USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > New Haven > History of the colony of New Haven to its absorption into Connecticut > Part 24
USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > New Haven > History of the colony of New Haven to its absorption into Connecticut > Part 24
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"A general court 29th of October, 1639. A general court being assembled to proceed against the said Indian Nepaupuck, who was then brought to the bar and being examined as before, at the first he denied that he was that Nepaupuck which had com- mitted those murders wherewith he was charged; but when he saw that the Quinnipiac Sagamore and his Indians did again accuse him to his face, he confessed that he had his hand in the murder of Abraham Finch, but yet he said there was a Mohawk of that name that had killed more than he.
" Wattoone affirmed to his face that he, the said Nepaupuck, did not only kill Abraham Finch, but was one of them that killed the three men in the boat or shallop on Connecticut River, and that there was but one Nepaupuck and this was he and the same that took a child of Mr. Swain at Wethersfield. Then the said Nepaupuck being asked if he would not confess that he deserved to die, he answered, ' It is weregin.''
"The Court having had such pregnant proof, proceeded to pass sentence upon him according to the nature of the fact and the rule in that case, 'He that sheds man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed.' Accordingly his head was cut off the next day and pitched upon a pole in the market place."
If Nepaupuck had been a lawyer, he might have de- murred not only to the indictment for murder of one who had killed in war the enemies of his tribe, but also to the jurisdiction of a power which had been in existence but a single day, and did not even then claim as its own, the territory where a crime was alleged to have been committed two years before. But his un- tutored mind approved of that principle of natural jus- tice, according to which, in every instance in which English blood was shed by an Indian, the English re- quired life for life without regard to territorial limita- tion. His own people acted upon the same principle, and he justified it when it recoiled upon himself.
: Well, or good. Some dialects used n in place of r. Eliot's Bible has wunnegin in Gen. i. 10, ' God saw that it was wunnegin.'
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In making common cause throughout all the colonies against Indian murderers, certainly the English did no injustice. They had a right thus to combine for the protection of life. In deciding whether they were jus- tifiable in treating as murderers those who had shed English blood in war, it should be taken into consider- ation, that, as Capt. Underhill expresses it, "the In- dians' fight far differs from the Christian practice." Civilized nations have agreed that soldiers shall not be held individually responsible for homicide in battle ; but this agreement would not cover such homicides as those of which Nepaupuck was convicted, and of which Indian warriors were customarily guilty whenever they could surprise an unarmed foe. Fighting with a people wholly uncivilized, the English planters in New Eng- land were obliged to deviate from the usages established among civilized nations, and adapt their practice to the exigencies of their situation.
Another execution of an Indian occurred in 1644, near the close of the war between the Indians and the Dutch. A savage named Busheage, not discriminating between the two European nations whose settlements were so little space apart, came into a house at Stam- ford, none being at home but a woman and her infant, and, with a lathing-hammer, which he picked up and examined as if with intent to purchase, struck the woman as she stooped down to take her child out of the cradle. The wound was not .fatal, but the woman became hopelessly insane. Busheage, being delivered to the English, was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death. Winthrop says, "The executioner would strike off his head with a falchion, but he had eight blows at
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it before he could effect it, and the Indian sat upright and stirred not all the time."
Four years later Stamford was the scene of another tragedy. Taphanse, a son of Ponus, the sachem of the place, brought news into the town that an Indian named Toquatoes, living up near the Mohawks, had said at their wigwams that he would kill an English- man ; that they had offered him wampum not to do it ; that he had come again and reported that he had done it, and that he had gone away in haste, and left some of the Englishman's clothing. From that time, Mr.
John Whitmore, one of the principal inhabitants, was missing. Two months afterward, Uncas, sachem of the Mohegans, coming to Stamford to assist his English friends to investigate the matter, was at once conducted by Taphanse to the place where lay the remains of the murdered man. Uncas and his Mohegan companions were satisfied that Taphanse was himself guilty of the murder, but he escaped before they could apprehend him. Fifteen years afterward, being arrested and ex- amined, he was pronounced "guilty of suspicion," but "not guilty in point of death."
