USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > New Haven > Thirteen historical discourses, on the completion of two hundred years : from the beginning of the First Church in New Haven, with an appendix > Part 30
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The land ceded by these treaties seems to have been all that part of New Haven county which fronts upon the Sound, between Guil- ford on the east and Milford on the west, a tract upon which there are now about 25,000 people, the poorest of which has more physical
* This interpreter seems to have been one of the first inhabitants of the colony. The interpreter in the former treaty, Thomas Stanton, was in the fort at Saybrook at the beginning there. He afterwards settled in the Pequot country, I believe, and was for many years a sort of chief dragoman in all im- portant negotiations with the Indians.
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comforts,-not to speak of intellectual and moral differences,-than the richest of the Indians enjoyed in 1638. Yet upon that tract at the date of the treaties, there were subsisting in savage wretchedness not quite sixty men, and the largest estimate of women and children will not make the entire native population more than two hundred and fifty. For every Indian there are now a hundred white men. If this change has been effected righteously, it is something worth thinking of by those who go for " the greatest happiness of the great- est number."
As to the actual treatment of the Indians under these treaties, I find that the limits of this article will not allow me to give all the illustrations which I had intended to give. Yet for the sake of im- partiality, I begin with the first record after the formation of the government in 1639, which describes the trial and condemnation of a Pequot captain. The proceedings on the part of the government, are of very questionable equity. and are strongly censured by Dr. Trumbull, I, 115. The record begins, Oct. 26th, 1639, the day after the first election of civil officers.
"The civil affairs of the plantation being settled as before, by the providence of God, an Indian, called Messatunck, 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 magistrate's 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.
"Oct. 28th .- The Quillipieck Indian sagamore, with 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 English, and that he had cut off some of their hands, and had presented them to Sas- sacuse the Pequot sachem, boasting that he had killed them with his own hands.
" Mewhebato, a Quillipieck Indian, kinsman to the aforesaid Ne- paupuck, coming at the same time to intercede for him, was examined what he knew concerning the murders charged upon the said Ne-
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paupuck. At first he pretended ignorance; but with a distracted countenance and 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 according to the tenor of the former charge, but denied that he was Nepau- puck. Mewhebato being brought in, after some signs of sorrow, charged him to his face that he had assisted the Pequots in murder- ing the English. This somewhat abated his spirit and boldness. But Wattoone, the son of Carrahoode, a councillor to the Quillipieck 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 Wethers- field, and beheld him the said Nepaupuck, now present, acting the said murder .* Lastly, the Quillipieck 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 the testimony con- vinced, he confessed that he was the man, namely Nepaupuck, and boasted he was a great captain, had murdered Abraham Finch, and had his hand in other English blood. He said he knew he must die, and was not afraid of it, but laid his neck to the mantle-tree of the chimney, desiring 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.
" A General Court 29th of October, 1639 .- A general court be- ing 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 committed those murders wherewith he was charged. But when he saw that the Quillipieck sagamore and his Indians did again accuse him to his face, he confessed that he had his hand in the murder of Abra- ham Finch; but yet he said there was a Mohauke 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
See Trumbull, I, 77.
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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's at Wethersfield. Then the said Nepau- puck being asked if he would not confess he deserved to die, he an- swered it is weregin.t
"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."
Several considerations naturally lead us to condemn this entire transaction.
1. How was this Indian accountable to the courts of the New Haven plantation ? He seems to have been a Pequot; and at the time when the alledged crimes were committed, the Pequots were an independent sovereignty.
2. The murders were not committed within the bounds of the New Haven colony, nor upon subjects of this jurisdiction. They were committed a full year before the settlers of New Haven made their landing at Quinnipiack. It may therefore be said, that if the murderer was personally accountable to the English any where, he was accountable to the colony upon the Connecticut.
3. Dr. Trumbull remarks that it is not according to the maxims of " this enlightened age, that the subjects of princes killing men by their orders, in war, ought to be treated as murderers." Nepaupuck was a savage warrior making war, after the fashion of the Pequots, against the English. Ought he to have been held personally ac- countable, after the war was ended, for his conduct as an enemy at the beginning of the war ?
