ASSATEAGUE
INDIANS
The
early Assateague Indians were friendly but as the European
settlers
came and began to grab up the hunting lands it was not long
before
they changed.
There
was Colonel Edward Scarburg, one of the first Indian fighters,
who
desired to rid the Maryland and Virginia areas of all Indians,
legally
or
illegally , and he had an unfair ad vindictive policy regards
them.
When
authorities refused to aid his cause he formed a mission of 300
footmen
and 60 horsemen to make his attack. The mission was known
as
the “Seaside War of 1659” and he found the Assateague's were
harder
to
find than to conquer.
A
1662 treaty between Maryland and the Assateague's and Nanticoke's
held
that a garment of a rough heavy cloth , called a matchcoat,
six
by
number, be given the Indian emperor for taking Indian lands and
one
matchcoat for every runaway slave they returned. There were to be no
killings
by either side and the Englishmen had to have a pass to enter
Indian
lands. It also forbid the Indians to trade with the Dutch to the
north
of them.
The
treaty did not prevent Scarburg's plans to exterminate them, nor
did
it
protect them from the roving bands of Indians that came from the
north.
Before
1700 more treaty's were made, one ordered the Assateague's onto
five
reservations set on the shores of the Pocomoke River which was
agreed
upon by AMOUNUGUS, Emperor of the Assateague's . It appears
the
the Assateague chief held the dominant position over the
Chincoteague
tribe
king and the kings of the Pocomoke River tribes.
During
this time the settlers let their cattle free range which caused
damage
to
the Indian's cornfields, destroyed the Indians fur traps, cut their
timber,
and
took land without authority. In 1686 the Assateague's made
complaints
that the English had encroached their lands and built homes in
the
Indian villages and one Englishman, Edward Hammond, had
stolen
“Roanoke',
(Indian money), plus skins from graves and asked for help to
recover
the 'offerings to the dead'.
1722
a treaty, to last ' to the worlds end ' between the King of
the
Assateagues,
KNOSUM, aka M. Walker, and WASSOUNGE, aka Daniel,
the
Maryland governor, Charles Calvert, said hostilities and damages
will
end,
Indian's who killed Englishmen be made prisoner of the Maryland
Governor,
Indians could not come to an English plantation with painted face
and
had to 'lay down arms' and that an Englishman who kills an Indian
who
has
do so, is to die. Crabbing, fowling, hunting and fishing is to be
granted to each Indian, Indian's that break English laws will be
punished same as
the
Englishman. Slaves and servants who seek asylum with the Indians
are
to
be returned. Indians were not to make peace with the
Maryland
Governors
enemy’s and strange and foreign Indians were to be reported.
For
the Maryland Governors protection of the Assateague's they were to
on
the
10th day of October, deliver two bows and a dozen arrows
to the Lord
of
Baltimore. The last treaty, made in 1742, was signed by BASTOBELL,
JOHN
WITTONGUIS, JEREMY PEAKE, and ROKAHAUM, the chiefs
of
the Assateague's and Potomokes.
The
year 1678, these once powerful Indian tribes , began to gather and
live
in
an Indian town named Askiminokonson which was near present day
Snow
Hill. 1742 every Indian of the Eastern Shore disappeared into the\
marshes,
a number of chiefs had made a plan to have a general uprising,
to
be led by MESSOWAN, a Shawnee chief. The Maryland government
dissolved
the empire and took control which caused the tribes to leave to
go
to the Susquehana and become part of the Iroquois that later moved
north
to Canada.
Those
of the Eastern Shore Indians that stayed lived on the Choptank
Reservation
and in the Indian River area of Delaware.
Abstract:
Eastern Shore Guide, by Sue Hurley, The Ocean City Museum
website
and Assateague by Dr. Wroten. Eastern Shore Guide, a
division
of Candlelight Web , LLC.
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