USA > Connecticut > Tercentenary pamphlet series, v. 1 Connecticut and the British Government > Part 41
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THE writer makes no secret of the fact that he gives these informal remarks to the public, with the hope that he may turn the attention of some readers of New Eng- land descent to the opportunity of rendering an appro- priate service by rebuilding or repairing its many houses of worship in a manner which becomes their past useful- ness and their permanent importance. It is most grateful to know that as yet not a single one of the many Congre- gational churches of Connecticut has become extinct which might be said to represent any one of its original parishes. Some of them by reason of the drain by emigra- tion and the shifting of its population to more favored centers of activity, find it difficult to keep their houses of worship in a condition which is befitting their significance and is necessary for edifying and decorous worship. In some instances a wealthy New Englander has built a house of worship for his native town; in many cases liber- al contributions have been made for the rebuilding or repair of church, chapel, or parsonage. Any contribution which provides for the comfort or beauty of public wor- ship or which assures the prosperity of one of these old churches, can scarcely be amiss. In many cases such gifts will not only bring new life and hope to the families that watch by the old homesteads and worship at the ancient altars, but will bring blessing and honor to the names and memory of those who in this way honor their Fathers' God.
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74.6 054 10:19
ConnecLicuL. HISLory
TERCENTENARY COMMISSION OF THE STATE OF CONNECTICUT
OUI
SUSTINET
TRANSTULIT
COMMITTEE ON
HISTORICAL PUBLICATIONS
The Indians of Connecticut
PUBLISHED FOR THE TERCENTENARY COMMISSION BY THE YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS 1933
TERCENTENARY COMMISSION OF THE STATE OF CONNECTICUT
COMMITTEE ON HISTORICAL PUBLICATIONS
The Indians of Connecticut
MATHIAS SPIESS
T HREE hundred years have passed since the white man began to write the history of what is now known to us as the state of Connecticut.
It was in the summer of 1614 when the first white man, Adrian Block, a Dutch navigator, sailed up the Con- necticut River and landed at a fortified Indian town, situated in latitude 41ยบ 48', or just north of where Hart- ford now stands. The exact location of this large Indian town has been disputed, but by personal investigation, covering all the lands on both sides of the river and after many years of observation, we found that J. Hammond Trumbull was correct when he said: "This fortified town was, in my opinion, on the east side of the river, in what is now South Windsor, between Podunk and Scantic Rivers, on the ground called Nowashe (which seems to be the equivalent of the Dutch 'Nowaas') by the Indians who sold it to Windsor plantation in 1636."I
Nowhere in the state has an Indian village site been found that covers so large an area. To this day the camp fire stones lie scattered over several hundred acres, not including the camps that were located in the outskirts of I Memorial History of Hartford County, I, II.
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the village. For many years this locality was a paradise for collectors of Indian relics. It was the summer village and the headquarters of the Podunk tribe of which we shall learn more later.
Here is the place where the red skinned aboriginal American who lived in Connecticut, first met his white skinned brother. Right here written history of the state of Connecticut began. Rightfully and justly may the town of South Windsor boast that the cradle of Connecticut's history stood within its town boundary.
Ancient records have been searched, copied, and put in order and several volumes have been written regarding the Indians of Connecticut. Indian characters have been depicted that appeal to the fiery ardor and enthusiasm of youth, but the aborigines, because of the want of a writ- ten language left us only their marks and imprints of their occupancy "on the sands of time."
Our desire to peek into the dim and misty prehistoric past impels us to study their stone implements that we find where once stood their homes and cornfields, or where they hunted in the primeval forest. Besides fragments of earthen pots and other utensils, arrow points and spear heads, stone axes and pestles, and bits of charcoal where they had their camp fires and villages, we find but little of importance to aid us in our study of the tribes who lived here before the white man came.
Conne-tic-ut
THE original tracts of lands known among the earliest settlers as Connecticut were on both sides of the river from Agawam (Springfield, Mass.) to Long Island Sound. In Algonkin, Connecticut is not a proper name but a phrase: "Conne," long; "tic," tidal river; "ut," by. The river tribes designated their villages and places by names
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which we find mentioned in the records, but when one of their members, whether he lived at Agawam (Spring- field), Saukiog (Hartford), Mattabesec (Middletown), or at Pashesauke (Saybrook), had travelled into a strange country, he knew that the local name of his village was unknown among people living a long distance away, but that the Long River was known by all. So he described his homeland as that part of the country which was "By the Long River," that is, Conne-tic-ut.
