Delaware's Forgotten Folk

The Story of the Moors and Nanticokes

C. A. Weslager, John Swientochowski

• Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9780812219838
• eBook ISBN: 9780812208085
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: Social Sciences

"It is offered not as a textbook nor as a scientific discussion, but merely as reading entertainment founded on the life history, social struggle, and customs of a little-known people."—From the PrefaceC. A. Weslager's Delaware's Forgotten Folk chronicles the history of the Nanticoke Indians and the Cheswold Moors, from John Smith's first encounter with the Nanticokes along the Kuskakarawaok River in 1608, to the struggles faced by these uniquely multiracial communities amid the racial and social tensions of mid-twentieth-century America. It explores the legend surrounding the origin of the two distinct but intricately intertwined groups, focusing on how their uncommon racial heritage—white, black, and Native American—shaped their identity within society and how their traditional culture retained its significance into their present.Weslager's demonstrated command of available information and his familiarity with the people themselves bespeak his deep respect for the Moor and Nanticoke communities. What began as a curious inquiry into the overlooked peoples of the Delaware River Valley developed into an attentive and thoughtful study of a distinct group of people struggling to remain a cultural community in the face of modern opposition. Originally published in 1943, Delaware's Forgotten Folk endures as one of the fundamental volumes on understanding the life and history of the Nanticoke and Moor peoples.

1. Red, White, and Black

DURING his explorations three centuries ago, Captain John Smith sailed across Chesapeake Bay to land on a pine-forested peninsula occupied by wild animals and Indian tribes, which he called the “Eastern Shoare of Virginia.” Salt boilers were later stationed on this peninsula to evaporate salt from the water for use by the Virginia colonists on the western shore of the bay. In due time, planters sailed over from Jamestown and founded a new colony on the fertile soil. The Eastern Shore was also accessible by boat from Delaware Bay; and the Dutch, Swedes, and Finns came to compete with the English colonists for the profitable Indian fur trade and other resources of the New World. The story of how the whites erected forts, established settlements, and gradually seized control of the land from the natives has been told many times. In the clash of interests between nations, the English were ultimately victorious, and the Dutch, Swedes, and Finns lost their authority over the territory.

Today, this peninsula lying between Delaware Bay and Chesapeake Bay is still known as the Eastern Shore. It is more commonly called the Delmarva Peninsula because it contains Accomack and Northampton Counties of Virginia; Caroline, Cecil, Kent, Dorchester, Queen Anne, Somerset, Talbot, Wicomico, Worcester Counties of Maryland; and New Castle, Kent, and Sussex Counties of the State of Delaware. While the present territory is part of three states, there is a certain unity in its historical background that makes the state boundaries seem ambiguous. Yet several movements in the past to erase the boundary lines and create a single commonwealth of the Peninsula were hotly opposed by the inhabitants.

The surrounding waters continue to hold the Delmarva Peninsula in an almost inescapable embrace. Washington, Baltimore, and Norfolk are near-by on the western shore of the Chesapeake. Philadelphia, Camden, and other northern cities are not far distant. Nevertheless, because of its geography, much of the peninsula still remains outside metropolitan horizons.

The climate of the lower portions is so mild that figs and pomegranates have been grown by those who wanted to prove that it could be done. One also sees tropical plants and a few mahogany trees raised from shoots brought from Central America by the early seafarers. The fragrance of loblolly pine and the tang of salt air give a pleasing character to the southern stretches. Peach and apple orchards; fields of strawberries, watermelons, canteloupes, asparagus; acres of tomatoes, corn, and white potatoes grow abundantly. The towns and farms lie on the streams flowing west to the Chesapeake or east to Delaware Bay and are spoken of as being on the “bayside” or “seaside” according to the flow of the nearest creek.

The historian, in reviewing accounts of the first settlements on the Delmarva Peninsula, often comments that the folkways of the Dutch, Swedes, Finns, and English were assimilated by the ancestors of the present occupants. It is not generally realized that three distinct stocks of mankind were also brought together. The white people were the most aggressive, and quickly assumed leadership over the others. Secondly, there was an influx of Negroes which began in 1620 when twenty blacks were delivered to the Virginia Colony by a Dutch man-of-war. Other Negroes followed the first consignment, and within a short time slave labor was the basis for the agricultural system not only on the Delmarva Peninsula but throughout the South. Both whites and blacks were thrown in contact with a third racial stock native to the land—the Indians. This situation resulted in a merging of three totally different human stocks, alien languages, and particularly customs.

