USA > Maryland > The history of Maryland : from its first settlement, in 1633, to the restoration, in 1660 ; with a copious introduction, and notes and illustrations > Part 19
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Although the peculiar features of the countenance, colour of the skin, texture and colour of the hair, and the exterior form and contour of the whole human figure, obviously bespeak the Indian race of people on the continent of America, both north and south, to have been a distinct species of mankind, different from the rest of the human creation, yet curiosity or the love of knowledge will always prompt our endeavours to pursue our in- quiries still further, with a view of tracing the origin, migra- tions, and places of residence, of the several varieties or tribes of this same species. In doing this, no circumstance aids us more effectually than an attention to and an investigation of their several languages or the different dialects thereof. Philosophi- cal philologists also may very properly amuse themselves with disquisitions on these several languages of our aborigines, with a view to advance the science of universal grammar and the structure of language in general. Views of this sort seem to have lately actuated the American Philosophical Society of Phi- ladelphia ; who have by their influence called forth an interest- ing "Historical account of the Indian nations, who once inha- bited Pennsylvania and the neighbouring states, by the Rev. John Heckewelder, of Bethlehem," published in 1819. This gentleman having been for many years a missionary and resident among the Indians in Pennsylvania and on the Ohio, and hav- ing acquired a perfect knowledge of their language, his "Histo- rical account" possesses an authenticity, which demands consi- derable attention. But, on a perusal of his work, the reader cannot but be struck with the unaccountable circumstance, that in no part thereof has he taken the least notice of Smith's ac- count of the Indians just herein before enumerated by him, al- though many of these Indians belonged to particular tribes of the great nation, which he calls Lenni Lenape, or Delaware, whom he represents as covering all that part of the sea-coast from the tide-waters of the Potowmack to the Hudson of New-York. He must, or ought to have known, that Smith's History of Virgi-
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SEC. VII. nia, he being one of the first settlers thereof, has always held, with regard to the aborigines of our country, paramount autho- rity over all other histories ; for a very obvious reason, that there- in alone we see these aborigines in their primeval state. The time of Mr. Heckewelder's knowledge of them being of modern date, necessarily makes his view of them, though still highly interesting, yet far inferior in interest to that of Smith ; their manners and customs having undergone innumerable alterations by their intercourse with Europeans from the time of Smith to that of Mr. Heckewelder, a period of near a century and a half. Even in the many passages in Mr. Heckewelder's book, where he speaks of the Nanticokes as a tribe of the Lenape, he takes no notice of what Smith has said of them, as to their state and condition when the latter first discovered them on the banks of the Cuscarawaock. There is, indeed, strong presumption, from the great extent of the Lenape language, together with the tra- dition of that nation, that their territories might formerly have extended from the tide-water of the Hudson, near Albany, to those of the Patowmack and Patuxent ; and, if the Nanticokes were once a tribe of the Lenape, and their language a dialect of the language of that nation, the Lenape territories might also have comprehended all the Eastern Shore of Maryland, and the several tribes thereof. There is a circumstance mentioned in Smith's History of Virginia, which seems to corroborate the lat- ter part of the preceding supposition. It is therein stated, 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 Accoha- nocks, the two tribes, who occupied the present counties of Northampton and Accomack, were of the Powhatan nation and spoke that language. But, as Smith did not explore any part of the present territories of Maryland on the Eastern Shore, imme- diately adjacent to the division-line between Virginia and Mary- land, nearer than the Cuscarawaock, which we have herein be- fore endeavoured to prove to have been the Nanticoke, we are uninformed, how far Powhatan's territories on the Eastern Shore extended northward, or whether they comprehended any of the Indians north of the before mentioned division-line. A small Indian town, or a remnant of a tribe of Indians, who dwelt at or near Chingoteague, on the sea-coast, near where the before men- tioned division-line strikes the ocean, is mentioned by Beverly,
