Piscataway Indian Nation
Encyclopedia
The Piscataway Indian Nation and Tayac Territory is an unrecognized Native American
tribe in Maryland
that is related to the historic Piscataway tribe. At the time of European encounter, the Piscataway was one of the most populous and powerful Native polities of the Chesapeake Bay
region, with a territory on the north side of the Potomac River
. By the early seventeenth century, the Piscataway had come to exercise hegemony over other Algonquian
-speaking Native American groups on the north bank of the river. The Piscataway nation declined under the influence of colonization, infectious disease, and intertribal and colonial warfare.
The Piscataway Indian Nation organized out of a 20th-century revival of its people and culture. Its peoples are committed to indigenous
and human rights
. It is one of three contemporary organized groups of the Piscataway people, none of which have been recognized by the state or federal governments.
. Its people live near two major metropolitan areas, Baltimore
and Washington, D.C.
of the Piscataway Indian Nation is Billy Redwing Tayac, prominent in the movement for indigenous and human rights. He is the son of the late Chief Turkey Tayac
, a leader in the Native American
revitalization movements of the twentieth century.
Since Turkey Tayac's death in 1978, two other organized tribal groups have emerged that represent Piscataway people: these are the Piscataway-Conoy Tribe, led by Mrs. Mervin Savoy; and the Cedarville Band of Piscataways, led by Natalie Proctor. The different tribes have varying perspectives on tribal membership, development, and other issues.
)
While indigenous peoples inhabited areas along the waterways of Maryland for thousands of years, the historic Piscataway coalesced as a tribe
comprising numerous settlements sometime in the fourteenth or fifteenth century. They were developed agriculturalists, growing maize, beans and squash that supported population and a hierarchical society. A hierarchy of places and rulers emerged: hamlet
s without hereditary rulers paid tribute to a nearby village
. Its chief, or werowance, appointed a "lesser king" to each dependent settlement. With political change came changes in social structure and religious development that exalted the hierarchy. By the end of the sixteenth century, each werowance on the north bank of the Potomac was subject to a single paramount chief
: the ruler of the Piscataway, known as the Tayac.
in 1608. When the English began to colonize what is now Maryland, the Tayac managed to turn the newcomers into allies. He granted the English an Indian settlement which they re-named St. Mary's City, after their own monarch. The Tayac intended the new colonial outpost to serve as a buffer against Susquehannock
incursions from the north. The Tayac Chitimachen converted to Christianity in 1634, and had a daughter Mary who married colonist Giles Brent of Maryland. They crossed the Potomac to live at Aquia Creek
, Virginia.
Any benefits to having the English as allies and buffers were short-lived. The Maryland Colony was initially too weak to pose a significant threat, but as the English were successful in developing a colony, they turned against the Piscataway.
By 1668 western shore Algonquians
were confined to two reservations: one on the Wicomico River, the other, on those settlements that comprised a portion of the Piscataway homeland. Refugees from dispossessed Algonquian nations coalesced with the Piscataway. In 1697, the Piscataway relocated across the Potomac and camped near what is now Plains, Virginia in Fauquier County This alarmed the Virginia settlers, who tried to persuade the Piscataway to return to Maryland. Finally in 1699, the tribe moved on its own accord to what is now called Conoy Island in the Potomac River near Point of Rocks, Maryland
. They settled there until after 1722.
In the eighteenth century, some Piscataway, as well as other fleeing Algonquian groups, migrated north of the Susquehanna River
seeking relief from the European settlers. Then known as the "Conoy", they sought the protection of the powerful Haudenosaunee, their former enemies. Pennsylvania Colony also proved unsafe. Some Conoy continued to migrate north, finally settling in New France
. Today, their descendants live with the Six Nations at Grand River First Nation, Ontario, Canada.
Others may have moved south toward Virginia Colony, and merged with the Meherrin
.
, Christian Feest
, James Rice
, and Gabrielle Tayac, a small group of Piscataway families continued to live in their homeland. Though destroyed as an independent, sovereign polity, the Piscataway survived, and resettled into rural farm life classified in those times as free people of color
.
