"The Susqehannock"
from the Captain John Smith Map of 1612

A Tragic Story of the Splendid Susquehannocks

By Erika Quesenbery
 Curator Paw Paw Museum Port Deposit, MD

 
            They are remembered by the names they left behind and the rapidly disintegrating mysterious petroglyphs they carved into scattered river rocks along the river that bears their name. They were here before Captain John Smith ever boarded a vessel bound for a New World or gathered together gentlemen adventurers to explore the Chesapeake and her tributaries where he would discover the fearsome warriors known as the Susquehannock and also as the Conestoga, north of the Mason and Dixon

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Petroglyphs above Port Deposit

            A clipping in the vertical files of the Paw Paw Museum entitled, as many are, A Brief History of Port Deposit, gives perfunctory mention of this once great tribe and Captain’s Smith meeting them. “Captain Smith encountered a war-like tribe of Indians known at the Susquehannocks,” John Lord wrote. “According to Captain Smith, these Indians seemed like giants to the English settlers,” he noted. Lord determined that Smith’s impression of giant Indians wasn’t necessarily far off, in that above average sized skeletal remains were located centuries later when excavations were made to erect dams on the Susquehanna River and harvest her power.

Captain John Smith circa 1615

            Captain John Smith, of Jamestown, Va., fame, explored the Chesapeake Bay in 1608 and 1609, generating the first written descriptions of the area as well as a fairly detailed map. The map, and obligatory text, were published in 1612, with Smith giving great detail of the lay of the land and of the giant Susquehannock. “Sixty of those Sasquesahannocks came to the discoverers with skins, bows, arrows, targets, beads, swords, and tobacco pipes for presents,” Smith wrote. “Such great and well proportioned men, are seldom seen for they seemed like giants to the English, yea and to the neighbors, yet seemed of an honest and simple disposition.” He said their language matched their size, “sounding from them as it [if] it were a great voice in a vault, or cave as an Echo.”

Smith Map of 1612

            Smith described the Susquehannock as being clothed in the skins of bears and wolves adding, “some have cassocks made of bears heads and skins that a man’s neck goes through the skin’s neck and the ears of the bear fastened to his shoulder behind, the nose and teeth hanging down his breast and at the end of the nose hung a bear’s paw. One had the head of a wolf hanging in a chain for a jewel, his tobacco pipe three quarters of a yard long, prettily carved with a bird, a bear, a deer or some devise at the great end, sufficient to beat out the brains of a man, with bows, arrows and clubs suitable to their greatness and conditions.”

            The period of 1600-1650, known as the Contact Period, owes a debt to Captain John Smith and his descriptive writing, even he did over-glorify himself on occasion. Were it not for the good Captain’s chronicling we may have never known that 600 “able and mighty” Susquehannock men had a pallisaded town near present-day Port Deposit for defense against their mortal enemies, the Masawomeks. The Susquehannock’s chiefs were known as “Werowances,” five of whom boarded Smith’s vessel to cross the bay. The greatest of them, Smith defined although whether “greatest” means largest or most politically powerful is a matter of interpretation, is the Susquehannock drawn as an illustration on his 1612 map of the area. Likely by greatest he meant size, for  he went on to state that this Werowance’s leg measured three quarters of a yard about the calf and that “all the rest of his limbs” were “so answerable to that proportion that he seemed the goodliest man that ever we beheld.”

            According to History Matters! A literary project and study of the Lower Susquehanna Heritage Greenway by the Maryland Humanities Council, Captain Smith’s description of a massive Susquehannock is not entirely fanciful. Many of these Native Americans did exceed six-feet, making them much taller than the average Englishman of that day.

            This Werowance wore his hair long on one side while the other side was shaved close with a ridge over the crown that Smith described as a cock’s comb. Smith also described the man’s arrows as being headed with flints or splinters of stone in form like a heart, an inch broad and an inch and half or more long. The arrows were in a wolf skin quiver on his back with his bow in one hand and a stout club in the other.

