USA > Connecticut > Connecticut as a colony and as a state; or, One of the original thirteen, Volume I > Part 3
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The Dutch East India Company claimed the right to the lands discovered by Hudson, their agent; erected trading
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houses on Manhattan Island, which they subsequently pur- chased; and commenced barter with the Indians. This col- ony was composed of a mixed population, among which were escaped servants from Virginia, and rich and poor alike from Holland; being more of the character of a commercial institution than a permanent settlement, for it was fully a score of years after Hudson's discovery that the States Gen- eral approved of a plan for colonization. The English re- monstrated against the Dutch occupancy of the country, a protest being heard from Virginia as early as 1613, and from the Plymouth Colony in 1627; but it was the secret belief of the Dutch, that while the English had secured only the two shells, they were in possession of the oyster. They based this statement on the belief that they were within the limits of the one hundred miles which were to separate the two Vir- ginia colonies, according to the restrictions of the charters granted by James I. Thus the territory that now comprises Connecticut was claimed under their charter by the Plymouth Company, while the Dutch contended it was under their juris- diction, and maintained a trade with the Indians within its boundaries.
Such was the state of affairs previous to any permanent set- tlement in New England. After their disastrous experiences, the glowing descriptions given by Captain Smith of the lands beyond the seas did not stimulate or induce the Eng- lish people to leave their luxurious homes to attempt a set- tlement in the new country. The severity of the climate and the hardships to be encountered were too great obstacles to be overcome; but what the spirit of enterprise and patriotism would not undertake, was finally accomplished by religious enthusiasm, seeking a home for self-government and free- dom of thought.
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About 1608 a body of reformers separating from the Church of England left their mother country for Holland, and in 1620 numbered about one thousand souls. These religious proselytes lived in harmony in their adopted coun- try and proved obedient to its laws; but the revival of war between Spain and Holland, and the natural desire that their children should retain their mother tongue, furthered by the craving to advance the Gospel of Christ in remote parts of the earth, inspired their leaders to make an attempt to col- onize the New World. They petitioned the Dutch govern- ment to allow them to emigrate to New Netherland; but failing in their application, had decided upon Virginia, when they learned that public confession of adherence to the Church of England was required of all settlers in that colony. Although every effort was made by the Virginia Company to secure the abolishment of their restrictions, even to the extent of using the personal influence of the stockholders, with the heads of the Church and State, they were unable to bring about the desired result. The Pilgrims, as they now become known, then sent an agent to England to confer with the Plymouth Company; which granted them land accompanied by a license, to have the seal of the Crown, giving them per- mission to settle in America, there to adopt any form of wor- ship which their conscience might approve. The King, James I., refused to sign this license, but encouraged the contemplated settlement. This deterred the Pilgrims from undertaking the project; but their residence in Holland be- coming more and more distasteful, it finally caused them to accept the grant without the desired privileges.
One hundred of their younger and stronger men and wom- en were selected for the American settlement, and embarked at Delft Haven in two vessels, the Mayflower and the
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Speedwell; but the mendacious captain and crew of the lat- ter falsely pronounced her unseaworthy, to break their con- tracts to stay a year with the colonists, and the Mayflower proceeded on her way alone. It was the intention of the Pilgrims to land in the new country on the coast contiguous to New Netherlands, but Captain Jones and the crew op- posed going on to seek it. Half a century later, the very improbable story was started that the captain had been bribed by the Dutch not to land the company near the Hudson. The fact that the crew of the storm-beaten vessel were anxious to rest where they might, is explanation enough. The future quarrels of the Dutch with the English were not with the Massachusetts but the Connecticut colonists; and their rival claims to the territory account amply for that.
The obstacles and hardships overcome by the Pilgrims, the severe winter passed on the bleak coast of Massachusetts, the diseases which depopulated their original numbers more than one half, are a part of universal history. The Pil- grims, having landed in a section of the country beyond the prescribed limits of their patent, felt that they had the right to adopt a form of government more in conformity with their desires; and naming themselves "The Colony of New Plymouth," formulated a system of government and elected executive officers.