In the late nineteenth century, archaeologists, ournalists, and anthropologists interviewed a number of Piscataway who claimed descent from tribes associated with the old Piscataway chiefdom
. Unlike other institutions, the Catholic Church continued to identify a core group of families as Indian in its parish records. Anthropologists and sociologists classified many as a tri-racial folk community, who were commonly called "Wesorts
."
Phillip Sheridan Proctor, later known as Turkey Tayac
, was born in 1895 in Charles County, Maryland. Proctor revived the use of the title, "tayac", a hereditary office which he claimed had been handed down through his family. Turkey Tayac was instrumental in the revival of American Indian cultures in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast.
Although a few families identified themselves as Piscataway Indians by the early twentieth century, prevailing racial attitudes during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and Jim Crow
policies of the twentieth century determined ethnic and cultural identification. With slavery having become a racial caste and early 20th century enforcement of the "one-drop rule
", anyone with a discernible amount of African ancestry was commonly classified as "negro
", "mulatto
", or "black
", thereby discounting any other ancestry. Standing American Indian treaty rights were that much easier to abrogate. Thus, together with dramatic decreases in population due to disease, when American Indian reservations were dissolved by Maryland Colony in the eighteenth century, and when the Piscataway were reclassified as "free people of color", "Free Negro
" or "mulatto" on state and federal census records in the nineteenth century, a process of detribalization was happening. While the Piscataway were enumerated as "mulatto
s" in state and federal census records, by contrast Catholic
parish records and ethnographic reports continued to identify Piscataway individuals and families as Indians.
was a prominent figure in the early and mid-twentieth century cultural revitalization movements. He influenced the Piscataway, but also other remnant southeastern American Indian
communities, such as the Lumbee
of North Carolina, and the Nanticoke, and Powhatan
of Virginia and Maryland.
Almost one century ago, with a third-grade formal education, Chief Turkey Tayac began the process of cultural revitalization and self-determination. He emphasized a movement based on American Indians choosing self-identification, during an era when the Indian Reorganization Act
required individuals to prove blood quantum to claim their ancestry.
Today, the Piscataway Indian Nation is an emergent sovereign indigenous presence in its Chesapeake homeland. The Piscataway Indian tribal nation is enjoying a renaissance. According to Helen C. Rountree, Wayne E. Clark, and Kent Mountford, in their book John Smith's Chesapeake Voyages (2007): "There are still Indian people in southern Maryland, living without a reservation in the vicinity of US 301 between La Plata
and Brandywine
. They are formally organized into several groups, all bearing the Piscataway name."
The Piscataway Indian Nation members are among the 25,000 Native Americans in Maryland.
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
tribe in Maryland
Maryland
Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...
that is related to the historic Piscataway tribe. At the time of European encounter, the Piscataway was one of the most populous and powerful Native polities of the Chesapeake Bay
Chesapeake Bay
The Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in the United States. It lies off the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by Maryland and Virginia. The Chesapeake Bay's drainage basin covers in the District of Columbia and parts of six states: New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and West...
region, with a territory on the north side of the Potomac River
Potomac River
The Potomac River flows into the Chesapeake Bay, located along the mid-Atlantic coast of the United States. The river is approximately long, with a drainage area of about 14,700 square miles...
. By the early seventeenth century, the Piscataway had come to exercise hegemony over other Algonquian
Algonquian languages
The Algonquian languages also Algonkian) are a subfamily of Native American languages which includes most of the languages in the Algic language family. The name of the Algonquian language family is distinguished from the orthographically similar Algonquin dialect of the Ojibwe language, which is a...
-speaking Native American groups on the north bank of the river. The Piscataway nation declined under the influence of colonization, infectious disease, and intertribal and colonial warfare.
The Piscataway Indian Nation organized out of a 20th-century revival of its people and culture. Its peoples are committed to indigenous
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
and human rights
Human rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
. It is one of three contemporary organized groups of the Piscataway people, none of which have been recognized by the state or federal governments.
