Virginia and the Chesapeake, pt 2: Delmarva Peninsula

Part 2:

The Delmarva Peninsula

The Delmarva Peninsula receives much less attention from writers of Native American history than does the Western Shore. Usually with any particular region, I can find at least a couple of prior published maps for me to grumble and complain about being wrong, but which I can still use as a foundation to repair. But with Delmarva I have yet to find a single map which even attempts to incorporate published information from the last century or so. The Handbook of North American Indians glosses over the whole peninsula with the label "Nanticoke and Neighboring Tribes", most likely because the "neighboring tribes" are too small to be worth showing on their map. The Nanticoke get special mention as they're the most well-known, which is FINE I GUESS, except that giving them pride of place is a teeny bit of a self-reinforcing fallacy. You see, after 1740 or so, the Indians of Delmarva began a northbound exodus into Pennsylvania, with some eventually making it all the way to Canada. Along the way this band of pilgrims lost their original distinctiveness and began to converge under the name of "Nanticoke"—if not in their own eyes, then certainly in the eyes of white observers—until "the word Nanticoke became generic and was used to include all Eastern Shore Indians no matter where they had originally lived" (Weslager 1942). Frank Speck's map from 1922 suffers from this deficiency:

Using generic labels isn't always a bad thing. For instance it would be madness to try and map each band of the Comanche or Wichita over time—especially when the records just don't give you the information you need. When it comes to the Eastern Shore tribes, though, we do have the information: most especially in a series of small publications from the 30s and 40s by Clinton Weslager and William Marye. Helen Rountree also wrote about them in Eastern Shore Indians of Virginia and Maryland (1997, coauthor Thomas Davidson).

None of these authors include a map, however, not one of the whole peninsula which faithfully depicts not just the Nanticokes but the Pocomokes and Wicomiss and Choptanks etc... no map that I can find does. So I hope I don't screw things up too much and that this can remedy the absence:

Click for full size.

Most of what follows is commentary on the above map. It's a little tedious, but if there are no prior maps to build on then I need to justify my decision in words.

The southern end of the peninsula was the home of the chiefdoms of Accomac and Occohannock, both of them members of the Powhatan Paramountcy in 1600. These people evidently must have abhorred violence, as they voluntarily submitted to the Powhatan rather than risk being conquered by force--later on, they likewise submitted voluntarily to the English, and in 1622 refused to join Opechancanough's rebellion against the European invaders (Rountree & Davidson 1997:49ff). The Occohannocks were a populous chiefdom, enough so to be considered a paramountcy in its own right after they had been shorn from the Powhatans (R&D:55), and together the Accomac-Occohannock may have functioned as a kind of intermediate scale semi-paramountcy during the period of Powhatan rule, with the Accomacs presiding over the Occohannocks (Davidson 1993:139).

My authors aren't explicitly forthcoming on the exact borders of Accomac and Occohannock territory. Rountree (1993:2) writes that the Nassawaddox Indians were members of the Accomac chiefdom—as a "Nassawaddox Creek" is located just five miles south of an "Occohannock Creek", one would be tempted to say the Accomac-Occohannock border separated these two drainages. However, the name "Nassawaddox" possibly means "between the streams" (Bright), so perhaps the Nassawaddox people were situated between two rivers rathern than along just one. If they lived on the peninsula between Nassawaddox and Occohannock creeks, this would make the latter the border, with the Occohannock people living on the north bank of their creek. This corresponds with the present-day border between Northampton and Accomac counties.

Click for full size.

Rountree & Davidson write that the Occohannocks occupied at least as far north as Chesconnessex Creek on the west side of the peninsula, and it is implied that the Kegotank Indians were members of the Occohannock chiefdom (R&D:65). Kegotank Bay, on the east side of the peninsula, is a little ways south of the Gingoteague territory across from Chincoteague Island—the Gingoteague are considered to be a Pocomoke group (cf. Feest 1978:251, though Marye 1939 considers them "Accomacks" by which I assume he means Occohannocks). So the Occohannock northern border (and the Powhatan paramountcy's northern border on the Eastern Shore) probably ran north of Chesconnessex Creek and in between Kegotank Bay and Chincoteague Island.

