Research Guides: Indigenous Peoples of Land Now Known as Maryland: Home

Introduction

Maryland was home to several different Indian tribes when English settlers arrived in the seventeenth century. The Algonquian-speaking Indians of the Chesapeake Bay and coastal areas included the Nanticoke, Piscataway, Assateagues and Pocomoke Indians. Iroquois-speaking groups such as the Susquehannocks lived in the Piedmont and mountains.

Captain John Smith's voyages in the Chesapeake Bay in 1608 included visits to to what is now the Eastern Shore of Maryland. His journals and maps document the life of the native Americans living there.

Archival Materials and Rare Books

Pioneers of Maryland and the old French war : with an account of various interesting contemporaneous events which occurred in the early settlement of America by Joseph Banvard
Call Number: E188 .B24 1875

Publication Date: 1875

LOCATION: Hornbake Library Maryland Room Maryland Rare Stacks

Cresap/Bruce Family papers
Thomas Cresap (circa 1692-1790) was a Maryland pioneer, settler colonist, and frontiersman. He surveyed Maryland's western frontier for what is known today as the National Road and fought in the French and Indian War and the American Revolution. Records describe Cresap’s participation in the violent attacks of Indigenous people to forcibly overtake their lands. His son, Michael, led Cresap's Riflemen during the American Revolution and records describe
Michael Cresap’s murder of Shawnee and Mingo peoples. Later generations include the family names Bruce and Neff. In 1916, Cresap descendants formed the Cresap Society. The collection dates from 1860 to 1987 and consists mainly of correspondence of family members, their genealogical research, Cresap Society newsletters, and newspaper clippings highlighting Cresap history. Also included are Cresap family charts, documents, and photographs.

Reuben Gilder papers
The papers of Reuben Gilder consist of twenty-six letters written by Gilder to his former military comrade, Isaac Dutton Barnard, between 1815 and 1822. Subjects covered in the correspondence include: former military comrades, acquaintances, and experiences related to the War of 1812 in Canadian territory; military conflict with the Creek tribes of Native Americans; a variety of contemporaneous political matters and figures, including those in the local, national, and international arenas; and family, business, and health matters.

William Emory papers
William H. Emory (1811-1887) was born in Queen Anne's County, Maryland. After graduating from the U.S. Military Academy in 1831, Emory devoted most of his life to the U.S. Army. Upon retirement in 1876 he had attained the rank of brigadier general and had served in the Mexican-American War, the Civil War, and on what is historically known as the "Indian Frontier," land in south-central United States that the US government established after forcibly
removing Indigenous people in the east from their land. The documents in the collection consist of a letterbook, a biography drawn up shortly before retirement, and some loose correspondence with his wife, Matilda Wilkins Bache Emory. Several of his letters center around a period of transition in the early 1860s when Emory was serving in Indian Territory but preparing for removal to the East for service with the Union forces against the Confederacy.

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Indigenous Peoples of Land Now Known as Maryland

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Native Americans in Maryland

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Introduction

Archival Materials and Rare Books