USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > New Haven > History of the colony of New Haven to its absorption into Connecticut > Part 23
USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > New Haven > History of the colony of New Haven to its absorption into Connecticut > Part 23
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commissioners, at their next meeting nearly a year afterward, censured him for his inactivity, and referred the matter to the General Courts of the several colo- nies. New Haven, in response, expressed the opinion that he had not obeyed his instructions, but declined to propose any penalty till the other colonies had acted. They were powerless to punish a citizen of Massachu- setts whose conduct Massachusetts approved, even if she had not, as Trumbull charges, predetermined it.
The failure of the expedition against the Niantics made it necessary to employ an armed vessel to cruise in the Sound, "to hinder Ninigret from going against the Long Island Indians." The vessel was commanded by John Youngs, son of the pastor at Southold (a plan- tation belonging to New Haven), and four men were sent with him by vote of the jurisdiction. This service continued about a year, and seems to have effectually prevented the hostile incursions of Ninigret into Long Island.
With this exception, there seems to have been no military service required by the New Haven colony from the time of the Niantic expedition to the union with Connecticut, other than the regular trainings in each plantation ; though for several years immediately subsequent to that expedition, wars between Indian tribes excited frequent alarms among the. English, and stimulated them to unusual diligence in military exer. cise.
CHAPTER XV.
THE ABORIGINES.
T HE small tribes of Indians which originally pos- sessed the territory of the New Haven colony had lived in fear of the Pequots and the Mohawks. De- livered from fear of their eastern enemies by the extinc- tion of the Pequot tribe, they gladly received the Eng- lish planters, hoping that the people, by whose wonder- ful prowess this deliverance had been effected, would protect them from their enemies in the west.
"The Mohawks," says Trumbull, "had not only carried their conquests as far southward as Virginia, but eastward as far as Connecticut River. The Indians, therefore, in the western parts of Connecticut, were their tributaries. Two old Mohawks, every year or two, might be seen issuing their orders and collecting their tribute, with as much authority and haughtiness as a Roman dictator.
"It is indeed difficult to describe the fear of this terrible nation, which had fallen on all the Indians in the western parts of Connecticut. If they neglected to pay their tribute, the Mohawks would come down against them, plunder, destroy, and carry them captive at pleasure. When they made their appearance in the country, the Connecticut Indians would instantly raise
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a cry from hill to hill, 'A Mohawk ! a Mohawk !' and fly like sheep before wolves, without attempting the least resistance. The Mohawks would cry out in the most terrible manner in their language, importing, 'We are come, we are come, to suck your blood !' When the Connecticut Indians could not escape to their forts, they would immediately flee to the English houses for shel- ter; and sometimes the Mohawks would pursue them so closely as to enter with them, and kill them in the presence of the family. If there was time to shut the doors, they never entered by force ; nor did they upon any occasion do the least injury to the English."
In the articles of agreement in which Momaugin, sachem of Quinnipiac, and his council, conveyed land to Theophilus Eaton, John Davenport, and others, Eng- lish planters at Quinnipiac, they refer to "heavy taxes and eminent dangers which they lately felt and feared from the Pequots, Mohawks, and other Indians, in regard of which they durst not stay in their country, but were forced to fly and to seek shelter under the English at Connecticut ; " mention "the safety and ease that other Indians enjoy near the English, of which benefit they have had a comfortable taste already since the English began to build and plant at Quinnipiac ;" and stipulate " that if at any time hereafter they be affrighted in their dwellings assigned by the English unto them as before, they may repair to the English plantation for shelter, and that the English will there in a just cause endeavor to defend them from wrong."
The Quinnipiacs at New Haven numbered "forty- seven men or youth fit for service," and covenanted "not to receive or admit any other Indians amongst
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them without leave first had and obtained from the English." Montowese, whose land adjoined that of Momaugin on the north, reported his company as be- ing "but ten men besides women and children." The Indians of Guilford were of the same tribe as the Quinnipiacs of New Haven, for Shaumpishuh, the squaw sachem at Guilford, was sister of Momaugin, and signed with him the deed of sale to Eaton and Davenport. After she sold her land at Guilford to Whitfield and his partners in the purchase, she came to reside with her brother at East Haven,1 bringing with her thirty-four of her people; of the rest a few removed to Branford, and about thirty-three persons remained at Guilford. Of the latter company, one was blind, and another was "a dumb old man."
