Countless generations of Native Americans and European colonists used the resources ofthe Chesapeake Bay for transportation, EISHING, and hunting. About 11,000 years ago melting glaciers formed the bay. Native Americans settled around the Chesapeake Bay, which they called Chesepioc, meaning “great shellfish bay.” The bay served as the nucleus of Native Americans’ lives, providing a stable EOOD source. Stunned by the bay’s size and resources, the Spanish considered the Chesapeake Bay as a superior port for vessels, calling it Bahia de Santa Maria. The English referred to it as the Great Bay of the Chesapeakes.
Native peoples built villages and hunting camps along the coast of the bay. Deer and wildlife were attracted to the bay, providing pelts to trade and meat to eat. The ALGONQUIN formed the majority of the Indians around the bay; they tried to retain isolation from the Susquehannock of the IROQUOIS nation. Some tribes entered into alliances, such as the POWHATAN Coneederacy. As more tribes settled in the bay area and as European adventurers arrived seeking land and trade, the indigenous people of the region engaged in cultural and other conflicts. Although some transactions were amicable, hostilities between the Algonquin and Europeans often resulted in abductions and murders.
In 1570 a group of Spanish JESUITS established a settlement near the York River, intending to convert Native Americans to Catholicism, but the Algonquin resisted. The English planned to settle the Chesapeake Bay region as early as the 1580s, but three attempts to settle Roanoke Island failed. However, John White, an artist, returned to England with his drawings and maps, which became very well known.
The original Jamestown settlers arrived at the Chesapeake Bay in April 1607, sailing up the James River. This colony suffered from starvation and exposure to the elements. Governor John Smith ordered men to harvest oysters and sturgeon from the Chesapeake to feed the settlers. The Algonquin taught the English how to grow tobacco, which was the catalyst for a massive shipping and economic system depending on the waterways of the colonial Chesapeake Bay. English Roman Catholics settled St. Mary’s City, Maryland, in 1634, taking advantage of the Chesapeake Bay to develop major shipbuilding and tobacco industries. The early labor force was multiracial, including European indentured servants, a few Indian slaves, and a handful of black servants and slaves. More land was cleared as soil became depleted by the demands of tobacco plants. As the supply of English indentured servants lessened and the Africans became more easily available, a system of racial bondage evolved at the end of the 17th century. The Chesapeake Bay enabled permanent settlements to thrive, and its tributaries were crucial as settlers migrated west. Pirates flourished, and shipwrecks littered the Chesapeake Bay.
Further reading: Lois Green Carr, Colonial Chesapeake Society (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991); Arthur Pierce Middleton, Tobacco Coast: A Maritime History of Chesapeake Bay in the Colonial Era (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press and the Maryland State Archives, 1984).
—Elizabeth D. Schafer
World History
