USA > Washington DC > Washington DC > Centennial history of the city of Washington, D. C. With full outline of the natural advantages, accounts of the Indian tribes, selection of the site, founding of the city to the present time > Part 6
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The Terra Cotta region surrounding Terra Cotta Station, three miles from Washington, on the Metropolitan Branch of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, furnishes the following on the dry ground: The Onosmodium Virginianum or false gromwell, the Clitoria Mariana or butterfly-pea, and the Habenaria lacera or ragged fringed orchis; while in the swamp are found the Aster ostivus, oraster, the Solidago stricta or golden-rod, the Woodwardia Virginica or chain fern, the Asclepias rubra, a milkweed; and the Poterium Canadense or Canadian burnet, a member of the Rose family.
In the region of the Reform School have been found the Phlox maculata or wild sweet-william, the Melanthium Virginicum or bunch-
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NATURAL ADVANTAGES.
flower, a member of the Lily family; the Bartonia tenella or screw- stem, the Lespedeza Stuvei or busb-clover, the Desmodium Mariland- icum or tick-trefoil, a member of the Pulse family; the Buchnera Americana or blue-hearts, the Fimbristylis capillaris, a member of the Sedge family; the Quercus prinoides or chestnut oak, the Carer bullata, a member of the Sedge family; the Habenaria ciliaris or the yellow fringed orchis, and the Gentiana ochroleuca or gentian.
In the Holmead Swamp region, which occupies the ravine leading to Piney Branch from the east, at the point where the continuation of Fourteenth Street crosses the stream, may be found the Ludwigia hirsuta or bastard loosestrife, the Drosera rotundifolia or round-leaved sundew, the Asclepias rubra, a milkweed; Xyris flexuosa or yellow . eyed grass, the Fuirena squarrosa or umbrella grass, the Rhynchospora alba or beak rush, the Coreopsis discordia or tickseed, and the Calopogon pulchellus or grass pink, the Greek and Latin name meaning a beauti- ful little beard.
There are other regions where are many rare and beautiful plants, but want of space forbids further detail.
CHAPTER II.
INDIAN HISTORY.
First Exploration of Chesapeake Bay and its Tributaries-Tribes of Indians upon the Bay - The Powhatans, the Manahoaes, and the Monacons-The Moyaones, the Nacotehtants, and the Toags-The Shawanese -The Susquehannocks, the Tock- wocks, and the Nanticokes-The Delawares - Indian Fishing Ground - Indian Tradition as to Greenleaf's Point -Formation of the Indian Names of Rivers - Fate of the Delaware Indians - Resemblance between Indians of Maryland and Virginia - Massacres of and by Indians - Marriage of Pocahontas-The All-Con- quering Iroquois-The Changing Fortunes of the Aborigines-The Descendants of the Powhatans Embrace Mormonism.
T' THE Indian history of the city of Washington, and indeed of the District of Columbia, if confined rigidly to the city or to the Dis- triet as such, would be very brief indeed. In fact, it might be com- prised in a paraphrase of that famous chapter "Concerning Snakes," in "The Natural History of Iceland," by Niels Horrebov, reading, "No snakes of any kind are to be met with throughout the whole island"; but, inasmuch as this work carries the reader back many years beyond the legal formation of the District, or the establishment of the city of Washington, in other chapters,-notably that on the settlement of this region,- it would seem at least proper, even if it be not required by the scope of this work, to notice briefly the various tribes of red men that inhabited the southern part of Maryland and the northern part of the State of Virginia, in the vicinity of the District of Columbia.
The first exploration of the Chesapeake and its tributary streams was made by Captain John Smith, accompanied by fourteen compan- ions,- a physician, six gentlemen, and seven laborers,-on a June day in 1608. Upon entering the bay, they crossed to the eastern side, and there saw two stout and grim savages upon Cape Charles, with long poles, like javelins, headed with bone, who boldly demanded who they were, and what they were about. Having satisfied these fierce warriors of their peaceful intentions, they continued some distance up the bay, and, returning along the western shore, they ascended the Potomac River. But the great Chief Powhatan was opposed to this exploration, and so ordered the little band of explorers to be cut off; and in conse- quence of this opposition, they found themselves generally the objects
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INDIAN HISTORY.
of marked hostility at several points as they ascended the river. Their explorations were continued, notwithstanding, as far up the river as Little Falls,-about five miles above the present site of the city of Washington,-and then, unable to proceed farther, the river at that point being impassable for boats, they retraced their steps to James- town.
