Members of the Nanticoke community, elected officials and others danced a Round Dance Monday to celebrate the dedication of a Delaware Public Archives historical marker in Millsboro’s Cupola Park for the Askekesky reservation once located south of the town.
The colony of Maryland granted the 1,000-acre Askekesky reservation to Queen Weatomotonies in 1711 for remnant groups of Nanticoke and Assateague people known to the colonists as the Indian River Indians.
Sterling Street (Earth Keeper) is museum coordinator for the Nanticoke Indian Museum in Millsboro. He says colonial encroachment on native land triggered the creation of the reservation.
“When the colonists came, they came with their pigs and their chickens and their cows, something we never had before. They let them run loose. They didn’t fence them in. Consequently they overran our gardens, our villages,” he said. “We complained to the colony of Maryland quite a bit, and because of our complaining, that’s when they said we’ll set aside a piece of land for you to live on. And that was the start of our reservations.”
But Street says the reservation was not seen as a good thing by the native groups.
“We were being restricted to land we were never restricted to before. And treaties were made at that time with more restrictions telling us where we could go and when we could go, and if we came upon a white man we had to drop our weapons and announce who we were and ask permission to travel further.”
The reservation land was purchased by Williams and Joshua Burton in1743. Street says the former inhabitants who stayed in the area as tenant farmers and hunters became the ancestors of the Nanticoke community that still lives in Millsboro.
Bonnie Hall (She Who Cares) chaired the Nanticoke Indian Tribe Commemoration Committee, which led efforts to secure the marker. She says it is important to let Millsboro residents know the land’s original inhabitants are still there.
“With the environment as it’s changing politically and the development that’s going on in our community, I thought it was really important that we have some recognition of the tribe that would be here in future generations," she said.
She says new development is planned for next to the tribe’s museum.
“Every opportunity we have to be able to continue to keep our tribal nation visible is important to us, because sometimes you kind of feel like you’re being squeezed out of the community that was yours all alone at one time,” she said.
Oct. 14, the U.S. federal holiday of Columbus Day, is recognized by some municipalities across the country as Indigenous Peoples’ Day. Hall says she hopes to work with municipalities in Delaware to do the same.
Nanticoke Chief Natosha Norwood Carmine says the marker is the Delaware Public Archives’ first specific to the tribe. She hopes the tribe can mark other significant sites throughout the state to help re-establish their presence.
