title: Ozinie
text: # 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.
  
  