The Nanticoke

By the 1600s, several Eastern Woodland groups had settled around the Chesapeake Bay.  The largest Woodland group on the Eastern Shore of Maryland was the Nanticoke (NAN tih kohk), which means "people of the tidewater."  The Nanticoke grew corn, beans, and squash, but mostly fished for their food.  Farming was difficult on the marshy ground they lived on.  The Nanticoke traded with others.  Their trade was done by trading animals pelts and roanoke beads, which are beads made from oyster and clam shells, for items they couldn't get easily.  They lived in small round homes called wigwams and traveled in canoes they carved from wood.

Their customs and their language is lost. The last speaker of Nanticoke Lydia Clark, Died between 1840 and 1850.