Here lived sixteen distinct tribes when the white man arrived and settled, and we shall take each tribe sepa- rately as they were when the Europeans found them.
The Pequots
THE story of the Indians of Connecticut must necessarily begin with a tribe whose courage led them to glorious victories in prehistoric days, and to an ignominious end a few years after the first settlement by Europeans was made. This tribe invaded Connecticut not very many years previous to the arrival of the white man. They were Mohicans2 whose homelands were on both sides of the Hudson River, southward from Albany, but for some reason travelled eastward over the hills of Taughanick (Taconic) to the Connecticut River. They then followed along the east side of the river southward until they en- countered the bravest of all sons of the forest of Con- necticut-the Podunks. How many battles were fought or how long the invaders were retarded in their march southward, will never be known. We do know, however, that the Podunks drove the Pequots eastward into the Nipmuck country where they again found strong resist- ance from the Nipmucks. From here they faced south- ward and attacked the Nehantics, cutting that tribe in
2 On Mohican vs. Mohegan see pages 10-13, and note 6.
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two, and settled at what is known to us as the towns of Groton and Stonington, where they were found by the white settlers.
Like all the tribes of New England, these American vandals were Algonkins but they had joined the Iro- quois League of Five Nations when they left their origi- nal stock, the Lenni Lenape, and became members of Hiawatha's clan of Muckhaneek, meaning "Wolves."
Their earliest sachem mentioned in the records, Tama- quashad, was, it is believed, the chief who led the tribe into Connecticut. His successor was Muckguntdowas whose son Woipeguand ruled after him and his son Wopigwooit also became chief sachem. The latter was followed by his son, Sassacus, the last to rule.
The name Pequot was given them by tribes in New England, and Roger Williams tells us that the name was given because of their fierce nature, and, interpreted, means "destroyers of men."
Naturally the Pequots claimed the land by conquest. They paced out a hunting ground for themselves which they took from lands belonging to the Nipmucks, Ne- hantics, Wangunks, and the Podunks. Nowhere in the records and in the writings of early writers has any definite reason been given as to why these Mohicans refused to obey the orders issued from the Great Council of the Five Nations at Onondaga, after they had disturbed the peace- ful tribes of Connecticut by invasion.
True, many speculative opinions are given by his- torians but whether they were driven here or sent here, is a question which may never be answered.
There is a tradition still aflame among the living Mo- hegans at Montville, Connecticut, which relates that their forefathers came from the northwest and the late Lemuel Fielding, a Mohegan, taught me the very words
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an elderly Mohegan woman would say whenever the sub- ject was brought up. She pointed to the northwest and said: "geeyahoo wudchi oos'e taughannick," which means, "We came from beyond the distant mountains."3 Yes, the Mohican-Pequots came, but why did they come? If they were driven here as some historians be- lieve, why did not the Mohawks collect tribute from them as they did from other Connecticut tribes? Nothing is recorded to show that the Mohawks were enemies to the Pequots, or that they were sent here by the Iroquois as "a thorn in the side" of all Connecticut tribes who re- fused to join the Iroquois Confederacy.
Some day new discoveries may disclose the facts and a three-hundred-year old problem may be solved.
Wopigwooit was the great chief of the Pequots when Connecticut was settled and his son, Sassacus, ruled after him.
According to Dutch records it was Wopigwooit who claimed to be owner of Connecticut and sold lands at Saybrook and Hartford to Van Twiller, governor of New Netherland, the sachems of the River Tribes having fled but who were the rightful owners of the land. While in exile, they were busy inducing the English to emigrate to Connecticut, which the English did in 1633.
A dispute between the English and the Pequots was in- evitable, and after several atrocious deeds committed by the Pequots against the white settlers, a war of extermina- tion was planned against the tribe.
It was in May, 1637, that Captain John Mason was sent against them, burned their fort at Mystic, and drove the occupants of the western fort towards Manhattan. Mason captured two hundred old men, women, and chil- dren near New Haven and the rest of this band was
3 Speck, Native Tribes and Dialects of Connecticut, p. 216.
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finally rounded up in a swamp in Fairfield. In all, Mason had about one hundred men in his command and the as- sistance of Captain Underhill and Captain Patrick, be- sides what little aid he received from the Mohegans and Narragansetts, who fought in favor of the white men and against their own people.