            The Susquehannocks traveled the river that bears a derivation of their name and followed its length as prime hunting and fishing grounds, which they defended fiercely. Dated to about 1500 AD in Bradford County, Pa., by 1575 the Susquehannock had moved south to the area of Lancaster County, Pa., where they had palisade wall towns. They lived in longhouses covered in bark and clustered with the protected defensive walls of their settlements. About 75 years after their move down river, the Susquehannocks reached the peak of power and size, numbering some 3,000 strong in 1650.

            The Susquehannock are often called fierce and mighty warriors or a mighty tribe or war-like, and it is true they were. They were also adept hunters and very politically savvy. In addition, they were not averse to political negotiations and treaties. This latter attribute was capitalized upon by one William Claiborne of Virginia, who negotiated with a Susquehannock Chief in the spring of 1637 and walked away with an island. According to John Fullwood, Claiborne’s interpreter, the Susquehannock King “did give to the said Claiborne,” Palmer’s Island, which was later known as Watson’s Island, and is today called Garrett Island, in the Susquehanna River. Before handing over island the King even made some improvements, having his people clear some of the land to ease Claiborne’s effort to plant corn that year. Claiborne’s servants did plant corn and built houses and the obligatory fort for protection against those who had given them the Island.

            A fishing and hunting culture, they roamed and at time virtually ruled the land along the Susquehanna River from New York to Maryland. They also planted along their way in their 20 or so village, harvesting such vital crops as maize, beans and squash. They were quite fond of shellfish gathered from the Chesapeake Bay as well.

            Though we may picture a fairly peaceful tribe planting in spring, traveling south to fish during summer and returning to villages in fall to harvest crops, one must remember that the Susquehannock were extremely mobile courtesy canoes and the Susquehanna River. They utilized this river-borne transportation to attack their enemies numbered among the Iroquois, Delaware, Nanticoke, Conoy and even Powhatan of northern Virginia, whom they attacked around 1610, at various times.

            Aside from harvesting, fishing, hunting, warring and making land treaties, the Susquehannocks traded. The Delaware tribe were the darlings of the Dutch but in the early 1600s the Susquehannocks attacked them moving them to the north. So the Dutch turned to the victors to gain their spoils and by 1638 the Delaware were subservient to the Susquehannock. The Susquehannock traded with the English and French as well as William Claiborne of the Virginia Colony who had a trading post on Kent Island as well as Cecil’s Garrett Island, then known as Palmer’s Island.

            Cyprian Thorowgood arrived in Maryland with the first colonists in 1634 and was a well-known landowner and trader, becoming Sheriff of St. Mary’s County in 1641. He visited the upper reaches of the bay and recorded his findings. Wrote he of the trade at Garrett Island, “By this island boats use to ride being in trade with the Susquehannokes. Here we found a boat of Claiborne’s in trade with the Indians, which had gotten 700 skins and 40 men laden with beaver were sent a little afore to the Dutch plantation, but so soon as they see us a coming Claiborne’s men persuaded the Indians to take part with them against us, if we did happily offer to take their boat, but the Indians refused saying the English had never harmed them, neither would they fight so near home, whereupon they weighed their anchor and went away and what skins the Indians had left they brought to us and went home to fetch what more they had at home, which made in all 230, this was on the second day of May.” [For more on Cyprian Thorowgood and other visitors to Cecil County read G.E. Gifford’s Cecil County As Seen by Some Visitors]

            Thomas Chalkley, a Quaker Minister, also visited the area in 1706 and his writings were reviewed in Gifford’s above referenced brilliant work. Chalkley, and over a dozen others, visited one of the Susquehannock villages and wrote down his impressions. He was most taken with the fact that while in Council, some of the revered Susquehannock women spoke publicly – apparently a very forward thinking tribe. “I asked our interpreter why they permitted the women to speak in their councils,” he wrote. “His answer was, ‘That some women are wiser than some men.” [Writer’s Note - A very forward thinking, and obviously intelligent tribe.]

