The rivers and bays of the Potomac region are most closely tied to the people who first lived there. Native American communities settled along the Potomac and its waterways to fish, travel, trade, and farm, making the waterways central to daily life and settlement long before European arrivals. The region’s name and many place traditions also reflect Indigenous use of these rivers, underscoring why Native Americans are the demographic most associated with the Potomac’s rivers and bays. Later arrivals, like West Africans in Jamestown or European colonists, became connected to the area as history moved forward, but the enduring link to the waterways themselves comes from the Native American populations of the region.