The Catholic Refuge - The Tayac

American Political History · Jun 27, 2021 · 14m

In 1634 — the founding year of Maryland — the ruler of the most powerful native people on the Potomac was murdered by his own brother. The dead man, Wannas, distrusted the English. His killer, Kittamaquund, took his place and welcomed them. The peaceable founding the colony liked to remember sat on top of a killing, and on top of something larger: the English had not arrived in an empty country, but in the middle of someone else's war.

This is the story of the Piscataway — an Algonquian paramount chiefdom ruled by the Tayac, an emperor of chiefs — and the cold calculation that let Maryland…