia, 1911
- Leah C. Sims, "Unraveling a Deceptive Oral History: The Indian Ancestry Claims of Philip S. Proctor and His Descendants", Eskimo.com
- "The Shifting Borders of Race and Identity: A Research and Teaching Project on the Native American and African American Experience", University of Kansas