The Chesapeake Bay was a very different place between 18,000 and 11,500 years ago, at the end of the last ice age. As the climate moderated and rivers found their modern-day courses, plants and animals became established, and the once-barren plain was replaced with swamps, lagoons, grasslands, and forests.
What is the historical importance of the Chesapeake Bay?
The Chesapeake Bay was the site of the Battle of the Chesapeake (also known as the “Battle of the Capes”, 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.
What was the Chesapeake Bay most known for?
Did you know that the Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in the world? Stretching from the mouth of the Susquehanna River to the Atlantic Ocean, this expanse of shimmering water is famous for its stunning beauty and great fishing opportunities.
What is the Chesapeake in US history?
The Chesapeake Colonies were the Colony and Dominion of Virginia, later the Commonwealth of Virginia, and Province of Maryland, later Maryland, both colonies located in British America and centered on the Chesapeake Bay. Settlements of the Chesapeake region grew slowly due to diseases such as malaria.
What is the original name of the Chesapeake Bay?
While Diego Gutiérrez first depicted the Chesapeake Bay, named Bahia de Santa Maria, on his map in 1562, a variation of its current name, Chesapiooc Sinus, was printed for the first time on a 1590 map by John White.
What were the Chesapeake colonies known for?
Economics in the colonies: Both the Chesapeake and Southern colonies had rich soil and temperate climates which made large-scale plantation farming possible. Both regions had an agriculture-based economy in which cash crops like tobacco, indigo, and cotton were cultivated for trade.
Why is it called Chesapeake Bay?
The namesake for our Bay could stem from a variety of places. The word Chesepiooc is an Algonquian word referring to a village “at a big river.” The name “Chesapeake” may refer to the Chesepian or Chesapeake people, a Native American tribe who inhabited the area surrounding what is now known as Hampton Roads, Virginia.
Why was the Chesapeake Bay important to the history of early Virginia?
For many years leading up to the war, the Chesapeake Bay was a vital part of the Underground Railroad. This was not an actual railroad but a series of routes and hiding places that led from slave states to free states and Canada.
Why is the Chesapeake Bay so dirty?
Excessive amounts of nitrogen and phosphorous come from fertilizers, wastewater, septic tank discharges, air pollution, and runoff from farms, cities, and suburbs. Excessive amounts of sediment are carried into our waterways from erosion and from construction sites.
Why is the Chesapeake Bay dirty?
Humans are directly responsible for the excess nutrients that enter and damage the Chesapeake. This nutrient pollution comes from fertilizing lawns, gardens, and farms. Nutrient pollution also comes from urban sources, including exhaust from automobiles, wastewater, septic systems, and stormwater runoff.
Can you swim in the Chesapeake Bay?
Despite these health concerns, beaches along the tidal rivers and the Chesapeake Bay are often safe for swimming, fishing and boating.
What does the name Chesapeake mean?
It was widely believed for a long time that “Chesapeake” means something like “Great Shellfish Bay.” However, according to Blair Rudes, linguist at the University of North Carolina, the name might actually mean something like “Great Water,” or it might have been simply the name of a village at the bay’s mouth.
How was the Chesapeake Bay formed?
About 35.5 million years ago an exploding meteor collided with Earth and formed a massive crater. Because rivers flow along the path of least resistance, the depression created by the crater caused river valleys to converge, setting the stage for the formation of the Chesapeake Bay.
Who colonized the Chesapeake colonies?
English
The first English colonists arrived in Chesapeake Bay aboard the Susan Constant, Godspeed, and Discovery in April 1607, settling Jamestown the following month. (The town was named after the English king and the colony in honor of the virginity of Elizabeth I.)
How did the Chesapeake survive?
Inadequately supplied or prepared, they survived at first by trading with and stealing from the Native American people they encountered. After a time the English learned how to grow the natives’ primary food crop, ‘Indian corn’ or maize. They also discovered the natives’ habitual pleasure, tobacco.
What are 5 facts about the Chesapeake Bay?
10 Things You Didn’t Know About the Chesapeake Bay
- The Bay holds about 18 trillion gallons of water.
- Only about half of the water in the Bay comes from the ocean.
- Roughly 51 billion gallons of water enter the Bay each day from the 100,000 streams, creeks, and rivers that feed it.
What is unique about the Chesapeake Bay?
The Chesapeake Bay has the largest land-to-water ratio (14:1) of any coastal water body in the world. More than 100,000 streams and rivers thread through the watershed and eventually flow into the Bay. Everyone within the Chesapeake Bay watershed is just minutes from one of the streams or rivers.
Who founded the Chesapeake Bay?
The first European settlement in the bay area, Jamestown, was founded in 1607. One year later the English colonist Captain John Smith explored and mapped the bay and its estuaries, and soon afterward settlers came to the bay’s easily accessible, well-protected shores.
Who burned down Jamestown?
Nathaniel Bacon
Nathaniel Bacon and his army of rebels torch Jamestown, the capital of the Virginia colony, on September 19, 1676. This event took place during Bacon’s Rebellion, a civil war that pitted Bacon’s followers against Virginia governor Sir William Berkeley.
What is the biggest problem in the Chesapeake Bay?
Unfortunately, the Chesapeake Bay faces serious problems due to human activities, including polluted stormwater runoff, over-fertilization and pollution from animal wastes, deforestation, wetland destruction from agricultural, urban, and suburban development, and sea level rise caused by global climate change.
What is the biggest fish in the Chesapeake Bay?
Sturgeons
Sturgeons are the largest fish native to the Chesapeake Bay.