 “Our interpreter told me that they had not done anything for many years without the counsel of an ancient grave woman, who I observed, spoke much in their council, for I was permitted to be present at it and I asked what it was the woman said. He told me she was an Empress and they gave much heed to what she said amongst them,” Chalkley wrote. Apparently the Empress told the tribe to listen to Chalkley and his companions and to entertain them kindly, which was in turn done.

             The good feelings of trade and economic prosperity wouldn’t last however, for by 1642 Maryland’s Governor declared the Susquehannocks enemies to the colony ordering any Susquehannock to be “shot on sight.” There were subsequent but failed peace attempts and scattered efforts to resume trade, but the trade finally ceased and the Susquehannocks acquiesced to ceding their land between the Choptank and Patuxent Rivers to Maryland in 1645.

            After reaching a peak of population in 1650 the Susquehannocks were weakened by continued wars with the Iroquois and smaller battles. Their lessened numbers and a battle with the Iroquois and Puritans in Virginia on two different fronts, prompted the Susquehannock to give away a goodly portion of land, the lower part of the Susquehanna River including land that is present-day Port Deposit, to Maryland in 1652. This treaty was signed to insure peace and trade with the English. Weakened by war and their hunting grounds considerably reduced in size, the Susquehannocks were yet to face their most devastating enemy, for which they had no defense in 1654 – Smallpox. This silent enemy would attack the Susquehannocks again, after another long period of war for the tribe, in 1661, with devastating results. The latter smallpox epidemic decimated their numbers.

            The tribe was repeatedly attacked by smallpox and repeatedly attacked other tribes, through subsequent Maryland treaties and renewed alliances. After an outbreak in 1677 the Susquehannocks were faced with the renewed vigor and strength of their enemies, the Iroquois, who had made peace with the French and native tribes, joined together now against the Susquehannocks. By 1669 there were but 300 warriors left of the once mighty tribe and they begged peace with the Iroquois.

            The beleaguered Iroquois were less than receptive to the request of their mortal enemies who attacked them repeatedly down through the years. When the Susquehannocks sent a peace ambassador to them, they summarily tortured and killed him. The battles continued until 1676 when the Susquehannocks surrendered and were finally treated with some degree of dignity, being made members of the Iroquois “Covenant Chain.”

            By 1706 the Iroquois allowed 300 Susquehannocks to return to the Susquehanna River valley in Pennsylvania, their old stomping ground if you will. These Susquehannock became the Conestoga and many were converted by Quakers, forming a peaceful Christian village under the watchful eye of the Iroquois. These conversions prompted many of the original Susquehannock to leave the Susquehanna River valley for tribes practicing the old ways in New York, Ohio and other territory. Indeed some 50 or so years later, there would only be about 20 true Susquehannock remaining along the Susquehanna in Lancaster County, in 1763.

            These 20 Susquehannock had converted to Christianity as Quakers and many of them were successful artisans playing a trade as basket-weavers. Their other tribe members had been assimilated into other tribes, while they remained along the familiar and mighty Susquehanna. Although the once fierce warriors were no more and had assumed peaceful ways, the same cannot be said for the white settlers with whom they resided. White settlers grew angry when they learned of the Pontiac uprising and they smelled blood, Indian blood. The only Native Americans handy, however, were the handful of peaceful artisans, 20 remaining Susquehannocks nearby. Fourteen Susquehannocks were quickly rounded up by sympathetic friends and put in the Lancaster Jail for protection against a growing mob calling for revenge. There were six Susquehannocks who had not been taken to the jail for safekeeping. They were summarily located by the mob who murdered them and burned their houses. The supposed safety of the jail proved to be no barrier to the mob, known as the Paxton Boys, who broke in and beat and bludgeoned to death the last 14 survivors of the once proud tribe.

            “The extinction of these splendid looking Susquehannocks is a tragic story, which has never been adequately set forth,” wrote Miss Bertha Tyson in a column entitled As I Was A Readin’ in the Cecil Whig, dated May 25, 1950. “Like many other Indian races, hey were crushed between the ever increasing whites on the one hand and enemies of their own color on the other. It was a fierce struggle for nearly a century.

