Kittamaqundi
Around 1622, the Piscataway tribe built a town they soon called Kittamaqundi on Piscataway Creek near the modern day town of Piscataway, Prince George's County, Maryland.
Etymology
When English first visited the town, in 1634, they learned it was named after the relatively new Tayac Kittamaquund, who had assumed power the previous year after killing his brother Wannas. Some English transliterated the Algonkian name Kittamaquund as Chitomachen. One author translated Kittamaqundi as "Great Beaver Place" and Chitomachen as "strong bear".History
Previously, the Piscataway's principal town had been Moyaone on the Accokeek Creek near the Potomac River, which was abandoned after a fire. Famine and disease in previous years, and retaliation by either the English or tribes in the Powhatan Confederacy could have contributed to Moyaone's abandonment, for Kittamaquund would pursue an assimilation or accommodation strategy with the English. Wahunsenacawh, the former paramount chieftain of the Powhatan Confederacy across the Potomac River, had died in 1618, and in his last years had convinced his subordinate tribes near Jamestown, Virginia to stop trading grain to the English settlers, who he wished would leave. The Piscataway, who although speaking a related Algonquin tongue were not under Powhatan's control, remained willing to trade foodstuffs with the English who sailed to their village, since they sought assistance against Susquehannock and Seneca raiders. On March 22, 1622, the new war-leader of the Powhatan Confederacy, Opchanacanough, led a series of coordinated attacks on English settlements, nearly wiping out the Jamestown settlement but for warnings given the colonists by natives friendly to them, thus beginning the second Anglo-Powhatan war.In June 1639, Jesuits led by Father Andrew White established a mission at Kittamaqundi. White wrote of curing Kittamaquund and his son of an illness with a combination of a powder, holy water, and blood letting and baptizing a condemned tribesman before execution. On 5 July 1640 Fr. White baptised the chief as "Charles" and his wife as "Mary" along with his counselor Mosorcoques' as John. White then married Charles and Mary. The couple entrusted their seven-year-old daughter to Governor Leonard Calvert and his sister-in-law Margaret Brent for education in English ways at St. Mary's City, Maryland. By 1642, six Jesuits lived in the village. The Jesuits abandoned the village in 1643 after Susquehannock raiders took men and supplies. In 1644, as both another Anglo-Powhatan war neared its end and English religious wars spread and nearly obliterated the Maryland colony, English occupied the town as a protective outpost.
By 1675, Susquehannock displaced by English settlers had taken over Kittamaqundi's agricultural fields and built a 180 foot long palisade wall. Virginia and Maryland militia led by Major Truman blamed the Susquehannock for killing settlers across the Potomac River in Stafford County, Virginia. Their killing of five Susquehannock chiefs who agreed to a peace parley, as well as the town's destruction, led to revenge killings across the Potomac in Virginia, precipitating Bacon's Rebellion.
Piscataway signed a treaty with William Penn in 1701. Many had settled near Conoy creek in Pennsylvania by 1718. In 1704, English settlers laid out the town of Piscataway, Maryland near or on the site of Kittamaqundi. A stained glass at Saint Ignatius Church in nearby Port Tobacco, Maryland depicts Kittamaquund's baptism.