Wikipedia:Nacotchtank
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The Nacotchtank were an Algonquian people who lived in the area of what is now Washington, D.C. during the 17th century. Their principal village was situated within the modern borders of the District of Columbia on the east bank of the Anacostia River, the name of which derives from Nacotchtank. The Nacotchtank Indians seem to have been associated with the larger Piscataway Indian Nation, whose Tayac or grand chief ruled over a loose confederacy of area tribes.
They were first recorded by Captain John Smith who visited their palisaded village in 1608, and found them friendly. He noted that their main village had 80 fighting men, with a total population of about 300. It was an important trading center where tribes as far away as the Iroquois of New York would come to trade beaver pelts. The name Nacotchtank, existing in several historical variants including Nacostine, Anacostine, Anaquashtank, Nacothtant, Nachatanke etc., is said to mean "Trading village".
In 1622, Captain Henry Fleet took a party of English, together with their Patawomeck allies, to attack the rival Nacotchtanks, killing 18 and burning their village. However, the Nacotchtanks ended up capturing Fleet the following year and holding him for 5 years, during which time he learned their language. After escaping in 1628, he returned there in 1632 and obtained "800 weight" of pelts, and was told that the Nacotchtanks enjoyed a monopoly on beaver trade with the Iroquois. In his writings, he mentions another of their villages called Tohoga, roughly the site of modern Georgetown. Fleet was still there as a trader two years later when the colony of Maryland was established, as related by the Jesuits. Around 1668, greatly depopulated from diseases, the Nacotchtank relocated to Anacostine Island, and thereafter any remnants must have merged with the Piscataway.
References
- Records of the Columbia Historical Society of Washington (1920)
- "A River Runs Through Us", American Anthropologist Vol. 103, No. 2 (June 2001)
