MSASCse&H-((f ^RCHI^IilS OF M^RYL^ND Edited by J. HALI. PLEASANTS, M. D. Published by authority oi the State VOLUME LI Proceedings of the Court of Chancery of Maryland, 1669-1679. (Court Series 5) The fifty-first volume of the Maryland Archives, the fifth of the Court Series, is one of the outstanding issues of this distinguished series. Aside from the inherent interest of the body of the text itself, the letter of transmittal which serves as a preface to the work, contains a comprehensive summary of the matter and is in effect an important historical paper in itself. This is followed by an " Introduction to the Legal Procedure" contributed by the Honorable Carroll T. Bond, Chief Judge of the Maryland Court of Appeals; and this in turn is followed by a scholarly monograph " The First Century of the Court of Chancery" an illuminating discussion of the history and growth of the Chancery procedure of this State. In the preparation of the legal section of the index, the Editor has had the collaboration of Herbert T. Tiffany, Esq. the Reporter of the Court of Appeals, so that the volume is of the greatest interest and value to the legal profession, as well as to the lay reader. Volume fifty-one is an honor to the Society, to the editor, and to his distinguished collaborators. THE MARYLAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY INCORPORATED 1843. H. IBVINE KETSEB MEMOHIAL BUILDING, 201 W. MONUMENT STBEBT, BALTIMOBE. OFFICERS. President, CLINTON L. RI6GS, Vice-Presidents GEORGE L. EADCLIFFE, J. HALL PLEASANTS. RICHARD M. DUVALL. Corresponding Secretary, Recording Secretary, J. ALEXIS SHRIVER. JAMES E. HANCOCK. Treasurer, HEYWARD E. BOYCE. THE COUNCIL. THE GENERAL OFFICERS AND REPRESENTATIVES OF STANDING COMMITTEES: G. CORNER EENHAGEN, Representing the Trustees of the Athenaeum. J. HALL PLEASANTS, " Committee on Publication. HENRY J. BERKLEY, M. D., " Committee on the Library. WILLIAM INGLE, " Committee on Finance. DANIEL R. RANDALL, " Committee on Membership. LAURENCE H. FOWLER, " Committee on the Gallery. KENT ROBERTS GREENFIELD, " Committee on Addresses. WILLIAM B. MARYE, " Committee on Genealogy. CONTENTS. PAGE PISCATTAWAT. By William B. Marye, 183 ADMIRAL VEENON, HIS MAETLANDEBS AND HIS MEDALS. By Leander McCormick-Goodhart, 240 THE DAILY JOURNAL OF ROBERT MILLS. BALTIMORE, 1816. Edited hy Richard Xavier Evans, M. A., 257 LAND RECORDS OF BALTIMORE COUNTY. Contributed hy Louis Dow Scisco, 271 NOTES AND QUERIES, 277 SPECIAL EXHIBIT, 279 Gommittee on Publications SAMUEL K. DENNIS, Chairman JOHN M. VINCENT, J. HALL PLEASANTS. LOUIS H. DIELMAN, Editor. MARYLAND HISTORICAL MAGAZINE VOL. XXX. SEPTEMBER, 1935. No. 3. PISCATTAWAY. By WILLIAM B. MAETE. PART ONE: The Piscattaivay People. The Piscattaway Indians (Pascattaways, Pascaticons, etc.) were a people of Algonquian stock who, at the time of the found- ing of Maryland (1634) and for some years later, lived on the banks of a creek of Potomac Piver, which still bears their name, and on the river itself near the mouth of that creek. Their chief was called by them the " tayac " (Narratives of Early Maryland, p. 131). To the English he was always known as the " emperor." This grandiose title was not due to a complete failure on the part of the English invaders of his country to appreciate the true rank of the " tayac " from a worldly point of view. Rather it resulted from the custom of styling as " kings " all of the ordinary Indian chieftains. Starting with this somewhat grandiloquent title, our antecedents had to find some word to designate an Indian chief who ruled over " kings," and " emperor " was the only word which seemed to fit the sub- ject. Having begun with an exaggeration, they ended in an absurdity. Nevertheless, the rank and influence of this Indian " emperor " had sufficient prestige to promote a certain delusion of grandeur in Giles Brent, so that he would talk of the " crowne and scepter of Pascattaway " (Maryland Archives, Volume XV, folio 124), an idea which appears only the more strange when it is recalled that the Indians themselves had no conception of 183 184 MARYLAND HISTORICAL MAGAZINE. the meaning of a crown and used no object which in any way corresponded with it. The ruling powers of the Province of Maryland acknowledged the station and authority of three Indian " emperors." The emperor of Piscattaway was the only one of them who lived and held sway on the Western Shore. The other two, the Emperor of Nanticoke and the Emperor of Assateague, lived on the East- ern Shore. The power of these native potentates did not always by any means extend to all of the Indian peoples of the colony. 