Connecticut Water Trails Association
|
|
|---|
|
Connecticut Water Trails Association |
|
Connecticut Water Trails Program
History Of Connecticut's Water Trails
Native Americans
The Niantic
The Niantic, or in their own language, the Nehântick
or Nehantucket were a tribe of New England Native Americans, who were
living in Connecticut and Rhode Island during the early colonial period.
They once formed one tribe with the Rhode Island Niantic, which was cut
in two by the Pequot invasion. Due to intrusions of the Pequot, the
Niantic were divided into an eastern and western division. The Western
Niantic were subject to the Pequot and lived just east of the mouth of
the Connecticut River while
the Eastern Niantic became very close allies to the Narragansett.
Location
The southern coast of New England from the mouth of
the Connecticut River east to southwest Rhode Island including Block
Island in Long Island Sound. The Niantic were split into two divisions:
the Eastern Niantic in southwest Rhode Island; and the Western Niantic
in south-central Connecticut just east of the mouth of the Connecticut
River. The area between was occupied by the Pequot-Mohegan. Their
principal village, also called Niantic, was near the present town of
that name.
Name
The tribe's name sometimes rendered as "Nehantic" (Nehântick)
means "of long-necked waters" believed by local residents to refers to
the "long neck" , "point of land," or peninsula of land now known as Black Point that is
just out into Long Island Sound.
Algonquin. Y-dialect similar to the Pequot, Mohegan,
Narragansett, and Montauk. The division of the Niantic became so great
that the language of the eastern Niantic is classified as a dialect of
Narragansett while the language of the western Niantic is classified as
Pequot-Mohegan.
Sub Nations
Eastern Niantic and Western Niantic - Originally a single tribe, the Niantic were separated into eastern and western divisions by the Pequot/Mohegan invasion
Connecticut Village Locations
Eastern Niantic Villages: Wekapaug -
Western Niantic Villages: Niantic (Nehantucket) -
Niantic,
Old Lyme, and
Oswegatchie.
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.
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.
Warfare and devastating of epidemics swept New
England (1614-17). To cope, the Eastern and Western Niantic chose
similar but very different paths. While the Western Niantic afterwards
allied with the Pequot, the Eastern Niantic attached themselves to the
Narragansett in Rhode Island. Beginning about 1614, Dutch traders
expanded east from the lower Hudson River and visited the tribes along
north side of Long Island Sound as far as the Narragansett villages in
Rhode Island. As a result, Dutch claims for New Netherlands extended to
Cape Cod, and by 1622 they had built a trading post near present-day
Hartford to trade with the tribes along the lower Connecticut River.
However, the English also claimed the same area as part of Virginia and
during 1620 had established a settlement at Plymouth. Massachusetts.
Rather than fight over their conflicting claims, the Dutch chose to
cooperate and sent a representative overland to Plymouth in 1627. After
congratulating the English on the success of their new colony, he signed
a trade agreement giving the Dutch exclusive rights to trade with the
Narragansett in Rhode Island and the tribes to the west in Connecticut.
This agreement served the interests of the Plymouth
colonists at the time, but things changed after 1630 with the arrival of
large numbers of Puritans in Massachusetts. They simply ignored the
earlier agreement, and within a few years, the English and Dutch were
rivals in the fur trade along the Connecticut River. For a while, the
Niantic and Pequot traded with both, but the intense competition
eventually created a division within the Pequot. A revolt and separation
created two opposed tribes: Pequot who favored the Dutch: and the
pro-English Mohegan. Forced to choose between them, the Western Niantic
went with the Pequot. Unfortunately, the Pequot and Mohegan did not part
on good terms, and as their rivalry intensified, trade became dangerous
along the Connecticut River for both the Dutch and English. The
situation worsened after the English built a trading post at
Windsor in
1633.