At the time of this exploration, there were about thirty tribes, principal and subordinate, living upon the shores of the bay in Mary- land and Virginia. The chief of these principal tribes were the Powhatans, the Manahoaes, and the Monacons. The Powhatans inhab- ited the shores of the Chesapeake Bay as far north as the Patuxent, in Maryland, and the other tribes mentioned lived on the territory con- tiguous to the York and the Potomac rivers. The Manahoacs and the Monacans, who were continuously at war with the Powhatans in Virginia, inhabited the present District of Columbia. The former of these two tribes, after being greatly decimated by war, pestilence, and spirituous liquors, deserted their country in Virginia, about 1712, and migrated to the West, joining either the Iroquois or the Tuscaroras.
Some of the smaller tribes which had settlements at the time of Captain Smith's exploration mentioned above were the Moyaones, the Nacotehtants, and the Toags. These showed Smith and his companions all possible friendship. Each was a distinet tribe, and had a settlement of its own named after itself. The settlement of the Toags was at, or near, Mount Vernon, appears on Smith's map of Virginia as "Taux- enent," and was about seventeen miles below the present city of Washington. The settlement of the Moyaones appears, from the same map, to have been directly opposite, in Maryland, just below the mouth of the Piscataway, while Nacotchtant, or Nacochtank, was on the same side with the Moyaones, just below the Eastern Branch, and within the present limits. of the District.
The Shawnees, or Shawanese, as they were called at an earlier time, are believed to have inhabited that part of Maryland between the Patuxent and Patapsco rivers, and the Chesapeake Bay and the Allegheny Mountains. The Susquehannocks, or Susquehannas, lived on the banks of the Susquehanna River, in Maryland, toward the west, extending considerably into Pennsylvania. The Tockwocks and the Nanticokes lived in Kent, Queene Anne, and Talbot counties, from the Sassafras River to the Choptauk; the Nanticokes also inhabited Dorchester and Somerset counties.
According to Heckewelder, the Lenai Lenape, or Delaware, Indians covered all that part of the seacoast from the "Potowmack" River
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HISTORY OF WASHINGTON.
to the Hudson, and Mr. Bozman, in his excellent history of Maryland, says: "There is indeed strong presumption, from the great extent of the Lenape language, together with the traditions of that nation, that their territory might formerly have extended from the tide water on the Hudson, near Albany, to those of the Patomack and Patuxent; and if the Nanticokes were one of the tribes of the Lenapes, and their language a dialect of the language of that nation, the Lenape territory might also have comprehended all the eastern shore of Maryland, and the several tribes thereof. It is stated in Smith's 'lIistory of Vir- ginia,' that the part of the peninsula of the eastern shore which was then deemed, and is still, as a part of Virginia, formed also a part of Powhatan's territories, and that the Accomacks and the Accohan- nocks, the two tribes who occupied the present counties of Northamp- ton and Accomac, were of the Powhatan nation, and spoke that language."
And again: "As to the extent of the Lenape territory on the western shore of Maryland, being bounded by the tide water of the Patowmack, as stated by Mr. Heckewelder, this receives some confirma- tion from the circumstance mentioned in Pory's travels as hereinbefore stated. When Pory went, in 1820, to settle the secretary's lands on the eastern shore of Virginia, he there met with Namenacus, king of a large tribe on the Patuxent River, in Maryland, called Powtuxants. Namen- acus had come to the eastern shore in order to meet one Thomas Salvage, an Englishman, who, when a boy, having been presented to the Emperor Powhatan in exchange for Nomentacke, an Indian boy, . had long lived with the Powhatans, and having completely learned their language, was in the habit of occasionally acting as interpreter between the Indians and the English. Meeting with Pory and Salvage at Accomack, Namenacus invited them to visit him at Patuxent. Pory accordingly went, and was attended by Salvage, who acted on all necessary occasions as interpreter. If, then, the Indian language which this interpreter had learned when a boy with the Indians was the Powhatan language, as we must necessarily suppose it to have been, from his learning it with and under the Emperor Powhatan, it seems to follow that the several tribes of Indians on the Patuxent, with whose language Salvage, the interpreter, seems to have been familiar, spoke the Powhatan language, and might, therefore, be considered as among the confederate tribes who belonged to Powhatan's empire."
