USA > Massachusetts > The story of western Massachusetts, Volume I > Part 18
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The mark of X Menis. The mark of X Macassack.
The mark of X Kenix. The mark of X Wineawis.
The mark of X Cuttonus.
The mark of X Ussessas alias Nepineum. The mark of X Matanchan.
The mark of X Winepawin.
The mark of X Wrutherna.
The mark of X Machetuhood. The mark of X Coa.
The mark of X Commuck. The mark of X Keckusnek.
Witness to all within expressed that they understood all by Ahaughton, an Indian of the Massachusett.
John Allen. The mark of John Cownes.
The mark of X Richard Everet Thomas Horton.
Faithful Thayler. Joseph Parsons.
The mark of X Ahaughton.
Joseph Parsons, a testimony to this deed, did at the court at Northampton, March 1661-62, testify on oath that he was a witness to this bargain between Mr. Pynchon and the Indians as attests Elizur Holyoke, recorder.
July 8th, 1679. Entered on the records for the county of Hamp-
shire, by me,
JOHN HOLYOKE, recorder.
When recording this deed, Holyoke appended the following on the records :
"Memoranda ;- Agaam or Agawam ;- It is that meadow on the south of the Agawam river, where the English did first build a house, which now we commonly call the House Meadow. That piece of ground it is which the Indians do call Agawam and that the English kept the residence, who first came to settle and plant at Springfield, now so called, and at the place it was (as is supposed) that this purchase was made of the Indians. Quana is the middle meadow adjoining to Agawam, or House Meadow. Masacksick is that the English call the Long Meadow, below Springfeild, on the east side of Quinecticot river. . Usquaiok is the Mill river with the land adjoining. Nayasset is the land of Three Corner Meadow and of the Plain".
The subject matter of the deed is introduced with the words,- "It is agreed between Commucke (he who steals it) and Matanchan, (the old and decrepit one)." It cannot be readily believed that the
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WESTERN MASSACHUSETTS
two "ancient Indians of Agawam", realized or understood the rank to which they had been elevated. It was probably assumed that ones of their advanced age ought of right to be the patriarchs of the band and hence they were so deemed. It was well within the role of a Pynchon to provide a ritual for impressing upon the natives the importance and seriousness of their acts and the English were prone to impute to the Indians, ceremonies which were actually unknown in their prehistoric life. On a similar occasion the deed for a tract of
South Shore, Pontoosuc Lake
land recited the fact that ownership passed by the delivery of a twig or a turf, "in accordance with the Indian custom". Actually, such symbolic delivery was purely an English custom, dating from medieval times. Such hocus-pocus reached the height of absurdity in a con- firmatory deed to the Tantiusques territory on January 20, 1645, "in witness whereof the Sachem set his mark as he laid the writing on the breast of his son and heir and the said son made his mark on the breast of his father, according to the Indian custom". All this in spite of the fact that the Indians had neither pen nor paper and no knowledge whatever of writing. It was just another bit of balder- dash, designed to impress the Indians with the importance and for- mality of the occasion.
One must be continuously on guard lest he be deceived by anach- ronisms. The English frequently put thoughts into the minds of the
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THE INDIANS OF AGAWAM
natives, which, when repeated by them, were accepted as originating with them. The Key into the Language, an English-Indian phrase book, published by Roger Williams in 1643, well illustrates the situa- tion. The author gave the native equivalent of 1,000, 10,000, 100,000 &c., naively observing that it was "admirable how quick they are in casting up such a great number with the help of grains of corn instead of European counters". Yet no American Indian ever had 100,000 of anything of which an enumeration was required, and he could never have comprehended what such vast figures represented. With the same disregard, Williams gave the equivalent of guns, powder, and shot; articles wholly unknown to stone-age people, and his were purely coined words.
Even the most trustworthy of modern reference works attribute the game of lacrosse to the Indian, whereas both the name and the game itself are of French origin. In the seventeenth century nostalgic play-boys and cadets from prominent families, in the suite of French officers relegated to Canada for protracted tours of duty, devised the game as a solace from the ennui of that bleak country. Denied by the crude state of the land, the tennis which had been so much a part of their lives, they contrived a cross between a snowshoe and a racquette and used it with a ball some eight inches in diameter, in a game somewhat akin to football. That was the game of lacrosse and such was its origin. In later years it was taken up by reservation Indians and was introduced into England in 1867 by a group of eighteen Iroquois.