Both the Niantic and Pequot were warlike and quite
capable of defending themselves. In 1634 Western Niantic warriors killed
John Stone, a Boston trader (more accurately described as a pirate and
slaver), near the mouth of the Connecticut River. Disregarding the fact
that Stone had met his untimely end while kidnapping Niantic women and
children to sell as slaves in Virginia, and therefore was the kind of
man who needed killing, the English demanded that the Pequot (who spoke
for the Western Niantic) surrender his killers. This was refused
beginning the slide towards war. In 1635 the English built Fort Saybrook
at the mouth of the Connecticut. Although isolated in the midst of
hostile Pequot and Western Niantic, it nevertheless blocked Dutch access
to the river and forced the closure of their trading post at
Hartford.
Thomas Hooker and the first English settlers arrived the following year.
Conflict broke out between the Niantic and their colonial neighbors, leading to punitive military expeditions that dealt out massive destruction in contrast to the rather limited incidents that had provoked the conflict. As the violence became more widespread it evolved into the Pequot War in 1637. The opening confrontations of the Pequot War (1637) actually began that summer when Western Niantic from Block Island seized the boat of a Boston trader killing one of the crew.
Without bothering to consult the Connecticut colonists, Massachusetts Bay sent a punitive expedition of 90 men under John Endicott to Block Island with instructions to kill every Niantic warrior and capture the woman and children (valuable as slaves). The English burned 60 wigwams and the corn fields. They shot every dog, but the Niantic fled into the woods, and soldiers only managed to kill 14 of them. Deciding this punishment was insufficient; Endicott and his men sailed over to Fort Saybrook before going after the Pequot village at the mouth of the Thames River to demand 1000 fathoms of wampum to pay for the dead Boston trader and some Pequot children as hostages to insure peace. When the English at Saybrook learned what had been done, Endicott's reception was very cool, since they would be the ones to bear any retaliation. Nevertheless, the "fat was in the fire," and they gave Endicott what soldiers they could spare. Endicott's little army then proceeded the short distance up the coast to the Pequot villages and landed.
The Pequot were just as surprised as the English at Saybrook had been by the attack, but most managed to escape into the woods. Endicott and his men burned the village, and returned to Boston, but the Pequot had recognized some of the soldiers from Saybrook. The Niantic retaliated by besieging the fort and killing anyone who dared to venture outside. That winter, the Pequot asked the Mohegan, Narragansett, and Niantic to help them against the English. Only the Western Niantic agreed, but the Mohegan and Narragansett joined the English, and the Eastern Niantic remained neutral. When John Mason's combined English, Mohegan, and Narragansett army destroyed the Pequot fort on the Mystic River that May, the Pequot and Western Niantic abandoned their villages and fled. Systematically hunted down by the English and their native allies, most were killed outright. Prisoners were either executed or sold as slaves to Bermuda and the West Indies. This conflict resulted in almost total destruction of the Western Niantic.
Only 100 Western Niantic managed to surrender.
Together with the remaining Pequot, they were placed under the control
of the Mohegan. There are members of these tribes who can trace their
ancestry back to Nehântick members, especially in the vicinity of
Lyme,
Connecticut. Some of
the Niantic who joined the Mohegan and Pequot fled west and joined the
Brotherton Indians to escape further English harassment.
By 1655 the Mohegan's treatment of the Pequot and
Western Niantic had become so harsh that the English, who usually were
not inclined towards sympathy in these matters, removed the Pequot to
separate locations in eastern Connecticut and some of the Western
Niantic went with them. Many of those who remained with the Mohegan
joined the Brotherton Indians and left Connecticut to live with the
Oneida in upstate New York in 1788. The Brotherton moved on to northern
Wisconsin in 1834, many of their descendants still live there on the
east side of Lake Winnebago. It has been assumed the remaining Western
Niantic were absorbed by the Pequot and Mohegan, but there were still a
few Western Niantic families reported near
Lyme and another small band
near Danbury in the early
1800s, both of which have since disappeared. The Eastern Niantic
remained close to the Narragansett until the King Philip's War
(1675-76). However, the Eastern Niantic were able to remain neutral, but
the Narragansett, accused of providing a refuge for the Wampanoag, were
attacked by the English in December, 1675. The Naragansett were almost
exterminated during the war and lost over 80% of their population.