Geography
The Piscataway Indian Nation inhabits traditional homelands in the areas of Charles County, Prince George's County, and St. Mary's County; all in MarylandMaryland
Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...
. Its people live near two major metropolitan areas, Baltimore
Baltimore
Baltimore is the largest independent city in the United States and the largest city and cultural center of the US state of Maryland. The city is located in central Maryland along the tidal portion of the Patapsco River, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay. Baltimore is sometimes referred to as Baltimore...
and Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
Government
The current hereditary chiefTribal chief
A tribal chief is the leader of a tribal society or chiefdom. Tribal societies with social stratification under a single leader emerged in the Neolithic period out of earlier tribal structures with little stratification, and they remained prevalent throughout the Iron Age.In the case of ...
of the Piscataway Indian Nation is Billy Redwing Tayac, prominent in the movement for indigenous and human rights. He is the son of the late Chief Turkey Tayac
Turkey Tayac
Turkey Tayac, legally Philip Sheridan Proctor , Piscataway Indian leader and herbal doctor; he was notable in Native American activism for tribal and cultural revival in the twentieth century...
, a leader in the Native American
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
revitalization movements of the twentieth century.
Since Turkey Tayac's death in 1978, two other organized tribal groups have emerged that represent Piscataway people: these are the Piscataway-Conoy Tribe, led by Mrs. Mervin Savoy; and the Cedarville Band of Piscataways, led by Natalie Proctor. The different tribes have varying perspectives on tribal membership, development, and other issues.
History
(See Piscataway (tribe)Piscataway (tribe)
The Piscataway are a subtribe of the Conoy Native American tribe of Maryland. At one time, they were one of the most populous and powerful Native polities of the Chesapeake Bay region. They spoke Algonquian Piscataway, a dialect of Nanticoke...
)
While indigenous peoples inhabited areas along the waterways of Maryland for thousands of years, the historic Piscataway coalesced as a tribe
Tribe
A tribe, viewed historically or developmentally, consists of a social group existing before the development of, or outside of, states.Many anthropologists use the term tribal society to refer to societies organized largely on the basis of kinship, especially corporate descent groups .Some theorists...
comprising numerous settlements sometime in the fourteenth or fifteenth century. They were developed agriculturalists, growing maize, beans and squash that supported population and a hierarchical society. A hierarchy of places and rulers emerged: hamlet
Hamlet
The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601...
s without hereditary rulers paid tribute to a nearby village
Village
A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet with the population ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand , Though often located in rural areas, the term urban village is also applied to certain urban neighbourhoods, such as the West Village in Manhattan, New...
. Its chief, or werowance, appointed a "lesser king" to each dependent settlement. With political change came changes in social structure and religious development that exalted the hierarchy. By the end of the sixteenth century, each werowance on the north bank of the Potomac was subject to a single paramount chief
Paramount chief
A paramount chief is the highest-level traditional chief or political leader in a regional or local polity or country typically administered politically with a chief-based system. This definition is used occasionally in anthropological and archaeological theory to refer to the rulers of multiple...
: the ruler of the Piscataway, known as the Tayac.
English colonization
English explorer Captain John Smith first visited the upper Potomac RiverPotomac River
The Potomac River flows into the Chesapeake Bay, located along the mid-Atlantic coast of the United States. The river is approximately long, with a drainage area of about 14,700 square miles...
in 1608. When the English began to colonize what is now Maryland, the Tayac managed to turn the newcomers into allies. He granted the English an Indian settlement which they re-named St. Mary's City, after their own monarch. The Tayac intended the new colonial outpost to serve as a buffer against Susquehannock
Susquehannock
The Susquehannock people were Iroquoian-speaking Native Americans who lived in areas adjacent to the Susquehanna River and its tributaries from the southern part of what is now New York, through Pennsylvania, to the mouth of the Susquehanna in Maryland at the north end of the Chesapeake Bay...
incursions from the north. The Tayac Chitimachen converted to Christianity in 1634, and had a daughter Mary who married colonist Giles Brent of Maryland. They crossed the Potomac to live at Aquia Creek
Aquia Creek
Aquia Creek is a tributary of the tidal segment of the Potomac River and is located in northern Virginia. The creek's headwaters lie in southeastern Fauquier County, and it empties into the Potomac at Brent Point in Stafford County, south of Washington, D.C....