An analysis of the native words appearing in the deed of 1636 affords much of interest. The native place-names preserved by those seventeenth century recorders represent a serious attempt on their part to reduce to writing a previously unwritten language. In this effort they were handicapped by the fact that they were contending with an unfamiliar combination of syllables which never sounded alike to any two individuals. Furthermore, as the recorders were of varied abilities and qualifications, acting wholly without precedent, the result was not all that might be desired. Yet the effect is most valuable to the posterity they strove to serve.
It will be noted that while the document was dated at "Agaam, alias Agawam", the word appears four times in the text, each time in the form Agaam, indicating that such was the word used by the local Indians.
The lands on the west side of Connecticut, Agaam, Quana, Accom- sick and the muckeosquittaj were sold by Cuttonus (he speaks alone) and the sale was assented to by his mother Kewenusk, who was called the tamasham or wife of Wenawis (the truthful one) and Niarum, the wife of Coa, who probably was grandmother to Cuttonus. Here the recorder erred, possibly due to a subconscious groping for a familiar sound. The correct Algonquin word for wife is mitamusum, but the gutteral Indian tones so slurred the initial that it was lost to Pynchon, and became tamusum which he retained as tamasham. Though Cuttonus sold this land he continued to live by the river in"
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WESTERN MASSACHUSETTS
neighborly friendship with the English, absorbing their ways and becoming amenable to their laws. He appeared in various land trans- actions in after years and, as late as 1667, "Cuttonus and his com- pany", for failure to properly maintain a fence about their fields, were "fined to pay two bushels and one-half of Indian corn". Some of the associates of Cuttonus removed to Woronoco shortly after the coming of the English, among them being Wenapawin and the widow of Kenix, who died at about that time. There she became the wife of Janandua, and the little band was consolidated with a local group having a stockaded village on the hill south of Pochassic.
At Woronoco the widow of Kenix was known as Secousk, and thus is provided a perfect illustration of how descriptive Indian per- sonal names were, for this is a compound word meaning no more than "widow woman", that is secou-squaw, literally "a left behind woman". In composition, the Pynchons, both father and son, invari- ably (as Roger Williams did frequently) slurred over the noun so that it remained simply as sk or qua.
Quana is a word of which the spoken sound might perhaps have been more correctly represented by kwnau. This is a verb in the third person singular of the present indicative with inanimate subject, which means "it is sunken down" or "it is depressed". Being in the midst of Agawam, or "ground overflowed by water", it must have been a marshy place in the meadows, such as are there today.
Accomsick is from the root akam, meaning "on the other side". The termination, sick, is the locative case of assi, "land", which is assick. Thus the meaning is "on the other side of the land", videlicet, quana.
Muckeosquittaj equals mukkosqut, "meadow", aug, "land".
Cottinackeesh is from kitikanakish, a compound word made up of · kitkan, "plantation" and auk, "land" in the diminutive, the meaning being "the planting fields".
No bounds whatever were given for the lands sold by Cuttonus, but on January 8, 1639, it was decreed that the north bounds of the plantation on the west side should be "at a brook above the Great Meadow (Riverdale) which is a quarter of a mile above the mouth of Chicopee river". This is now Hyde brook, formerly Ashley. brook.
In May, 1645, the south bounds on the west side were set at "a little brook on the other side, a little below the brook in the Long- meadow", that is, at a point on the west side, about opposite to Rasp- berry Brook in Longmeadow. However, the settlers were unable to substantiate any claim to the high lands south of the Agawam, known as the Higher Meadows. This inability they acknowledged by impli- cation, in June, 1666, when two men and one old squaw, for fifty fathoms of wampum, gave a deed for the "lands of the Higher Meadows, below Agawam river mouth and the uplands further south", acknowledging that the Middle Meadow and House Meadow, called Quana and Agawam were long since bought by the English". . There- . fore, the proper north-south bounds of the purchase were a bit more than four and one-half miles apart.