Chief Sassacus with five sachems and one of his broth- ers, besides others, escaped and sought safety with the Mohawks. But the Mohawks now realized the strength of the English who practically annihilated the fierce and courageous warriors of the Pequots.
They could not, in fact dared not, offend the white settlers from now on. On the other hand they would not deliver the Pequot sachems into the hands of the Eng- lish, for they knew what was awaiting them, so they put all to death, excepting one who escaped, and sent the scalp of Sassacus and that of his brother and the five sachems to Hartford. So the story goes, but here we come to another problem. If the Mohawks really wished to please the whites, why did they not turn the fugitives over to them alive? Who among the white settlers could tell the difference between the scalp of Sassacus and that of some other Indian?
However, Sassacus, that great and powerful chief, was seen no more, and the great Pequot tribe as such had perished. True, refugees had scattered here and there and when found were divided among other tribes. They were prohibited from using the name Pequot and were or- dered to assume the name of the tribe to which they were attached.
This order, however, was not enforced, for soon two small bodies of them appeared and settled in their old hunting grounds where they were known by the old name. Two chiefs are mentioned who ruled over them, Cusha-
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washet and Wequash; the latter also known as Herman Garrett. De Forest tells us that these remnants were, in 1832, considerably mixed with white and negro blood, and his description of them can be applied to those still living at this writing (1932), who feel the Pequot pride within them and ignore the white or negro blood that flows in their veins.
A few families live on the old reservation at Groton while several others are scattered in near-by towns in Connecticut and Rhode Island. They are living witnesses that the Pequot tribe has been dead for nearly three hun- dred years, but that the Muckhaneek-the spirit and prowess of the "Wolves"-still survives in the hearts of those few individuals that remain and haunt the ancient hunting grounds of their forefathers, like spectres from the Valley of the Dead.
The Podunks
WE have already seen that the Podunks were the first to greet and welcome the white man in Connecticut. Dr. O'Callaghan tells us4 that Adrian Block who discovered the Connecticut River called this tribe Nowaas, and their country is so named on the Dutch map of about 1614.
The earliest record in New England regarding this tribe is dated 1631. Wahginacut, a Podunk sachem, visited the governors of Massachusetts and Plymouth colonies, to induce the English to emigrate to the Connecticut Valley. He had good reason to invite whites to come and live in his country, as we shall soon see. The sachem painted a beautiful picture of his homeland. He spoke of the fruitfulness of the country, the opportunity for trade with the Indians in corn, beaver, and other skins, and pledged an annual present of corn and eighty beaver skins
4 History of New Netherland, I, 73.
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to the English who would come and settle in his country.
Governor Winthrop of Massachusetts declined the sachem's proposition but Governor Winslow of Plymouth went to visit the country and on his return gave a very fav- orable account of it. Soon the English had learned that the Podunks and other river tribes had been driven from their country by the Pequots because they refused to sub- mit to Pequot authority. An English settlement in the Po- dunk country meant protection of the right owners and de- fense against their powerful enemies-the Pequot invaders.
To this day a meadow in South Windsor east of Patrick Colbert's and John Reardon's homes is known as "Bloody Field." It is just north of where the Podunk fort was, on the Thomas Johnson farm, and is without doubt the site of an Indian battlefield.
Since the Pequot invasion took place before written history began in New England, we must depend upon tradition which gives us but scant bits of information. Suffice it to say that the Podunks never surrendered to their enemies. There is still an old saying among the older folks living around East Hartford and South Windsor when alluding to the brave warriors, "They fought like Podunks to the last man," for it is said, that in one battle the Podunks were outnumbered by their enemy and all had been killed but one. He kept up the fight until he was slain.
The women and children and the old men of the tribe were taken to Pocomtock (Deerfield, Mass.), while the young warriors went about in an attempt to organize a war party from various other tribes, and drive out the Pe- quot invaders.
About forty to fifty years must have passed, but always were the Podunks mindful of their homelands. They con- ceived the idea of asking the English to settle in Connecti-
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cut, when they had learned that their enemies the Pequots had sold land to the Dutch at Saukiog (Hartford). The Dutch account tells us that the river tribes were beaten in three encounters by the Pequots who claimed the entire country by the right of conquest.