, Virginia.
Any benefits to having the English as allies and buffers were short-lived. The Maryland Colony was initially too weak to pose a significant threat, but as the English were successful in developing a colony, they turned against the Piscataway.
By 1668 western shore Algonquians
Algonquian peoples
The Algonquian are one of the most populous and widespread North American native language groups, with tribes originally numbering in the hundreds. Today hundreds of thousands of individuals identify with various Algonquian peoples...
were confined to two reservations: one on the Wicomico River, the other, on those settlements that comprised a portion of the Piscataway homeland. Refugees from dispossessed Algonquian nations coalesced with the Piscataway. In 1697, the Piscataway relocated across the Potomac and camped near what is now Plains, Virginia in Fauquier County This alarmed the Virginia settlers, who tried to persuade the Piscataway to return to Maryland. Finally in 1699, the tribe moved on its own accord to what is now called Conoy Island in the Potomac River near Point of Rocks, Maryland
Point of Rocks, Maryland
Point of Rocks is a community in Frederick County, Maryland. It is named for the striking rock formation on the adjacent Catoctin Mountain, which were formed by the Potomac River cutting through the ridge in a water gap, a typical formation in the Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians...
. They settled there until after 1722.
In the eighteenth century, some Piscataway, as well as other fleeing Algonquian groups, migrated north of the Susquehanna River
Susquehanna River
The Susquehanna River is a river located in the northeastern United States. At long, it is the longest river on the American east coast that drains into the Atlantic Ocean, and with its watershed it is the 16th largest river in the United States, and the longest river in the continental United...
seeking relief from the European settlers. Then known as the "Conoy", they sought the protection of the powerful Haudenosaunee, their former enemies. Pennsylvania Colony also proved unsafe. Some Conoy continued to migrate north, finally settling in New France
New France
New France was the area colonized by France in North America during a period beginning with the exploration of the Saint Lawrence River by Jacques Cartier in 1534 and ending with the cession of New France to Spain and Great Britain in 1763...
. Today, their descendants live with the Six Nations at Grand River First Nation, Ontario, Canada.
Others may have moved south toward Virginia Colony, and merged with the Meherrin
Meherrin
The Meherrin Nation is one of eight state-recognized Nations of Native Americans in North Carolina. They reside in rural northeastern North Carolina, near the river of the same name on the Virginia-North Carolina border. They received formal state recognition in 1986. The Meherrin have an...
.
Present day
According to numerous historians and archaeologists, including William H. Gilbert, Frank G. Speck, Helen Rountree, Lucille St. Hoyme, Paul Cissna, T. Dale Stewart, Christopher GoodwinChristopher Goodwin
Christopher Goodwin is an American actor, playwright, and director. He is currently performing with Steve Silver's Beach Blanket Babylon at Club Fugazi in San Francisco, California.- Early years :...
, Christian Feest
Christian Feest
Christian Feest , is an Austrian ethnologist and ethnohistorian.Feest specialized in the Native Americans of the Northeast and in the Native American anthropology of art...
, James Rice
James Rice
James Rice , English novelist, wrote a number of successful novels in collaboration with Walter Besant.He was born in Northampton, and was educated at Cambridge University....
, and Gabrielle Tayac, a small group of Piscataway families continued to live in their homeland. Though destroyed as an independent, sovereign polity, the Piscataway survived, and resettled into rural farm life classified in those times as free people of color
Free people of color
A free person of color in the context of the history of slavery in the Americas, is a person of full or partial African descent who was not enslaved...
.