The Negroes, representing scores of African tribes, brought a social and cultural heritage strange to the whites. They were not barbaric, as many slave traders claimed as an excuse for enslaving them. Actually their culture was as well developed as that of the Indians. It included such prominent crafts as iron-working, brass-casting, weaving of cotton and rafia cloth, and wood-carving. Associated with their religious concepts were black magic, voodooism, ancestor worship, polygamy, and such artistic achievements as rhythmic dances, hair braiding of a distinctive type, and strange pictorial arts.

Many American museums are negligent in portraying these native African cultural properties. Those who have visited the Negro tribes in the African jungle have marveled at the skill of the blacksmith, the wood-carver, the weaver, and the potter. The anthropologist points to the traits of African Negro culture as illustrative of a primitive people with talent, imagination, inventiveness, and skill. The claim that the Negro is naturally shiftless, lazy, or inclined toward moral turpitude cannot be supported. When such negative qualities are found in the American Negro, they can generally be traced to social environment in America rather than to heredity.

The first Negro recorded by name on the Delmarva Peninsula was called Anthony. He was described as “an Angoler or Moor,” and was delivered near present Wilmington in 1639. Anthony may have been a Negro, often called “blackamoor,” or he may have been a swarthy Moor of non-Negroid stock. Moors, as we know, were often wrongly classified as Negroes and seized by their enemies and sold into slavery. The true Moors were natives of Morocco in Africa and were conquered in the seventh century A.D. by the Arabs and converted to Mohammedanism and Arabic custom and language. In 711 A.D., the Moors crossed the Straits of Gibraltar and began their conquests on the Spanish peninsula. It was during these conquests that many were captured and their descendants sold to the slave traders who brought them in shackles to America.

Throughout the Delmarva Peninsula from Wilmington to Cape Charles, descendants of African slaves are seen today on all sides. They have multiplied rapidly and continue to do so. The extent to which they have absorbed European folkways and white or Indian blood is apparent even to the ordinary eye. It is estimated that 80 per cent have white blood. Torn from their African settings against their wills and enslaved, the Negroes were precipitated into a complex and alien way of life. Their acceptance of the English language, European dress, the Christian religion, and Anglo-Saxon and Indian methods of production is a feat of assimilation with few parallels. Let it not be claimed, however, that nothing remains of their African backgrounds. Cultures do not suddenly disappear one before the other even if one is borne by black slaves and the other by white masters. Negro music, folk belief, and the proverbs and tales that characterized their ancient lore linger on. Even in recent years, inhabitants of a Negro colony at Belltown, Delaware, observed uncalendared voodoo rites despite the Christian forces to which the blacks have been exposed. Such tendencies to revert to their own racial patterns appear periodically. Other survivals from the African habitat are also seen in some of the place names; a hamlet in Sussex County called Angola and a place called Angola Neck are named after a West African colony. Many Negroes brought to the Delmarva Peninsula were imported from Angola. These Angolers were much in demand because of their adaptability to farm work.

But it is amazing how thoroughly the modern Negro has absorbed the white man’s ways when one considers the social barriers erected at an early date to keep him outside. Because these barriers will frequently appear in our story, let us review their most conspicuous features. The Delmarva Negro is not permitted to eat in white restaurants. He does not attend the white man’s churches and schools, nor is he accommodated in a white man’s hotel. He cannot occupy a home in a white neighborhood, but must live in a section of the town or city segregated for people of his color. He dare not sit beside a white person in a moving picture theatre. In small towns, where there is but a single taproom or café and both races are served, a partition usually divides the Negro trade from the white. South of Wilmington, the Negro does not serve on juries, although he is permitted to vote. A native white person never addresses Negroes as “Mr.,” “Mrs.,” or “Miss.” He calls them by their first names, or, in the case of older Negroes, he may address them as “Aunt” or “Uncle.” To shake a black-skinned hand or to sit and eat with a Negro is taboo. The Negro is expected to “keep in his place,” which is at an undefined stratum beneath the level of the most ignorant white. A white man does not walk with a Negro or otherwise associate in public except in terms of superior and inferior. Segregation, however, is not as pronounced as in the Deep South, and on the Delmarva Peninsula there are no Jim Crow railroad cars or separate Negro sections in trolley cars or buses, although blacks sometimes sit alone. The feeling is widespread, nevertheless, that Negroes were created to serve the whites, particularly in menial or household tasks. It is readily accepted by many, and taught their children, that Negroes are inherently dishonest and have a penchant for theft. Some residents do not subscribe to this doctrine, and there have been efforts to emancipate the Negro from the social restrictions. But the conviction of white supremacy is deeply rooted. The Virginian or Marylander, more so than the Delawarean, will rationalize his treatment of the Negro by insisting that black people have inferior mental capacities, that they are potential rapists, and that the majority of them are victims of social diseases. Other more intelligent whites accept the judgment of unbiased science that the Negro is not an inferior creation, but even so they are slow to welcome him as a social equal.