During the voyage of the Pilgrims across the ocean, James I. had dissolved the Plymouth Company, ostensibly because they had made no determined effort to improve the condi- tion of the territory conveyed to them; and a new patent, comprising "all the territory between the fortieth and the forty-eighth degrees N. L. and in length of and within all the breadth aforesaid throughout the mainland from sea to sea," was granted a new company styled "The Grand Coun-
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cil of Plymouth for Planting and Governing New Eng- land." The Plymouth Colonists were the founders of New England in one sense; as, but for their final good fortune, the other New England colonies might not have been found- ed till the Dutch had fastened a secure hold upon the land. The latter at the time formed only a trading post, but it would have become a state in a generation more. The colony grew slowly but strong, and seven years after their settle- ment purchased the interests of the English merchants, abandoned the joint-stock principle upon which the colony had been formed, and allotted land to each colonist.
James I., in granting the patent to the Grand Council of Plymouth, incorporated a restriction to prevent any adher- ents to the Puritan creed from becoming occupants of the country. The company also had the prerogative rights to monopolize the trade and fisheries of that part of America included in their grant; but when complaints were made by the traders and merchants of England, and these provi- sions of their patent were censured by Parliament, the rights were relinquished by the company, which then abandoned all further attempts to colonize the New World.
The Puritans of England, attracted by the success of the Plymouth Colony, and seeing that they were removed from the cruelties of religious persecutions, determined to seek an asylum on the same shores. They made several inef- fectual attempts to secure a charter; but it was not until the failure of the second company to effect settlements, that their application received any attention. Soon after the acces- sion of Charles I. to the throne, an association of Puritans received a grant of territory in New England, secured a liberal patent from the King, and was incorporated under the name of "The Governor and Company of the Massa.
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chusetts Bay in New England." The first settlement under this patent was made in September 1628 at Naumkeag (now Salem), and the following year they were joined by a large party and became known as the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
The history of these two parent colonies has been thus briefly sketched, to show the reasons why the first settlers of Connecticut were of the English-speaking race, and were imbued with the same religious and governmental principles which always caused the Commonwealth to be an active mem- ber of the New England family. The rapid growth in population of the Massachusetts colonies, brought about by emigration from England of adherents to the same religious belief, and the inborn spirit of adventure ready to conquer the native wilderness, and make it blossom into life and activ- ity; the determination of devotees of the Congregational principle not to endure a semi-aristocratic church govern- ment in Massachusetts after coming to the wilderness ex- pressly to be rid of it, these, with the underlying princi- ple of extending Christianity, were the primary causes of the settlement of Connecticut.
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CHAPTER II THE CONNECTICUT INDIANS
T HE origin of the American Indians cannot be certainly demonstrated, without far more eth- nological and perhaps biological facts than we yet possess ; but we are not quite so help- less scientifically as a generation ago. The fantastic guesses about the "lost tribes," never with any in- tellectual standing, are now recognized even by the unschol- arly as merely ridiculous ; and the scarcely less futile, though less childish, speculations about Asiatic migrants via Bering Strait may be relegated to the limbo of dreams. It is certain that the American Indian, from Hudson's Bay to Tierra del Fuego, belongs to one family, differentiated as far back as any distinct race on the globe; and that the differences be- tween Araucanians or Caribs and Iroquois or Thlinkeets are slight compared with those between either and Mongol or Malay. Quite as significantly, the nearer races to the north are as radically different from each other as those in the depths of the continents. Manchurians are no more like Athapascans than Tatars are like Cherokees. Of the great stocks into which this race was divided, the one which con- cerns our history is the Algonkian, stretching from Labrador to North Carolina.
Six years prior to the settlement of Plymouth, the Dutch navigator Adrian Block, without doubt the first white man to voyage up the Connecticut, which he named the Freshwater (as distinguished from the salt or brackish tidal rivers at New York), found various tribes of Indians on its banks be- tween what is now Hartford and the Sound. These were members of the above Algonkian family; which, as it lay in the immediate path of the Atlantic coast settlements, bore and retaliated the first brunt of white aggression, and was
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gradually pushed westward,-somewhat thinned in numbers, though much less than is often assumed.
