Baltimore is Native American land — that’s the first thing I want you to know. Many locals and outsiders alike would consider that a strange perspective, since Baltimore is usually perceived in a monochrome scale of Black and white, but its story has always been more complicated. In fact, much of Baltimore City may not legally belong to its settlers, depending on your interpretation of a 1652 treaty’s ambiguous boundaries.
Contrary to a historic marker proclaiming it “virgin” timberland, the land now known as Baltimore was used productively by Indigenous people long before the colonizers came here. This area was lightly settled by small groups of Piscataway people, and the forests were managed by the Susquehannock people (who refer to themselves as the Conestoga-Susquehannock Tribe today) through regular prescribed burns that cleared out vegetation and facilitated hunting. Colonists wrote descriptions of this “Baltimore Barrens” ecosystem, often unaware that it was due to Indigenous terraforming and not an innate feature of the landscape.
Treaties, in contrast, can provide explicit documentation of Indigenous imprints on North American landscapes. In 1652, Susquehannock leaders (Sawahegeh, Aurotaurogh, Scarhuhadih, Ruthcuhogah, and Wathetdianeh, as their Iroquoian-language names were transliterated into English) negotiated and signed “Articles of Peace and freindshipp” with Maryland colonial leaders. The Susquehannock diplomats were seeking European alliances as a bulwark against Haudenosaunee attacks from the north. (The Susquehannocks were also negotiating with New Netherland and New Sweden around the same time.) Maryland, meanwhile, was desperate for an end to warfare with the Susquehannocks. Richard Bennett, who was both the governor of Virginia and the interim governor of Maryland, led their delegation. He was joined by a number of other Protestants who had recently taken over the Catholic colony’s government and may also have wanted to consolidate their authority within the colony through external alliances.