Editing Chesapeake Bay (section)

==History==
===Pre-Columbian===
It is presumed that the Chesapeake Bay was once inhabited by Paleoindians 11,000 years ago.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Arnett |first1=Earl |last2=Brugger |first2=Robert J. |last3=Papenfuse |first3=Edward C. |title=Maryland: A New Guide to the Old Line State |date=3 May 1999 |publisher=JHU Press |isbn=978-0-8018-5980-9 |page=128 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lncOLHYhcrsC&pg=PA128}}</ref> For thousands of years, Native American societies lived in villages of wooden [[longhouse]]s close to water bodies where they fished and farmed the land. Agricultural products included beans, corn, tobacco, and squash. Villages often lasted between 10 and 20 years before being abandoned due to local resources such as firewood running out or soil depleting.<ref>{{Cite web |title=History & Culture—Chesapeake Bay |url=https://www.nps.gov/cbpo/learn/historyculture/index.htm |access-date=2021-03-07 |publisher=National Park Service}}</ref> To produce enough food, labor was divided with men hunting while the women supervised the village's farming. All village members took part in the harvesting of fish and shellfish from the local bodies of water. As time went on, communities around the Chesapeake Bay formed confederations such as the [[Powhatan]], the [[Piscataway people|Piscataway]], and the [[Nanticoke people|Nanticoke]]. Each of these confederations consisted of a collection of smaller tribes falling under the leadership of a central chief.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Tayac |first=Gabrielle |date=2006 |title=We Have A Story To Tell: Native Peoples of the Chesapeake Region; A Guide for Teachers |url=https://archive.org/details/chesapeakenativeamericans |access-date=March 6, 2021 |publisher=National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution}}</ref>

===European exploration and settlement===
[[File:First map to label Chesapeake Bay.jpg|thumb|Revised map{{refn|orientation of map depicts west at top}} of [[John White (colonist and artist)|John White's]] original by Theodore DeBry. In this 1590 version, the Chesapeake Bay appears named for the first time.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Woodard |first1=Buck |title=A Study of Virginia Indians and Jamestown: The First Century|date=2006-11-22 |publisher=Colonial National Historical Park, National Park Service |page=Appendix A |url=https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/jame1/moretti-langholtz/appendixa2.htm |access-date=9 April 2016}}</ref>]]
[[File:1630 Hondius Map of Virginia and the Chesapeake - Geographicus - NovaVirginiaeTabula-hondius-1630.jpg|thumb|Later (1630) version of the 1612 map by Captain John Smith during his exploration of the Chesapeake. The map is oriented with west at top.]]
In 1524, Italian explorer [[Giovanni da Verrazzano]], (1485–1528), in service of the [[Kingdom of France|French crown]], (famous for sailing through and thereafter naming the entrance to [[New York Bay]] as the "[[The Narrows|Verrazzano Narrows]]", including now in the 20th century, a [[suspension bridge]] also named for [[Verrazano-Narrows Bridge|him]]) sailed past the Chesapeake, but did not enter the bay.<ref name=Parramore>{{cite book |last1=Parramore |first1=Thomas |title=Norfolk: The First Four Centuries | year = 2000 |pages=1–16 |publisher=University of Virginia Press |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pWiCMTB35mEC |access-date=2011-11-05 |isbn= 9780813919881 }}</ref> Spanish explorer [[Lucas Vásquez de Ayllón]] sent an expedition out from [[Hispaniola]] in 1525 that reached the mouths of the Chesapeake and [[Delaware Bay]]s. It may have been the first European expedition to explore parts of the Chesapeake Bay, which the Spaniards called "Bahía de Santa María" ("Bay of St. Mary") or "Bahía de Madre de Dios."("Bay of the Mother of God")<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.virginiaplaces.org/settleland/spanish.html |title=Spanish in the Chesapeake |access-date=2010-07-08 |last=Grymes |first=Charles A}}</ref> De Ayllón established a short-lived [[Spain|Spanish]] mission settlement, [[San Miguel de Gualdape]], in 1526 along the [[Atlantic Ocean|Atlantic coast]]. Many scholars doubt the assertion that it was as far north as the Chesapeake; most place it in present-day [[Georgia (U.S. state)|Georgia]]'s [[Sapelo Island]].<ref>{{cite book |title=The Spanish Frontier in North America |last= Weber|first=David |year=1994 |publisher=Yale University Press|location=New Haven, CT |pages=36–37}}</ref> In 1573, [[Pedro Menéndez de Márquez]], the governor of Spanish Florida, conducted further exploration of the Chesapeake.<ref name=Parramore /> In 1570, Spanish [[Jesuits]] established the short-lived [[Ajacan Mission]] on one of the Chesapeake tributaries in present-day Virginia.{{Citation needed|date=December 2022}}