The villages of those Indians located on the shore of Long Island Sound, and in the valley of the Connecticut River, were devastated year after year by the Mohawks, a tribe of Indians that occupied the eastern part of New York. The Iroquois nation, of which the Mohawks were members, an- nually sent representatives to the river and seashore tribes of Connecticut, to whom a tribute was paid and who promul- gated orders from the great council at Onondaga. The Pe- quots, a tribe located in the southeastern part of the fu- ture colony, were never visited by these emissaries of the Five Nations, but on the contrary they themselves demanded ad- ditional tribute; so that with enemies on both sides, the In- dians of western Connecticut were cruelly oppressed, and gladly joined forces with, or cowered under the ægis of, the whites when they came.
Various estimates have been made by different historians of the population of the Connecticut Indian tribes previous to the settlement of the Colony, and by a process of computa- tion which allowed five members as the family of each war- rior, the maximum (arrived at by statisticians largely from losses sustained by the Indians in warfare with the whites) places the total at twenty thousand, while the minimum has fallen as low as six thousand. As the whole western part of the Colony was mostly uninhabited, the country at this time being an unbroken forest save for a narrow strip on the coast; and as the Pequots, who could muster as many war- riors as all the other tribes combined, never had a war strength of more than five or six hundred,-there is no doubt but that when the first white man set foot within the
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boundaries of Connecticut, the total Indian population could not have exceeded six thousand.
The Indians in locating their villages followed the seacoast or the river courses. The southeastern part, now New Lon- don County, was the home of the powerful tribe of Pe- quots. They reached back from the sea-shore to a distance of twelve miles; and the northern most community, which afterwards seceded under Uncas, became known as the Mo- hegans.
To the north of these warlike and aggressive Indians, the territory now Windham and Tolland Counties was sparingly inhabited by the Nipmucks or Nipnets; the former name, meaning from or away from the river, was applied to all northern tribes of Indians. The Connecticut Nipmucks had no Grand Sachem of their own, and their principal seat of government was located in southern Massachusetts.
At the mouth of the Connecticut River lived the Western Nehantics, who were related to a tribe of the same name in Rhode Island. Along the seacoast to the westward of the Nehantics' wigwams, wherever there was a sheltered bay or a good fishing place, an Indian village was generally located. The first of these was the Hammonassetts, who were few in number. Next came the Guilford Indians, who, though at one time considered a distinct tribe, really belonged to the Quinnipiacs, who lived on the seacoast, east of what is now New Haven Bay. The Quinnipiacs were of a peaceful dis- position, spending their time in fishing or hunting, and never were very strong in numbers.
On the banks of the Housatonic River dwelt the Paugus- setts and Wepawagus, who undoubtedly belonged to the same tribe. Northwest of these Indians a small tribe of Potatucks, of whom but little is known, lived within the lim-
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its of the present towns of Newtown, Southbury, and Wood- bury; their insignificance is manifested by the fact that all historians treat them with silence, leaving them to fade into unmarked oblivion.
The original name of Fairfield was Unkoway, and a small clan of Indians called Unkowas lived in that locality. From this point to what is now the New York line, the seacoast at the time of the first settlement of the whites was uninhabited; but in 1643 there existed in this territory a large population of Indians who fled from their own homes on Long Island and the Hudson River, to escape the vicinity of the hostile Dutch.
Eight or ten miles west of the Connecticut River, on the banks of the Farmington River, were the hunting grounds of the Sepores or Tunxis Indians; these numbered about four hundred, and formed a part of that confederacy which had as its principal seat of government the valley of the Connec- ticut. The Podunks and Poquonocs, who lived on opposite banks of the Connecticut, occupied the territory now the towns of South and East Windsor, Windsor proper, and East Hartford, and were closely connected through their kindred and government.
Journeying south twenty-five miles, still following the course of the river, there were numerous small tribes of Indians governed by different Sachems, but living in close connection with each other, being united by natural alli- ances. Among these were the Sicaoggs, Naiogs, Hoccanums, and a small tribe noted for its peculiar religious super- stitions, who lived near Mt. Tom in the present township of East Haddam. In the country between what is now Middle- town and the home of the Western Nehantics lived the
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Wangunks, who were settled on both banks of the river and known as a distinct tribe.