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THE INDIANS OF AGAWAM
In May, 1636, disposal was made of "the meadow called Nayas, (the triangular land) towards Patucket by the side of Agawam, being about four miles above in the river". As the different sections became better known to the settlers, they learned to call Patucket by its more proper name of Paucatuck (shallow water) which was at the inter- vale on the north side of Woronoco (Westfield) river, west of Tatham. The "meadow called Nayas", later known to the English as Ash- kanunksuck, was the land of the neck formed by the Wor noco River between the trap ridge at Tatham and Mittineague Falls. The English were certainly most generous with themselves in determining the extent of their domain. That they occupied lands beyond the limits of their purchase they tacitly admitted by securing a deed from Paupsunnuck in 1663 for both Ashkanunksuck and Paucatuck, agree- ing in effect, that their purchase of 1636 did not extend more than four miles westerly from the Connecticut. Thus, the lands bought from Cuttonus comprised nearly twenty square miles.
From Menis, Wrutherna and Napompenam was bought the land on the east side of the Connecticut, from Pecousic at the north end of Masaksicke (Longmeadow) up to Chicopee River, including Usquaiok and Nayasset.
The word Chickuppe or Chicopee is from chekee, violent, and pe, water. This is very applicable as the river has a fall of over seventy feet in the City of Chicopee alone.
The prefix of Nayasset is a common one among Indian place- names. It is from nai, it corners, and with the locative means "where there is a corner". It more or less coincides with Hampden Park and the Plainfield Street section of modern Springfield.
John Holyoke expressed himself too loosely when he said that Usquaiok was "the Mill river with the land adjoining". There is nothing whatever relating to water in the composition of the word. Pynchon wrote it usquaiok. In 1665 Thomas Cooper heard the same word at Brookfield and wrote it ashquoach. Today, a qualified phi- lologist would express it as ishka-ack. The casual reader might not readily realize the relationship of these three words to each other, vet when spoken, the sounds are quite similar. . The derivation is from iskwai-auk, meaning "the last land" or "the end of the land". It was the land adjacent to Mill River and extending to Pecousic, that is, "the end of the lands" of these three Indians.
Usquaiok and Masaksicke were divided by Pecousic. The first component of the word, pecou, is a verbal noun of frequent use in Indian place-names. It denotes something "open" or "wide" and when used as in this case, an "opening" or a "widening", or as originally applied, would refer to "a tract of land dividing or separat- ing hills", therefore may be freely translated as "a valley". The terminal sic, is a common affix to Indian place-names throughout New England. The locative post-position, ic, means "in, at or on", not "land" nor "place". It locates, not the object to the name of which it is affixed, but something else as related to that object, which must be of such a nature that location can be predicated of it. Proximity
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was denoted in the Algonquin place-names of New England by inter- posing the diminutive s or es, between that noun and its affix, ic. Hence, the original whole, Pecou-es-ic, "at, about, or in the vicinity of the valley" or "widening", which would indicate necessarily, not a limited location, but all the neighborhood through which the valley winds its way. A good free translation would be "where the narrows open out".
Wrutherna, one of the three Indians who joined in the sale of this east side tract and who received the extra two coats, was a wiley,
Onota Lake at Burbank Park near Pittsfield
treacherous individual with whom the settlers had various dealings during the ensuing forty years. Following this sale he married Awonusk of Hadley, thus becoming head of the group there. With his wife and son Squompe he sold lands at Wilbraham, Hadley and Northampton. In 1675, during King Philip's War, it was he who incited the local Indians to join with his Hadley band in a nearly successful attempt to burn and destroy Springfield. Known in 1636 as Wrutherna, in 1653 he was called Wullertha and for the following twenty years as Wequogan. These names were applied at different stages of his life, the first prior to puberty, the second as a young man and the third after he had made a name for himself. The same procedure is in effect today amongst the Canadian Eskimos. In regis- tering those people for family allowances recently, government officials found that an Eskimo child had only a temporary name until he was
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THE INDIANS OF AGAWAM
about ten years old. In addition, the families are always on the move. The problem was solved by giving each child a dog-tag, with a code letter and number, making him identifiable no matter how often his name was changed or how far his family wandered.
From Machetuhood, Wenepawin and Mohemoos was bought the muckeosquittaj (meadow land) called Masaksicke, extending southerly from Pecousic to a brook at the lower end of the long meadow, now known as Raspberry Brook. The present name of Longmeadow is almost a literal translation of the Indian term, which is from massa, great, and auksick, the diminutive of auk, land, in the locative case, meaning "the great land" or "the great meadow".