             The story of the Susquehannock, or the scraps that remain of what must have been a brilliant tale, is little remembered today by but a few so-called “old timers” and a handful of anthropologists or arm chair historians. But what a fascinating saga it is. Indeed centuries after the last of this great race was wiped from the face of the Earth by ignorance and want of revenge, the ghosts of the Susquehannocks were still felt in and around Port Deposit. In 1923 the Susquehannocks made the front page of The Tome, the news organ of the Jacob Tome Institute under a banner headline reading, “Indian Relics to be Removed to Tome Campus.” The article stated:

            Considerable interest has been manifested lately by members of the faculty and students in the Archaeology of the locality as it relates to obtainable relics of the Indians of the district, whose tribe is now extinct. These Indians, known as the Susquehannoughs or Susquehannocks, were of Iroquois stock and were connected with the great Six Nations. They were a warlike tribe, continually struggling with the Leni Lenape, Mohawks and Massawomecks, and according to the tales of early explorers, partly confirmed by scientific research, were of more than ordinary physical proportions.

            Interest has been lately aroused in the locality by some discoveries of importance by Smithsonian experts. Articles have appeared in Baltimore Sunday newspapers, and Mr. Beveridge of Tome, has had an articles concerning some expeditions and discoveries during the summer, in the Quarterly Bulletin of the Maryland Academy of Sciences.

            One of the chief points of interest has been the group of sculptured rocks in the river above Conowingo. These interesting relics of an almost forgotten past are in danger of being submerged by the dam of the new water-power project, and a movement has been put on foot for the possible removal of the rocks in sections to the Tome campus, where they would be objects of great interest to the school and its visitors.

            The Trustees, at their last meeting, approved the project, and Mr. Beveridge has been empowered to inquire into the ways and means of its execution. A small museum of the Susquehanna Indian will also be started with a few cases in the reading room and Mr. Beveridge’s collection of several hundred pieces as a nucleus. It is expected that he boys will take a keen interest in these relics of a vanquished race, which once owned and roamed over the site of their own activities here.

Some of these rocks still remained when the Conowingo Dam was being built, especially in the area of Conowingo. “Along with a vast area of land, upon which people have lived, including the entire town of Conowingo, which will be flooded as the gates of the great Conowingo Dam are closed, are included  a great number of rocks just above the present Conowingo project o which are many carvings of great historical value, which have been made by Indians,” recorded The Midland Journal of Rising Sun, Maryland, on July 8, 1927. Dr. Frances Nicholas of the Baltimore Academy of Sciences and B. Howell Griswold of Alexander Brown & Sons, Baltimore, garnered financial help from the Philadelphia Electric Company to move the rocks before the area was flooded. The rocks were put on popular exhibit in Baltimore, which was observed as a very good thing by the editor of the Midland. “Already vandals have stolen several of the rocks, which have long puzzled scientists but these will be recovered,” wrote the editor.

If you’d like to take a peak at what these rocks look like visit the Historical Society of Cecil County at 135 E. Main St., Elkton, where some of the rocks from Conowingo are on permanent exhibit in the front yard area of the building. There are also pictures of the rocks in some of the above referenced books as well as in Alice Miller’s Cecil County, Maryland: A Study of Local History. The Paw Paw Museum and Board of Directors of Port Deposit Heritage Corporation would also strongly suggest a visit to the Indian Steps Museum in Airville, York County, Pa., where a very informative display and exhibit, along with books readily available for purchase by the public, will add further information and knowledge on this interesting topic.