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in his History of Virginia, first published in 1705, as then ex- SEC. VII. isting, of whom he says,-" The few remains of this town are joined with a nation of Maryland Indians." *- But, of the lan- guage of these Indians of Chingoteague, or of the other Indians of Aecomack and Northampton, mentioned by Beverly, in 1705, he has not informed us. The latter, without doubt, continued to speak the Powhatan language, as in Smith's time, and it seems to be equally certain, that the Nanticokes did not speak the Powhatan language. From all which it may be inferred, that some line of division between the Indians of the Eastern Shore of Maryland and Virginia, existed prior to that drawn by the Eu- ropeans afterwards, and that this circumstance, of a body of Powhatan Indians being settled on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake, prior to the first arrival of the Virginia colonists in 1607, was the primary cause of planting settlements there so early as Pory's excursions in 1620, if not before. If then all the tribes of Indians on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake, north of the Powhatans in Accomack and Northampton, were of the Lenape stock, as implied by Mr. Heckewelder's "Historical Account," we must suppose, that their languages were dialects of that of the Lenape, and consequently that the language of the Nanticokes, confessedly the most numerous and powerful tribe on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, was also a dialect of that language. The words of Mr. Heckewelder are,-" As far as we are able to judge from the little knowledge that has been trans- mitted to us of the languages of the Indians, who once inha- bited Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina, they all appear to have belonged to the same stock; the Nanticokes have been shewn to have been intimately connected with the Lenape,t and among those, who called them grand-father. Two pretty copious vocabularies of their language, in the possession of the Historical Committee of the American Philosophical Society, one of them communicated by Mr. Jefferson and the other by myself, prove it beyond a doubt to have been a dialect of the Lenape."-To this Mr. Heckewelder subjoins a note of consi- derable importance, as follows :- " The late Dr. Barton, in the work above quoted," (to wit, Barton's New Views, appen. p. 5, edit. 1798,) "seems to doubt this fact, and relies on a series of
* Beverly's Hist. Virg. (edit. of 1722,) p. 199 .- Oldmison, in his Brit. Emp. Amer. vol. 1, p. 281, copies Beverly herein.
t In a former part of his work, which will be herein presently stated.
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SEC. VII. numerals, which I once communicated to him, and was found among the papers of the late Rev. Mr. Pyrlæus. But it is by no means certain, that these numerals were taken from the language of the Nanticokes, and the vocabularies above mentioned leave no doubt as to the origin of that dialect."
Although it is possible, as has been just before admitted, that the Nanticokes were originally connected with the Lenape, and their language might possibly have been a dialect of that of the Lenape, yet the first position advanced by Mr. Heckewelder, as just above, to wit: that all the different nations or tribes of "Indians, who once inhabited Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina, appear to have belonged to the same stock"-seems to have been much too large for any proof he has produced in support of it. If the languages of two nations so radically vary from each other, as to require interpreters in the communications of the two nations with each other, it raises so strong a presump- tion, that their common origin, if it ever happened, must have been very remote, as to require some strong contrary facts to rebut that presumption. It is possible, indeed, that interpreters may be necessary in cases where the languages only vary in dialect, and this might have been the case in regard to the Sus- quehanocks, the Tockwocks, the Nanticokes, and the Lenape. But, the variance between the languages of the Lenape and the Powhatans is so obvious and observable, the latter of which was that of all the Indians on both the western and eastern shores of Virginia, together with that part of Maryland lying between the Patowmack and the Patuxent rivers, that Mr. Heckewelder's first position, as just stated, must be admitted with much doubt and hesitation. Strong evidence to the con- trary arises from a comparison to be made at this day between the vocabulary of the Powhatan language as preserved by Smith, and that of the Lenape as given by others. In the numeral words of the first, there is scarcely a syllable that indi- cates the same sound as in those of the latter .* From which it
* The following lists of numeral words in the Powhatan and Delaware (or Lenape) languages are taken from two different authors, but both Englishmen ; the authenticity of the first of whom (Smith, the founder of Virginia, ) cannot be questioned, in whose history is found a small vocabulary of the Powhatan lan- guage, from whence the list below of numeral words in that language is taken. The second list, to wit, that of the Delaware (or Lenape) language, is taken from a very old History of West New Jersey, published with that of Pennsyl- vania, by Gabriel Thomas, in the year 1698. He was, as he therein states, one of the first settlers in Pennsylvania, arrived there in the first ship which Penn
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HISTORY OF MARYLAND.
