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Moving - Indian Head, Maryland

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Check out our brief history of the Indian Head, MD, area.

A Brief History of Indian Head, Maryland
 

The Town of Indian Head occupies land that was once part of the territory of the Algonquin Indians.  These Native-Americans who lived along the lower Potomac River had a complex society of kin-based bands, which in turn were loosely organized into confederations at the time of European settlement.  Scholars believe that by 1608, the Native American groups north of the Potomac were divided into about ten petty chiefdoms.  Of these groups, the Piscataway, Anacostan, Mattawoman, Nanjemoy, and Portobaco were further organized into a paramount chiefdom headed by the Piscataway.  The paramount chief of this group was known as the Tayac.

Today the town of Indian Head, the Indian Head Division of the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Potomac Heights and a portion of Chapmans Landing occupy the land that was originally set aside as part of a land grant from the second Lord Baltimore, Celilius Calvert to his friend Thomas Cornwallis.  The grant, approved in 1654, included 5000 acres as shown in the Charles County Land Records, Liber A, B and H, Folio 401.  Current maps still label the peninsula of land where Indian Head sits as Cornwallis Neck.

In 1666, 12 Native American groups and the Maryland colonists signed the Articles of Peace and Amity, which allowed the Native Americans to remain on the lands that they then occupied.  Two years later the Articles were clarified and some of the land between the heads of Mattawoman and Piscataway Creeks was specifically allotted to the Native Americans, with English settlement forbidden there.

By the early 1700's encroachment of the English settlers forced the Native Americans in the region to abandon the area.  Most of the Piscataway moved away, across the river to Virginia and Pennsylvania.

The origin of the name Indian Head is not specifically known but most likely is a corruption of the term "Indian Headlands", as the entire lower end of the peninsula was occupied by Native Americans and was an Indian Reservation.

In 1814, the British marched on Washington, D.C., and burned the city during the War of 1812.  As the British navy withdrew they had to face the gun batteries set up by the American navy along the Potomac River by Commodore Oliver Perry.  One of the positions was a battery on the high bank above the Potomac at Indian Head.  (This may be the first time the words "Indian Head" were used in an official way.)