The Kegotanks/Kickotanks were located nearby to the Gingoteagues, and they almost look like they could be the same name, but they were separate chiefdoms in the 1600's (see Marye 1940:24). Gingoteague is probably pronounced with a soft "g" anyway, given "Chincoteague" and other variants: "Jengoteague", "Yingoteague" (Marye 1939, 1940:n37). More confounding is the fact that "Checonnessex" is a rendering of "Sickoneysincks", i.e. the Siconese Indians from the northeast of the peninsula (see below). But Chesconnessex Creek is neither in nor a conduit to Siconese lands, so either someone came across a wandering hunting party there once, or the creek just happens to have the same name in a cognate language. C. A. Weslager's Delaware-speaking consultant, a woman named Touching Leaves, interpreted the name as "Place where there is a gentle sound from the movement of things" (Weslager 1991).

The Nanticoke Paramountcy was based along the Nanticoke River, including Chicacone Creek, and according to Davidson & Rountree the people of the Wicomico and Manokin also fell under the jurisdiction of the Nanticoke talleck (R&D 1997:95, Weslager 1942; Feest 1978:251 assigns the Manokin with the Pocomoke). The Wicomico are sometimes equated with the Wicomiss (discussed later), but William Marye is adamant that this is a misconception and that the Wicomiss and Wicomico were two distinct tribes (Marye 1938).

The Pocomoke and Assateague chiefdoms were united into a single paramountcy according to C. A. Weslager (1942), and this is also the view of the modern Pocomoke Indian Nation website. Since I've gotten mixed signals on which group was dominant, I give this paramountcy the hyphenated name "Pocomoke-Assateague" so as not to play favorites. It also included the people of Annemessex River (R&D p96). Thus their border with the Nanticokes probably ran between the Manokin and Big Annemessex river watersheds.

Frank Speck wrote in 1922 that "according to surviving tradition" the area north of the Indian River was neutral ground between the Nanticokes and the Delawares. This raises two questions: 1: how far north? and 2: were these actual Nanticokes, or were they Pocomoke-Assateagues (or some other tribe) whom either Speck or his informants called "Nanticokes" per former convention?

Re the second question: in the early 1700's the Indian River was inhabited by a group of Indians inventively referred to as the "Indian River Indians"; these were originally Assateagues who had lived near Chincoteague Bay according to William Marye (1939). Earlier in the 1680's, the banks of Indian River were possessed by the Assawoman, who Marye likewise believes were Assateagues. So this is the identity of Speck's "Nanticokes".

The Assateagues' northern neighbors were a group of Lenapes/Delawares known as the Siconese (or "Great Siconese" to distinguish them from the "Small Siconese" across the bay in New Jersey). According to Marshall Becker, the Siconese "had a true chiefdom similar in structure... to the chiefdoms of Maryland and Virginia"—if true this would make them unique among the Delaware Indians, who were otherwise governed by local headmen. Becker doesn't use the words "paramount" or "paramountcy" when describing this chiefdom, and although there were numerous local shackamakers among the Siconese, Becker's low estimate of their population density makes me doubt that there existed the three tiers of chief necessary (maybe?) for a paramountcy.

Going off of land sales made to the Swedes and the Dutch in the 17th century, the Siconese considered as theirs the western shore of Delaware Bay as far south as Cape Henlopen. One such land sale also included Fenwick Island souther still (de Valinger 1941), but Clinton Weslager, respected scholar of Lenape history, made it sound as though Siconese territory ended at Cape Henlopen (1942, 1947, 1991). The Dutchmen who made that purchase may have just been hoodwinked. As such the border between the Siconese chiefdom and the Pocomoke-Assateague paramountcy seems likely to have lain somewhere between Cape Henlopen and Indian River.

The northern bound of Siconese territory was marked by Duck Creek (Weslager 1972:119). North of that creek were other bands of the Delawares: the Queonemysing and the Minguannan. Weslager also suspected that "the Lenape hunting grounds extended across the northern part of the peninsula from Delaware Bay to Chesapeake Bay", presumably north of the Tockwoghs (1942:30).

The Choptank Indians lived in three or four major towns (and I assume a few more minor ones) on the south and east sides of Choptank River (Weslager 1942). If the Choptanks saw in themselves any kind of national unity, it didn't manifest in their politics, as each town had its own king (so-called by the English) with no unifying structure. At least two of these kings are described as being subject to the Nanticoke talleck by a document in the Achives of Maryland (Browne 1896:260, qtd in Marye 1937), but modern researchers seem not to heed this.

