New from the Maryland Historical Society, the story of Southern Maryland’s Native people. Here at last is the story of Southern Maryland’s Native people, from the end of the Ice Age to the present. Intended for a general audience, it explains how they have been adapting to changing conditions—both climatic and human—for all of that time in a way that is jargon-free and readable. The authors, cultural anthropologists with long experience of modern Indian people, convincingly demonstrate that all through their history, Native people have behaved like rational adults, contrary to the common stereotype of Indians. Moreover, in the very early Contact Period at least, some English settlers respected them accordingly. Unfortunately, although they never went to war against the English, they were driven nearly out of existence. Yet some of them refused to leave, and, adapting yet again to a changing world, their descendants are living successfully in Indian communities today.

I?n distinct contrast to “grandma-Bessie”, ??the “Geechee Lady”?, who was born in 1888, on a little South Carolina sea-island among the humble descendants of the Cherokee “Trail of Tears”- survivors, crammed together with the descendants of black-slaves into one little, down-trodden island-community?)?,....... grandmother-Sarah, a “?Wesort-Mulatto-Indian”,...(was born one year after Bessie in 1889, in the somewhat more up-to-date, southern city of La Plata). * * * * * * * * * * * Sarah Proctor came into the world among her people, ?the genteel, colored-elite; ...?an intermediate color-caste, who were the “free-people-of-color” of southeast Port Tobacco & La Plata, Maryland,... known as the proud, self-sufficient, well-educated, softly-spoken, well-mannered, very well-dressed, and always smoothly-coiffured, “good-haired” & ?light-skinned? “Wesorts” • It was during an era when ?RACISM was “KING”;? ?a stark-white, ruthless & headless monarch that ranted, ruled, and raged through America. • However, ironically on the other hand, there were those proponents of ?COLORISM? who were said to be found mostly among “lighter people”, who exhibited social airs which caused them to be perceived by most other “Coloureds” as “privileged” little princes & princesses” ?who,.......somehow ?always seemed, to their darker brothers & sisters (?who misunderstood them), to be loyally-emulating their eminent ruler, that metaphorical raging “KING”! • But, for the most part, they were NOT really as disloyal as they were perceived to be,...but, ?“stuck in the middle”? as they were,...they were ?simply ?a very ?misunderstood? group of very good American citizens.

With essays by Stephen Davis, Penelope Drooker, Patricia K. Galloway, Steven Hahn, Charles Hudson, Marvin Jeter, Paul Kelton, Timothy Pertulla, Christopher Rodning, Helen Rountree, Marvin T. Smith, and John Worth The first two-hundred years of Western civilization in the Americas was a time when fundamental and sometimes catastrophic changes occurred in Native American communities in the South. In The Transformation of the Southeastern Indians, 1540–1760, historians, anthropologists, and archaeologists provide perspectives on how this era shaped American Indian society for later generations and how it even affects these communities today. This collection of essays presents the most current scholarship on the social history of the South, identifying and examining the historical forces, trends, and events that were attendant to the formation of the Indians of the colonial South. The essayists discuss how Southeastern Indian culture and society evolved. They focus on such aspects as the introduction of European diseases to the New World, long-distance migration and relocation, the influences of the Spanish mission system, the effects of the English plantation system, the northern fur trade of the English, and the French, Dutch, and English trade of Indian slaves and deerskins in the South. This book covers the full geographic and social scope of the Southeast, including the indigenous peoples of Florida, Virginia, Maryland, the Appalachian Mountains, the Carolina Piedmont, the Ohio Valley, and the Central and Lower Mississippi Valleys.

Jamestown, the Lost Colony of Roanoke, and Plymouth Rock are central to America's mythic origin stories. Then, we are told, the main characters--the "friendly" Native Americans who met the settlers--disappeared. But the history of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina demands that we tell a different story. As the largest tribe east of the Mississippi and one of the largest in the country, the Lumbees have survived in their original homelands, maintaining a distinct identity as Indians in a biracial South. In this passionately written, sweeping work of history, Malinda Maynor Lowery narrates the Lumbees' extraordinary story as never before. The Lumbees' journey as a people sheds new light on America's defining moments, from the first encounters with Europeans to the present day. How and why did the Lumbees both fight to establish the United States and resist the encroachments of its government? How have they not just survived, but thrived, through Civil War, Jim Crow, the civil rights movement, and the war on drugs, to ultimately establish their own constitutional government in the twenty-first century? Their fight for full federal acknowledgment continues to this day, while the Lumbee people's struggle for justice and self-determination continues to transform our view of the American experience. Readers of this book will never see Native American history the same way.

The Westo Indians, who lived in the Savannah River region during the second half of the 17th century, are believed to have had a profound effect on the development of the colonial South. This volume reproduces excerpts from all 19 documents that indisputably reference the Westos, although the Europeans referred to them by a variety of names.

Native Americans State by State details the history of the tribes associated with every state of the Union and the provinces of Canada, from past to present. Each state entry contains its own maps and timeline. The 2010 census identified 5.2 million people in the United States as American Indian or Alaskan Natives—less than 2% of the overall population of nearly 309 million. In Canada, the percentage is 4%—1.1 million of a total population of around 34 million. Most of these people live on reservations or in areas set aside for them in the nineteenth century. The numbers are very different from those in the sixteenth century, when European colonists brought disease and a rapacious desire for land and wealth with them from the Old World. While estimates vary considerably, it seems safe to estimate the native population as being at least 10 million. Ravaged by smallpox, chicken pox, measles, and what effectively amounted to genocide, this number had fallen to 600,000 in 1800 and 250,000 in the 1890s. Those who were left often had been moved many miles away from their original tribal lands. Native Americans State by State is a superb reference work that covers the history of the tribes, from earliest times till today, examining the early pre-Columbian civilizations, the movements of the tribes after the arrival of European colonists and their expansion westwards, and the reanimation of Indian culture and political power in recent years. It covers the area from the Canadian Arctic to the Rio Grande—and the wide range of cultural differences and diverse lifestyles that exist. Illustrated with regional maps and a dazzling portfolio of paintings, photographs, and artwork, it provides a dramatic introduction not only to the history of the 400 main tribes, but to the huge range of American Indian material culture.

In this classic novel, James A. Michener brings his grand epic tradition to bear on the four-hundred-year saga of America’s Eastern Shore, from its Native American roots to the modern age. In the early 1600s, young Edmund Steed is desperate to escape religious persecution in England. After joining Captain John Smith on a harrowing journey across the Atlantic, Steed makes a life for himself in the New World, establishing a remarkable dynasty that parallels the emergence of America. Through the extraordinary tale of one man’s dream, Michener tells intertwining stories of family and national heritage, introducing us along the way to Quakers, pirates, planters, slaves, abolitionists, and notorious politicians, all making their way through American history in the common pursuit of freedom. BONUS: This edition includes an excerpt from James A. Michener's Hawaii. Praise for Chesapeake “Another of James Michener’s great mines of narrative, character and lore.”—The Wall Street Journal “[A] marvelous panorama of history seen in the lives of symbolic people of the ages . . . An emotionally and intellectually appealing book.”—The Atlanta Journal-Constitution “Michener’s most ambitious work of fiction in theme and scope.”—The Philadelphia Inquirer “Magnificently written . . . one of those rare novels that is enthusiastically passed from friend to friend.”—Associated Press