4. Dr. Trumbull also remarks on the barbarous ceremony of set- ting up the head of the decapitated offender on a pole, as "too
* Trumbull, I, 76.
t Roger Williams (Key, 50) gives the word wunegin as signifying "well or good ;" and from an observation of his, (ib. 96,) it appears that in the dif- fering dialects of neighboring tribes, n and r were interchanged. Anum, " a dog," in the Cowweset, became arum in the Quinnipiack. So in Eliot's Bible, Gen. 1, 10, " God saw that it was good," wunnaumun God ne en wun- negen. In the epitaph on a Mohegan sachem, who died in 1741, are these two lines,-
" For courage bold, and things werheegan He was the glory of Mohegan."
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nearly symbolizing with the examples of uncivilized and pagan na- tions." The censure is undoubtedly just. The English may have deemed it necessary for the purpose of impressing upon the savages a sense of the sternness of English justice against murderers ; but in so judging they took counsel more of fear than of wisdom.
On the other hand, while in my judgment the proceeding as a whole was unjustifiable, there are several considerations against con- demning it too harshly.
1. It was the constant practice of the New England colonies, whenever a murder had been committed by the Indians, to de- mand of the sachems the surrender of the murderers for punish- ment, together with such other satisfaction as the nature of the case required. Upon the face of all their dealings with the Indians, the great law, "He that sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed," stood prominent. Every other crime could be made the subject of treaty and compromise with the tribe, and could be settled without the visitation of English justice on the head of the individual perpetrator. But for the murder of man, woman, or child, belonging to the English, there was no expiation, no satisfaction, "no ransom," but in the surrender of the murderers for punishment. Looking at this part of their policy, disconnected from the individual case be- fore us, who will say that it was either unwise or unrighteous. The "inner light"' in the bosom of the savage, more to be trusted, if we believe Fox and Bancroft,* than the " dead letter" of any " outward religion," justified the policy. Could any other policy have been so well calculated to teach those bloody barbarians the sacredness of human life ?
2. In dealing with the Indians on the principle above mentioned, the New Englanders were not in the habit of inquiring where the murder was committed,-whether within the bounds of this colony, or of that, or of any. If a murder had been committed, that was enough. We may well ask, Was it not enough? Was there any injustice in insisting that the lives of the English, not only in their dwellings and on their planting grounds, but on the rivers and in the forests, should be inviolable ? Was there any injustice in demand- ing that the Indian who had any where imbrued his hands in Eng- lish blood, should be delivered up to English justice ? I know that this is not the law which regulates in such cases the intercourse of
* See Bancroft, II, 334-352.
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civilized governments ; but it was the Indian law of nations, revealed to the barbarians by their " inner light."
3. In this particular instance, the murders were part of a series of atrocities for which Connecticut and Massachusetts had jointly made war upon the Pequots, and swept them from the country. Here was one of the actual perpetrators of those atrocities, who had survived the ruin of his nation. Because his nation had been swept away, was he, the bloody perpetrator of those hideous murders, to go un- punished ? Such, doubtless, was the reasoning by which the court was misled in the condemnation and punishment of Nepaupuck.
4. It is also to be observed that the Indian, though by no means wanting in ingenuity, did not question at all the jurisdiction of the court or the equity of the proceedings. "Being asked if he would not confess he deserved to die, he answered, it is weregin." The law of God written upon his conscience told him that the punish- ment was just. The question is, whether it was justly inflicted,- a question that escaped his uninstructed sense of justice.
This is the only instance of a questionable act in respect to the Indians, which I have found in the history of the New Haven col- ony. Every thing else in the records accords perfectly with the tes- timony of Hubbard, who ascribes the peace which the planters here enjoyed with their Indian neighbors, to " a due carefulness in doing justice to them upon all occasions against the English."
Among the earliest regulations adopted in this colony respecting the Indians, were the orders that no individual should buy any land of the natives, unless specially authorized to do so ; and that none should furnish them "directly or indirectly with any ammunition whatsoever." To these was soon added a law strictly prohibiting the selling or giving of any intoxicating drink to Indians,-a law often violated by the unthinking good nature of individuals, but al- ways put in force when an Indian was found intoxicated.
