Nanticoke Indian Tribe
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| (Approximately 1,200 in 1600 1,000 (1990)) |
|
| Regions with significant populations | |
 United States (Delaware, New Jersey, Maryland, Oklahoma),  Canada ( Ontario) |
|
| Languages | |
| English, formerly Nanticoke language | |
| Religion | |
| Native religion, Christianity | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Assateague, Choptank, Conoy, Patuxent, Piscataway, Pocomoke |
The Nanticoke people are an indigenous American Algonquian people, whose traditional homelands are in Chesapeake Bay and Delaware. Today they live in the northeast United States, especially Delaware; in Canada; and in Oklahoma.
The Nanticoke people consisted of several tribes: The Nanticoke proper (the subject of this article), the Choptank, the Assateague, the Piscataway, and the Doeg.
The Nanticoke Native American Tribe may have originated in Labrador, Canada and migrated through the Great Lake region and the Ohio Valley to the east, along with the Shawnee and Lenape peoples.
In 1608, the Nanticoke came into European contact, with the arrival of British captain John Smith. They allied with the British and traded beaver pelts with them. They were located in today's Dorchester, Somerset and Wicomico counties.
In 1668, the Nanticoke emperor Unnacokasimon signed a peace treaty with the proprietary government of the Province of Maryland. In 1684, the Nanticoke and English governments defined a reservation for their use, situated between Chicacoan Creek and the Nanticoke River in Maryland. Non-native peoples encroached upon their lands, so the tribe purchased a 3,000-acre tract of land in 1707 on Broad Creek in Somerset County, Maryland (now Sussex County, Delaware). In 1742, the tribe met with neighboring tribes in nearby Wimbesoccom Neck to discuss a Shawnee plot to attack the local English settlers, but the gathering was discovered and the leaders involved arrested. Some moved up to Pennsylvania in 1744, where they gained permission from the Iroquois Confederacy to settle near Wyoming, Pennsylvania and along the Juniata River. They moved upriver a decade later. They joined the Piscataway tribe, and were both under the jurisdiction of the League of the Iroquois. The reservation on Broad Creek was sold in 1768.
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