Chesapeake by James Michener

Author:James Michener [Michener, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2010-06-29T22:00:00+00:00

Devon Island, Mlnd.

13 July 1803

Dear Mr. President,

Immediately upon receipt of your request that I send you a report on the Choptank tribe I assembled an impromptu commission consisting of the best informed citizens of this area to inquire into the matters you raised. None of us is an expert, and none speaks the Indian language, but we and our forebears have lived with this tribe for generations, so although our information is not scientifically precise, it is the best available. With that apologia I proceed.

At this date we know of only one Choptank Indian surviving on this planet. She is Mrs. Molly Muskrat, aged 85 or thereabouts, infirm of body but tantalizingly clear of mind. She lives on 16 acres of moderately good land on the left bank of the Choptank River across from our capital city of Patamoke. She is, so far as we can ascertain, a full-blooded Choptank, the daughter of a well known workman in these parts and the descendant of chiefly families. She has most of her teeth, a remarkably full head of hair, and a lively interest in things. She was delighted to talk with us, for she is aware that she is the last of her people. Her age is of course uncertain, but events which she saw personally occurred about 80 years ago, so we are not hesitant to give her age as about 85.

Legend puts the apex of Choptank society in the first decade of the 17th Century, when the tribe numbered some 260 souls, 140 living in a village on the site of the present-day Patamoke, and 120 farther upriver close to where Denton now stands. They were inferior in number, power and importance to the southerly Nanticokes, and sharply so to the tribes on the western shore of the bay.

A persistent tradition among the Choptanks claimed that the great man in their history was one Pentaquod, a mythical figure supposed to have reached them from the north. Mrs. Muskrat believes him to have been a Susquehannock, but this seems unlikely, for Captain Smith encountered a real werowance named Pintakood, and doubtless she has the two names confused.

They were a peaceful tribe and never warred against the whites. Indeed, the highlight of their tribal history came in 1698 when the Maryland government accused them of having killed a white farmer in an argument over a cow. Although it was later proved without question that the affray had involved Nanticokes, not Choptanks, a tribal council was held and the werowance of that day told his people, “It is obligatory that someone offer himself as the perpetrator of this crime and allow himself to be hanged, so that the rest of us can have peace.” Two young men stepped forward, got in their canoes, paddled down river and surrendered themselves voluntarily to be hanged.

They adjusted poorly to civilization. Originally possessing some of the finest land in Maryland, they were constantly pushed back until our ancestors had to confine them in pitiful enclaves, where they lingered.

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