Nacotchtank
The Nacotchtank, also Anacostine, were an Algonquian Indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands.
During the 17th century, the Nacotchtank resided within the present-day borders of Washington, D.C., along the intersection of the Potomac and Anacostia rivers.
The Nacotchtank spoke Piscataway, a variant of the Algonquian subfamily spoken by many tribes along the coast of the Atlantic Ocean. This was due to close association and tributary relationship with the nearby Piscataway chiefdom, whose tayac ruled over a loose confederacy of tribes in Southern Maryland from the village of Moyaone to the south.
As the neighboring Maryland colony sought land for tobacco plantations, the Nacotchtank were encroached upon and forcibly removed from their land. They were last recorded in the late 1600s to have taken refuge on nearby Theodore Roosevelt Island located in the Potomac River. Over time, the small population that was left behind after battle and disease was absorbed into the Piscataway.
In his 1608 expedition, English explorer John Smith noted the prosperity of the Nacotchtank and their great supply of various resources. Various pieces of art and other cultural artifacts, including hair combs, pendants, pottery, and dog bones, have been found in excavations throughout Washington, D.C., on Nacotchtank territory.
Name
The name Nacotchtank is derived from the word anaquashatanik, meaning "a town of traders"; this reflected how the Nacotchtank were a trading people established on fertile land on the nearby rivers.The process by which Nacotchtank was slowly changed to Anacostine was done by European colonists. During their colonization, English settlers frequently got rid of unfamiliar and unaccustomed sounds in the words from the local languages and replaced them with sounds that were easier to pronounce and to which they were more familiar. As a result, the English settlers that were interacting with the Nacotchtank would not pronounce the "-tchtank" and would replace it with the ending "-stine," which was easier to enunciate. Through transmission of the mispronounced Nacotchtank name amongst English settlers, the Nacotchtank name was slowly faded out and replaced with Nacostine.
Later on, the Jesuits from the Province of Maryland further latinized the term by attaching a prefix "A" to "Nacostine," creating the name Anacostine. Etymologically, keeping the "A" is indeed a closer derivation of the term "anaquashtank," but the Nacotchtank preferred to omit prefixes and suffixes from words. Any present cultural honoring of the Nacotchtank bears the legacy of the latinized version, Anacostine, as seen in the naming of the river which borders eastern D.C., the Anacostia River, or the neighborhood in southeast D.C., Anacostia.
Classification
The Nacotchtank fell under the larger influence of the Piscataway Chiefdom. The Nacotchtank were not necessarily under complete control of the Piscataway, but rather, the Nacotchtank closely allied with them as they were a much larger group of 7,000 members in comparison to the roughly 300 members of the Nacotchtank tribe. The Piscataway affiliation was intended for protection against the rival Powhatan Chiefdom of eastern Virginia.The Piscataway Chief, or tayac, held a loose confederacy over the Nacotchtank in addition to the other surrounding tribes. The rank of the tayac was supreme to that of the individual chiefs of the smaller tribes that belonged to the Piscataway Chiefdom. These lower-ranked chiefs were known as werences ''. The Nacotchtank werence would collect and pay tribute to the Piscataway tayac who resided in a village named Mayone in present-day Prince George's County of Maryland, 15 miles south of the Nacotchtank land base.
History
Precontact to 1608
The tribe's physical location, which had a mild, temperate climate in the mid-Atlantic, allowed the Nacotchtank to become a flourishing, self-sustainable community with an abundance in myriad natural resources. Being situated along the confluence of two major rivers, the Nacotchtank had a reliable supply of fish and the area soon became a well-known fishing ground. Additionally, the rivers were surrounded by a vast area of woodlands that were home to wild game such as bison, turkey, deer, and geese. The Nacotchtank were also accomplished in agricultural practices, as they would move inland from the rivers to occupy fertile and flat land and grow a variety of crop species, most of which belonged to the Three Sisters family—corn, beans, and squash.Since the Nacotchtank had abundant natural resources, and being located where two rivers met, they maintained an epicenter for a bustling trade network with neighboring tribes. One known intertribal network was with the Haudenosaunee of New York, with whom the Nacotchtank traded principally furs, always readily available given their extensive supply of wild game. The Nacotchtank eventually monopolized the fur trade.