results, that so far as variance in language constitutes a pre- SEC. VII. sumption of variety in their origin, the Powhatans and the Lenape, if ever they " have belonged to the same stock," must have been so in some very remote time long past. It is true, that there are indelible marks in the exterior figure and colour of the North American Indians, which demonstrate them to be a peculiar species of mankind, and that there is a greater sameness in those exterior appearances than in any other species of man- kind known in any of the other quarters of the globe, (probably because they have been less contaminated with mixtures of other species,) yet, supposing all these North American Indians to have had originally one common parentage here in America, this common origin, or "stock," must have been in ages so re- mote as long since to have admitted a total and radical variance in many of their languages. Such we may suppose to have been the case between the Powhatans and the Lenape.
sent for the settlement of that province in the year 1681, and resided in Penn- sylvania about fifteen years.
POWHATAN NUMERALS,
(According to Smith.)
DELAWARE (OR LENAPE) NUMERALS, ( According to Thomas.)
1. Necut
1. Kooty
2. Ningh
2. Nisha
3. Nuss
3. Nacha
4. Yowgh
4. Neo
5. Paranske
5. Pelenach
6. Comotinck
6. Kootash
7. Toppawoss
7. Nishash
8. Nusswash
8. Choesh
9. Kekatawgh
9. Peshonk
10. Kaskeke
- 10. Telen
It will be found upon a comparison of the above list of Delaware numerals by Thomas with the German (or Zeisberger's) list of the same, as published in Duponceau's correspondence with Heckewelder, that they are as nearly similar to each other as the idioms of the German and English languages would allow ; always supposing that a German or a Frenchman would write down the same sound with letters somewhat variant from those which an Englishman would use. So also of the Swedish vocabulary of Delaware numerals stated also in the same correspondence. Other words and expressions indicate a radical difference between the Powhatan and Lenape languages. Mr. Heckewelder states, in the above mentioned correspondence, that "the word Mannitto for God, or the Great Spirit, is common to all the nations and tribes of the Lenape stock." But no such term is mentioned by Smith (who was much conversant with the Pow- hatans,) as designating their idea of God. "Their chiefe God," he says, "they worship, is the devill ; him they call Okee, and serue him more of feare than loue." "Their other Gods they call Quiyoughcosughes." This variance, as well as many others, too numerous here to detail, seems to indicate a more re- mote common origin than Mr. Heckewelder seems to suppose when he states the Powhatans " to have belonged to the same stock," as the Lenape.
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SEC. VII. As to the extent of the Lenape territories on the western shore of Maryland being bounded by the tide-waters of the Patow- mack, as stated by Mr. Heckewelder, this receives some con- firmation from a circumstance mentioned in Pory's travels, as herein before stated. When Pory went, in 1620, 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, herein before mentioned. He (Namenacus) had come to the eastern shore of Virginia, in order to meet with 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 an interpreter between the Indians and the English. Meeting with Pory and Salvage at Accomack, Namenacus invited them to visit him at Pawtux- unt. Pory accordingly went, and was attended by Salvage, who acted on all necessary occasions as an 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 con- federate tribes, who belonged to Powhatan's empire. This cor- responds with what is stated by Mr. Jefferson and other writers, that Powhatan's territories extended along the Chesapeake from James river to the Patuxent, and, as we may suppose, to the head of the tide-waters thereof, as also in like manner on the Patowmack, that is, to where the Lenape territories, according to Heckewelder, ended. This receives additional confirmation from what Smith states in one of his excursions to explore the Chesapeake,-that the western coast thereof, from the Patuxent to the head of the bay appeared to him to be uninhabited, or that he saw no inhabitants there, although in his ascent and descent of the bay he kept close to the western shore thereof, and went up the Bolus on Patapsco river a considerbale dis- tance. The early part of our History of Maryland also recog- nises the fact, that the Indians of the peninsula lying between the Patowmack and the Patuxent were grievously harassed by
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HISTORY OF MARYLAND.