The first instance of the appearance of a New Haven Indian in court as an offender, is on the 1st of July, 1646. "Pawquash, a Quillipiock Indian, was first complained of for leaving open the oystershell-field gate, and damage being done thereby, refused to give any satisfaction. Secondly, he about four years since, came into Mr. Crane's house when they were blessing God in the name of Jesus Christ ; and that he then did blasphemously say, that Jesus Christ was mattamoy and naught, and his bones rotten, and spake of an Indian in Mantoise's plantation ascended into heaven. Which
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was witnessed by Mr. Crane, Mrs. Crane, Mrs. Ling, Wm. Holt, Goodwife Camp. The sentence of the court was that he should be severely whipped for his scorning at our worshipping God, and blas- pheming the name of our Lord Jesus ; and informed him that if he should do so hereafter, or [if ] now it had been against the light he now has, it would hazard his life. And for the damage by means of the gate being left open, he was to pay 5s to Thomas Knowles."
In 1649, the united colonies were greatly alarmed by the plotting of the Narragansetts and Nehantics with the Mohawks. The con- gress of commissioners gave directions that the colonies should be put in readiness for any emergency. Trumbull, I, 180. Accord- ingly the records here at that time were filled with orders putting the town in a state of defense, and raising men and stores for the public service. Yet the only allusion to the Indians of this neighbor- hood is, " It was thought fit that when men shall go forth against the Indians, that our Indians be sent for, and warned not to come to or about the town, but upon their peril." The sight of savages in the town at such a time might create alarm, and result in disturbance.
In the following record of an action of assault and battery, we have an illustration of the confidence with which the Indians looked to the courts of New Haven for protection.
" June 25th, 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 12d; when he was upon the way, Wash asked him for his money ; the man gave him 10d, lack two wampum. Wash said he must have 12d, 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 10d, 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 appre- hension, 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 persuaded 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
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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 them- selves in a bond of £10, 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."
In 1653, there was another general alarm throughout New Eng- land, and great expectation of a war not only with the Narragansetts and their confederates, but also with the Dutch. A town meeting was held on the 21st of March. "Thomas Jeffery was chosen ser- geant for this town in the room of Sergeant Andrews," who " by reason of his weakness and remote dwelling," could not supply the place in such an emergency. Ephraim How* also "was propoun- ded and chosen drummer for this town," "Nathaniel Kimberly be- ing gone who did supply the place." The nightly watch was in- creased from four to seven, who were to watch from half an hour after sunset till sunrise. "And they are not to shoot off any of their guns except it be in case of an alarm; against which time men were desired to prepare themselves by having their arms ready that they may quietly put them on and march away to the meeting house or otherwise as the order is; and that beforehand they would [deter- mine ] how to dispose of wives and children, that they do not hang about them to hinder them from the public service." The train band were ordered to bring to every public meeting at least five or six charges of powder and shot. The farmers, when they came to meeting, were to "leave no more arms at home than they leave men to use them." A watch was to be kept at the farms; and in the town beside the nightly watch, two men, taken in course, were to keep ward by day. It was "ordered that the half pikes be forthwith headed, and the whole ones mended or made as they need, and Lieut. Nash was desired to look after it." Every soldier was to provide him- self with cartridges; " also no man is to leave his gun in the meeting house on any public meeting days, as the manner of some is, lest their guns be seized and they fined for it." "Samuel Whitehead was desired to dress the swords that are brought to him for that pur- pose ; and the gunsmiths are desired to attend to the mending of the guns in the town that are brought to them." Wood was ordered to
* For a marvelous story about this Ephraim How, in Mather's own mar- velous style, see Magn. VI, 3.
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be provided for the watch house. The door of the meeting house next the soldiers' seat was to be kept clear from women and children, that in case of an alarm the soldiers might have a free passage. Then after the transaction of some more ordinary and peaceful busi- ness,* " 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 Jeffery and John Brocket 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 saga- more 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 town meeting, on the 11th of April, " the governor desired that in his absence [he was to attend a meeting of the Com- missioners of the United Colonies on the 19th] they would be care- ful to see the watches duly attended ; and that the great guns may be fitted for service, and that the platform may be finished, and though it cost more than the jurisdiction will allow, yet it must be done, and New Haven must bear it," &c. Then, after some ordinary busi- ness, " it is ordered concerning the Indians' land, spoken of, the last court, that Thomas Jeffery, John Brocket, William Tuttil, 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 grounds 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."
