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.