A Brief History concerning Prince George’s County, Maryland by Tammy Loxton Thomas Paone Amanda Rowley December 4, 2008 2 In 1608, Captain John Smith described the landscape of what would become Maryland thus, “All the Country is overgrown with trees.” This land looked like England: “And so it must have seemed to men who carried with then the recollection of England’s green and pleasant land, dotted with fields and pastures, laced with roads and pathways. Only here and there had the native Indians cleared patches for corn and vegetables and built their huts, or wigwams. These Indians proved friendly; when they shortly agreed to quit the area peaceably, leaving their fields and dwellings to the adventurers, Father [Andrew] White exclaimed, ‘The finger of God is in this.’” 1 The Founding of Maryland and Prince George's County Maryland is one of the original thirteen states on the Eastern Seaboard. “Its small size belies the great diversity of its landscapes and of the ways of life that they foster, from the low- lying and water-oriented Eastern Shore and Chesapeake Bay area.” 2 Maryland’s current size is 10,454 square miles and has an estimated population of 5,618,344 people. Much has changed from 1634 when the first permanent settle was established, but diversity in landscape and inhabitants still exists. Prince George’s County, Maryland was founded in 1696. It is located in south-central Maryland on the Potomac River, close to the District of Columbia. It was named for Prince George of Demark, husband to Princess Anne, heir to the English throne. 3 The County’s current size is 486 square miles and has a population of about 774,000 people, being the second most populace county in Maryland.4 1 Aubrey C. Land, Colonial Maryland: A History (Millwood, N.Y: KTO Press, 1981), 10. 2 Encyclopædia Britannica online, s.v. " Maryland." http://search.eb.com/eb/article-9111236 (accessed November 28, 2008). 3 Katharine D. Bryant and Donna L. Schneider, Prince George’s County, Maryland. Images of America (Charleston: Arcadia Publishing, 2000), 7. 4 Encyclopædia Britannica online, s.v. “ Prince George's County.” http://search.eb.com/eb/article-9001160 (accessed November 28, 2008). 3 The story of the founding of Maryland is heavily dependent on the history of the Calvert family. George Calvert was born in 1580 in Yorkshire, England. He graduated from Oxford in 1597 and after a “grand tour” entered government service. He served as a Secretary of State from 1619 to 1625 where upon his conversion to Catholicism, resigned his position and was given the title “Baron of Baltimore” by King James. 5 Due to his new religious persuasion, he could no longer hold public office and thus turned his attention to his investments in the New World including the “Colony and Plantation of Newfoundland” and the Virginia Company. 6 In 1622 he “obtained a patent from the Crown to the whole southeast coast of the island" of Newfoundland, but his attempt to establish a colony there was hindered by the “cold climate and rocky soil.” 7 He asked for a new grant in the Chesapeake area and amid conflict with the Virginia settlers, King Charles I granted the charter in 1632 to establish a “new English colony in honor of Queen Henrietta Maria.” 8 George Calvert died two months before the charter was finalized, so it went to his son and heir, Cecil Calvert, Second Lord Baltimore. Cecil became the Lord Proprietor of Maryland, sole owner of the 6,769,290 acres by this royal patent. 9 Proprietary control stayed in the Calvert family until 1689 when a “rebellion by Protestants overthrew the proprietary officers, leading to an interval of crown rule in the royal colony of Maryland (1692–1715). During that period the Church of England was formally established. In 1715 Maryland once again became a proprietary colony of the Calverts, who had converted to Protestantism.” 10 5 Robert J. Brugger and Maryland Historical Society, Maryland: A Middle Temperament, 1634-1980, Robert G. Merrick ed. (Baltimore, Md: Johns Hopkins University Press in association with the Maryland Historical Society, 1988), 4. 6 Land, Colonial Maryland , 4. 7 Brugger, Maryland, 4. 8 Brugger, Maryland, 5. 9 Land, Colonial Maryland , 6, 8. 10 Encyclopædia Britannica online, s.v. “Maryland.” http://search.eb.com/eb/article-9111236 (accessed November 28, 2008). 4 Maryland is also a story of religious refuge, tolerance and conflict. Upon George Calvert's conversion to Catholicism in 1625, he refused to take the Oath of Supremacy, the recognition of the “ultimate authority of the king in English ecclesiastical affairs.” 11 His son, Cecil, followed in his father’s footsteps in his religious preference and wanted the settlement of Maryland to be a “climate of religious and political orthodoxy.” England was in much turmoil with the reign of King Charles I and because of this “Puritans and Catholics suffered for failing to conform to the Church of England.” 