As the people of New Haven had to do not only with the aborigines within their borders, but with some who were without, we have occasion to describe some of their Indian neighbors who dwelt beyond the limits of the jurisdiction. Prominent among these was Uncas, sachem of the Mohegans. De Forest, in "The In- dians of Connecticut," thus describes him : " In person, Uncas is said to have been a man of large frame and great physical strength. His courage could never be doubted, for he displayed it too often and too clearly in
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war. No sachem, however, was ever more fond of over- coming his enemies by stratagem and trickery. He seemed to set little value upon the glory of vanquishing in war, compared with the advantages it brought him in the shape of booty, and new subjects, and wider hunting-grounds. He favored his own men, and was, therefore, popular with them; but all others who fell under his power he tormented with continual exactions and annoyances. His nature was selfish, jealous, and tyrannical ; his ambition was grasping, and unrelieved by a single trait of magnanimity."
Originally a Pequot, and by blood a kinsman of Sas- sacus, chief sachem of the Pequots at the time when the Pequot tribe was extinguished by the English, Uncas had allied himself still more closely with the royal family of his tribe by marrying a daughter of Sassacus. But, previous to the Pequot war, he had broken friendship with Sassacus, and become an exile from his tribe. The outbreak of hostilities between the English and the Pequots was to him, therefore, a welcome opportunity for revenge. With a score or two of followers he joined the expedition of Capt. Mason against his native tribe in 1637, which, without the guid- ance of Uncas and Wequash, would probably have been fruitless. Uncas had profited by the success of that expedition as much, perhaps, as the English. The num- ber of his followers was increased by such captured Pe- quots as were allowed to join his. people, and by other Indians who appreciated the advantage he might derive from being the ally of the wonderful white men.
Uncas married, and probably before the Pequot war, a daughter of Sebequanash, sachem of the Hammonas-
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sets, and by this marriage acquired a large tract of land on the shore of Long Island Sound, extending westward from Connecticut River till it touched the land of the Guilford branch of the Quinnipiacs. This he sold to Mr. Fenwick and the planters of Guilford, and withdrew to the east side of the Connecticut River, to a region, which, as it had formerly belonged to his ancestors, the Pequot sachems, was now assigned to him as his portion of the spoils of war. When at the height of his power, and during that portion of his career when history mentions him most frequently, his residence was commonly at Norwich. But in 1644 he seems to have been residing, at least temporarily, on his Hammonasset land; for in December of that year, in town meeting at" New Haven, "upon complaint made by some of the planters of Totoket that the Mohegan Indians have done much damage to them by setting their traps in the walk of their cattle, it was ordered that the marshal shall go with Thomas Whitway to warn Uncas, or his brother, or else Foxon, to come and speak with the governor and the magistrates." At this time Uncas, having sold a strip of land on the shore, still claimed for his son by his Hammonasset wife the northern part of the land which she had inherited. He and his son united in a deed conveying it to the planters of Guilford in January, 1663. The mark of Uncas affixed to the deed is a rude image of a turtle ; and that of his son Ahaddon, alias Joshua, is a still more unsuc- cessful attempt to represent a deer.
The rising power of Uncas and his alliance with the English drew upon him the hatred of other Indian chiefs, especially of Miantinomoh, head sachem of the
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Narragansets. Miantinomoh, while professing friend- ship for the English, was suspected of complicity in a plot for the destruction of all white men throughout New England, and of those Indians who could not be detached from their cause. After prompting several vain attempts to assassinate Uncas, Miantinomoh attacked him without warning, and without regard to an engagement that he would not make war upon Uncas without permission of the English. Miantinomoh being defeated and taken prisoner, Uncas desired for his own security to put him to death ; but not venturing to do so without the consent of his white allies, brought him to Hartford, and asked the advice of the governor and magistrates of Connecticut. As these occurrences had taken place in the summer of 1643, and the commis- sioners of the confederate colonies were to hold their first meeting in September, it was resolved to refer the whole matter to their decision, Miantinomoh being meanwhile left in the custody of the English. The commissioners determined " that as it was evident that Uncas could not be safe while Miantinomoh lived, but that either by secret treachery or open force his life would be continually in danger, he might justly put such a false and blood-thirsty enemy to death." It was further determined that if Uncas should be assailed on account of the execution of Miantinomoh, the English would, upon his desire, assist him against such violence. The meeting of the commissioners was at Boston ; and their determination in regard to Miantinomoh was kept secret till Hopkins and Fenwick, commissioners from Connecticut, and Eaton and Gregson, commissioners from New Haven, had arrived home, some intimation
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having been received that if it was determined to give Miantinomoh back to Uncas, these gentlemen would be seized while on their journey home, and held as hostages for the safety of the sachem.