the Susquehanocks, just previous to or about the time of the SEC. VII. first settlement of the Maryland colony in 1634. We cannot suppose, however, that the whole of the western shore of Mary- land, from the Patuxent to the Susquehanah, was uninhabited, at least to any great extent, into the back country, although Smith saw no Indians there: but it is possible, that the frequent excursions of the Susquehanocks against the Powhatans on the Patuxent and Patowmack might have driven away from the coast of the western shore of the Chesapeake any tribes, who would have wished to have remained there neutral or in peace, and that therefore none appeared to Smith on that coast. It is certain, that the Susquehanocks some how acquired a right to the greater part of both the western and eastern shores of Mary- land, to wit : on the former from the Susquehanah river to the Patuxent, and on the latter from the same to the Choptank; for, by a treaty made between them and the government of Mary- land, in the year 1654, they ceded to the latter all those parts of Maryland on both shores, as just described ; as will herein after more particularly appear in its proper place .* This brings us then to an inquiry, whether the Susquehanocks also, as well as the Nanticokes, were a tribe, that is, a branch of the great "stock" of the nation called Lenape.
Although the Susquehanocks were certainly a tribe of Indians inhabiting within the province of Pennsylvania, yet I cannot find that Mr. Heckewelder has any where mentioned them as a distinct tribe, even as subordinate to his great nation-the Le- nape. In like manner he has passed over in silence the other tribes of Indians mentioned by Smith as dwelling near the head of the Chesapeake, to wit, the Atquinachuks, who dwelt on the Delaware, in what is now New-Castle county in the De- laware state; the Tockwocks on the Sassafras river in Maryland, and the Ozinies on the Chester. These several tribes, under the
The author has, in a previous publication of the introduction to this history, inserted a supposition that the western shore of Maryland was occupied prior to the arrival of the first Maryland colony, by a tribe or nation called the Shawa- nese. To this supposition he was led, by perceiving on Kitchen's map of the British colonies, published shortly after the treaty of 1763, that the Sawanoos (commonly called Shawanese,) had formerly a town situated on the Patowmack at or near to a place called Old Town in Allegany county, in Maryland. But the treaty of cession by the Susquehanocks to the Maryland colonists in 1654, together with the history of the Sawanoos, as stated by Heckewelder, seem to render it doubtful whether the Sawanoos ever occupied any part of Maryland lower down from the Allegany mountains, then Allegany county.
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SEC. VII. wide extent, which he gives to the Lenape nation, must have been subordinate to the Lenape, whom they called their grand- father. But there is a circumstance stated by Smith, relative to some of these last mentioned tribes, particularly the Susqueha- nocks and the Tockwocks, which seems to militate against a sup- position, that they were either subordinate to or under the go- vernment and control of the Lenape of Pennsylvania. Heck- ewelder states, that the Mengwe, who appear to have been the same as the Iroquois of the French, and the Massawomeks of Smith, long before any Europeans arrived in the country, had by stratagem "made women" of the Lenape. Although this seems to have been merely an excuse made by the Lenape for their want of prowess, in permitting the Mengwe to conquer them by force, as the latter allege they did,* or that the Lenape told Mr. Heckewelder this story, thinking thereby to flatter him with their approbation of the passive and non-resisting principles of the United Brethren, it being a very improbable story, that many thousand warriors of the Lenape should have been so tricked out of the natural principle of self-defence, yet it is evident, from Smith's History, that neither the Susquehanocks nor the Tock- wocks were of these passive obedient principles. The descrip- tion, herein before quoted from Smith, of his giant-like Susque- hanock, whom he met with at the head of the bay, proclaimed him a warrior from top to toe, with his bow and arrows in one hand and his war-club in the other. Be assured, that this hero of the forest had no idea of non-resistance, if attacked either in his person or rights. Immediately prior to the first settlement of St. Mary's, the Susquehanocks had also been waging war upon the Indians of that part of Maryland. They did not, there- fore, like the Lenape, consider themselves as women unfit for war. It is also mentioned by Smith, that these Mengwe or Mas- sawomeks, when he met with them in the bay, shewed him their "greene wounds," which they had just received in a battle with the Tockwhoghes. The Tockwhoghes also, it seems too from
* In the treaty held at Philadelphia, in July, 1742, with the chiefs of the Six Nations, (these Mengwe,) together with the Delawares, (or Lenape) and other Indians, Canassatego, a chief of the Six Nations, on a complaint made by the governor of Pennsylvania to them against the Delawares, in a speech addressed to the latter, thus reproved them .- "How came you to take upon you to sell land at all? We conquered you ; we made women of you ; you know you are women ; and can no more sell land than women ; nor is it fit you should have the power of selling land, since you would abuse it." See Colden's Hist. of the Five Na- tions, 2d part, p. 79.