No easterly bounds were mentioned for the two east side parcels, but it was later agreed that the lands extended five miles from the river, making a total of forty square miles for the two east side tracts.
From all the lands sold, the natives reserved to themselves all that was of value to them-the sole use of their old planting fields and liberty to take fish, deer, ground nuts (apios tuberosa), walnuts, acorns and sasachiminesh, which Pynchon called "a kind of pease". Actually these were cranberries, previously unknown to these emi- grants from East Anglia, though they were to be found in Scotland. When they were first seen in the Agawam meadows, it was at a season when the berries were green in color and somewhat akin to peas in appearance. In their relations with the natives, the settlers so scrupu- lously observed this reservation that many land allotments were with the proviso that "the Indians be not wronged in their pease". The natives absorbed the vitamin C with which the berry teemed and unwittingly held it in high esteem.
For these three parcels, comprising sixty square miles, there were given eighteen fathoms of wampum, eighteen hatchets, eighteen hoes, eighteen knives and twenty coats, the whole valued at £30, rep- resenting an average payment of ten shillings ($2) for each square mile.
In any consideration of the adequacy of the payment to the natives it must be remembered that they had an almost limitless domain at their disposal to which they could and, later, did retire. So anxious were the natives for the advice, counsel and protection of the English, that certain groups had earlier expressed a willingness to pay the English to settle in the Connecticut Valley. For a time their lives were but a dream of peace and indolence. Their new neigh- bors guarded them against their ancient enemies, the Mohawks (liter- ally, "they who eat animate things"), and their newly acquired English tools made their daily tasks mere pastimes as compared with former days.
Small wonder that they lingered on to enjoy these benefits.
The coats that the natives so eagerly sought were not coats such as are known today. The corresponding garments of the time of Charles I were jerkins and doublets, and it was not until the reign of Charles II that the modern fitted coat was known. These Indian coats were of "broad Essex shag", a cloth made from a mixture of flax
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WESTERN MASSACHUSETTS
and wool, sixty inches wide and with a nap that made it more or less resemble the skin clothing of the natives. Pynchon imported these "trucking cloths" quite extensively for his own trading with the natives for furs and for exchange with traders of other localities for wampum and the like, carrying it in various colors; such as tawny, liver color, mulberry, violet and russet. A large Indian coat was merely a strip of this cloth, a yard and three-quarters long, making a blanket or shawl approximately five feet square, which was the proto- type of the Indian blanket which was such an important item in the stock of the trader of later days. Coats but one and a half yards long were called "small coats", and still smaller ones were designated as "child's coats".
In spite of their agreements and stipulations, the Indians, tempted by the ease with which they could till their fields with the tools they acquired from the English, greatly enlarged their corn fields and there were frequent remonstrances on the part of the settlers. These disputes continued through the years, until finally, in 1666, John Pynchon bought out the rights of the Indians to the plots of planting ground they had previously reserved. As a part of the consideration, he built for them on Long Hill, a stockaded village after the Indian pattern, where they lived for many years in great familiarity with the English. Thus did John Pynchon pioneer in the establishing of one of the first Indian reservations in America.
In all their relations with the natives the English tried to be most kindly and helpful. They were made welcome in and about their homes and encouraged to make use of their time for their own benefit, and the benefit of the community as a whole. The settlers took the furs and surplus corn of the Indians, giving in return clothing and tools. English cattle were used to save the natives the arduous labor of plowing their tillage ground and payment was made in labor more suited to the Indian, such as the carrying of messages for long dis- tances. Justice and punishment were meted out to them exactly as to the English.
From the very first the natives had been given to understand that they were a part of the body politic and that the courts were' theirs equally with the English. In 1648 the Springfield Indian named Coa had Francis Ball brought before the bar of justice, complaining that the white man had struck the native's wife two blows with a stick. The defense was that it was of little moment as the stick was but two feet long and not so big as the little finger and could have hardly harmed her as he struck the woman only on her bearskin coat. However, Justice Pynchon decreed that Ball pay her two fathom of wampum in satisfaction of her wounded pride.
In 1650 Thomas Miller was ordered to be given fifteen lashes on his bare back for striking the Indian Nippunsuit with the butt of his gun, but, before the punishment was inflicted, Miller bought himself off by paying the native four fathom of wampum.