It was in the year 1632, "the year before the Dutch be- gan in the River" when Chief Natawanute presented Governor Winslow of Plymouth with a tract of land in South Windsor, and in October, 1633, the Plymouth trad- ing company "brought home and restored the right Sa- chem of the place, called Natawanute."5
In his letter to Winthrop, Governor Winslow says: "I brought in Attawanyut (Natawanute, also written Allar- baenhoot) and there left him where he lived and died upon the ground, whom Tatobam (Wopigwooit) the Tyrant, had before expelled by war."
It is evident that Natawanute was one of the grand sachems of the Connecticut River tribes, and the colonial records show that he sold land in the Podunk territory called Nowashe, now South Windsor, to the Windsor planters in 1633. This land was repurchased by the town of Windsor from Arraramet, chief of the Podunks and successor of Natawanute.
The name "Podunk" was originally applied to the low land between the river and their principal summer village in South Windsor, where the tribe cultivated the rich al- luvium soil and raised corn, beans, squashes, and tobacco. In Algonkin, Podunk, or Pautunk means "a bringing in" (of alluvium soil by the river) and denotes low land.
The tribe consisted of three clans: the Nameroke, who lived near the village of Warehouse Point; the Hocka- num clan under Tantonimo, who resided in the village still known as Hockanum; and the Scanticooks, whose vil-
5 Bradford, History of Plimmoth Plantation (Ford ed.), II, 164-168.
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lage and fort were on the north bank of the Scantic River, northeast of Broad Brook in the section known as Wey- mouth. The Scanticook sagamore was Foxen (alias Poxen) who, with ninety warriors and their families, joined the Mohegans under Uncas. Foxen became the great coun- cillor of the Mohegans and his name appears repeatedly in the records.
It is assumed that Uncas when exiled by the Pequot sachem lived here under the protection of Foxen, who, displeased with the Podunk sachem Arraramet, left his tribe and removed to Mohegan Hill.
Uncas had a son Ben, by Foxen's daughter, whom he called "half dog"; the mother he described as being a "poor beggarly squaw, not his wife." Thus was Foxen rewarded by Uncas for all the faithful service he rendered, and thus was a Podunk princess disgraced by one who pretended to be a faithful friend of the white settlers, but who, like a snake in the grass, would have struck if only an opportunity would have come.
Their territory was bounded on the west by the Con- necticut River, and originally extended eastward "one day's journey" to the lands of the Nehantic. But after the Pequots had paced out their new hunting ground, their east boundary was the hills at Bolton. On the north the Podunk country met the lands of the Agawam tribe, near the present north boundary of East Windsor, and on the south it abutted the Wangunk country. The line run- ning southeast, from Pautopaug (Keeney Cove) to what is now known to us as the New London turnpike, which, according to a map of John Chandler, 1705, was an In- dian footpath, was called "Path to Hockanum."
Within this territory today, there are the towns of East Windsor, South Windsor, Manchester, part of Ellington, Vernon, Bolton, and Glastonbury.
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To date, five burying places of the Podunks have been found. Their royal cemetery was at the junction of Main Street and Ellington Road, in East Hartford. Another burying place is on a neck of land, south of Podunk River near Main Street, East Hartford, on a farm now (1932) owned by Isaac Cohen and formerly known as the Leo Burnham place. The largest cemetery of the tribe was on the bank of the Connecticut River, on land now owned by Patrick Healy, in South Windsor, while seemingly the smallest place of interment was at Hockanum on land now owned by Howard Ensign. The fifth was on the north bank of the Scantic River, near where it flows into the Connecticut River.
So far as it is known, the Podunks buried their dead facing them towards the southwest. There, so they as well as all Algonkins believed, dwelt Kent-Manitto-Great Spirit. There the souls of all their great and good men and women go and there in a Paradise of a Happy Hunting Ground they would spend eternity.
The Mohegans
IT is well known among students of history that the name Mohegan appears in the pages of history and in ancient records in various forms. We find it spelled Mohican, Mohangin, and Muckhaneek in the records, while on the Dutch map of 1614 we see the names of Mahicans and Morhicans, and a Mohegan petition of 1749 gives us the name spelled Mohanhegumewog.
