Newsletter of
The Maryland State Archives
Vol. 15, No. 18
September 24, 2001
www.mdsa.net

Page 2
The Archivists' Bulldog
A POINT OF LAND ON KENT ISLAND 
by Chris Haley 

Bloody Point Bar Lighthouse marks an area of land located at the southern tip of Kent Island, that has long been known as Bloody Point. Several researchers are trying to determine the derivation and meaning of the name. The lighthouse itself, built in 1882 on a round cylindrical concrete filled base, or caisson, and topped with a 37 foot iron tower, is also referred to as the coffee pot because of its appearance. The structure was gutted by fire in 1960 and today functions through the benefit of solar energy. The Archives library holds several books of note on Maryland lighthouses: Pat Vojtech, Lighting the Bay: Tales of Chesapeake Lighthouses (Centreville, MD: Tidewater Publications, 1996); Ross Holland, Maryland Lighthouses of the Chesapeake Bay (Crownsville, MD: Maryland Historical Trust, 1997); and Robert De Gast, Lighthouses of the Chesapeake (1973). None of the volumes, however, explore the reasons behind the site's name. 

In the early days of colonization there were various disputes and maneuvers regarding land ownership. In his book Pirates on the Chesapeake (Centreville, MD:  Tidewater Publishers, 1985), Donald G. Shomette details how King Charles I, wittingly or unwittingly, set many loyal subjects at odds with one another by granting certain powers and patents which the new neighbors often strove to expand. William Clairborne was an early colonist with such ambitions. Between 1627 and 1628, Clairborne, by then Secretary of State of the colony of Virginia, set his sights on opening for trade the uncharted island of forest green which he named Kent Island after his homeland in England. On May 16, 1631, the entrepreneur was granted a royal license by William Alexander, Secretary of State for Scotland, that gave him permission to conduct and explore avenues of trade and do so freely with whomever "in all sea-coasts, rivers, creeks, harbors, land and  

territories in or neare those parts of America for which there is not already a patent granted to others for trade." 

In short order, the ambitious Englishman established dwellings and farms, mapped out the landscape, and developed a relationship with the native Indians from whom he acquired the land. Also, according to Shomette's work, "Within a year, the island was being represented in the Virginia Assembly." In June 1632, however, the efforts of the recently deceased First Lord Baltimore, George Calvert, found fruit when the charter to the colony of Maryland was granted to his son, Cecilius. The borders assigned to the Second Lord Baltimore's patent clearly overlapped a portion which had been earlier granted to the Virginia Company in 1609. Central to this section lay Kent Island. King Charles I made no final determination regarding the dispute and thus left "Lord Baltimore to his patent and the other parties to the course of law according to their desire." 

Years of squabbling, accusations, and muddled declarations continued between the two colonies until April 23, 1635, when blood was shed between Kent Islanders dispatched by Clairborne aboard the Virginian sloop Cockatrice and a Maryland contingent from St. Mary's City aboard the pinnaces Margaret and St. Helen.  Attempting to overtake each other's vessels in disputed Chesapeake waters, the Cockatrice fell into hands of the Maryland crew, but three of the Kent Island forces were killed. This marked the first blood spilled in waters off the new settlement. Was Bloody Point coined by settlers to memorialize this event? 

Early in the colonization of Kent Island there is rumored to have been a massacre of Indians by the newly settled Europeans. The story goes that a group of Indians were invited to an interview with the colonists who, while the guests "were performing their humble salutations, slaughtered them without warning."  In History of Maryland

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The Archivists' Bulldog 
Page 3
A POINT OF LAND 
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(Hatboro, PA: Tradition Press, 1967), J. Thomas Scharf recounts the tale of a pirate who, after being tried and convicted of overtaking and killing three crew members of a small craft, was hung in irons and left to hang at Bloody Point as a skeleton for several years. Did the natives choose to commemorate these gruesome deeds with this dramatic title? 

All the histories listed above, and Frederic Emory's Queen Anne's County, Maryland (Baltimore: Maryland Historical Society, 1950), relate modified versions of the same reasons for the origin of Bloody Point. But in the fall of 2000 a rumor began to surface that involved the African slave trade. The tale circulated that slave boat captains who found their African American human cargo to be of ill health, dying, or rebellious, threw them overboard at this watery spot off Kent Island. Similar accounts aboard the French ship Rodeur in 1819 and the British Zong in 1781 have been documented and approximately reenacted in movies such as Steven Spielberg's Armistad and Alex Haley's Roots

According to Susanne Everett's account in History of Slavery (Chartwell Books, Inc., 1991), the Zong was one of the worst incidents. In September 1781 near the African coast, ship master Luke Collingwood decided over the course of three days to dispose of 132 ill slaves "to save the owners of his ship any unnecessary loss by throwing his whole cargo of sick wretches into the sea." Disputes were brought by the underwriters of the voyage to refuse insurance payment to the ship owners as compensation for their lost property. After the initial judicial victory in the owners' favor citing that "the case of slaves was the same as if horses had been thrown overboard," the decision was later appealed in favor of the underwriters, "legally recognizing for the first time that slaves were human and not just merchandise." 

Regardless of the reality of such atrocities, none of the researched histories, or African American historians contacted for this story, relayed any evidence to support this theory as spawning the colloquial adoption of the name, Bloody Point. Today historians are left with several reasons for the name of Bloody Point, none of them
definitive. 
RECORD TRANSFERS

MARYLAND COMMISSION FOR CELEBRATION 2000 
    (General File) 1997-2000 [MSA T3345] 

SECRETARY OF STATE 
    (Condominium File) 1982-1999 [MSA T1443] 
    (Extraditions) 1997-1999 [MSA T864] 
    (Servicemarks and Trademarks) 1988-1991
          [MSA T3336] 

STATE ETHICS COMMISSION 
    (Agency Record) 1978-1993 [MSA T2301] 

STATE RETIREMENT AND PENSION SYSTEMS 
    (Minutes) 1927-1992 [MSA T2626] 

ANNAPOLIS MAYOR AND ALDERMEN 
    (Miscellaneous Papers) 1973-2000 [MSA T390] 
    (Ordinances and Resolutions) 1951-1998 
          [MSA T2389] 

ANNE ARUNDEL COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT 
    (Civil Papers) 1992-1993 [MSA T1067] 

CECIL COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT 
    (Civil Papers) 1985-1988 [MSA T2631] 
    (Land Records, Original) 1824-1970 
          [MSA T3335] 

(continued on last page)

RECORD TRANSFERS (continued from Page 3)

CHARLES COUNTY REGISTER OF WILLS 
    (Estate Papers) 1992-1997 [MSA T2633] 

HARFORD COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT 
    (Equity Papers) 1983 [MSA T2417] 

HOWARD COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT 
    (Civil Docket) 1947-1983 [MSA T3296] 
    (Equity Docket) 1973-1984 [MSA T3295] 
    (Equity Papers) 1942-1984 [MSA T409] 

PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY REGISTER OF WILLS 
    (Estate Papers) var.d. [MSA T698] 

SOMERSET COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT 
    (Adoption Papers) 1947-1988 [MSA T3294] Restricted 

ST. MARY'S COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT 
    (Equity Record) 1811-1967 [MSA T3014] 

ST. MARY'S COUNTY REGISTER OF WILLS 
    (Estate Papers) 1997-1998 [MSA T2351] 
    (Wills, Original) 1977-1996 [MSA T3363]