Acquintanacsnak Indians. A tribe or sub-tribe which Capt. John Smith 1 locates on the west bank of Patuxent river, St Mary’s County, Maryland. They were near to and in friendship with the Patuxent and Mattapanient, the 3 tribes numbering 200 warriors. The principal village bore the tribal name and is supposed by Bozman to have been situated at the mouth of a small creek about 2½ miles above Cole’s inspection house. Smith describes them as “the most civil to give entertainment.” Although this people had their werowance, or chief, it is doubtful whether they formed a distinct tribe; it is not impossible that they were a band or division of the Patuxent. A number of local names mentioned by early writers as those of Indian tribes of Maryland subsequently dropped from notice without indication of the extinction of the people, very likely because subsequent and more correct information showed that these referred merely to divisions of well-known tribes.
Citations:
- Virginia, 1, 118, 1629; Artier ed., 53, 1884[↩]