The Good:
Getting to attend the Maryland Historial Society's last Thursday night (10/22/09) book signing and excellent author's lecture, by Don Shomette, UB's own "Father of Marine Archeology in Maryland," on his new book "Flotilla" - Story of Joshua Barney's War of 1812 Chesapeake Flotillamen [published by the Johns Hopkins University Press and Mr. Shomette's latest in a line of fascinating local history books], bottled up in St. Leonard's Creek, couldn't save the Capitol from burning but eventually the battered flotillaman went on to man the guns that gave us "Star-spangled Banner" -- and saved Ft. McHenry and Baltimore.
Connection with my Native American search?
Right there outside the Society lecture hall are dioramas that depict encounters between early Native Americans and Colonists with textual display to the effect that "at first the relations were friendly" and showing the "American Indians" as bearing trays of bounty on their heads as they march up to the Englishmen! Have to say I'm not at all sure this was really so and suspect it's borrowed from the Massachusetts Bay Colony (Thanksgiving) legend, mostly because I've been able to find so little actual evidence -- so far -- of what, where, and when the first encounters in the Maryland colony took place and most especially the true nature of the meetings. But -- at least MdHS must believe it has such evidence -- and now it's just up to me to find it there! But the frustration of the week-end was that I ended up being distracted all day Saturday on a jaunt to the far reaches of Silver Spring, egads, to buy a new car and never made it back to the beautiful stacks at the MdHS Library and the nice pile of material I hope Mr. Francis O'Neill has kept for me in "my" cart??.
The Bad
Oh Enoch! wherefor art thou records of Native Americans in early Baltimore??!! A diligent online search of the collections at Enoch Pratt -- and references to what may be available in hard-copy, was, frankly, fruitless. "Native Americans," and "American Indians," and the like only brought up grade-school level entries in two desultory and very minor collections that echoed stereotypes from our early childhood notions of "Indians." If only H.L. Mencken had been interested in more than a cigar store "Chief," I might have gotten something bold and ground breaking.
But at least my temporary tangential look online at the six Lords Baltimore, resplendant in their oil portraits, unearthed a clue, actually I feel it's going to prove to be an important clue: In the description of the contributions of "Cecil" (speaking now of Cecilius Calvert, 2nd Lord Baltimore, and until I learn more, the only solid fellow of the bunch), I read where this Baltimore baron was esteemed in that, "Thanks to the good counsel which Cecil gave his young brother, Governor Leonard Calvert ...the Governor's firm dealings with the Indians bore fruit in securing comparative harmony, in marked contrast with the experiences of settlers in Virginia and New England." SO!!! when I can track this reference down to parsable historical proof, then maybe that MdHS diorama was spot on after all, and we just might have a story here, folks!!
The Ugly
Leave it to the Curse of the Bureaucrat to find me, also a bureaucrat, online at the US Department of the Interior website, specifically under the Bureau of Indian Affairs, where one would like to think one could go to get intelligent information about American Indian tribes. Ho, no! It was an ugly story of one broken link after another until I gave up and retreated back to good old, reliable Google to bring up the most recent list of federally-recognized tribes as published in the Federal Register (8/11/2009) the hopes of finding modern links to tribal histories of interest to the quest here. But this line, too, led only to wasteland -- in all of the 560-some tribes, there is NONE in the State of Maryland; and no entries either for Piscataway or Algonquin.
Not wanting to leave my followers with a sense of gloom, I will say that I saw a notice for a meeting this coming Tuesday evening at the Baltimore American Indian Center, not far from my home, and I intend to make the meeting (reportedly open to the public) to work on the end-piece of my research and possibly uncover clues that can provide information about the early presence, although I think it unlikely but remain open to happy surprises.