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HISTORY OF MARYLAND.
thence, had no ideas of the principles of passive obedience and SEC. VII. non-resistance. Thus then the Mengwe had certainly never "made women" of either the Susquehanocks or the Tock- whoghes. It is possible, however, that the Susquehanocks,, as they resided on the Susquehanah river within the present limits of Pennsylvania, and within what is supposed to have been the Lenate territories, might have been originally of the same "stock" as the Lenape'; but it would seem, from the foregoing circum- stance, that they were independent of and insubordinate to the government of the Lenape.
Although Mr. Heckewelder has thus passed over without notice, the Susquehanocks, the Tockwhoghes, and the Atquanachuks, notwithstanding the scites of their towns were clearly within the limits of his extensive Lenape territories, yet he has happily favored us with a more minute historical account of the Nanti- cokes of Maryland, than has ever yet before appeared in print. This traditional account of them, which, as he says, he had from one of their own chiefs, being highly interesting to many Ma- ryland readers, will be best presented to them in his own words.
"The Delawares say that this nation, (the Nanticokes, ) has sprung from the same stock with them, and the fact was acknow- ledged by White, one of their chiefs, whom I have personally known. They call the Delawares their grandfathers. I shall relate the history of the Nanticokes, as I had it from the mouth of White himself.
" Every Indian being at liberty to pursue what occupation he pleases, White's ancestors, after the Lenape came into their country,* preferred seeking a livelihood by fishing and trapping
* The careless mode, in which Heckewelder has here used the relative pro- noun-'s their"-creates an ambiguity in the meaning of the above sentence. It might be construed to mean the " country" of either " White's ancestors" or that of " the Lenape," or, the "country" of both. Supposing it to be the lan- guage of White, it might mean " the country" of his ancestors ;" but this would imply, that the country then enjoyed by the Lenape, particularly Pennsylvania, was originally that of the Nanticokes, prior to the occupation of it by the Le- nape ; which would seem to be repugnant to the supposition, that the Nanticokes were originally of the same "stock" as the Lenape, that is, that they were a branch of the Lenape stock .- Again, it might be construed to mean the "country" of the Lenape ; which would be agreeable to the grammatical rule, that a relative personal pronoun always has relation to the next antecedent person spoken of. The fact, however, subsequently stated in the latter branch of the sentence,- that the Nanticokes " detached themselves " from the Lenape, seems to make the more probable meaning of the whole sentence to be, that the Nanticokes were formerly a constituent part of the whole Lenape nation, when that nation first
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SEC. VII. along the rivers and bays to pursuing wild game in the forest; they therefore detached themselves, and sought the most conve- nient places for their purpose .* In process of time, they became very numerous, partly by natural increase, and partly in conse- quence of being joined by a number of the Lenape, and spread themselves over a large tract of country.} Thus they became divided into separate bodies, distinguished by different names ; the Canai, they say, sprung from them, and settled at a distance on the shores of the Potowmack and Susquehanah, where they lived when the white people first arrived in Virginia; but they removed farther on their account,¿ and settled higher up the
arrived in Pennsylvania, the " country," most probably, above alluded to; the " country" of both ; the Nanticokes being then one and the same as the Lenape nation ; after which a part of these Lenape, "preferring to seek a livelihood by fishing," &c. " detached themselves" from the rest of the Lenape nation, and took the name of Nanticokes.
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