These statistics favor the opinion that the territory of the New Haven colony, when the English began to build and plant upon it, was but sparsely inhabited. Momaugin had about one square mile for every one of his people, and Montowese had thirteen square miles for each of his ten men. The Wepowaugs were appar -. : ently more numerous than the Indians at New Haven. Perhaps it was because this tribe was so powerful, that the English settlement at Milford was fortified with palisades. Trumbull speaks in terms indefinite indeed, but fitted to convey the impression that Ansantaway, their sachem, had some hundreds of warriors ; specify- ing five different settlements in the town of Milford, and making mention of oyster-shells "so deep that they never have been ploughed or dug through to this day." De Forest thinks that Trumbull's estimate was too
" De Forest, History of the Indians of Connecticut, p. 167.
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high. He says, "The territories of this clan stretched fifteen or eighteen miles along the coast, and compre- hended nearly the present townships of Monroe, Hunt- ington, Trumbull, Bridgeport, Stratford, Milford, Orange, and Derby. In numbers it seems to have been consid- erable ; and large heaps of shells have been found along the coast, showing what must have been the natives' favorite and principal food. These heaps, however, do not necessarily prove the large population which people often suppose ; for they were probably the accumula- tions of centuries, and their foundations may have been laid by some race which came and disappeared before the foot of a Paugussett or Wepowaug ever left its print on these shores. In fact, eating oysters is not such a marvellous feat that large piles of oyster-shells must of necessity indicate a great number of con- sumers. We must consider also that as the natives depended little upon agriculture for a subsistence, and as hunting was a less certain and more laborious mode of supply than fishing, a very large proportion of their food consisted of the produce of the sea, and especially of shell-fish." Slender as is our knowledge of the Wepowaugs, we know even less of the tribes on the coast west of them. Fairfield and Norwalk were pur- chased for Connecticut, and Stamford for New Haven. The records of Stamford inform us that Capt. Nathan-
ael Turner, the agent of New Haven, purchased of Ponus, sagamore of Toquams, and his brother Wascus- sue, sagamore of Shippan, the territory now occupied by Stamford, Ponus reserving a piece of ground for himself and the other Indians to plant upon. The tribe to which Ponus and his family belonged were
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HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN COLONY.
called Siwanoys. Greenwich was also acquired for New Haven, though for a time the inhabitants repudi- ated her authority, and placed themselves under the protection of the Dutch. It is said that the sachems of whom Patrick and Feaks purchased Greenwich, were sons of Ponus. The red men resident in the vicinity have been estimated at from three hundred to five hun- dred, but even the latter number was largely increased during the war which the Dutch waged with the Indians, many of whom fled to Greenwich from their customary abodes nearer to New Amsterdam. This temporary accession to the aborigines inhabiting the territory claimed by New Haven was more than bal- anced by the terrible slaughter executed by Underhill in the service of the Dutch, who, surprising a village in Greenwich, put to death in a single night, by lead. steel, and fire, according to the estimate of the natives, five hundred of its inhabitants.
With the exception of Southold, which was purchased of the Montauks, a tribe always friendly to the English, the territory of New Haven colony was acquired from the Indians mentioned or alluded to in the preceding paragraph. It will be seen that the colony had less reason to apprehend collision with the aborigines on its own territories than if these had been united in a single tribe, under one chieftain. A sagamore who had only a score or two of warriors, even if smarting under the infliction of wrong, would not be so quick to resort to hostilities as one who counted his tribe by hundreds. It was, however, the policy of the New Haven people. to avoid conflict with the red men as much as possible, and to cultivate their friendship. They were, indeed,
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THE ABORIGINES.