In the late nineteenth century, archaeologists, ournalists, and anthropologists interviewed a number of Piscataway who claimed descent from tribes associated with the old Piscataway chiefdom
Chiefdom
A chiefdom is a political economy that organizes regional populations through a hierarchy of the chief.In anthropological theory, one model of human social development rooted in ideas of cultural evolution describes a chiefdom as a form of social organization more complex than a tribe or a band...
. Unlike other institutions, the Catholic Church continued to identify a core group of families as Indian in its parish records. Anthropologists and sociologists classified many as a tri-racial folk community, who were commonly called "Wesorts
We-Sorts
We-Sorts is a name for a group of Native Americans in Maryland who are from the Piscataway tribe. Piscataways have always claimed to be Native American people. The Piscataway were powerful at the time of European encounter...
."
Phillip Sheridan Proctor, later known as Turkey Tayac
Turkey Tayac
Turkey Tayac, legally Philip Sheridan Proctor , Piscataway Indian leader and herbal doctor; he was notable in Native American activism for tribal and cultural revival in the twentieth century...
, was born in 1895 in Charles County, Maryland. Proctor revived the use of the title, "tayac", a hereditary office which he claimed had been handed down through his family. Turkey Tayac was instrumental in the revival of American Indian cultures in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast.
Although a few families identified themselves as Piscataway Indians by the early twentieth century, prevailing racial attitudes during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and Jim Crow
Jim Crow laws
The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws in the United States enacted between 1876 and 1965. They mandated de jure racial segregation in all public facilities, with a supposedly "separate but equal" status for black Americans...
policies of the twentieth century determined ethnic and cultural identification. With slavery having become a racial caste and early 20th century enforcement of the "one-drop rule
One-drop rule
The one-drop rule is a historical colloquial term in the United States for the social classification as black of individuals with any African ancestry; meaning any person with "one drop of black blood" was considered black...
", anyone with a discernible amount of African ancestry was commonly classified as "negro
Negro
The word Negro is used in the English-speaking world to refer to a person of black ancestry or appearance, whether of African descent or not...
", "mulatto
Mulatto
Mulatto denotes a person with one white parent and one black parent, or more broadly, a person of mixed black and white ancestry. Contemporary usage of the term varies greatly, and the broader sense of the term makes its application rather subjective, as not all people of mixed white and black...
", or "black
Black people
The term black people is used in systems of racial classification for humans of a dark skinned phenotype, relative to other racial groups.Different societies apply different criteria regarding who is classified as "black", and often social variables such as class, socio-economic status also plays a...
", thereby discounting any other ancestry. Standing American Indian treaty rights were that much easier to abrogate. Thus, together with dramatic decreases in population due to disease, when American Indian reservations were dissolved by Maryland Colony in the eighteenth century, and when the Piscataway were reclassified as "free people of color", "Free Negro
Free Negro
A free Negro or free black is the term used prior to the abolition of slavery in the United States to describe African Americans who were not slaves. Almost all African Americans came to the United States as slaves, but from the earliest days of American slavery, slaveholders set men and women free...
" or "mulatto" on state and federal census records in the nineteenth century, a process of detribalization was happening. While the Piscataway were enumerated as "mulatto
Mulatto
Mulatto denotes a person with one white parent and one black parent, or more broadly, a person of mixed black and white ancestry. Contemporary usage of the term varies greatly, and the broader sense of the term makes its application rather subjective, as not all people of mixed white and black...
s" in state and federal census records, by contrast Catholic
Catholic
The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...
parish records and ethnographic reports continued to identify Piscataway individuals and families as Indians.