The tribes to the north of Choptank River (the Wicomiss and the Tockwogh) had limited contact by whites before their lands were overrun and taken by the Susquehannock nation. The Susquehannocks spoke an Iroquoian language, and like most Iroquoians they seem for whatever reason to have had some kind of martial advantage over the Algonquians. By 1600 they had already taken the Chesapeake's northwestern shore. Over the following half-century they advanced into the northern half of Delmarva peninsula, sporadically driving away the Siconese and conquering the people of Wicomiss.

This conquest must have happened after 1608 (probably after 1630 (see Weslager 1942:33, 1972:100)). In that year Captain John Smith visited the Tockwogh and the Wicomiss ("Ozinies") and made no mention of them having been conquered by the Susquehannock. In 1648 the Wicomiss and "Ihon a Does" were described as being "forced auxiliaries" of the Susquehannock (Marye 1938:150). Four years later, the colony of Maryland purchased from the Susquehannock the land running "from Choptanke River to the North East Branch wᶜʰ lyes to the Northward of Elke River" (Browne 1883:277). The Ihon-a-Does were Juniatas from Pennsylvania—irrelevant here. So that implies that, prior to the arrival of the Susquehannocks, the territory from North East River to Choptank River belonged to the Wicomiss.

We know this is false only insofar as it doesn't mention the Tockwogh, whom Smith encountered on the Sassafras River. How exactly the Tockwoghs responded to conquest by the Susquehannock or the English is not known—they vanish from the record after 1608, at least according to some (e.g. Weslager 1942; implied in Feest 1978). There's at least one potential lead, however. In discussing the Tockwoghs, the historical essay in Petraglia et al. (2002:ch5) alludes to a 1659 treaty which refers inter alia to "the Jndians of Rasoughteick & Tetuckough" (Browne 1885:363). "Tetuckough" is likely a rendering of Tuckahoe, the name of a northern tributary of the Choptank River. Tuckahoe also refers to a kind of edible root eaten by Native Virginians, and it's noteworthy that John Smith writes the name of this root as "Tockawoughe" (Bright 2004, Smith 1884[1612]:58). That suggests that, accounting for differences in dialect, <Tockwogh> and <Tuckahoe> are the same name. So perhaps the Tockwoghs fled south and found refuge among the Choptanks, where the English later named a stream after them?

However, there are many Tuckahoes in the United States, so that may not mean anything. William Marye said that the Rasoughteick and Tetuckough were "unidentified" (1937:4), and either rejected or failed to notice the similarity between "Tetuckough" and "Tockwogh".

John Smith met the "Ozinies" (Wicomiss) along the Chester River. If they extended as far south as the Choptank, as suggested, that gives them a much larger territory than the Tockwogh on the Sassafras. William Marye (1938) also assigns to the Wicomiss a sizeable portion of the Delmarva interior, including the area between and among the upper forks of the Choptank, Nanticoke, and Wicomico rivers, and perhaps the headwaters of the Sassafras. That leaves the Tockwogh more or less where Smith found them, on the Sassafras River.

The Matapeke tribe inhabited Kent Island, which they called "Monoponson". This island fell under English control earlier than the rest of Maryland (it was originally considered part of Virginia), and the Natives there had apparently already left by 1641. Most likely the Matapekes moved in with the Choptanks, since a "Monoponson" tribe is named in the aforementioned 1659 treaty alongside the other Choptanks (Marye 1938:147-8).

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Part 2b:

The Northern Periphery

The northern periphery was controlled by two nations: the Delaware and the Susquehannock. One of the Delaware groups I've already mentioned: the chiefdom of the Great Siconese. The rest of the Delawares lived either across the bay in New Jersey and up the Delaware River.

Delaware communities in the 17th century. From Weslager 1991.

The Susquehannock were based along the Susquehanna River, and had a presence extending from the Delaware river valley on the east all the way to the upper forks of the Potomac on the west (Wall 2019). They seem to have controlled a vast territory as compared to the tribes of the Chesapeake, though it may also be that some "Susquehannock territory" actually belonged to smaller tribes who made little mark on history. There are a number of enigmatic tribal names from that area: Attaock, Capitannesses, Gachoos, Carantouan, Wyoming, and others—which may or may not have referred to separate tribes, Susquehannock clans, or subgroups of the Iroquois (Sorg 2004, Hewitt 1910, Steckley 1985).