The commissioners had stipulated that Miantinomoh should not be tortured, and that his execution should not take place within the jurisdiction of the English. Accordingly, when the decision of the commissioners was made known, Uncas, coming to Hartford, received his prisoner, and led him not only beyond the jurisdic- tion of Connecticut, but to the place of his capture near Norwich. When they came upon the plain where the battle had been fought, Wawequa, a brother of Uncas, was walking behind Miantinomoh. Upon a signal from his brother, Wawequa silently raised his tomahawk, and sunk it into the head of the captive, killing him with a single blow.
We have given this story of Miantinomoh and his execution, not because it is part of the history of New Haven, but because it explains some parts of that his- tory. It was this execution which occasioned the sending of the six soldiers from New Haven a few weeks after the event, the similar expedition about two years afterward, and perhaps the temporary residence of Uncas west of the Connecticut River in the inter- vening time. The uneasiness observable for some years among the Indians is also sometimes ascribed to the execution of Miantinomoh ; but possibly, if he had con- tinued to live, there might have been not only rumors of war, but an actual coalition of many tribes against the English. More than any other chieftain of his time he possessed the qualities necessary for combining
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whatever elements of hostility were lying separated and . scattered among the aborigines ; and the people of New Haven and of the other colonies seem to have felt that the danger of a general and destructive war was dimin- ished by this victory of Uncas over Miantinomoh.
Uncas, though a faithful ally of the colonists, was utterly unteachable in regard to English civilization, morals, and religion. Standing over the fallen Mianti- nomoh, he cut a piece of flesh from the shoulder of his foe, and ate it, exclaiming, "It is the sweetest meat I ever ate! It makes my heart strong!" De Forest says, "He oppressed the Pequots who were subject to him; he abused and plundered those who were not properly his subjects ; he robbed one man of his wife; he robbed another man of his corn and beans ; he em- bezzled wampum which he had been commissioned to deliver to the English ; and he and his brother Wawe- qua took every opportunity of subjecting, or at least plundering, their neighbors. The colonists, however, did not encourage him in these acts of violence ; and sometimes, as the records of those times show, admin- istered to him sharp rebukes, and even punishment."
Happening to be in New Haven on other business when the commissioners were in session there in 1646, he was called to answer several charges, one of which was that he had beaten and plundered some Indians employed by Englishmen to hunt near New London. Uncas acknowledged that he had done wrong in using violence so near an English settlement, but did not appear very penitent for his ill treatment of the Indi- ans. The next year the commissioners met at Boston, and Uncas was again summoned to answer many com-
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plaints brought against him. That from New London being renewed, he was fined one hundred fathom of wampum, to be divided among those who had suffered wrong at his hands. On this occasion Uncas did not appear in person, but was represented by Foxon, a sagamore who had been associated with him, apparently from the beginning of his upward career, and by diplo- matic ability had contributed much to the success of his chief. Foxon was held in reputation, as the apostle Eliot informs us, even among the Massachusetts tribes, "as the wisest Indian in the country." He made a dexterous defence on this occasion, declaring that he had never heard of some of the misdeeds charged ; pos- itively denying others; justifying, as in accord with the laws and customs of the Indians, the appropria- tion of Obechiquod's wife when her husband had fled from the territories of his sachem, leaving her behind ; and admitting the charge that Wawequa, at the head of one hundred and thirty Mohegans, had attacked and plundered the Nipmucks, carrying away thirty-five fathoms of wampum, ten copper kettles, ten large hempen baskets, and many bear-skins, deer-skins, and other articles of value ; but claiming that Uncas, with his chief men, was at New Haven when it was done, and knew nothing of the affair; that he never shared in the spoils, and that some of his own Indians were robbed at the same time.