12 Maryland would be different from Virginia in that it would provide religious asylum. 13 Jesuit missionaries were on the first ships for the Maryland settlement. These missionaries taught the Piscataway nation and baptized their chief, Kittamaquund in 1640. 14 Many religious differences and transitions have existed in Maryland’s history. Its religious culture is varied and strong and continues to be part of its history. Native American Presence in Prince George's County The first settlers to Maryland did not experience the hardships of Jamestown for many lessons had been learned, one being that the colonists and the Indians of the area needed to be on friendly terms. They found this accommodation in the Piscataway tribe: “For twenty years after the Maryland settlers landed they successfully befriended the closest Indian tribes by promising them protection from the Susquenhannocks, who for their part acted as a buffer against their aggressive Iroquois enemies farther north. Both whites and Indians had later examples of the other’s treachery. Even so, good fortune promised to fulfill [Lord] Baltimore’s hope for peace with the Maryland Indians.” 15 There were alliances between several of the native tribes in the area; the Piscataways were “in charge of a loosely knit smattering of tribes that included the 11 Brugger, Maryland, 4. 12 Brugger, Maryland, 5. 13 Brugger, Maryland, 7. 14 Brugger, Maryland, 18 and Land, Colonial Maryland, 41. 5 Anacostan, Mattawoman, Nanjemony, and Portobaco.” 16 The location of where the Piscataway tribe lived from the fourteenth to the seventeenth century is today’s Prince George’s County. 17 John Smith traveled in the region in 1608 and most likely would have come in contact with the Piscataway tribe. There was strife and small warfare between tribes in the area and trading and additional settlement went on between the Indians and the colonists. Historian James Merrell wrote of the integration of the Piscataways: “The history of the Piscataway Indians of Maryland, one tribe that accepted the authority of the English, demonstrates that it was possible for Indians to follow successfully a path that lay between total war and complete capitulation. Heirs to a cultural tradition characterized by stability and stubborn resistance to outside influences, and accustomed to dealing with incursions by other peoples, the Piscataways used their geographic distance from English settlements and the colonists' need for Indian allies and Indian corn to preserve their way of life after the English arrived.” 18 However, the alliance between the Piscataways and the colonists did not always prove beneficial to the Native Americans. Their tolerance of the white man was taken advantage of as the colonists would settle closer and closer to their land. Little was done to protect their land from the encroachment: “The Indian had no notion of private property in land, and, particularly when compensated by a little in the way of trade goods, offered no immediate opposition to white occupation.” 19 This issue was first addressed in 1662 with the creation of a reservation through a land grant to William Calvert and the establishment of Calvert Manor. Some additional measures, including preservation of the Accokeek Creek area, were taken to preserve the hunting 15 Brugger, Maryland, 10. 16 Bryant, 88. 17 Robert L. Stephenson, The Prehistoric People of Accokeek Creek (Accokeek, Md: Alice Ferguson Foundation, 1959), 2. Hereafter cited as Prehistoric People . 18 James H. Merrell, “Cultural Continuity among the Piscataway Indians of Colonial Maryland,” The William and Mary Quarterly 36, no. 4. Third Series (October, 1979): 549. 6 and fishing lands and waterways, but as time went on “the settlers had occupied all the fertile land along the river, forcing the Indians to leave their towns and plantations.” 20 Fighting between tribes and the colonists happened periodically from 1642 to 1685 leading to the destruction of the Susquenhannocks in 1676 and the removal of the Piscataways in 1699 to Virginia. By 1711, the Piscataways no longer existed as a separate tribal community. 21 As a result of this early Native American settlement, the Accokeek Creek site has proven to be a rich and valuable archeological site. Purchased in 1923 by Mrs. Alice L.L. Ferguson, the Accokeek Creek Site “is one of the most important sources of information on the prehistory of the Middle Atlantic Seaboard area.” 22 This site not only documents the presence of the Piscataway tribe, it also gives clues concerning prior occupants. The archeologists and volunteers thought to use stratigraphy to distinguish between the different eras and peoples, but this was not possible because the remains were not preserved in layers, being mixed due to the shallow ground and years of cultivation.