One must not conclude that the Negro is treated cruelly. Actually he seems to lead a happy existence and seemingly accepts without rancor the inferior lot in life assigned him by the white man. Some household servants on southern farms are treated affectionately by members of the family they serve. One of my Accomack County acquaintances never visited Wilmington without buying a pouch of tobacco or some other present for his colored mammy who had suckled him during infancy. When he went away on a trip, he would throw his arms around her neck and kiss her cheek tenderly. The same young man struck a northern Negro a nasty blow on the face for extending his hand when they were introduced. His reason was that this Negro “didn’t know his place.” To my friend, hand-shaking was a criterion of equality; kissing his old black mammy was not. It would be difficult to justify his reasoning, which is illustrative of a point of view typical of the “Old South.”

Turning back to the Peninsula Indians, we are told that their culture, like that of the Negroes, was also strange to the whites. It comprised a stone industry, exemplified in the manufacture of arrowheads, axes, domestic utensils, and manufacturing tools; the use of tobacco; pottery making; basket making; animal traps; fish weirs; the administering of herbs as medicines; elaborate ceremonies connected with death and the disposal of the body; and many other elements which seem distant to us today.

The most important Indian food product—corn—had not been previously seen by the European colonists or the Negroes. Its cultivation and consumption by the Indians were accompanied by such practices as planting the seeds in hills fertilized with fish; removing the husks from the cob with a bone or wood husking peg; storing the grain in granaries dug in the ground; beating the kernels into flour in a log mortar with a pestle. The corn husks were plaited into mats and baskets and used for other purposes. The corn flour was used for pone, ash cake, and what the whites called “Johnny cake.” The preparation of these and more than a dozen other corn-derived dishes required stirring paddles, mixing bowls, and shell spoons. The manufacture of these and other related utensils, in turn, necessitated specialized tools and implements. All were part of a vast, wonderful “corn complex”—to borrow an anthropological term—which was taken over almost in totality by both the whites and their black slaves. Today, more than eight million bushels of corn are harvested each year on Peninsula farms. Those who raise the product and those who consume it are generally not cognizant of its American origin, nor that they are following Indian methods and customs. The growing of squashes, beans, and gourds was also part of Indian agriculture, as was the raising of tobacco, another native American plant. These and others were borrowed from the Indians by the European colonists who settled on the Delmarva Peninsula. Negro, Englishman, Dutch, Swede, Finn, and Indian took liberally from each other. When peoples differing in cultural heritage come into intimate association, all give and all take; and the influence of one leaves a lasting mark on the culture of the other. The crisscross of white, red, and black cultural patterns formed an intricate and colorful fabric. Eventually one thread could not be distinguished from the other, and all became part of the cultural mosaic of present-day Delmarva life.

As one explores the Peninsula today, especially in the southern parts, deserting the highway and taking to the sandy roads that disappear in the pine and cedar woods, he finds small groups of people of composite culture caught in a maze of white, Negro, and Indian custom survivals. He sees many people living in the slow-moving pattern of their fathers, as unaware of the ways of the outside world as the city dweller is of their existence. Earlier practices persist despite automobiles, radios, and motion pictures. The people themselves are not aware that they are perpetuating an unusual heritage. The visitor recognizes that customs and language differ from those of the near-by city dweller, and he is puzzled to know why. The answer can be found in their cultural background and in their geographical environment, which until recently kept them almost entirely isolated from their northern neighbors.