Encounters with English settlers (1608-1650s)
The Nacotchtank were first recorded by Captain John Smith, who visited their palisaded village during his First Voyage in 1608, in which he explored the land surrounding the Jamestown settlement of the Colony of Virginia. Between June 16 and July 18 of 1608, Smith recorded in his journal, which has since been published as The Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles, his impressions of the indigenous peoples of the Potomac River. Specifically speaking of the Nacotchtank, Smith writes that they were a welcoming people who "did their best to content ." Smith also noted the presence of a river which made the area appear to be very pleasant. These initial encounters were peaceful and did not affect the Nacotchtank existence.In the year 1621, Captain Henry Fleet, age 20, took a party of approximately 26 settlers from Jamestown in an attempt to barter for corn from the Nacotchtank. The Nacotchtank were suspicious of the colonists, and a confrontation erupted into fighting. All of the colonists were killed except for Captain Fleet, who was captured. Held captive for 5 years, Fleet acquired the language and culture of the Nacotchtank. During his time, Fleet observed the trading village Tohoga in present-day Georgetown and noted it as being the center for the monopolized fur trade with the Iroquois.
In November 1622, the Nacotchtank faced their first death at the hand of colonial forces. This took place at the time of the Second Anglo-Powhatan War, a battle between English colonists and the Powhatan Confederacy. One tribe that the colonists closely allied with during this time was the Patawomeke. Though the Patawomeke were initially part of the Powhatan Confederacy, they were large enough that they could lose such affiliation and side with the colonists. The Patawomeke, an Algonquian-speaking people, were established across from the Nacotchtank along the Potomac River, within what are now Stafford and King George counties of Northern Virginia. Such proximity to one another resulted in long-standing hostility, with the Chief of the Patawomeke referring to the Nacotchtank as their "mortal enemies." As such, the Patawomeck chief not only allied with the colonists, but also helped them in avenging the death of Fleet's party, and in attaining corn by providing roughly 40-50 warriors to take part in a raid against the Nacotchtank. As a result of the raid, a mixed colonial and Patawomeke force killed 18 Nacotchtank people and drove the rest from their cabins before plundering and burning the village. Captain Fleet remained a captive of the Nacotchtank, but would escape in 1626.
In 1626, when Captain Fleet escaped, he left with a great sum of knowledge of the Nacotchtank way of life, and would use that information in partnering in trade with other tribes. Fleet began sailing up and down the East Coast, trading with various indigenous tribes and eventually taking over the monopoly on the fur trade that the Nacotchtank had long enjoyed. When the Jesuits arrived in Maryland in 1634, who wanted to adapt church teachings for the natives, Fleet assisted by translating the Algonquian language used by the Nacotchtank to English, under the guidance of Governor Leonard Calvert.
The rise of the Maryland tobacco industry & the resulting displacement (1650s-1697)
Beginning in the 1650s, the Province of Maryland experienced an economic boom with the great popularity and demand of one of its cash crops— tobacco. This large expansion necessitated vast areas of land that could be turned into tobacco plantations as the demand was exceedingly high. In 1663, Cecil Calvert, the second Lord of Baltimore, granted Thomas Dent an 850-acre tract of land named Gisborough on the Potomac River, which bordered the principal Nacotchtank village.The colony, in such close proximity to the Nacotchtank, now had the leverage to begin encroaching on Nacotchtank territory. Additionally, with the two groups now close to one another and in constant contact, the Europeans from Maryland introduced to the area a number of Eurasian infectious diseases to which the Nacotchtank had no immunity, such as measles, cholera, and smallpox. As a result, the Nacotchtank suffered a large population loss.
In 1668, the Nacotchtank tribe, depopulated from Eurasian diseases, collectively relocated to Anacostine Island, which has since been renamed to Theodore Roosevelt Island. Theodore Roosevelt Island is located directly across from Georgetown in the Potomac River, between what is now Washington, D.C., and Northern Virginia.