Wesorts

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Photograph of a 2012 Piscataway tribal recognition ceremony by the State of Maryland in Annapolis with Governor Martin O'Malley. Piscataway Indian Nation And The Piscataway Conoy Tribe Officially Recognized By Governor Martin O'Malley And State Of Maryland In Annapolis On January 9, 2012 II Flickr.jpg
Photograph of a 2012 Piscataway tribal recognition ceremony by the State of Maryland in Annapolis with Governor Martin O'Malley.

Wesorts (also We-Sorts) is a name for a mixed-race [1] group in Maryland who claim to be descended from the Piscataway people. [2] The term is regarded as derogatory [3] and a pejorative by some, and rarely used by the current younger generation.[ further explanation needed ] Historian Frank Sweet lists "Wesorts" as among a group of "derogatory epithets given by mainstream society, not self-labels". [4] "Wesort" was listed as a self-identified "Other race" on the 2000 United States census. [5] Many individuals with the surnames Proctor, Newman, Savoy, Queen, Butler, Thompson, Swann, Gray, and Harley comprise the group.[ citation needed ]

Contents

In the early 1930s, weekend-farmer Alice Ferguson noticed that people were finding small artifacts in her fields in Accokeek, Maryland and decided to do some digging around, according to newspaper reports. Between 1935 and 1939, she uncovered at least five mass-burial pits containing the 300-year-old remains of about 500 Piscataway people. Over the years, she gave most of the remains, the bones from about 467 individuals, to the Smithsonian Institution. She called the trust to come pick up what was left—the very partial remains of 36 individuals—said Hughes. The trust has determined that the remains are of Piscataway people. Alice and Henry Ferguson wrote and the Alice Ferguson Foundation published The Piscataway Indians of Southern Maryland in 1960. State officials say that most of the about 25,000 Native Americans who live in Maryland are Piscataway. [6]

In literature

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." [7]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Hashaw, Tim (2006). Children of Perdition: Melungeons and the Struggle of Mixed America. Mercer University Press. p. 89. ISBN   9780881460742 . Retrieved 1 January 2026.
  2. ↑ Heinegg, Paul (2000). Free African Americans of Maryland and Delaware From the Colonial Period to 1810. Baltimore, MD: Genealogical Publishing Company. p. 5-6. ISBN   978-0-8063-5042-4 . Retrieved 2 January 2026.
  3. ↑ Sims, Leah C. (n.d.). "Unraveling a Deceptive Oral History: The Indian Ancestry Claims of Philip S. Proctor and His Descendants". Archived from the original on 7 June 2011. Retrieved 3 March 2011.
  4. ↑ Sweet, Frank (n.d.). "Melungeons, Redbones, and other U.S. Maroons (E3)". Archived from the original on 2011-05-11. Retrieved 3 March 2011.
  5. ↑ "2010 Census Redistricting Data (Public Law 94-171) Summary File" (PDF). United States Census Bureau. January 2011. Archived from the original (PDF) on 8 July 2011. Retrieved 22 February 2019.
  6. ↑ Silva, Amy T. (19 December 2000). "Indian Relics Languish in Museums as Maryland Tribes Fight for Recognition". Capital News Service. Archived from the original on 19 January 2014.
  7. ↑ Day, Anthony (27 September 2002). "A Story of Marginalized Colonists Not in History Books (review of The Wished For Country)". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on 20 August 2023. Retrieved 3 March 2011.
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