earnest for war with Ninigret in 1653 and 1654, seeing no other way to secure peace than by fighting for it ; but their history, as a whole, evinces a ruling desire to live in amity with their Indian neighbors. They were care- ful to deal justly with them in all public dealings, and to avenge any injuries inflicted upon them by the greed or passion of individuals. This is true of the fathers of New England in general; but Hubbard, a Massa- chusetts historian, testifies of New Haven, in par- ticular, "They have been mercifully preserved from harm and violence all along from the Indians, setting aside a particular assault or two, the means whereof hath been a due carefulness in doing justice to them upon all occasions against the English, yet far avoid- ing any thing looking like servility or flattery for base ends." It was a memorable testimony which, as Win- throp relates, a Pequot gave in favor of the foe who had extinguished the tribal existence of his people. "Those at New Haven, intending a plantation at Dela- ware, sent some men to purchase a large tract of land of the Indians there, but they refused to deal with them. It so fell out that a Pequot sachem (being fled his country in our war with them, and having seated himself, with his company, upon that river ever since) was accidentally there at that time. He, taking notice of the English and their desire, persuaded the other sachem to deal with them; and told him that howso- ever they had killed his countrymen, and driven them out, yet they were honest men, and had just cause to do as they did, for the Pequots had done them wrong, and refused to give such reasonable satisfaction as was demanded of them. Whereupon the sachem enter-
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tained them, and let them have what land they desired."
As respects New Haven in particular, her records show a disposition to do justice to the Indian. Take : the following cases for evidence : -
"June 25, 1650. A seaman that went in Michael Taynter's vessel was brought before the governor, and accused by Wash, an Indian, that he, having hired him to show him the way to Totoket and agreed for twelvepence, when he was upon the way Wash asked him for his money; the man gave him tenpence, lack two wampum. Wash said he must have twelvepence, else he would not go; whereupon the seaman took him by the arm, pulled him, and threw him down, and stamped upon him, and, in striving broke his arm. The seaman said he agreed with him for tenpence, and gave him so much; but Wash would not go, and struck him first, and he cannot tell that he broke his arm, for it was sore before. Whereupon Mr. Besthup and Mr. Augur, two surgeons being desired to give their advice, said, to their best apprehension the arm was broken now, though by reason of an old sore, whereby the bone might be infected, might cause it the more easily to break. The Court was called, but none came to the governor but Mr. Crane, Mr. Gibbard, and Francis Newman. They would have per- suaded Wash to have taken some wampum for satisfaction, but he would not hear of it, but said he desired it might be healed at the man's . charge. Whereupon the Court desired Mr. Besthup to do the best he could to heal it, and promised him satisfaction, and, for the present, sent the man to prison. But, quickly after, Philip Leeke, John Jones, and Edward Camp, became his bail, and bound themselves in a bond of fro, that, upon a month's warning left with Philip Leeke, the man should make his appearance here before authority. And David Sellevant and Robert Lord became sureties, and engaged to bear them harmless."
" March, 1664. Nathanael Thorpe being called before the Court for stealing venison from an Indian called Ourance, Ourance was called, and asked what he had to say against Nathanael Thorpe. Nasup, on his behalf, declared that Ourance had killed a deer,
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THE ABORIGINES.
and hanged some of it upon a tree, and brought some of it away, and coming by (on the sabbath day, in the afternoon) Nathanael Thorpe's house, his dog barked, and Nathanael Thorpe came out and asked Ourance what he carry, and Ourance said venison, and further said that he had more a little walk in the woods. Then Nathanael Thorpe said to him that the wolf would eat it. Ourance said, No, he had hanged it upon a tree. Then he said that Nathanael Thorpe said to him, Where, where ? and he told him a little walk, and to-morrow he would truck it. Then to-morrow Ourance went for the venison, and two quarters of it was gone, and he see this man's track in the snow, and see blood. Then he came to Nathanael Thorpe, and tell him that he steal his venison ; but Nathanael Thorpe speak, Ourance lie, and that he would tan- tack him. And Ourance further said that he whispered to Nathanael Thorpe, and told him if he would give him his veni- son he would not discover him ; but still he peremptorily denied it, and told many lies concerning it, and, after it was found in an outhouse of his, he said he had trucked the week before."