Mr. Bozman presents other correspondences and confirmations, which appear to strengthen this position, but it is not deemed necessary to follow them further in this work.
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INDIAN HISTORY.
It is stated, on the authority of the early settlers of Maryland, that the valley at the foot of Capitol Hill, in the city of Washington, for- merly drained by the Tiber Creek, the Potomac, and the Eastern Branch, was for some years periodically visited by the Indians, who named it their "fishing ground," to distinguish it from their hunting ground, and that in the spring of the year especially did they assemble there in great numbers to procure fish. The principal camp of the Indians and the residence of their chief were at Greenleaf's Point, and their councils were held among the various tribes thus gathered to- gether. This, if not strictly historical, is at least traditional, and it is supposed by some writers that General Washington was informed of this tradition, and the inference is intimated that this fact had some- thing to do with his determination to locate the Capitol of the Nation he was establishing on the same spot of ground.
According to Schoolcraft, the Indian tribes, in most cases, dwelt on the banks of the rivers, and the Indian geographical names are at once appropriate and euphonic. The rivers were denoted by an inflection to the root form of the name; as, annah, annock, any, hany, ghany, etc. Thus came the names Alle-ghany, Rappahannock, Susqueh- annock, etc. In different languages there were of course different terminal inflections. The Delawares, or Lenapes, used the term ittuk for the same purpose; hence, in their language, Lenapeh-ittuk meant the Lenape River, or the Delaware River. In the fifth volume, however, Schoolcraft says: "This term, 'Lenapeh-ittuk,' is composed of Lenape, the name given themselves, and ittuk, which geographical term is equivalent to the English word domain or territory, and is inclusive of the specific sepu, their name for river. After the successful planting of the colony in Virginia, the coasts became more subject to observation than at prior periods by vessels bound to Jamestown with supplies. On one of these voyages, Lord De la Ware put into the eapes of the river, and hence the present name of this river and the tribe."
According to the same authority, the name "Lenape" was prob- ably used nationally in the sense of "men"; for these Indians had regarded themselves as having held an eminent position for antiquity, valor, and wisdom. This claim appeared to be recognized by other tribes of this region, who applied to them the term "grandfather," while to the Iroquois they applied the term "unele," which was reciprocated by the latter by the term "nephew." The other tribes of the Algonquin lineage the Delawares called "brother," or "younger brother."
But the fate of the Delawares, like that of most of the tribes of
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HISTORY OF WASHINGTON.
red men that once inhabited this fair land, was a melancholy one. Like the Mohicans, the Algonquins, the Eries, the Andastes, and the Susquehannas, the Delawares were compelled to leave the country which had for many years been their home. About the year 1744, by the command of Canassatego, the chief of the powerful and relent- less Iroquois, they were ordered to leave this section of the country and remove to the banks of the Susquehanna. They accordingly quit- ted forever the banks of their native and beautiful Delaware, the scene of many memories and the resting place of the bones of their ances- tors, turning their faces, with emotions that may be imagined, to the west.
Mr. James Mooney lent the writer of this brief chapter valuable assistance. According to him, "on the Virginia side, directly across the Long Bridge, opposite Washington, was another settlement, called Nameroughquena, and between it and Tauxenent ( Mount Vernon) were two others, known respectively as Assaomeek ( about Alexandria) and Namassingakent (below Alexandria). Several other small settle- ments existed about the mouth of the Piscataway on the Maryland side. .. . Nacochtank, which was the residence of a chief and con- tained eighty warriors, was the principal settlement within or adjoining the District. The Jesuits, who came out later with Lord Baltimore, Latinized the name as Anacostan, whence we get Anacostia, the modern name of the Eastern Branch at Washington, and of the post office at Uniontown on its southeastern bank, and perhaps also Ana- lostan, the name of the island opposite Georgetown."
The Indians of Maryland and those of Virginia closely resembled each other. Those of the former State were descendants of the same race with the Powhatans, and spoke dialects of the great Algonquin language. Powhatan himself claimed jurisdiction over the Patuxent, but it is doubtful as to whether he ever enforced his elaim. The name of Chesapeake Bay is, in all probability, of Algonquin origin. As a general thing, the accounts of the Maryland Indians represent them as a simple, open, appreciative, and confiding people, filled with won- der at the appearance of their European visitors. Father White, who accompanied Calvert, says they were endowed with an ingenious and liberal disposition, and an acuteness of sight, and smell, and taste that even surpassed the Europeans, and that they lived mostly on an article of food which they called "pone," or hominy, etc.
