Some 'Indian River Indian' background information by Dick Carter, chairman of the Delaware Heritage Commission:

"It is a historical fact that the Maryland Assembly designated a reservation in 1711 for local Indians in the general vicinity of what is now Millsboro. This land was purchased from the Indians in two separate transactions by William Burton of Somerset (as opposed to the different William Burton who obtained title in 1677 to the land which later became Whitehouse Farm on Long Neck) and his son, Joshua Burton. They bought the two tracts from the Indian Wassason and the "Indian Queen" Weatomotonies between 1736 and 1743. William's tract, Indian Lands, amounted to some 600 acres in its final form and lay on the southern edge of what is now Millsboro. His son, Joshua's, tract, known as "The Queen's Swamp" in honor of Weatomotonies, lay to the southwest of Indian Lands, out toward the area known today as Hickory Hill. The stream which bounded these two properties on the south was known historically as Indian Branch, but later became Irons Branch in honor of a local gristmill owner. The Indian Lands tract in particular was the same property set aside by the Maryland Colonial Assembly in 1711 as a reservation for the Native American group then known locally as the "Indian River Indians."

"I believe I am correct in saying that this was part of a Native American group that had originally lived in the general area of Assateague Island and Sinepuxent Neck in what is now Worcester County, Maryland--they were possibly an offshoot of the larger Assateague Tribe. In the late 17th Century, in the face of ever-greater pressure from English settlers, remnants of this group moved up to the vicinity of Dirickson's Creek near Little Assawoman Bay, in what is now southeastern Sussex County, and still later to the south side of the upper Indian River. The sale of these lands to the Burton family some 25 years after the 1711 Act of the Maryland Assembly is one of the last identifiable actions of this tribe found in Sussex County records before local Native Americans entered a period of several generations of official oblivion, only to reemerge in the late 18th and early 19th Centuries with Anglicized names and the usual designation in county records as "mulatto" or "colored." This is not to suggest that they were not always there, even though the white establishment clearly tried to minimize that fact. I've even been told that one probable member of what is now the Nanticoke tribe was a member of the Delaware militia contingent that fought in the French and Indian War.

"As most are aware, Sussex County's Native American community were ultimately able to reclaim their proper cultural identity and were legally recognized as the Nanticoke Indian Tribe by the Delaware General Assembly in 1881. Native Americans of all varieties were under intense pressure during this period on Delmarva from the ever encroaching white settlers. This was the same period in which many of the original Native American inhabitants of Delmarva left to join more powerful groups like the Iroquois in Pennsylvania and New York, ultimately making their way over the generations into Canada. My theory is that the modern Nanticoke Indians centered in the Indian River Hundred area on the north side of the Indian River are probably derived from a number of the early tribal groups including both the more numerous Nanticokes of western Sussex and adjacent areas of Maryland, the so-called Indian River Indians, and possibly other tribal groups as well.

"The late C.A. Weslager may have dealt with some of these matters in greater detail in his 1983 book, "The Nanticoke Indians--Past and Present." ...Dr. Weslager told me in 1983 that he had written the later book to correct some errors in the first one."