How Did The Anacostia River Get Its Name?

 During a zoom presentation to the St Peter School in November, a student asked me about how the Anacostia got its name and made me realize I was unclear about that.

Much of what we see now is a neglect of our Native history, so how did the river get its name?

It turns out that when Thomas Jefferson was serving as the first Secretary of State in the early 1790s, he was interested in learning the Native name for the river, and Andrew Ellicott, who was mapping the land that would become the District of Columbia sent him word that that the name was "Anna Kostia." 

Jefferson directed Ellicott to include the name on future maps, and Ellicott's 1793 map was the 1st to include a version of the name, Anacostia.

References:

1. Hutchinson, Louise D. The Anacostia Story, 1608-1930. Washington: Published for the Anacostia Neighborhood Museum of the Smithsonian Institution by the Smithsonian Institution Press, 1977. Print.

page xix (#27): (see para 2)

Pdf online: https://library.si.edu/digital-library/book/anacostiastor1600hutc

2. loc.gov call number for Ellicott 1793 map - G3850 1793 .E42 1898)

DC Water Awareness of DC Native History

May 27, 2020

To: David Gadis, President/CEO DC Water

From: Armand Lione, Director DC Native History Project

Dear David Gadis,

DC Water is doing an excellent job providing clean water for Washington, DC. In the hope of improving what you do, this email will describe a perspective on the Native history of DC which seems to be missing from your important work.

DC Water has facilities at several sites that are very important in the Native history of Washington. For example, Blue Plains is part of the site where the chief of the Nacotchtank Indians lived before being displaced by settlers in the late 1600s. The Clean Water initiative aims to make swimmable the Anacostia, a river named for our Native people. Soon, DC Water will undertake work in Soapstone Valley, which amounts to what is left of one of 2 major DC quarries once worked by the Anacostans and other Native Americans for hundreds or thousands of years before the English settlers arrived.

Before going into any details, allow me to explain that I am working with the DC Native History Project to promote a recognition of the Native people who once lived, farmed and quarried in what is now Washington, DC. Among those involved in this group, we are honored to include Chief Jesse James Swann of the Piscataway-Conoy Tribe, based in nearby southern Maryland. The Nacotchtank, who later got their name Anglicized to the “Anacostans,” lived on both sides of the Anacostia River and southern Maryland when John Smith first visited in 1608.

Blue Plains

Let's first consider aspects of the construction that was planned over a decade ago and completed in 2019 at Blue Plains. As mentioned, the site where the Blue Plain treatment facility and Bolling Air Force Base now sits was identified on John Smith's earliest map as the location occupied by the Chief of the Nacotchtanks:

Here's a map of the area currently:

And a 2018 Google map image of the Blue Plains construction site which was almost completed: 

Out of interest to learn if any mention was made of the archaeological history of the site, I inspected the final version of the Combined Sewer System Long Term Control Plan. The description given in that document states only that the the site was "an athletic field."

Any archaeological information from an earlier Environmental Assessment was not included in the final report.

Although it is likely that the construction site had been examined and designated not to be of archaeological interest because of all the preceding disruption that had been done in the area, the Blue Plains digging did go deeper than any previous construction. The final document certainly does not include mention of the more than 100 Native skeletons that were foundnearby in 1937 during the construction of Bolling AFB.

(Here are the citations for the 1936 news stories on the burial site that were run in the Washington Post and Washington Evening Star:

“Ancient Cemetery in Anacostia Yields Bones Held Prehistoric,” Washington Post, September 11, 1936.

“Skeletons Unearthed at Bolling Field,” Washington Evening Star, September 11, 1936.)  

Nor does it mention the much older ceramic Native bowl that had been found in 2009, in Bellevue, less than a mile from the Blue Plains site.

DC Water Bill Insert: Restoring the Anacostia River

I was excited when I found an article on restoring the Anacostia River in the August 2018 edition of “What's on Tap.” It opened with a brief review of the Nacotchtanks who had lived along the river. Yet the article never informed readers of how the name of the river had been derived from the name of the tribe. One is left to wonder how many staff at DC Water, who had seen and reviewed the contents prior to publication, missed the glaring omission of this basic fact about the river they are so painstakingly working to restore. It does not speak well of the corporate awareness of the Native history of the Anacostia.

Soapstone Valley Park

Finally, there are the documents on the upcoming Rehabilitation of Sewer Infrastructure in Soapstone Valley Park. As noted in the environmental assessment, “No archaeological sites have been identified within the APE; [area of potential effect].” There is no clear reason to challenge that conclusion, but what is not mentioned in any of the DC Water documents, what is not publicly explained in or around Soapstone Valley, is the history of quarrying by the Native Americans who lived in the area for several thousand years, and who produced and traded bowls, pipes and various other useful items from the soft stone that still sits in the stream bed of the valley.

The soapstone quarry itself has been eliminated by urban development. To neglect mentioning its previous existence is one more step in erasing the long history of the Natives who lived here before us.

Clean and plentiful water is a powerful symbol of the District’s bountiful past, historical legacy, and exciting renewal. Contacting you on these matters is not intended to suggest that DC Water is uniquely at fault in neglecting the Native history of Washington. However, the connection between DC Water and the city’s waterways offers a unique and powerful opportunity to inform the public of the historical bounty from which its residents’ continually benefit.

Those of us involved in the DC Native History Project will be happy to work with DC Water to improve what the public learns as you improve our public life through your ongoing water and sewer projects.

Please contact us to open a dialogue about our concerns and to learn more about the enhanced role DC Water may play in honoring the Native history of DC, while protecting the city’s natural resources.

Best wishes,

Armand

Armand Lione, Ph.D.
Director, DC Native History Project
202.487.7092

CC: Chief Jesse James Swann
Piscataway Conoy Tribehttp://www.piscatawaytribe.org/

CC:Tommy Wells
Chair, Board of Directors DC Watertommy.wells@dc.gov