Venturing Out After the "Great Baltimore Blizzard of 2009!"

(Source is the National Archives collection of Native American images.)


This post is all about an appreciation for my University of Baltimore professor, Dr. Eric Singer, whose patience and understanding is allowing me to postpone my final blog entries for class until I've been able to recover from a "triple-whammy" that has prevented timely completion of my research project: Press of an out-of-state business trip -- both preparing for, participating in, and completing follow-up work for my bosses; the snowstorm and holiday hours that closed Maryland Historical Society Baldwin Library and prevented my final verification of some notes on Native American place names in the Baltimore area; and the apparently snowstorm-related continuing shut-down of my Intranet connection where the majority of my blog research notes are stored. But ... within a few days, "I will be back!" to post my research.

Meanwhile, happy holidays to you all -- and just imagine how the early Native Americans coped with severe weather, huddling in their furs and no doubt cuddling in their smokey but warm Eastern Woodland long houses while the snow drifted about them outside ... playing snow games such as the "snow snake" where players would launch a straight stick across an expanse of ice and see whose 'snake' would travel farthest ... (Image courtesy of youthnoise.com)



Enter "snowsnake" at this link to see a snowsnake in the collection of the North American Ethnographic Museum/American Natural History Museum. This is a list of tribes associated with this game, including Iroquois/Seneca/Ponca who likely passed through pre-Baltimore territories.


... and trekking and tracking on their invention of snowshoes. In the words of weloveoutdoors.com, "Snowshoes were first invented by the Native Americans, to help them walk in the deep snows of winter. From observing [likely] the snowshoe rabbit, the early North American inhabitants discovered that the larger the feet, the less one would sink in deep snow."




Algonkian snowshoes are said to be the most effective and comfortable of all the Native style snowshoes, according to a Canadian historical group website, csmid.com, where we can see how to tie snowshoes the Indian way:

Down to Brass Tacks & Copper Etchings

Outline of Pointer’s Quest Blog Series on
Native American Presence in Early Baltimore


Algonkian Palisade Village

Credit for all images in the 12/1/09 blog: The VirtualJamestown.org's outstanding collection of the John White watercolors made ca. 1585 from his New World voyage of that period, and the Theodorus De Bry copper plate engravings of 1590, which were based on the White watercolors and printed in Belgium for Thomas Hariot’s published account of the same journey. The Algonkian Indians portrayed were those inhabiting NC Outer Banks and nearby mainland, thought to be similar to the Algonkian Piscataways of our subject Maryland study area.

Today’s blog represents a departure from the ‘fun and games’ of my early research and postulations, and marks the beginning of the ‘serious stuff’; that is, it presents my proposed outline for more formal presentation of the topics, which I’ll begin to launch within a few days.

SCOPE OF 'VIRTUAL PAPER'

● Geographic: Baltimore area and Maryland Tidewater in Western Shore/Southern Maryland
● Temporal: Primarily 1600-1700; briefly, protohistorical period prior to First European Contact; briefly, 1700-1800
● Exclusion: Blog series specifically excludes examination of 19th Century – Present day American Indian presence in Baltimore area such as Lumbee culture and the “Baltimore American Indian Center”

TERMS AND DEFINITIONS

SOURCES AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS; REFERENCES FOR FURTHER STUDY; DISCLAIMERS

LIST OF SUPPORTING PICTURES, MAPS, TIMELINES, AND TABLES

A Weroance, or Nobleman-Tribal Chief

HYPOTHESIS STATEMENT

There are tantalizing and poignant similarities to our day in how alike the aboriginals were to us in their appreciation and use of the land; in the area as a stage for cultural and political strife and physical struggle; alike in the area’s serving as a crossroads of people moving into and on through; alike in the area’s being a border/line of demarcation between cultures. The blog series will examine these similarities.

HISTORICAL SUMMARY

As a context for the hypothesis, your blogger will summarize the predominant area aboriginals and their history in the Baltimore area and Maryland; their contact with Europeans [especially John Smith, Henry Fleet, and other early explorers and traders such as William Claiborne; the Calvert Proprietors and Governors, particularly Leonard Calvert, mid/late century “Cromwellians”; Father Andrew White, Jesuit missionaries; and the Maryland Colonists]; their internal aboriginal relations with each other; the outcome of the synthesis of pressures from Europeans and hostile aboriginals that resulted in an exodus of a major original group of aboriginals and the destruction through battle and disease of the others.

Fishing Scene

DISCUSSION TOPICS

Aboriginal Groups Who Had A Presence or Influence in Early Baltimore and Maryland

● Categories: Settlers-Neighbors/Raiders-Enemies/Traders-Transients
● Principal Resident Algonkian (Algonquin, Algonquian – all have various spellings)
o Piscataway-Conoy
o (A)Nacostan (Nakotchtank)
o Yaocomico
o Neighboring Eastern Shore Maryland Tidewater Nanticoke
o Others
● Raiding-Enemy Iroquois (Haudenosaunee)
o Susquehannock
o Massawomeke
o Seneca
o Others
● Enemy Algonkian Powhatan Federation (Virginia Western Shore Tidewater)
● Principal Trading-Transients [Algonkian, Iroquois, other]
o Shawnee
o Cherokee/Choctaw
o Delaware/Lenni Lanape
o Others
● Briefly, Other Ethnic/National Group Contact
o African
o Spaniard

Man and Woman Eating

Late Woodland Aboriginal Cultures [differentiating as appropriate between Algonkian and Iroquois]

● Artifact evidence: pottery, pipes, tools, weapons, masks, beads, ossuaries, post remains, shell middens
● Population counts
● Physical description of the people
● Inferred “personalities”
● Food production (hunting; agriculture including burning—explanation of the ‘Great Maryland Barrens’; seafood harvesting; raiding)
● Food consumption and diet
● Religious ceremonies and burials
● Dwellings and settlements (layout, construction materials, occupation types, site requirements)
● Dress
● Transportation
● Pets
● Commerce, trade
● Skills
● Governance (tayak, weroance)
● Marital and child-rearing customs
● Art, decoration
● Other customs

Charnal House
Sites of Occupation and Principal Travel Routes

Area Place Names of Aboriginal Origin

Nature and History of Interrelationships of Aboriginals with Each Other and with Europeans

● “Bought land”
● Villages and Reservations
● Protection/Alliances
● “Hired guns” – “Rangers”
● Betrayals
● Warfare
● Predator Pigs
● Legal, political
● Commerce
● Religious
● “Match Coats”

Ceremonial Dancing

SUMMARY COMPARISON OF ABORIGINALS AT 1600 AND AT 1700

● Population
● Health
● Customs
● Territory
● Summary of Results-Aftermath of a century of contact and interaction
● Briefly: Where are they now?

RECAPITULATION OF HYPOTHESIS

REVIEW OF BLOGGER'S RESEARCH AND POSTING EXPERIENCE

● Successes/Take-aways
● Disappointments/Dead-ends
● Lessons Learned/Recommendations

(This draft outline and implied future blog topics are subject to minor change and updating — Newbie_Pointer)