KITTAMAQUND
Pocahontas was not the only Indian girl of royal blood who once lived in the Northern Neck. Kittamaqund, too, lived for awhile, died and, it is believed, was buried in the land between the Rappahannock and the Potomac.
Kittamaqund was the only child of the Tayac, or Emperor, of the Piscataway Indians. Their village was located on Piscataway Creek on the Maryland side of the Potomac. At this point the Potomac, which separated the Province of Maryland from the Colony of Virginia, was less than a mile wide.
In the winter of 1640 Father Andrew White, a Catholic missionary, came to "Piscatoe" to baptize the Indians. Among those whom Father White baptized were the Emperor and his wife.
Shortly after the missionary's visit, the Emperor brought his seven-year-old daughter, Kittamaqund, to St. Mary's "Citie," Maryland, and put her in the care of Father White. He loved his daughter very dearly and he wanted her to be educated and "when she shall well understand the Christian mysteries, to be washed in the sacred font of baptism."
The "little Empress," as she was called by the settlers, was adopted by Mistress Margaret Brent of St. Mary's. By 1642 Kittamaqund had become "proficient in the English language" and she was baptized by Father White at that time and given the Christian name Mary.
Before long romance took a hand in the situation. Mistress Margaret had a brother, Giles Brent, who had left England with her on the ship Elizabeth in 1638, and they had arrived together at St. Mary's. Giles had been born in Gloucestershire, England, about 1600.
Giles and the little Indian "Empress" were married when she was about twelve years old. Giles had a home on Kent Island where they lived for part of the year and the rest of the year they stayed with Margaret at her home "in St. Maries, where he had certain goods etc."—"divers cattle and other commodities ... linen, shoes, stockings, sugar ... and also a little cabbonett containing Jewels etc."
About 1646 Giles took his Indian bride and crossed the Potomac to the Northern Neck of Virginia. He settled on the north shore of Aquia Creek and there built a house which he called Peace. This name seems to indicate that he may have had troubles, probably religious persecution, in Maryland. He had also failed in his attempt to claim Kittamaqund's royal domain, which was most of Maryland.
The home of Giles and Kittamaqund in the Northern Neck was in the midst of the wilderness. They were the northernmost English residents in Virginia. When in 1651 settlers pushed northward to patent land above the Brent home they all stopped at Peace for refreshments and information. It was the point of departure into the unknown.