* Immediately after the order about a free passage from the soldiers' seat in the meeting house, to the door, follows, " The boys and youths of the town are ordered to sit in the seat where the scholars used to sit, and one of the corporals are desired to sit in the uppermost seat behind them, to see that they be not disorderly ; and what cannot sit there are to sit before the dea- cons' seat, and old Brother Wheeler is to look to them ; and if any boys ab- sent themselves from these places, the marshal is to look after them and bring them in."
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The apprehension of danger was continually increasing, and in the month of May, " it was ordered that the officers give in charge to the warders, to let the Indians know that they are not to come into the town with any arms, and if after warning any shall so come, that they take their arms away. And if any strange Indians come into the town, that they examine them; and if their business be public, to carry them to the magistrate that he may know it; but if they have no such business, then they are to cause them to depart, and not suffer them to walk up and down the town."
In that busy time of military preparation, the execution of the or- der for fencing the Indians' planting grounds appears to have been neglected. But in October, the subject was called up again and "it was thought most convenient, and so ordered, that the townsmen shall treat with the Indians, getting Mr. Pierson and his Indian for interpreters,* and make a full agreement 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." Accordingly, " at a general court for New Haven, December 5th, 1653, the gov- ernor informed the town that the meeting is about an agreement made with the Indians about fencing them in a new cornfield, where- in, at the town's request, Mr. Pierson hath been desired to be help- ful as interpreter ; to which agreement the townsmen have subscribed on behalf of the town, and the sagamore and sundry other Indians have set their marks, for themselves and the rest of the Indians,- Mr. Pierson and John Brocket witnesses,-made the 29th of Novem- ber, 1653; wherein threescore days' work is promised them towards their fence, and they have bound themselves to do no damage to the English cattle, and to secure their own corn from damage, or to re- quire none ;- which agreement was read to the town, and assented to by them. And after some debate about the manner of doing the days' work, it was voted that it should be done by men fit and able for the work, and be paid out of the town treasury."
The agreement being put upon the files and not upon the records, we have only the abstract given above, to show us what it was.
At a court of magistrates for the jurisdiction, 18th October, 1656, "New Haven Indians were with the court, and desired them to lend
* The Rev. Abraham Pierson, the first minister of Branford, is commemo- rated among those early ministers of New England who like Eliot labored for the conversion of the heathen around them. He preached to the Indians in New Haven colony, and to aid him in this work a considerable sum was voted by the Commissioners of the United Colonies .- Trumbull, I, 469.
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them, now in the time of their fears, three pounds of powder. They were told that they must remove themselves to the other side where their own land is, and not dwell here near the town, where they are disorderly and give offense ; and upon their remove thither, which they have seven or eight days liberty for, they shall have three pounds of powder lent them."
At a similar court on the 25th of May, 1657, "Thomas Hope- well, an Indian that inhabits at Branford, was complained of for giving railing and threatening words to several persons, as John Whitehead, Francis Bradley, Samuel Ward, Josias Ward, and Good- wife Williams and her son, saying that he would knock some of them in the head, stab some of them at the heart, meet with them in the woods some time or other, and then let them look to it. He hath also accused to Goodw. Williams, Francis Bradley for being naught with his wife, and after denied it again. But being examined and seve- ral writings read by way of testimony, witnessing his miscarriages, he could show no just cause for such words or carriage, but said he had no witness here to clear him. Whereupon he had liberty to send for them; and he was told, upon security he might have his liberty ; but failing of that he was committed to prison in the mean time. After a convenient season of waiting, he was called before the court again, but no witness appeared to clear him; only he accused the wife of Richard Harrison for giving him some idle words which he requited with worse, both which the court witnessed against, and told him that if he can clear himself of all or any of these charges, he hath liberty. At last he confessed that he had done foolishly, and said he was faulty in the particulars mentioned, and promised amendment. Whereupon Mr. Crane, John Whitehead, Francis Bradley, and Rich- ard Harrison, who where present, declared themselves satisfied so far as to make a trial for a time. And the court told Thomas the In- dian that the miscarriages are very great, and such as may not be borne, and had it been an Englishman he would have been witness- ed against in another manner ; but upon his confession, and promise to walk inoffensively hereafter, the court will spare him, and also make a trial for this time ; and so upon his paying his fees for im- prisonment, and other charges, if it be required, he may have his liberty." May not this Thomas Hopewell have been Mr. Pierson's Indian, mentioned p. 347? Another "Thomas the Indian," a wheel- right, appears upon the town records in 1657, as an absconding debtor,
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