The arrival of English colonists under [[Sir Walter Raleigh]] and [[Humphrey Gilbert]] in the late 16th century to found a colony, later settled at [[Roanoke Island]] (off the present-day coast of [[North Carolina]]) for the [[Virginia Company]], marked the first time that the English approached the gates to the Chesapeake Bay between the capes of [[Cape Charles (headland)|Cape Charles]] and [[Cape Henry]]. Three decades later, in 1607, Europeans again entered the bay. [[Captain John Smith]] of [[Kingdom of England|England]] explored and mapped the bay between 1607 and 1609, resulting in the publication in 1612 back in the [[British Isles]] of ''"A Map of Virginia"''.<ref name=SmithMapinfo>{{cite web |title=Smith's Maps |url=http://www.smithtrail.net/captain-john-smith/smiths-maps/ |work=Captain John Smith Chesapeake National Historical Trail |publisher=National Park Service |access-date=12 June 2012 |archive-date=29 May 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120529141445/http://www.smithtrail.net/captain-john-smith/smiths-maps/ |url-status=dead }}</ref> Smith wrote in his journal: "Heaven and earth have never agreed better to frame a place for man's habitation."<ref name=twsT21/> The [[Captain John Smith Chesapeake National Historic Trail]], the first designated "all-water" [[National Historic Trail]] in the US, was established in 2006 by the [[National Park Service]]. The trail follows the route of Smith's historic 17th-century voyage.<ref>{{cite web |title=H.R. 5466 <nowiki>[109th]</nowiki> Captain John Smith Chesapeake National Historic Trail Designation Act |url=http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h109-5466 |publisher=GovTrack.us |access-date=December 16, 2007 |archive-date=November 3, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111103143204/http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h109-5466 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Because of economic hardships and civil strife in the "Mother Land", there was a mass migration of southern English [[Cavalier]]s and their servants to the Chesapeake Bay region between 1640 and 1675, to both of the new colonies of the [[Province of Virginia]] and the [[Province of Maryland]].{{Citation needed|date=December 2022}}

===American Revolution to the present===
[[File:Oyster wars 1886 Harpers Weekly.jpeg|thumb|right|alt=|[[Oyster Wars|Oyster boats at war]] off the Maryland shore (1886 wood engraving). Regulation of the oyster beds in Virginia and Maryland has existed since the 19th century.]]
The Chesapeake Bay was the site of the [[Battle of the Chesapeake]] (also known as the "Battle of the Capes", [[Cape Charles (headland)|Cape Charles]] and [[Cape Henry]]) in 1781, during which the French fleet defeated the [[Royal Navy]] in the decisive naval battle of the [[American Revolutionary War]]. The French victory enabled General [[George Washington]] and his [[Kingdom of France|French]] allies under the [[Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, Comte de Rochambeau|Comte de Rochambeau]] to march down from [[History of New York City|New York]] and bottle up a British army under [[Lord Cornwallis]] from the [[North Carolina in the American Revolution|North]] and [[South Carolina in the American Revolution|South]] Carolinas at the siege of [[Siege of Yorktown|Battle of Yorktown]] in [[Yorktown, Virginia]]. Their marching route from [[Newport, Rhode Island]] through Connecticut, New York State, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware to the [[Elkton, Maryland|"Head of Elk"]] by the [[Susquehanna River]] along the shores and also partially sailing down the bay to [[History of Virginia|Virginia]]. It is also the subject of a designated National Historic Trail as the [[Washington–Rochambeau Revolutionary Route]].{{Citation needed|date=December 2022}}

The bay would again see conflict during [[War of 1812]]. During the year of 1813, from their base on [[Tangier Island]], British naval forces under the command of Admiral [[George Cockburn]] raided several towns on the shores of the Chesapeake, treating the bay as if it were a "British Lake". The [[Chesapeake Bay Flotilla]], a fleet of shallow-draft armed barges under the command of [[United States Navy|U.S. Navy]] Commodore [[Joshua Barney]], was assembled to stall British shore raids and attacks. After months of harassment by Barney, the British landed on the west side of the Patuxent at [[Benedict, Maryland]], the Chesapeake Flotilla was scuttled, and the British trekked overland to [[Battle of Bladensburg|rout the U.S. Army at Bladensburg]] and [[Burning of Washington|burn the U.S. Capitol]] in August 1814. A few days later in a "pincer attack", they also sailed up the Potomac River to attack [[Fort Washington (Maryland)|Fort Washington]] below the National Capital and [[Raid on Alexandria (Virginia)|raided]] the nearby port town of [[Alexandria, Virginia]].{{Citation needed|date=December 2022}}

There were so-called "[[Oyster Wars]]" in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Until the mid-20th century, oyster harvesting rivaled the crab industry among Chesapeake watermen, a dwindling breed whose [[skipjack (boat)|skipjacks]] and other workboats were supplanted by recreational craft in the latter part of the century.<ref name=twsT22>{{cite news |first=Kendra Bailey |last=Morris |title=Consider the Chesapeake Bay Oyster |publisher=NPR |date= November 21, 2007 |url=https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16369187 |access-date=April 20, 2011}}</ref>

In the 1960s, the [[Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant]] on the historic [[Calvert Cliffs State Park|Calvert Cliffs]] in [[Calvert County, Maryland|Calvert County]] on the Western Shore of Maryland began using water from the bay to cool its reactor.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Patel |first=Sonal |date=2022-11-01 |title=A Half-Century of Reliability: Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant |url=https://www.powermag.com/a-half-century-of-reliability-calvert-cliffs-nuclear-power-plant/ |access-date=2024-02-24 |website=POWER Magazine |language=en-US}}</ref>