Indians of Southern Maryland - Softcover

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.

Rebecca Seib is an applied anthropologist and has worked with Indian people throughout the United States for over 30 years. She has assisted Indian communities in rebuilding their economies in a culturally appropriate manner. Helen C. Rountree is professor emerita of anthropology at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. She has been studying the Powhatan Indians in Virginia since 1969, with interests in the Algonquian-speaking Indians in adjacent states.