Click for full size.

As alluded to earlier, by 1600 the Susquehannock had already taken the western shore north of the Patuxent valley. The people they displaced are known as the Shenks Ferry people, who may have in some capacity been Piscataways. If so, this may explain the various rumors there were that the Piscataway once commanded a much greater area. The Susquehannock claimed this territory by right of conquest, but they didn't occupy it as it was left uninhabited (Clark & Rountree 1993). It's thus sometimes called a buffer zone, but if the Patuxent and Piscataway were afraid to venture there for fear of attack then that implies some enemy presence, so I think it makes more sense to call it a "desolation" created by the Susquehannocks' conquests and therefore, in a sense, Susquehannock territory.

Sources

Marshall Joseph Becker, ""Late Woodland" (c.a. 1000-1740 CE) Foraging Patterns of the Lenape and their Neighbors in the Delaware Valley". Bulletin of the Society for Pennsylvania Archaeology Vol 80 No 1, 2010.

William Bright, Native American Placenames of the United States, 2004.

William Hand Browne, ed., Archives of Maryland: Proceedings and Acts of the General Assembly of Maryland, 1883.

— ed. Archives of Maryland: Proceedings of the Council of Maryland 1636-1667, 1885.

— ed. Archives of Maryland: Proceedings of the Council of Maryland 1671-1681, 1896.

Thomas E. Davidson, "Relations between the Powhatans and the Eastern Shore". In Powhatan Foreign Relations ed. Helen C. Rountree, 1993.

Christian F. Feest, "Nanticoke and Neighboring Tribes". In Handbook of North American Indians, Volume 15: Northeast ed. Bruce G. Trigger, 1978.

J. N. B. Hewitt, "Susquehanna". In Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico, Part 2, ed. Frederick Webb Hodge, 1910.

William B. Marye, "Indian Paths of the Delmarva Peninsula, Part Two: The Choptank Indians". Bulletin of the Archaeological Society of Delaware Vol 2 No 5, 1937.

— "The Wiccomiss Indians of Maryland" [pt 1]. American Antiquity Vol 4 No 2, 1938.

— "Indian Towns of the Southeastern Part of Sussex County" [pt 1]. Bulletin of the Archaeological Society of Delaware Vol 3 No 2, 1939.

— "Indian Towns of the Southeastern Part of Sussex County" [pt 2]. Bulletin of the Archaeological Society of Delaware Vol 3 No 3, 1940.

Michael D. Petraglia et al. ed., Hickory Bluff: Changing Perceptions of Delmarva Archaeology, 2002.

Helen C. Rountree, "Who were the Powhatans and did they have a unified "foreign policy"?". In Powhatan Foreign Relations ed. Helen C. Rountree, 1993.

Helen C. Rountree & Thomas Davidson, Eastern Shore Indians of Virginia and Maryland, 1997.

Captain John Smith, A Map of Virginia. VVith a Description of the Countrey, the Commodities, People, Government and Religion (1612). In Capt John Smith, Works ed. Edward Arber, 1884.

David J. Sorg, "Lost Tribes of the Susquehanna". Bulletin of the Society for Pennsylvania Archaeology Vol 74 No 2, 2004.

F. G. Speck, Indians of the Eastern Shore of Maryland, 1922.

John Steckley, "A Tale of Two Peoples". Arch Notes 85, 1985.

Leon deValinger, Jr., "Indian Land Sales in Delaware" [pt 1]. Bulletin of the Archaeological Society of Delaware Vol 3 No 3, 1940.

Robert D. Wall, "The Nature of Susquehannock Community Patterns in the Upper Potomac". In The Susquehannocks: New Perspectives on Settlement and Cultural Identity ed. Paul A. Raber, 2019.

C. A. Weslager, "Indian Tribes of the Delmarva Peninsula". Bulletin of the Archaeological Society of Delaware Vol 3 No 5, 1942.

— "The Anthropological Position of the Indian Tribes of the Delmarva Peninsula". Bulletin of the Archaeological Society of Delaware, Vol 4 No 4, 1947.

— The Delaware Indians: A History, 1972.

— The Siconese Indians of Lewes, Delaware, 1991 (Lewes Historical Society).