The Susquehannas claimed the territory between the Potomac and the Susquehanna rivers, when Jamestown was settled, as their hunting ground, and it marked the boundary between their lands and the
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INDIAN HISTORY.
Powhatanic kingdom. Subsequently they moved their council fire down the western shore to the Patuxent to avoid conflicts with the Iroquois; but, on the other hand, they came in contact with a class of white people from whom they contracted the habit of using alcoholic liquors, which proved a more powerful, even if a more insidious, enemy than the Iroquois. Like the coast tribes of Virginia, they exchanged all the available products of their streams and forests for the means of indulgence, and when they were gone they sold their lands; and besides, they sometimes engaged in war with neighboring tribes, so that it was not long before they were without the power of self- defense. The white people of Virginia, in order to avenge a supposed murder of one of their number, made war upon them and killed a good many of the Susquehannas, who accused the Senecas of having committed the murder; but who the perpetrators were, was never known. Other massacres followed, however, and the people of Maryland, raising a force of one thousand men, marched against the Susquehannas, under the command of Colonel John Washington, great-grandfather of Gen- eral George Washington; and afterward, by other wars upon them, the Susquehannas were driven to the necessity of uniting with the Canas- togas, an original Oneida tribe of Indians. Thus were the Susquehannas reduced from the proud position of a leading and conquering tribe to a subordinate one within another tribe, to be ultimately swallowed up and entirely obscured.
Besides the Powhatans in Virginia, there were the Iroquois and the Chiekahominies. The Powhatans were won over to the English especially by the marriage of Pocahontas to Mr. Rolfe, and the power- ful Chickahominies themselves desired the friendship of the English; but the marriage, though a remarkable event in history, was nothing more. The blending of the English and Indian races, which some fondly hoped and believed they saw foreshadowed by this marriage, was, in reality, an impossibility. In social affairs, and more particularly in marriage, there must, from necessity, be a community of thought, and feeling, and taste, much of which comes from heredity, which cannot be found in individuals of races differing so widely in habit of thought and feeling as do the white and Indian, or white and negro. This important faet, which is the essential basis of happiness in the married relation, was entirely unknown to those honest people who opposed the abolition of slavery on the ground that such abolition must soon be followed by an indiscriminate marriage of whites and blacks. It is now everywhere recognized that no argument against justice was ever more absurd.
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HISTORY OF WASHINGTON.
In closing this brief mention of the Indian races that lived in this region up to and during a portion of the time since the country has been occupied by the white race, it is believed that we cannot do better than to introduce the following extract from Mr. Mooney's article on the same subjeet heretofore quoted from:
"The Susquehannocks continued their inroads upon Indians and whites alike until 1652, in which year a treaty was made, only to be broken in 1676, when the pressure of the terrible Iroquois on the north drove the Susquehannocks themselves from their ancient homes, and forced them down upon the frontiers of Maryland and Virginia, which they ravaged from the Patuxent to the James, until defeated and almost exterminated by Nathaniel Bacon in a decisive battle at the present site of Richmond. The result was a treaty of peace in 1677, by which all the Indians as far as the head of Chesapeake Bay were brought under tribute to the whites.
" Between the upper and nether millstones, the original proprietors of the Potomac region had been well-nigh ground out of existence, and the miserable remnant was still pursued with unrelenting hatred by the conquering Iroquois. The Tauxenents joined the few survivors of the Virginia Powhatans, who retired to the Pamunkey River, where about fifty mixed bloods still remain, about twenty miles east of Rich- mond. The Maryland tribes gradually consolidated under the name of the Piscataways, and removed about the year 1700 to a new settle- ment on the lower Susquehanna, near Bainbridge, Pennsylvania. Here they became known as the Conoys, and under this designation they afterward moved higher up the river and settled at Chenango, under the protection of the Iroquois, about 1740. In 1765, they numbered only about one hundred and fifty souls. Still later they removed to the Ohio Valley, where they joined their kindred, the Delawares. They made their last appearance as a separate tribe at a council held at Detroit in 1793.