Legend & Lore

q       Wars and battles erupted frequently when unscrupulous men traded shoddy, damaged or purposely tainted goods with the Native Americans, and more frequently when they traded firearms – usually in the hopes of arming an ally against an enemy and enhancing trade. According to local legend the Susquehannocks were very good at negotiations for firearms and at one point acquired a cannon for defense of one of their palisaded towns, which would make this tribe the only one in America to have been so armed.

q       The Evil Spirit, according to Algonquin legend, is represented by the serpent, as recorded by historian the late Samuel Mason Jr., of Darlington, Md., in his book Historical Sketches of Harford County, Maryland, (Second Printing 1955). When the serpent is adorned with feathers it represents bravery but the serpent, according to legend, lived under the water as a representation of evil. The Algonquians believed he required constant tribute, which they offered by sprinkling tobacco on the water and offering up prayers. According to legend, many of the hieroglyphs found on rocks along the Susquehanna River were sacred symbols for prayer. The legend was added to years later stipulating that this great Evil Spirit, whom a friend of mine would call “Mr. No Shoulders” (e.g. snake) lived in Job’s Hole at Conowingo. Job’s Hole is a legendary “whirlpool” of indeterminate death, but ending somewhere akin to Davy Jones’ Locker. It is said that rocks near Job’s Hole were covered with strange serpent-like carvings in deference to the great Evil Spirit that lived within to remind all to cast a gift upon the waters to be delivered with rapidity to the murky depths below. (Although Job’s Hole was believed “bottomless” engineers at the Conowingo Dam ended a mystery and found it to be about 80 feet deep, Mason informed, but you will still find old timers in Cecil County who know of Job’s Hole and that it has no end.)

q       There is yet another legend associated with Job’s Hole, it being that the 50 or 60 foot wide “hole” was an underground connection with the lower Chesapeake Bay or Potomac River. This believe was brought about by the catching of shad up river before they had been netted down river.

q       Mason didn’t offer a legend behind some of the other petroglyphs, but did describe them in his work. One, which used to be seen at low water near the old Conowingo Bridge, (pre-Conowingo Dam) featured a fish with whiskers. Another rock on one of Broad Creek’s islands (Harford County) was covered with concentric circles a foot in diameter, which Mason interpreted as nets or possibly coiled serpents. If it was nets, then the fishermen of that day were certainly more open at sharing the secrets of their “sacred fishing holes” than those at present along the Susquehanna and her sisters. “Others were something like fish with three eyes equipped with bristling whiskers,” Mason wrote, stating these may represent feather cloaked serpents.

Technically Speaking

q       The Susquehannocks, also spelled Susquehannoughs, belonged to the Iroquois family.

q       The Susquehannocks reached their peak population about 1650 with some 3,000 souls. (Some texts state the tribal population reached 5,000 to 7,000 people with five tribal groups and some 20 villages.)

q       The name “Susquehannock” comes from Susquehannough, an Algonquian word loosely translated to mean “people at the falls” or “people of the muddy river”

q       The tribe Susquehannock is only known by that name in Maryland

q       In Pennsylvania the tribe is known as the Conestoga, derivative of the word Kanestoge

q       The French called the tribe the Andaste

q       The Huron called the Susquehannocks the Andastoerrhonon

q       The Swedish and Delaware called the Susquehannocks the Minqua

q       The tribe from which Pocahontas hailed, the Powhatan in Northern Virginia, knew the Susquehannock as the Pocoughtaonack or Bocootawwanauke

q       Native peoples of the Early Woodland period (1000BC to 200 AD) had as much of an affinity toward Maryland Blue Crabs and other shellfish as Marylanders do today as evidenced by the middens or oyster heaps that dotted the area and were actually used by colonial surveyors as landmarks

q       During what is known as the Late Woodland period (900 to 1600 AD) just prior to the Contact Period, huge advances were made by Native American peoples with shell-tempered ceramics, large trade networks, more advanced projectile point (arrowheads and spear points), and the wide use of the bow and arrow

q       In the aforementioned late Woodland Period massive quantities of fish were consumed, such as sturgeon and gar, as well as animals found along the Susquehanna from waterfowl to bobcat, skunk to wolf and raccoon and their diets also consisted of a wide variety of nuts, tubers and seeds

q       Woodland Period peoples used a plant known as amaranth to make flour but also boiled it into cereal and even toasted or popped the seeds, not unlike popcorn

q       Woodland Period peoples ate the nutritious sumpweed or marsh elder and domesticate many plants like squash, beans and corn or maize