List of Maryland placenames of Native American origin

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The following list includes settlements, geographic features, and political subdivisions of Maryland whose names are derived from Native American languages.

Contents

Listings

Counties

Settlements

Bodies of water

  • Chesapeake Bay - named after the Chesapeake tribe of Virginia. "Chesapeake" is derived from the Algonquian word Chesepiooc referring to a village "at a big river." It is the seventh oldest surviving English place-name in the U.S., first applied as "Chesepiook" by explorers heading north from the Roanoke Colony into a Chesapeake tributary in 1585 or 1586. [18] In 2005, Algonquian linguist Blair Rudes "helped to dispel one of the area's most widely held beliefs: that 'Chesapeake' means something like 'Great Shellfish Bay.' It does not, Rudes said. The name might actually mean something like 'Great Water,' or it might have been just a village at the bay's mouth." [19]
  • Nassawango Creek - older variations on the same name include Nassanongo, Naseongo, Nassiongo, and Nassiungo meaning "[ground] between [the streams]"; [20] early English records have it as Askimenokonson Creek, after a Native settlement near its headwaters (askimenokonson roughly translated from the local Algonquian word meaning "stony place where they pick early [straw]berries"). [21]
  • Patapsco River - the name "Patapsco" is derived from pota-psk-ut, which translates to "backwater" or "tide covered with froth" in Algonquian dialect. [22]
  • Monocacy River - The name "Monocacy" comes from the Shawnee name for the river, Monnockkesey, which translates to "river with many bends." (However, another local tradition asserts that "Monocacy" means "well-fenced garden" in an Indian language.)

Other places

This is a list of Native American place names in the U.S. state of Maryland.

See also

Related Research Articles

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pocomoke River</span> River in & Virginia, United States

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Piscataway Indian Nation and Tayac Territory</span> State-recognized tribe in Maryland that claims descent from the historic Piscataway tribe

The Piscataway Indian Nation, also called Piscatawa, is a state-recognized tribe in Maryland that is descended from the historic Piscataway people. At the time of European encounter, the Piscataway was one of the most populous and powerful Native polities of the Chesapeake Bay region, with a territory on the north side of the Potomac River. By the early seventeenth century, the Piscataway had come to exercise hegemony over other Algonquian-speaking Native American groups on the north bank of the river. The Piscataway nation declined dramatically before the nineteenth century, under the influence of colonization, infectious disease, and intertribal and colonial warfare.

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The history of Native Americans in Baltimore and what is now Baltimore dates back at least 12,000 years. As of 2014, Baltimore is home to a small Native American population, centered in East Baltimore. The majority of Native Americans now living in Baltimore belong to the Lumbee, Piscataway, and Cherokee peoples. The Piscataway people live in Southern Maryland and are recognized by the state of Maryland. The Lumbee and Cherokee are Indigenous to North Carolina and neighboring states of the Southeastern United States. Many of the Lumbee and Cherokee migrated to Baltimore during the mid-20th century along with other migrants from the Southern United States, such as African-Americans and white Appalachians. The Lumbee are state recognized in North Carolina as the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina, but have no state recognition in Maryland. The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians in North Carolina are a federally recognized tribe. There are three state recognized tribes in Maryland; the Piscataway-Conoy Tribe of Maryland, the Piscataway Indian Nation and Tayac Territory, and the Accohannock Indian Tribe. Maryland has no federally recognized tribes.

The Matapeake were an Indigenous Algonquian people who lived on Kent Island, which they referred to as Monoponson in their language. The Matapeake, along with the Choptank, Lenape, and Nanticoke, were the four most prominent Algonquian tribes living in Maryland.

The Ozinie, also known as the Wicomiss, were a group of Native Americans living near modern-day Rock Hall, in Kent County, Maryland. They were hunter-gatherers and fished.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Indigenous peoples of Maryland</span>

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References

Citations

  1. "welhik". Lenape Talking Dictionary. Archived from the original on 2012-09-11. Retrieved 2011-12-14.
  2. Russell, Erret (1885). "Indian Geographical Names". The Magazine of Western History. 2 (1): 53–59. Retrieved 2011-12-14.
  3. Trumbull, J. Hammond (1870). The Composition of Indian Geographical Names. Hartford, Conn. pp. 13–14. Retrieved 2011-12-14.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  4. Maryland: A Colonial History. p. 22
  5. "Peco's Hydroelectric Station Marks 65th Anniversary -- 'A Symbol of Progress' in 1928 One of the World's Largest Power Projects".
  6. Scharf, John Thomas (1879). History of Maryland from the Earliest Period to the Present Day. Baltimore, MD: John B. Piet. pp.  137. matapeake.
  7. Runkle, Stephen A. Native American Waterbody and Place Names within the Susquehanna River Basin and Surrounding Subbasins Publication 229. Susquehanna River Basin Commission, September 2003.
  8. Quesada-Embid, Mercedes (2004), Five Hundred Years on Five Thousand Acres: Human Attitudes and Land Use at Nassawango Creek, Native Americans of the Delmarva Peninsula, Salisbury, MD: Edward H. Nab Research Center for Delmarva History and Culture, retrieved 2008-08-26
  9. "Ghosts of industrial heyday still haunt Baltimore's harbor, creeks". Chesapeake Bay Journal. Retrieved 2012-09-08.
  10. "The Pocomoke River". Pocomoke River Events. Pocomoke City. 2006. Retrieved 2006-12-26.[ dead link ]
  11. cf. Ojibwe: Baadimaag-ziibi, from biidimaw "bring something to somebody" Freelang Ojibwe Dictionary
  12. Legends of Loudoun: An account of the history and homes of a border county of Virginia's Northern Neck, Harrison Williams, p. 26.
  13. cf. Odawa: ikagookaanitoo-ziibi "river that is abundant with geese" Freelang Ojibwe Dictionary
  14. Bright (2004:469)
  15. Kohn, Diana (November 2008). "Takoma Park at 125" (PDF). Takoma Voice. pp. 14–15. Retrieved 2013-01-03.
  16. "tùkwsit". Lenape Talking Dictionary. Delaware Tribe of Indians Lenape Language Preservation Project. Archived from the original on February 3, 2015. Retrieved February 3, 2015.
  17. "Tuxedo". Online Etymology Dictionary . Retrieved 2012-09-25.
  18. Also shown as "Chisupioc" (by John Smith of Jamestown) and "Chisapeack", in Algonquian "Che" means "big" or "great", "sepi" means river, and the "oc" or "ok" ending indicated something (a village, in this case) "at" that feature. "Sepi" is also found in another placename of Algonquian origin, Mississippi. The name was soon transferred by the English from the big river at that site to the big bay. Stewart, George (1945). Names on the Land: A Historical Account of Place-Naming in the United States . New York: Random House. p.  23.
  19. Farenthold, David A. (2006-12-12). "A Dead Indian Language Is Brought Back to Life". The Washington Post. p. A1. Retrieved 2013-01-05.
  20. Runkle, Stephen A. Native American Waterbody and Place Names within the Susquehanna River Basin and Surrounding Subbasins Publication 229. Susquehanna River Basin Commission, September 2003.
  21. Quesada-Embid, Mercedes (2004), Five Hundred Years on Five Thousand Acres: Human Attitudes and Land Use at Nassawango Creek, Native Americans of the Delmarva Peninsula, Salisbury, MD: Edward H. Nab Research Center for Delmarva History and Culture, retrieved 2013-01-05
  22. "Ghosts of industrial heyday still haunt Baltimore's harbor, creeks". Chesapeake Bay Journal. Retrieved 2013-01-05.

Sources