Thorpe, having confessed his guilt : -
" He was told seriously of his sin, and of his falseness, and that after he seemed to hold forth sorrow before the magistrates ; yet then he spake falsely, and said that it was a little before morn- ing he rose out of his bed and did it, and that now he saith it was in the evening, before he went to bed ; and he was told the several aggravations of his sin, as that it seemed to be contrived on the Lord's day, staying at home by reason of some bodily weakness, and that he had done it to an Indian, and to a poor Indian, and when himself had no need of it, and so often denying it, &c., whereby he makes the English and their religion odious to the heathen, and thereby hardens them. So the Court proceeded to sentence, and for his theft declared, according to the law in the case, that he pay double to the Indian ; viz., the venison, with two bushels of Indian corn ; and for his notorious lying, and the several aggravations of his sin, that he pay as a fine to the plantation twenty shillings, and sit in the stocks the Court's pleasure. And he was told, that, were it not that they considered him as sometimes dis-
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tempered in his head, they should have been more sharp with him. Then Nathanael Thorpe declared that he desired to judge himself for his sin, and that the Lord would bless their good counsel to him, that so he might take warning for the future, lest it be worse with him."
Not contenting themselves with mere justice, the New Haven colony were also kind and helpful to their Indian neighbors. Take, for evidence and illustration, the following action of the town of New Haven con- cerning a field which the Indians desired to have fenced : -
" The governor acquainted the town that the Indians complain that the swine that belong to the town, or farms, do them much wrong in eating their corn; and now they intend to take in a new piece of ground, and they desired the English would help them to fence it, and that those who have meadows at the end of their ground would fence it, and save them fencing about. Sergeant Jeffrey and John Brockett were desired to go speak with them, to know what ground it is which they intend to take in, and to view it, and see what fencing it may be, and give them the best direction they can. The sagamore also desires the town to give him a coat. He saith he is old and poor, and cannot work. The town declared themselves free that he should have a coat given him at the town's charge."
At the next meeting it was
" Ordered, concerning the Indians' land spoken of the last court, that Thomas Jeffrey, John Brockett, William Tuttle, and Robert Talmadge shall be a committee to view the ground which they say is theirs, and to advise them for the best about fencing; the meadow lying against their ground bearing its due proportion ; and that some men be appointed at the town's charge to show them how, and help them in their fencing; that so we may not have such complaints from them of cattle and hogs spoiling their corn, which they say makes their squaws and children cry."
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THE ABORIGINES.
At a later date it was
"Ordered that the townsmen shall treat with the Indians, getting Mr. Pierson and his Indian for interpreters, and make a full agree- ment in writing what we shall do, and what they shall be bound to; and let them know that what their agreement is, we expect they shall perform it."
In this agreement threescore days' work was promised to the Indians toward their fence, and the town voted that the work "should be done by men fit and able for the work, and be paid for out of the town treasury."
Just and kind treatment of the aborigines was re- quired of the English by politic prudence as well as by Christian benevolence. The action concerning the sagamore's coat and the fence around his land was taken in 1653, when, throughout all the colonies, there was some fear of a general combination of Indians against the English. New Haven does not seem to have felt any present distrust of the tribes within her borders, but the intermingling of neighborly kindness with orders for special military preparations and pre- cautions suggests that the manifestations of kindness . may have proceeded, not from pure benevolence, but from a complex motive in which prudence was a con- siderable element.
An illustrative instance of this politic prudence oc- curred in the second year of the plantation at Quin- nipiac, and before civil government had been formally instituted. The planters at Wethersfield, having some quarrel with Sowheag, the sachem of the place, had driven him from his reservation near their village, and he had removed to Middletown. Sowheag, in prose-
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HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN COLONY.
cution of the quarrel, had incited, or at least encour- aged, the Pequots to make an attack on Wethersfield, in which six men and three women were killed, and had ever since entertained and protected the Pequot warriors by whom these murders were committed. The Pequot war being now ended, so that the Connecticut people were at liberty to attend to Sowheag, they re- quired him to give up these murderers ; and, upon his refusal, the General Court, in August, 1639, ordered a levy of one hundred men to be sent to Mattabeseck, as Middletown was then called, to take them by force. But the Court also determined to obtain the advice and consent of their friends at Quinnipiac before carrying their design into execution.