That same year a Housatonic Indian living near New Haven came into the town, broke into the house of Rowland Thomas and
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THE INDIANS OF AGAWAM
stole his wife's "best real kersy petticoat and a basket of linen". It was suspected that the thief had sought refuge among the Indians living by the banks of the Agawam and they were ordered to produce him in court. However, he was not apprehended and the local Indians were accused of conniving in his escape. Their chief, Coa, endeavored to give satisfaction and clear himself by the giving of a coat and three fathom of wampum, which the court decreed was too little, and the matter was finally settled by adding two more fathom.
These matters all came before the Court when William Pynchon was Justice, but after he retired to England and John Pynchon suc- ceeded him, the same course prevailed.
In 1660 Thomas Miller complained that certain Indians came to his house and frightened his children by throwing sticks at them. His wife remonstrating, one of the Indians knocked her down with a blow on her head, with his fist. Miller went into the house for a cudgel and a general mêlée ensued. The natives fled, but were pur- sued by a posse on horseback and captured. The Court ordered that six fathom of wampum be collected from them to recompense the posse and eight fathom for Miller.
This particular band of marauders came from the Nipmuc coun- try and it indicates what a gathering place Springfield was for the natives. Pynchon's great store of trading goods may have been one magnet which drew them here. John Pynchon's account books show many transactions with Umpanchela of Northampton and Wequogan of Hadley. Seanan, a Wethersfield sachem, was a customer, as well as Seancut of Hartford and his wife. The son of Nosatuck of Nipnet was trusted for some goods. for which he promised to bring in a beaver skin.
But other elements must have entered into the situation. Other trading stores must have been available to these people. It would seem that the reputation of the Pynchons was so well known to these people that they preferred to go long distances to reach the place where there was a fixed standard for the furs which they had to offer, in exchange for the goods of which they were in need.
Without precedent to guide them, William Pynchon and his son John developed the ways and means and ethics of the fur trade along lines later adopted by the great Hudson Bay Company, which has remained in continuous existence for two hundred sixty-five years.
In 1666 John Pynchon himself was the complainant in Court. Pamesen of Westfield had sold him some land, but after receiving the forty pounds consideration, had withheld the land, which the Court ordered him to deliver.
In 1667 the tables turned again, as Allignat and Wallump of Westfield accused Thomas Cooper of securing their land by question- able methods. Once more the Court gave them satisfaction.
It is significant that these two, Thomas Cooper and Thomas Miller, were the only Englishmen killed by the Indians at the sack of the town on October 5, 1675.
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In the closing days of King Philip's War, the leaders brought together the local troopers for a fight to the finish. Pursuing the fleeing bands over the road now known as the Knox Trail, they sur- prised them at the crossing of the Housatonic and there practically annihilated them.
Some few trusted ones remained here, among them being an old lame Indian called Ephraim, and for years they lived a lazy, indolent life along the Pecousic Brook in Forest Park, subsisting on such game and fish as were to be had. They intermarried with the Negro slaves and lowest types of whites. One man, who seems to have been of a better caste than the majority, lived in a small frame house built on a foundation of brick and brownstone, situated just within the Park limits, north of the Stickney road. The ruins of his great fireplace show plainly, and it is still possible to trace the path his footsteps wore to the bubbling spring below. Here the last of the Agawams lived a solitary life, until civilization encroached too closely upon his domain, when he departed to join the St. Regis Indians on their reservation in northern New York.
Thus ended the dreams of the Indians at Springfield. They had scarcely forty years of the acquaintanceship and help of the English when their ill-considered plans brought to an end all hope of what they might have received from their white neighbors.
We hear tales and legends of the appearance here of King Philip in person, but such stories are based on the most flimsy tradition. The very name of Philip was a by-word and a terror to the colonists of southern New England. He was a well-known public character, in frequent enforced conference with the authorities. It is reasonable to assume, that if he had been here he surely would have been recog- nized and mentioned in the correspondence and reports concerning the disaster. Pynchon was overwhelmed by the destruction of the town and asked the Rev. John Russell to notify Governor Leverett of the facts and appeal for help. Russell reported that "their old sachem, Wequogan, in whom as much confidence was put as in any of their Indians, was ringleader in word and deed". In none of the volumi- nous correspondence of the day is Philip so much as mentioned in connection with the Springfield affair, while on the contrary, Wequo- gan's part is related in detail.
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