The attention of the reader has already been called to the fact that the Pequots, so called, were Mohicans from the Hudson River (originally called Mohican River by the Indians), who invaded Connecticut. We also know that Uncas, the Mohegan, was a Pequot prince, and that these two tribes, the Mohegans and the Pequots, were of
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the same stock. In tracing these Mohican-Pequot peo- ple we find that they emigrated from the country of the Mahicans as designated on the old Dutch map. So then it is safe to say that the Mohican-Pequot and the Mohi- can-Mahican were all of the "Wolve totem or true Mo- hicans," for we know that Muckhaneek or its synonym Mahican means wolves.6
The Iroquois League was organized about the close of the sixteenth century and it was about this time that the Mohican-Pequots invaded Connecticut. Among the Mohawks there were members, too, of the "Wolve Clan," and whether the Mohican-Pequots who lived at Taconic were driven out or whether they were sent here does not change the fact that the Connecticut Mohican-Pequots were a band of the wolve totem known to the Dutch ex- plorer and maker of the earliest map of the northeastern parts of the United States, as Mahicans.
We have already seen that the Mohawks collected tribute from all the tribes living west of the Connecticut River, but never were the Mohican-Pequots asked to pay. The Pequots sold land to the Dutch but never did the Mohawks object to the transaction. On the other hand, it is evident that the Mohican-Pequots had been on very friendly terms with the powerful Narragansetts, up to the time when the Pilgrims settled at Plymouth.
According to Uncas' genealogy as it was given to the whites in 1679, the grandmother of Sassacus was a daugh- ter of the grand sachem of the Narragansetts and Uncas' mother was a sister of Sassacus' grandfather.
Uncas himself married a daughter of Sassacus, which made him son-in-law of Sassacus besides being a distant cousin. By this we see that both Sassacus and Uncas were
6 Dr. Speck is of the opinion that the Mohican and Mohegan dialects "differ considerably," a fact which "cannot be ignored as an indication of separate identity."
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related to the royal family of the Narragansetts and that Uncas himself was a Pequot prince.
Our creative power of imagination can only picture what changes would have been wrought among the tribes of Connecticut by these two allied and powerful nations, had not Cupid's darts prevented a general upheaval. The Narragansetts were also intermarried with the Connecti- cut River tribes and when the haughty Pequots sold land on the river to the Dutch, the warm friendship that had existed so long, began to cool.
Uncas, who had lost the election after the death of Chief Wopigwooit, refused to humble himself to the new Pequot ruler and set up a camp for himself and his fol- lowers and from that time on they were known as Mohe- gans. Knowing that he was despised by all tribes in Con- necticut, Uncas joined the English against his own people, for the sole purpose of securing for himself, what to him seemed an exalted position, the chieftaincy of the proud and powerful Pequot invaders. However, the glory of Pequot supremacy was soon crushed, when Mo- hegans, Nehantics, and Narragansetts under Captain John Mason and his men finished their undertaking of annihilation, as we have already seen.
Attawanhoot, known in the records as Joshua Sachem, was the third son of Uncas. He was set up as sachem over the western Nehantics by his father and soon after mar- ried Sanganosk, the daughter of Arraramet, grand sachem of the Podunks. Shortly before the death of Arraramet, he gave to the wedded pair "all the lands in Podunk." This gift included the present township of East Hartford, Manchester, and part of Ellington, Vernon, Glastonbury, and Marlboro. All of these tracts of lands were sold by Joshua, to the whites, and since the ancient Pequot country had been granted to the Mohegans by Queen
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Anne, Attawanhoot's mark can be seen affixed to many deeds and other conveyances of lands in Connecticut, east of the river.
The national pride of the Mohegans disappeared with the death of Uncas. Volumes have been written about them covering all their activities. Many were the quarrels, wars, and disturbances caused by Uncas with other tribes.
He accused the noble Narragansett sachem, Mianto- nomo, and put him to death; he fought with the Podunks, spied on Sequassen, sachem of the Hartford Indians, and surrendered him to the whites. He complained continu- ously to the English about the doings of other sachems. The Mohegans fought against their own race again in King Philip's War, but Uncas' dream of an Indian empire with himself as grand sachem never materialized.
Oweneco succeeded his father in 1683, the year in which, it is believed, Uncas died.
Oweneco's son Caesar succeeded him, and upon the death of Caesar, Uncas' youngest son Ben became chief, and he was succeeded by his son Ben, the last of the Mo- hegan sachems.7
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