The Pequots came about the beginning of the seventeenth century from the vicinity of the Hudson, leaving the over- peopled forests of that region to find easier sustenance else- where; after journeying through southern Massachusetts, they finally located on the Connecticut seacoast. The other clans of Connecticut Indians were tribal branches of the Nehantics, or Narragansetts; this in a degree accounts for the deep feeling of abhorrence for the Pequots, and the un- willing subjugation of the Indian tribes of Connecticut to their supremacy.
The manners and customs of the Indians of Connecticut were similar to the other aboriginal tribes of North America. They belonged to the Ganowanian or Bow and Arrow fam- ily of men, being devoted to the chase, and caring but little for agricultural pursuits. The leading trait of the Red Men was force independence, and intolerance of any control that restrained their passions. In personal appearance they were of tawny color inclining to the red, with prominent cheek bones, widely separated eyes, a broad nose, and ordinarily a cast of coarse and mobile features. The males were tall, straight, and well proportioned, had great powers of endur- ance, and were rarely corpulent or deformed; the females were short and clumsy, all feminine grace and beauty being obliterated by hard labor.
They depended for their subsistence on hunting and fish- ing; their agricultural pursuits being limited to the raising of beans and corn, which were cultivated by the women and children. The tobacco crop received the attention of the men, it alone being considered as worthy of their labor. The implements used in tilling the soil were few and crude; a
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large part of the field work was performed with their fingers, although spades constructed from wood and large shells were commonly used.
The Indian generally hunted alone, but grand hunts were sometimes organized. The forests teemed with pigeons, quail, turkeys, and partridges; while along the shore, and on the rivers, ponds, and marshes, dwelt geese, cranes, and ducks. The otter and beaver, while highly prized for their fur, were also eaten. The forest likewise yielded racoons, rabbits, squirrels, and such larger game as the common deer, moose, and bear. Carnivorous animals like the wild-cat, wolf, and fox were never used as food, but were slain for their furs. The fish of the seacoast was much more plentiful than at the present day; and besides obtaining all of the smaller sea food, even sturgeon, porpoise, and whale were caught in abundant quantities.
The garments of the Indians were trophies of the hunt. The skins of the slain animals were cured, thereby making them soft and pliable, and were sometimes painted or worked with beads made from shells. Mantles were made from the feathers of wild game, and decked with fantastic ornaments. A woman's wardrobe was limited to two articles, a leather shirt coming well below the thighs, and a skirt reach- ing nearly to her feet; while cases have been known of her lord and master's gambling away her petticoat, the shirt was never parted with unless another was provided. The male children until the age of twelve were nude, but the girls wore a short apron. The hair of the women was arranged in a heavy braid ornamented at times with wampum; the men went bareheaded,-one having his hair long on one side and shaved on the other, another having his scalp en- tirely bare, and a third with a strip of hair two or three inches
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wide, commencing at the forehead and running to his neck like a coxcomb. The women to improve their complexion used paint, but this artificial adornment was resorted to by the males only when preparing themselves for warfare. Sachems and the principal men wore caps, aprons, and belts embroidered with different colored beads.
For currency the Indian was dependent upon wampum ; this consisted of black and white beads about a quarter of an inch long, the black being made of mussel shells, and passing for twice the value of the white, which came from the inside of the conch shell; both varieties were perforated and strung upon threads.
The dwelling places of the Red Men were primitive, poles being set firmly in the ground, bent together and fastened at the top; the sides were covered with matted boughs, and the roofs thatched with reeds and rushes, although sometimes a covering of bark was used. The Indians were by no means permanent residents; they migrated from place to place, spending their summers upon the seashore, and their winters in the depths of the forest. In the case of death of one of the family they generally deserted the house, probably to escape the wrath of the spirit supposed to have a grudge against the place. The Sachems lived in fortified villages with a large number of their tribe; these aggregations of huts, forming their primitive towns, were located on prominent elevations, and were about two or three acres in area. Their wigwams were arranged around an open space, which was used for the gathering of war and hunting parties, for re- ligious and fantastic dances, and for the transaction of public business. In his home life the Indian practiced no sanitary laws; he did not believe in cleanliness or purity, his do- mesticated animals occupied his dwelling place, and their
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offal was never disturbed; in preparing fish the entrails were never removed. The effect was less than in civilized life, but undoubtedly had a share in keeping the numbers sta- tionary.