Following King Philip's War (1675-76), surviving
Narragansett fled to the Eastern Niantic in such great numbers that the
tribe became known as the Narragansett, however, many modern-day
Narragansett have significant Niantic blood.
Afterwards, the 500 Narragansett in 1680 who remained were allowed to settle with the Eastern Niantic on their reserve at Charlestown, Rhode Island. The Niantic and Narragansett merged shortly afterwards and have been known since as the Narragansett. It is believed that the last living member of the Nehantic/Niantic tribe died in the 1930s.
The Story of Chief Sequassen
There had been, along the Connecticut shores, a slender population of Quinnipiac Indians whose limited territory was bounded by the Wepawaugs on the west, the Naugatucks to the north and the Hammonassets on the east, but Sequassen's jurisdiction had been wider. He was chief of all the river country and, in 1635, he welcomed the English settlers to Connecticut, selling them a large area around Hartford, which extended "six large miles into the wilderness."
The bargain, as usual, went to the settlers, and from such precedents, one adjudges, there ensued a long line of shrewd merchants and bankers, who do still, to the perplexity of outsiders, take pride in a legend of wooden nutmegs.
Sequassen's welcome to the settlers was, perhaps, an act of calculated statesmanship. He had been defeated by the Pequots, a tribe so fierce that its very name had been derived from an Indian word meaning "destroyers," and he may have reasoned that the increased presence of the white settlers would serve as a deterrent to his marauding enemies.
Two years later, in 1637, the Connecticut colonists declared war on the Pequots. They were assisted by Uncas, sachem of the Mohegans, who led a company of seventy Mohegan and River Indians, serving so well that he won the lasting gratitude of the colonists. Following the successful culmination of the war, the English continued their alliance with Uncas, granting him jurisdiction over most of the lands of the vanquished Pequots.
The favor shown to Uncas aroused the jealousy of his enemies, particularly Sequassen, and a series of provocative acts was carried out against him. A Mohegan sachem was killed, and arrows were shot at Uncas as he was sailing a canoe down the Connecticut River. Failing to reconcile the chiefs, the magistrates at Hartford gave Uncas permission to settle the matter according to his own judgment.
Uncas assembled a large force and invaded the territory of his enemy, and a battle was fought in which Sequassen was again defeated. Before the fighting stopped other tribes had been engaged, including the Narragansetts, and, as happens in wars, there were soon other crimes to be avenged. The English stood by Uncas who was victorious.
But Sequassen was not ready to forego his desire for revenge. It appeared that he was involved in a plot to kill the three principal magistrates of Hartford and to blame the crime on Uncas. The Indian who had been hired to be the assassin became frightened and informed the magistrates. Sequassen fled, but Uncas, with a band of trained scouts, found him among the Pocumtucks, at what is now Deerfield, took him by stealth, and brought him back to Hartford, a prisoner. Sequassen remained in custody for a time, but the charges against him were difficult to prove, and he was released.
History, which is most often written for the victors, does not so well remember the conquered. Sequassen's stratagems were those of a leader fighting for a cause in which he believed, and for which, in his mind, he could not accept defeat. This led him into mistakes he should not have made. Yet, he was a firm leader of his people, and a brave man.
It is difficult to imagine what Sequassen might
have felt about the camp which, three hundred years later, was to be
named for him. Perhaps he might have found in it the realization of
ideals he would have been proud to share. Certain it is, that because of
the camp, his name grew, and still gains in legend. This could be a
greater victory than those which eluded him when he was Sequassen, Great
Sachem of the River Tribes.
|
|||||||||||||
 |
|