So far was Uncas from receiving with favor the reli- gion of his allies, that a contemporary mentions him as an opposer of Mr. Fitch, the first minister of Norwich, in his endeavors to instruct the Mohegans in Chris- tianity. "I am apt to fear," says Gookin in his " His-
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torical Collections of the Indians in New England," "that a great obstruction to his labors is in the sachem of those Indians, whose name is Uncas, an old and wicked, wilful man, a drunkard, and otherwise very vicious, who hath always been an opposer and under- miner of praying to God." Fitch himself, in a letter to Gookin, gives similar testimony, saying that Uncas and the other sachems " at first carried it teachably and tractably, until at length the sachems did discern that religion would not consist with a mere receiving of the Word, and that practical religion will throw down their heathenish idols and the sachem's tyrannical monarchy ; and then the sachems, discerning this, did not only go away, but drew off their people, some by flatteries and others by threatenings, and would not suffer them to give so much as an outward attendance to the min- istry of the word of God."
When Uncas went with Capt. Mason to fight against his native tribe, he was accompanied by another saga- more called by the English, Wequash, or Wequash Cook. Perhaps his name in the Indian language was a word of three syllables, as Wequashcuk. He was of the Niantic tribe, the eldest son of its chief sachem, but for some reason had not succeeded to his father's place. As he is sometimes called a Pequot, it is sur- mised that his mother was a Pequot, and of so low rank that her children, according to Indian law and custom, were obliged to give place to an uncle, who, upon the death of their father, became chief sachem of the Nian- tics. This uncle of Wequash was none other than Ninigret, whom we have already had occasion to men-
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tion as, in later times, an enemy of the English. We- quash, in 1637, when Uncas and he went with Mason, was acknowledged as a sagamore by a few followers ; but as the whole number of Indians in that expedition was only seventy, and Uncas was so much more promi- nent than Wequash that the latter is barely mentioned by the historians, it is evident that his clan was not nu- merous. Probably, as a sagamore, he was more nearly on a par with Montowese than with Momaugin.
When Mason, after a march of about two miles be- fore dawn of day, drew near to Mystic Fort, he sent for his Indian allies to come to the front. Only Uncas and Wequash came. Mason inquired of them where the fort was. They replied that it was on the top of the hill at whose foot they were now standing. "He demanded of them where were the other Indians. They answered that they were much afraid. The cap- tain sent to them not to fly, but to surround the fort at any distance they pleased, and see whether Englishmen would fight." These timid allies did but very little fight- ing, but they were interested and astonished observers. The destruction of the fort and of its occupants made, doubtless, upon all of them a profound impression of respect for English power ; but in the mind of Wequash it awakened a spirit of inquiry in regard to the English- men's God, which led him finally to a hearty and influ- ential reception of Christianity. An account of his religious experience may perhaps be best given in the language of an anonymous contemporary : -
" This man, a few years since, seeing and beholding the mighty power of God in our English forces, how they fell upon the Pe- quots, when divers hundreds of them were slain in an hour, the
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Lord as a God of glory in great terror did appear to the soul and conscience of this poor wretch in that very act; and though before that time he had low apprehensions of our God, having conceived him to be (as he said) but a mosquito God or a God like unto a fly; and as mean thoughts of the English that served this God, that they were silly, weak men ; yet from that time he was con- vinced and persuaded that our God was a most dreadful God; and that one Englishman by the help of his God was able to slay and put to flight an hundred Indians.
"This conviction did pursue and follow him night and day, so that he could have no rest or quiet because he was ignorant of the Englishman's God : he went up and down bemoaning his condi- tion, and filling every place where he came with sighs and groans. Afterward it pleased the Lord that some English well acquainted with his language did meet with him ; thereupon, as a hart panting after the water brooks, he enquired after God with such incessant diligence that they were constrained constantly for his satisfaction to spend more than half the night in conversing with him.