The Red Men confined their amusements to various kinds of dances, and like all barbarians were inveterate gamblers. They played with rushes a game resembling cards, and man- ufactured dice from pebbles by painting the sides. On these games they staked and lost all, and in many instances single braves hazarded their own person; thereby, if losers, becom- ing slaves.
While the languages of the New England Indians bore a general resemblance in construction, they differed in individ- ual words; but members of various tribes readily understood one another through the similarity of tongues, and a natural faculty for communicating by the universal language of signs. Their syntax condensed a sentence into a composite word, and fully half their utterances were composed of these agglomer- ated expressions.
Criminal punishments were inflicted personally by the Sachems, or councillors deputized by them. The penalty for murder was a life for a life; theft if a first offence received a public reprimand, a second like misdemeanor secured a beating, and the culprit thrice guilty had his nostrils slit to warn the public of his character.
In social distinctions, according to Cotton Mather, the aborigines were divided into three classes. The highest were the nobles, descended from the blood of chiefs and invested with authority by the Sachem. The second class were yeo- men or Sannops, who constituted the larger portion of the tribe; these possessed rights in the lands, and attended the Sachem on his excursions. The third class were strangers
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and descendants of foreigners who had no rights in the land, who were allowed in attendance only by permission of the Sachem, and were subjects of the yeoman class; Mather designates them by the name of serfs.
The civil government of the Indians was invested in an hereditary chief called a Sachem, and in default of a male heir this office descended to the female. The Sachem was assisted by a body of men who acted as councillors and ad- visors, and maintained his authority only by his own ability to exercise a despotic sway; he must be brave, eloquent, and cunning, careful to move in accord with the wishes of his people; and all matters of great importance were publicly discussed. Under the Sachems were inferior chieftains called Sagamores, each of whom collected around him a band of followers whose allegiance was not compulsory, and whose numerical strength depended on the ability and courage of their chief.
The Mugwump seems to have been head of a subtribal band, and the name has always been familiar in Connecti- cut as "the boss" or head man of a concern.
The office of Sachem entitled the holder to a revenue which consisted of agricultural products, presents of the results of hunting and fishing excursions, and of war,-especially wom- en,-and the ornaments of the defeated chieftain. The Sachem had prerogative rights over all the waters in his do- mains, and therefore claimed all wrecks and whales, and the skins of all animals there killed. He was called upon to en- tertain all travellers, strangers, and ambassadors.
The great delight of the Indians was war, although nomi- nally it was never undertaken for conquest, but always for redress of a grievance. This was always obtainable; and as the revenge for one always left a heavy score to be settled
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by the other side, they could fight any other tribe at will. Before starting on the war-path, a dance was performed in which the braves boasted of exploits already accomplished, and feats to be performed in the future. Their plan of war- fare was of the secret and strategic order; but at times they engaged in open battle, which was rarely attended by very bloody results, as it was one of their principles that no success was worth risking many lives. The Iroquois-Erie war of 1655-56 is perhaps the only case where Indians engaged in a white man's battle, reckless of sacrifice. The offensive weapons were bows and arrows, wooden clubs, and stone hatchets; the defensive ones targets made of bark. The forest trees served in place of a shield; and when they had slain an enemy, to obtain his scalp as a trophy was to them a glorious triumph. They were incited by their leader, on the departure of a war expedition, by oratory in which he spoke disparagingly of their enemies, and extolled their own courage, beseeching them to fight bravely to avenge past in- juries. The prisoners of war, if not adopted into a family of their captors, were subjected to all the tortures that a ferocious ingenuity could inflict.
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