'New peoples were occasionally added to the list of their subjects, but the numbers of the whole diminished rapidly. In 1639 the domain of the tayac, or emperor of Piscattaway, was said to extend a distance of one hundred and thirty miles (see " Annual Letters of the Jesuits " in Narratives of Early Marylandj p. 125). This meant, of course, the length of the territory measured from east to west and it must have been an estimate of the distance as measured along the Maryland shore of the Potomac River, and not in a straight line. It is dubious if at this time the emperor's influence extended so far as to include Anacostia. Captain Henry Fleete, writing in 1632, has informed us that the emperor of Piscattaway had little use for the " JSTacostines," that is, the Anacostans, but feared to vent his spleen upon them because they enjoyed the protection of the " Massomacks," " or Cannyda Indians," that is to say, of the Five Nations (" The Journal of Henry Fleete " in Neill's Founders of Maryland, p. 25). At this juncture it is neces- sary to call attention to an error in an otherwise excellent work, Landmarks of Old Prince William, by Fairfax Harrison. Mr. Harrison doubts if there was any real difference between the Piscattaways and the Anacostans, but cites the passage in Fleete's journal as evidence of an enmity which existed between the last named people and Powhatan (Landmarks of Old Prince William, Vol. 1, p. 19). It is clear from the context, however, that the " emperor," to whom Fleete refers, was not Powhatan, but the Emperor of Piscattaway. For one thing, his home, the town in which he lived, was on Potomac River. This fact leaves PISCATTAWAY. 185 no doubt as to his identity, if any existed. Some time after the founding of Maryland the Piscattaways " buried the hatchet" so far as concerned the Anacostans, and those of that people who remained in Maryland and had not gone to join their Iroquois protectors in the north, were incorporated with them. The Maryland Archives furnish us with the names, as of 1666 and 1668, of the various Indian peoples who acknowledged the suzerainty of the Emperor of Piscattaway (Maryland Archives, Vol. II, p. 25; Vol. V, p. 34). Among these names we find notably those of the Mattawomans, the Chopticos, the Porto- baccos, the Nanjemoys and the Anacostans. The Pamunkeys are conspicuously lacking, but of this there seems to me to be a simple explanation, which is that they were included in the list as Piscattaways proper. In that well known passage in the Maryland Archives, dated December 20th, 1660, wherein their manner of chosing their tayacs or emperors is elucidated for the benefit of Governor Philip Calvert, the Piscattaways make very considerable claims not only for the antiquity of their league, but also for its former physical extent (Maryland Archives, Vol. Ill, pp. 402- 403). The author of the article on the Piscattaways or Conoys in the HandhooTc of American Indians interprets this passage to mean that, perhaps, the league was founded about the begin- ning of the sixteenth century (Handhooh of American Indians, Vol. 1, p. 339, Bulletin 30, Bureau of American Ethnology). At all events, if the Piscattaways spoke in good faith on this occasion, and they had no particular reason to do otherwise, their league antedated the founding of Maryland by a great many years. Their claim, that their emperor formerly had power over the Susquehannocks was, of course, a trivial boast. Not so, however, their mention of the Potomacs as his former subjects. These last were, perhaps, the principal people of the south shore of Potomac River. In early historical times they appear to have been brought within the Powhatan confederacy (Handhooh of American Indians, Vol. 2, p. 294). This, so far as I have been able to ascertain, was not certainly ever true 186 MARYLAND HISTOEICAL MAGAZINE. of the Piscattaways and their confederates of the eastern bank of the river, although Harrison holds a contrary opinion {Land- marks of Old Prince William, Vol. 1, p. 19). Evidence in support of the Piscattaways' claim in regard to the Potomacs is found in a paragraph contained in a letter of the Governor and Council of Virginia to the Board of Trade, bearing date Janu- ary 30th, 1624: " Have also revenged the treachery of the Pascaticons and their associates, the greatest people of those parts, for cutting off Captain Spilman and Mr. Puntis' pinnace and murdering great numbers of their ancient allies, the Patowmacks " {Calen- dar of State Papers, Colonial, 1574-1660, p. 56). A somewhat earlier (1622) reference to the " Pazaticans " will be found in the works of Captain John Smith, where it is stated that they and the " Patawmek" were then " mortall enemies " {Works of Captain John Smith, Arbor Edition, p. 586). These, the above cited, are, so far as my experience goes, the earliest instances of the mention of the Piscattaway people by forms of the name under which they have since gone in history.