Piscataway Revival
Chief Turkey TayacTurkey Tayac
Turkey Tayac, legally Philip Sheridan Proctor , Piscataway Indian leader and herbal doctor; he was notable in Native American activism for tribal and cultural revival in the twentieth century...
was a prominent figure in the early and mid-twentieth century cultural revitalization movements. He influenced the Piscataway, but also other remnant southeastern American Indian
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
communities, such as the Lumbee
Lumbee
The Lumbee belong to a state recognized Native American tribe in North Carolina. The Lumbee are concentrated in Robeson County and named for the primary waterway traversing the county...
of North Carolina, and the Nanticoke, and Powhatan
Powhatan
The Powhatan is the name of a Virginia Indian confederation of tribes. It is estimated that there were about 14,000–21,000 of these native Powhatan people in eastern Virginia when the English settled Jamestown in 1607...
of Virginia and Maryland.
Almost one century ago, with a third-grade formal education, Chief Turkey Tayac began the process of cultural revitalization and self-determination. He emphasized a movement based on American Indians choosing self-identification, during an era when the Indian Reorganization Act
Indian Reorganization Act
The Indian Reorganization Act of June 18, 1934 the Indian New Deal, was U.S. federal legislation that secured certain rights to Native Americans, including Alaska Natives...
required individuals to prove blood quantum to claim their ancestry.
Today, the Piscataway Indian Nation is an emergent sovereign indigenous presence in its Chesapeake homeland. The Piscataway Indian tribal nation is enjoying a renaissance. According to Helen C. Rountree, Wayne E. Clark, and Kent Mountford, in their book John Smith's Chesapeake Voyages (2007): "There are still Indian people in southern Maryland, living without a reservation in the vicinity of US 301 between La Plata
La Plata, Maryland
La Plata is a town in Charles County, Maryland, United States. The population was 6,551 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Charles County.-History:...
and Brandywine
Brandywine, Maryland
Brandywine is an unincorporated area and census-designated place in Prince George's County, Maryland, United States, although the postal delivery area includes part of Charles County as well near Malcolm....
. They are formally organized into several groups, all bearing the Piscataway name."
The Piscataway Indian Nation members are among the 25,000 Native Americans in Maryland.
Sources
- Barbour, Philip L. The Three Worlds of Captain John Smith. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1964.
- ______. ed. The Jamestown Voyages Under the First Charter, 1606-1609. 2 vols. The Hakluyt Society, 2nd series nos. 136-137. Cambridge, England, 1969.
- Chambers, Mary E. and Robert L. Humphrey. Ancient Washington—American Indian Cultures of the Potomac Valley. Washington, D.C., George Washington University, 1977.
- Goddard, Ives (1978). “Eastern Algonquian Languages.” In Bruce Trigger (ed.), Handbook of North American Indians, Vol. 15 (Northeast). Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, pp. 70–77.
- Griffin, James B. "Eastern North American Prehistory: A Summary." Science 156 (1967):175-191.
- Hertzberg, Hazel. The Search for an American Indian Identity: Modern Pan Indian Movements. NY: Syracuse University Press, 1971.
- Merrell, James H. "Cultural Continuity Among the Piscataway Indians of Colonial Maryland." William & Mary Quarterly, 3rd series, 36 (1979): 548-70.
- Potter, Stephen R. Commoners, Tribute, and Chiefs: The Development of Algonquian Culture in the Potomac Valley. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1993.
- Rice, James D. Nature and History in the Potomac Country: From Hunter-Gatherers to the Age of Jefferson. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009.
- Rountree, Helen C., Clark, Wayne E. and Mountford, Kent. John Smith's Chesapeake Voyages, 1607-1609. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2007.
- Tayac, Gabrielle. "National Museum of the American Indian ? 'We Rise, We Fall, We Rise' ? a Piscataway Descendant Bears Witness at a Capital Groundbreaking", Smithsonian 35, no. 6 (2004): 63-66.
External links
- The Piscataway Conoy Tribe of Maryland
- http://www.piscatawaynation.org/Piscataway Indian Nation]
- The Cedarville Band of Piscataway Indians
- "Piscataway Indians", The Catholic Encyclopedia
- http://www.somdnews.com/stories/082907/indylet183859_32113.shtml
- "Competing claim about Piscataway and Tayac history", Eskimo
- http://www.kuce.org/sb/index.html