Anglo-Saxon influence is still paramount, and even Elizabethan idiom and custom have not been entirely forgotten. City slang is, of course, nonexistent. The staff of the Federal Writers Project recorded some of the speech peculiar to the region, and the following notes are quoted from their study: *

In Sussex County, where contact with other peoples has been slight, many local variants of English pronunciation may be heard such as “carn” for corn, “cain’t” for can’t, “aiuot” for out, and “housen” for houses. Among friends and neighbors, “our folks” corresponds to “you all” of the South. The question “Our folks going somewhere today?” means, “Going somewhere today, friends?” Addressed to one person, the question “You folks going to church?” means “Are you and your family going to church?” Until recently, a mill in western Sussex was known as “Mungems Mill” because it was owned “among them” by a local group. A young male visitor in certain parts of the county may be flabbergasted to hear himself addressed by an older man as “Honey.”

The native of Delaware uses flat “a’s” and often fails to aspirate his “h’s” in such words as “where” and “when” and “what.” He usually refers to his homeland as “Del-a-wur” and winces when the outlander uses the harsh “Del-a-ware.” The late George Morgan, author and loyal son of Sussex County, caught a few phrases uttered by a trolley-car conductor in Philadelphia, and asked: “You’re a Delawarean?” “Yes.” “From Sussex County?” “Yes.” “Northwest Fork Hundred?” “Yes.”

Many of the white occupants who use this local idiom are descended from the early planters who came from the Virginia mainland. They point with pride to their family names on the earliest land grants and Indian deeds. Some are prosperous landholders and employ descendants of the Negro slaves who served their grandparents in antebellum days. Others are descended from colonists who came directly to the Peninsula from England prior to and during the Duke of York period and acquired large tracts of land. Most of the once vast farms of the Delmarva Peninsula, however, each with its separate owner, have been subdivided and leased to tenant farmers. Not a few of the tenants who scratch a living from the soil can also trace their ancestry to English settlers of the early eighteenth century. Other comparative newcomers have brought modern agricultural methods and new farm machinery. There are still numerous landowning farmers, but their individual holdings are comparatively small.

Other descendants of the first white colonists are engaged in fishing for sea bass, roach, drum, shad, mackerel, and bluefish, which are shipped far and wide. The oysters of Chincoteague Island and the soft-shell crabs caught in the waters surrounding Tangier Island are familiar to connoisseurs of sea food. On both islands and in the shore towns live hundreds of direct descendants of the pioneer settlers. The fishermen have little money or property, and live simple, unadorned lives in comparative ease and plenty. One group recognized as the “marine aristocracy” are the Delaware River pilots living at Lewes, Delaware. All foreign vessels entering the bay must pick up one of the pilots, who guides the ship upstream for a substantial fee. The unwritten “tricks of the trade” are passed on from father to son. Without the pilots, who know the locations of the shoals, river commerce would be exceedingly hazardous.

The Peninsula’s southern manners disappear north of Dover, where the residents are under the influence of Wilmington, the largest city. Shipbuilding, chemical manufacture, production of leather goods, steel, fiber, and other commodities give the city a cosmopolitan atmosphere. There has been an importation of manual and office workers from all parts of the country, but the native white Delawarean still constitutes the larger part of Wilmington’s population. The native has been exposed to influences and associations which have barely reached those living in the South. Wilmington is in effect a northern city with the South at its back door. Someone has said that it lies in the Shallow South.

It should be clearly apparent that blacks and whites have maintained their separate class identities on the Delmarva Peninsula throughout the years. The twentieth century finds each a separate part of the population. The historical background and present status of the blacks and whites has been described in some detail in order to set the stage for the main characters of our story—the Indian descendants. Beginning with their first contacts with the whites, the Indians suffered sorely with the passing of the years. Warfare, intoxicating liquors, smallpox and vener...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Illustrations
• 1. Red, White, and Black
• 2. The Mysterious Moor
• 3. Plot in the Swamp
• 4. The Persistent Red Thread
• 5. An Unexpected Champion
• 6. The Good Fight
• 7. A World Unknown
• 8. Links with the Past
• Bibliography