" Afterward he came to dwell amongst the English at Connecti- cut ; and travailing with all his might and lamenting after the Lord, his manner was to smite his hand on his breast and to com- plain sadly of his heart, saying it was much matchet (that is, very evil), and when any spake with him, he would say, ' Wequash no God, Wequash no know Christ.' It pleased the Lord, that, in the use of the means, he grew greatly in the knowledge of Christ and in the principles of religion, and became thoroughly reformed according to his light, hating and loathing himself for his dearest sins, which were especially these two, lust and revenge. This repentance for the former was testified by his temperance and abstinence from all occasions or matter of provocation thereunto ; secondly, by putting away all his wives, saving the first, to whom he had most right. His repentance for the latter was testified by an eminent degree of meekness and patience, that now, if any did abuse him, he could lie down at their feet ; and if any did smite him. on the one cheek, he would rather turn the other than offend them (many trials he had from the Indians in this case); secondly, by going up and down to those he had offered violence or wrong unto, confessing it, and making restitution.
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" Afterward he went amongst the Indians, like that poor woman of Samaria, proclaiming Christ, and telling them what a treasure he had found, instructing them in the knowledge of the true God; and this he did with a grave and serious spirit, warning them with all faithfulness to flee from the wrath to come, by breaking off their sins and wickedness. This course of his did so disturb the devil that ere long some of the Indians, whose hearts Satan had filled, did secretly give him poison, which he took without suspicion ; and, when he lay upon his death-bed, some Indians who were by him wishing him, according to the Indian manner, to send for a powwow, that is, a wizard; he told them, 'If Jesus Christ say that Wequash shall live, then Wequash must live; if Jesus Christ say that Wequash shall die, then Wequash is willing to die, and will not lengthen out his life by any such means.' Before he died, he did bequeath his child to the godly care of the English for education and instruction, and so yielded up his soul into Christ's hands." I
This anonymous witness, who was apparently a New- England minister visiting the mother country, amplifies more than any other the story of Wequash's conversion and subsequent Christian life; but his story is in the main corroborated by contemporaries writing over their own names. Winthrop thus records the case : -
" One Wequash Cook, an Indian, living about Connecticut River's mouth, and keeping much at Saybrook with Mr. Fenwick, attained to good knowledge of the things of God and salvation by Christ, so as he became a preacher to other Indians, and labored much to convert them, but without any effect, for within a short time he fell sick, not without suspicion of poison from them, and died very comfortably."
' New England's First Fruits, London, printed by R. O. and G. D. for Henry Overton, and are to be sold at his shop in Popes-head-alley 1643.
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ยท The fervent Thomas Shepard writes in a letter to a friend : ---
" Wequash, the famous Indian at the river's mouth, is dead, and certainly in heaven; gloriously did the grace of Christ shine forth in his conversation ; a year and a half before his death he knew Christ; he loved Christ; he preached Christ up and down, and then suffered martyrdom for Christ ; and when he died, he gave his soul to Christ, and his only child to the English, rejoicing in this hope that the child should know more of Christ than its poor father ever did."
Roger Williams, mentioning Wequash in his "Key into the Indian Languages," says, -
"Two days before his death, as I passed up to Connecticut River, it pleased my worthy friend Mr. Fenwick, whom I visited at his house in Saybrook Fort at the mouth of that river, to tell me that my old friend Wequash lay very sick. I desired to see him, and himself was pleased to be my guide two miles where Wequash lay. Amongst other discourse concerning his sickness and death, in which he freely bequeathed his son to Mr. Fenwick, I closed with him concerning his soul. He told me that some two or three years before, he had lodged at my house, when I acquainted him with the condition of all mankind and his own in particular ; how God created man and all things ; how man fell from God and his present enmity against God, and the wrath of God against him until repentance. Said he, ' Your words were never out of my heart to this present. and me much pray to Jesus Christ.' I told him, so did many English, French, and Dutch, who had never turned to God, nor loved him. He replied in broken English, ' Me so big- naughty heart; me heart all one stone!' Savory expressions, using to breathe from compunct and broken hearts and a sense of inward hardness and unbrokenness. I had many discourses with him in his life, but this was the sum of our last parting until our general meeting."
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