Ozinie
# Ozinie

The Ozinie, also known as the Wicomiss, were a group of Native Americans living near modern-day Rock Hall, in Kent County, Maryland. They were hunter-gatherers and fished.

## Territory

They lived in a village near Chester River that flowed in the Chesapeake Bay. They used Eastern Neck Island for shellfishing.

## Population

They had an estimated population of 255 people.

## Language

The Ozinie spoke an Algonquian language and were related to the Nanticoke, another Algonquian-speaking tribe,

## 17th-century history

Captain John Smith encountered the Ozinie in 1608. By 1631, William Claiborne, a British colonist in Virginia, maintained a lucrative fur trade with the local tribes. The Ozinies and the Nanticokes fought against the English colonists who encroached upon their lands. By the mid-17th century, the Ozinie, Matapeakes, and Mononposons disappeared from the historical record. The Ozinie assimilated with the neighboring Nanticokes by the 1660s.

