CWTA - Resources - History Of Connecticut's Water Trails



Connecticut Water Trails Association

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Table Of Contents

Connecticut Water Trails

Basic Concepts

History Of Connecticut's Water Trails

Native Americans

Connecticut Water Trails Program

History Of Connecticut's Water Trails

Native Americans

The Eastern Nehantics

An Algonquain tribe formerly occupying the coast of Rhode Island form Narragansett bay to about the Connecticut state line.

Location

Their principal village, Wekapaug, was on the great pond near Charlestown. They were closely connected with the Narraganset forming practically one tribe with them. Old Saybrook in Connecticut.

Name Origin

Niantic (Naïantukq-ut) - at a point of land on a [tidal] river or estuary.

Language Spoken

Algonquin. Y-dialect similar to the Pequot, Mohegan, Narragansett, and Montauk. The eastern Niantic is classified as a dialect of Narragansett

Connecticut Village Locations

Wekapaug - Old Saybrook

Population

Estimates of original population are problematical, since the Niantic were struck by a combination of war and epidemics just prior to contact. A good guess would be about 4,000. By the time English settlement began at Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1620, there were about 1,500 Niantic divided evenly between the Eastern and Western. As allies of the Pequot, the Western Niantic were almost destroyed in 1637 during the Pequot War. Only about a hundred survived and were placed under the control of the Mohegan. These appear to have been absorbed, but some of their descendents may still exist among the Pequot and Mohegan in Connecticut. The Eastern Niantic were Narragansett allies and continued as a separate tribe until after the King Philip's War (1675-76). Confined to a reservation at Charlestown, Rhode Island, the Niantic allowed what was left of the Narragansett to join them in 1680. The two tribes merged shortly afterwards and since have been referred to as the Narragansett. Although Rhode Island terminated their tribal status during the 1800s, the Narragansett reorganized and were federally recognized in 1983. Including both Niantic and Narragansett, current enrollment is almost 2,400.

Culture

Very much like the neighboring Narragansett, Pequot, and Mohegan. The Niantics were supposed to have spent their summers there fishing and digging the shellfish which were once abundant there. They lived on corn, beans, and squash, supplemented by hunting, fishing, and collecting.

Like most tribes, the Nehantics lived in semi-permanent locations. Summers were spent near the waters of Niantic River and along the shore of Long Island Sound, both of which supplied an abundance of fish and shellfish. These were supplemented by crops of corn, beans and squash. As cold weather approached, tribe members moved to the higher grounds in the northern end of town, where longhouses, sheltered by dense forest, provided comfortable habitat through the winter.

History

By refusing to join in King Philip's war in 1675 they preserved their territory and tribal organization and at the close of the war the Narraganset who submitted to the English were placed with the Niantic under Ninigret, and the whole body thenceforth took the name of Narraganset.

Old Saybrook, located at the mouth of the Connecticut River, was the home of Algonquin Eastern Nehantic Indians for years before Europeans arrived. They were peace loving Indians who farmed in the area and had a village at Saybrook Point. Around 1590 the peaceful Nehantic and other gentle Algonquin tribes living in the Connecticut River Valley were conquered by the Pequots, a warlike tribe from the north.