Highway marker a milepost in telling story of Nause-Waiwash people

Zach Cole, a member of the Nause-Waiwash Band of Indians Inc., performs a smudging ritual after the unveiling of a new highway marker recognizing the last colonial-era reservation for Indigenous people in Maryland. Photo by Bryan P. Sears.

For Chief Donna Abbott, 73 words on a new historical marker erected near Cambridge have been a long time coming.

The marker, unveiled Wednesday by state transportation officials, Abbott and members of the Nause-Waiwash Band of Indians Inc., is the next step in telling the story of a people that predate the first European settlers in what is now Dorchester County. It is a story Abbott said few know correctly, if at all.

“The sign gives us the opportunity to finally start telling our own story,” said Abbott, who leads the Nause-Waiwash Band of Indians Inc., a nonprofit based in Dorchester County. “So much of our history has been told incorrectly, and we are about education. We want to set the word straight — get it told correctly. We want to educate the community about it.”

The marker, unveiled in a ceremony along Hurst Creek where it joins the Choptank River, will memorialize the Indigenous peoples of the Eastern Shore and the colonial-era reservation they were forced onto. It will be permanently placed on Route 16 near Green Point Road, an area that was once part of the Choptank Indian Reservation created by the Maryland General Assembly.

Abbott said the sign begins a new era for the members of the Nause-Waiwash in Maryland.

“It honors our ancestors, certainly it’s about them and the loss that they have suffered, which was the land that was taken from them,” she said. “And it’s very meaningful, very heartwarming, that they are finally getting the recognition they deserve.”

The Nause-Waiwash (pronounced nah-soo Way-wash) is a group of roughly 300 descendants of what remains of the Nanticoke, Choptank and Pocomoke Indigenous tribes.

In 1669, the Maryland General Assembly created the reservation along an area of Locust Neck near Goose Creek and the Choptank River.

Members of the Choptank Tribe were forced onto the land in 1719. It was the last colonial-era reservation in the state. By 1744, a few Nanticoke families moved onto the reservation to avoid a forced relocation to Delaware.

The reservation, which was  later known as “Indian lands” was occupied by Indigenous people until the end of the 18th century. It was the last known place in Dorchester County where the Choptank tribe lived.

Placement of the marker is also a continuation of an effort by the Maryland Department of Transportation to make the roadside signs more inclusive and historically accurate.

The roadside marker program began in 1933 in a partnership between what was the State Roads Commission — the predecessor of the Department of Transportation — and the Maryland Historical Society. Over the years, the state installed roughly 800 markers.

In 1985, the Maryland Historical Trust took over management of the program, with the Transportation Department providing assistance and funding.

State transportation officials now manage the program with review by the Maryland Historical Trust.

Currently there are about 780 signs across the state. About a dozen are added every year at a cost of $3,000 – $4,000 per sign, said Julie Schablitsky, chief archaeologist for the Department of Transportation.

“Right now, what we’ve been aware of is that there’s really not a lot of signs that talk about Black history or Native people,” she said. “And so, what we’re doing is we’re targeting and reaching out to the different Black communities and state recognized tribes and tribal groups to solicit them to see where they would be interested in having signage.

“We’re also going through the signs across the state and rewriting, from their perspective, what they think is important, as well as trying to make sure that they are factually correct,” Schablitsky said.

She said groups around the state can nominate areas for future signs, but the state is currently not accepting new nominations until 2025.

“They have to be state-significant,” she said. Once accepted, the story of that significance must be told in about 70 words.

Schablitsky and her team are tasked with reviewing existing signs to ensure they are historically accurate and inclusive.

“We’ve been doing this since the 1930s, and so much of it has to do with white history,” she said.

“We’re trying to balance that because there are so many stories that haven’t been told. We would like to make it more inclusive,” she said. “It’s an inclusive story, Maryland, history needs to be that way.”

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