"Gov. Eaton and his council," says Trumbull, "fully approved of the design of bringing the delinquents to condign punishment, but they disapproved of the man- ner proposed by Connecticut. They feared that it would be introductive to a new Indian war. This, they repre- sented, would greatly endanger the new settlements, and be many ways injurious and distressing. They wanted peace, all their men and money, to prosecute the design of planting the country. They represented that a new war would not only injure the plantations in these respects, but would prevent the coming over of new planters whom they expected from England. They were therefore determinately against seeking redress by an armed force. Connecticut, through their influ- ence, receded from the resolution which they had formed with respect to Sowheag and Mattabeseck."
Eaton, though not at that time, as Trumbull care- lessly assumes, governor of New Haven jurisdiction,
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may have had some provisional power or trust, such as was abrogated by the first action of the Court when civil government was settled two months afterward. Certainly his voice gave expression to the public opinion of his plantation. His determined opposition to the proposed war upon Sowheag is easily accounted for by the nearness of Middletown to New Haven, and by the still closer contiguity of Montowese, a son of Sowheag, whose wigwam was but one hour distant from the English houses at Quinnipiac.
That this pacific policy of New Haven was not carried to a hazardous extreme, is evident from the punishment inflicted on one of these Pequot mur- derers, who, of his own accord, came to Quinnipiac, presuming, perhaps, on the manifested leniency of that plantation. The trial of Nepaupuck, which commenced the day after civil government was instituted at Quin- nipiac, has already been mentioned. A more particular account of it is here appropriate, and may perhaps be best given verbatim from the record.
"October 26th 1639. The civil affairs of the plantation being settled as before, by the providence of God an Indian called Mes- sutunck, alias Nepaupuck, who had been formerly accused to have murderously shed the blood of some of the English. of his own accord, with a deer's head upon his back, came to Mr. Eaton's, where by warrant the marshal apprehended and pinioned him; yet notwithstanding, by the subtlety and treachery of another Indian his companion, he had almost made an escape; but by the same providence he was again taken and delivered into the magistrates power and by his order safely kept in the stocks till he might be brought to a due trial. And the Indian who had attempted his escape was whipped by the marshal's deputy.
"October 28th 1639. The Quinnipiac Indian Sagamore with
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divers of his Indians with him were examined before the magistrate and the deputies for this plantation concerning Nepaupuck. They generally accused him to have murdered one or more of the Eng- lish, and that he had cut off some of their hands and had presented them to Sassacus the Pequot sachem, boasting that he had killed them with his own hands.
" Mewhebato a Quinnipiac Indian, kinsman to the aforesaid Ne- paupuck, coming at the same time to intercede for him, was exam- ined what he knew concerning the murders charged upon the said Nepaupuck. At first he pretended ignorance, but with a distracted countenance, and in a trembling manner. Being admonished to speak the truth he did acknowledge him guilty according to the charge the other Indians had before made.
" All the other Indians withdrawing, Nepaupuck was brought in and examined. He confessed that Nepaupuck was guilty ac- cording to the tenure of the former charge, but denied that he was Nepaupuck. Mewhebato being brought in, after some signs of sorrow, charged him to his face that he had assisted the Pequots in murdering the English. This somewhat abated his spirit and boldness; but Wattoone, the son of Carroughood a councillor to the Quinnipiac Indian sagamore, coming in charged him more particularly that he had killed Abraham Finch, an Englishman, at Wethersfield, and that he himself, the said Wattoone, stood upon the island at Wethersfield and beheld him, the said Nepaupuck, now present, acting the said murder.
" Lastly, the Quinnipiac sagamore and the rest of the Indians being called in, to his face affirmed that he was Nepaupuck, and that he had murdered one or more of the English as before.
" Nepaupuck being by the concurrence of testimony convinced, confessed he was the man, namely Nepaupuck, and boasted he was a great captain, had murdered Abraham Finch, and had his hands in other English blood. He said he knew he must die, and was not afraid of it; but laid his neck to the mantel-tree of the chim- ney, desiring that his head might be cut off. or that he might die in any other manner the English should appoint : only, he said, fire was God and God was angry with him; therefore he would not fall into his hands. After this he was returned to the stocks, and, as before, a watch appointed for his safe custody.
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