" While on a visit to the Cherokee Reservation in North Carolina in the summer of 1887, the writer accidentally obtained some additional information which has never before appeared in print, and which illus- trates, in a striking manner, the shifting fortunes of the aboriginal tribes. A young Cherokee, named Samuel Owl, had married a woman of the Catawbas-once a powerful tribe, but now reduced to a feeble remnant of about a dozen families, living on the river of the same name in South Carolina. In talking one day with this woman about her own people, she mentioned that a number of Indians formerly lived with them who were different from the Catawbas, and were called
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INDIAN HISTORY.
'Pamunks.' On further questioning, she stated that they were all descendants of, or related to, an Indian named John Mush, who had come from Virginia about fifty years before. They were unquestion- ably some of the Pamunkeys, already mentioned as still existing near Richmond. On asking her what had become of them, she said that they were constantly quarreling with the Catawbas, -for the old tribe hatred still lives on,- until some Mormon missionaries from the West arrived in that vicinity a few years ago, when the 'Pamunks,' glad of an opportunity to escape from their persecutors, embraced the new doctrines, and followed their deliverers to the far-distant land of Utah, where the last descendants of the lordly Powhatans now read their lonely destiny in the waters of the Great Salt Lake."
CHAPTER III.
WASHINGTON BECOMES THE CAPITAL.
The First American Congress-Cirenlar Letter to the Colonies-The Spirit of Inde- pendence-The Necessity of a Permanent Seat of Government -The Attack upon Congress in Philadelphia-Its Effect-Offers from States for a Site for a Perma- nent Residence- Views of Individuals- Discussions on the Subject in Congress- The Plan of Two Federal Towns-The Convention of 1787-The Nature of Control over the Seat of Government Sought by Congress-History of the Movement to Settle the Question of a Permanent Seat of Government -The Question Finally Set at Rest-The Act of July, 1790, Authorizing the President to Locate the Federal District -The Removal of the Federal Offices to the City of Washington.
T is evident, from a study of the early history of our country, that the stability of its government was dependent upon no one circum- stance more than the permanency of the seat of that government. The first American Congress, or rather Convention of the Colonies, for the purpose of organized opposition to the measures adopted by the parent country deemed oppressive to the colonies, was held in New York. Delegates were present from nearly all of the colonies, and the matters considered were the Stamp Act and other grievances, from which the colonies considered that they suffered great wrong and oppression. The call for this Congress-the reason for which it was assembled - was "to consult together on the present circumstances of the colonies, and the difficulties to which they are, and must be, subjected by the operation of the acts of Parliament for levying duties and taxes on the colonies, and to consider a general and united, dutiful and humble, representation of their condition to his Majesty and the Parliament, and to implore relief." This Congress was not without some good results. The Stamp Aet, the principal ground of grievance, was re- pealed. Other canses of grievance, however, continued, and a second Congress was called, to meet at Philadelphia. The only known result of this Congress, which sat with closed doors, was that it was resolved that another Congress should be called, unless redress of grievances from which the colonies suffered should be first obtained. It was rec- ommended that the session should also be held at Philadelphia. This Congress was opposed by the King and his advisers, and the secretary I
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WASHINGTON BECOMES THE CAPITAL. 65
for the colonies sent to all the governors of the colonies a circular letter, as follows:
"Certain persons, styling themselves delegates of his Majesty's colonies in America, having presumed, without his Majesty's authority or consent, to assemble together at Philadelphia, in the months of September and October last [1774], and having thought fit, among other unwarrantable proceedings, to resolve that it will be necessary that another Congress should be held in the same place in May next, unless redress for certain pretended grievances be obtained before that time, and to recommend that all the colonies in North America should choose deputies to attend such Congress; I am commanded by the King to signify to you his Majesty's pleasure that you do use all your utmost endeavors to prevent any such appointment of deputies within the country under your government, and that you do exhort all persons to desist from such unwarrantable proceedings, which cannot but be highly displeasing to the King."
This proclamation, however, had but little or no effect. The spirit of independence had already taken root. In May, 1775, the third American Congress met at Philadelphia, and from that time America has never been without a Congress. The Declaration of Independence soon followed, and after the adoption of the Articles of Confederation, annual sessions of Congress were, by its provisions, held at such times and places as were determined upon.
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