Wesorts (also We-Sorts), also known as "Brandywine people" or "Brandywine deme",[3] is a name for a mixed-race[4] group in Maryland, some of whom claim to be descended from the Piscataway people.[5] The term is regarded as derogatory[6] and a pejorative[7][3][8] by some. Wesorts prefer being called Brandywine people, a name that references the Prince George's and Charles County line where the majority of the group have historically resided.[7][3] Historian Frank Sweet lists "Wesorts" as among a group of "derogatory epithets given by mainstream society, not self-labels".[9] "Wesort" was listed as a self-identified "Other race" on the 2000 United States census.[10] Many individuals with the surnames Proctor, Swann, Savoy, Newman, Harley, Butler and Thompson comprise the group, having descent from free Black progenitors.[3][5]
Modern genealogical analysis traces the Brandywine people as originating from free people of color, in this case freed slaves from Tidewater Virginia and the free offspring of slaves and white women.[5] From 1702 to 1720, all but one of the court convictions in Charles County for illegitimate children were from women with core Brandywine surnames.[11] In 1950, Brandywine people were recorded to attend both white and colored schools, and sat in the pews behind white people at church, while black people sat in the balcony. Some were noted to have migrated to Washington D.C. and Baltimore by this time.[2] Some of them made up the free African-American population working for the government, such as Edward Augustine Savoy, whose parents had both worked for Hamilton Fish before him.[12] In 1944, a ship was named after Savoy as part of a WW2 initiative to celebrate outstanding African-Americans.[13] In 1990, James E. Proctor Jr. of the Proctor family was elected as the delegate for District 27A, which represents the Brandywine area, and was a member of the Legislative Black Caucus of Maryland.[14][3] His wife Susie Proctor, also a Proctor, became the delegate for the same district after his death.[14][15][16]
State recognized tribes
Photograph of a 2012 Piscataway tribal recognition ceremony by the State of Maryland in Annapolis with Governor Martin O'Malley.
Between 1935 and 1939, a local farmer in Accokeek, Maryland named Alice Ferguson uncovered at least five mass-burial pits containing the 300-year-old remains of about 500 Piscataway people. Over the years, she gave the remains, the bones from about 467 individuals, to the Smithsonian Institution. In the year 2000, representatives of the Piscataway Conoy Provisional Tribal Council, a group made up of Brandywine people self-identifying as descending from the historical Piscataway people, informed local media that they had requested that the Smithsonian Institution repatriate the remains to their council but faced difficulty due to their unrecognized status. A representative of the Smithsonian's Repatriation Review Committee stated that while they try to interpret the National Museum of the American Indian Act of 1989 broadly, a law that favors federally recognized tribes, the Piscataway issue had not yet been addressed by the committee.[17] State officials stated in 2000 that "most of the about 25,000 American Indians who live in Maryland are Piscataway." They have split into three entities due to disagreements.[17]
Wayne Karlin's novel The Wished For Country (2002) represents the origins and struggles of the Wesorts as a multicultural people in the early days of Maryland's first European settlement at St. Mary's City. The Los Angeles Times reviewed The Wished-For Country as a contribution to the history of "the common people," calling the book "an attempt in novel form to bring to life the original Wesorts and their turbulent world."[18]
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