Indigenous peoples of Maryland

Today, individual Native Americans live throughout the state, including a sizable Lumbee population in Baltimore.

Many of these peoples assimilated into mainstream society or moved to the Great Lakes region or Oklahoma as part of widespread Indian removal efforts in the 19th century.

Paleo-Indians inhabited Maryland beginning in c. 10,000 BC as the Pleistocene ice sheet retreated,[1] having come from other areas of North America to hunt.

[2] Captain John Smith explored and mapped the Chesapeake Bay and its surrounding area from 1607 to 1609, interacting with several Native American groups along the way.

While in captivity, he learned and recorded a significant amount about the lifestyle, language, and politics of the local Native Americans.

[5] This was a largely peaceful interaction, with the two groups sharing the settlement until the Yaocomico left at the end of the growing season.

[6] Several treaties were signed between Maryland Colony and various local Native American peoples after 1650, including the Assateagues, Nanticokes, and Susquehannocks.

[9] The Nanticoke tribe relinquished their land in June 1768, with the General Assembly's records stating that "they are desirous of totally leaving this Province and going to live with their Brethren who have incorporated themselves with the Six Nations.

[8] In the mid-20th century, a community of about 7,000 Lumbee people from North Carolina moved to the Upper Fell's Point and Washington Hill neighborhoods in Baltimore.

[11] This increase, following a nationwide trend, is attributed for many factors, including Hispanic and Latino Americans increasingly identifying as Indigenous,[14] people with blood myths of Native identity now self-identifying as being Native (particularly Cherokee descent),[14] grassroots community documentation work and decolonization efforts aimed at removing a stigma surrounding Indigenous family history.

[11] Prior to European arrival and the subsequent removal of Indigenous people from the area, Native Americans occupied most of modern-day Maryland.

[15] The Choptank people lived in modern-day Talbot, Dorchester, and Caroline counties, including the town of Cambridge.

They were the only Indigenous group granted a reservation by the Maryland colony, which they lived on until the land was sold to developers by the government in 1822.

[citation needed] The Saponi band settled in Dorchester County, with both groups likely later assimilating into the local Nanticoke population.