Location

Name Origin

Population

The Podunks were a small tribe, and at the time of King Philip's War consisted of between two and three hundred men, who went off to that war and never returned.

Culture

The Podunks built their summer lodges near the Great river, living upon the swarming shad and salmon, and lampreys in their season, hunting deer and bear in the meadows, and growing maize and beans in alluvium. For clothing they hunted the otter, the mink, and beaver, covering their wigwams, perchance, with coarser peltries of deer, wolf, and bear. The winter habitations of the Podunks were farther inland, along the warm valley brooks, in the deep recesses of the woods. To these they retired when autumn let loose his blasts down the broad river valley, threatening to lock their fisheries beneath the ice. As part of their winter diet they ate dried venison and bear meat. There are also abundant traces of their former presence all along the meadow bank; while the highlands bordering the valley of the Hockanum have been found especially rich in their implements of flint and stone. In troublesome times the Podunk built their forts of stout posts, or palisades, and gathered into closer habitations, leaving a central space in the village for a camp fire, about which to celebrate their wild and varied ceremonies.

History

In 1614 Dutchman Adriaen Block sailed upriver as far as Windsor. He found an indian fort on the east bank belonging to the Podunks built as a protection of the river approach from Pequots. It was between the Scantic River and Podunk River. They called themselves "Nawash" Indians (Named after their sachem Nawash).

Block later returned and explored the area as far up as the Enfield falls. The Dutch formed the Dutch West India Company in 1621 to trade in furs and skins with these Indians. Later, the Dutch claimed to have bought the west bank (where Hartford is now) from Sequassen of the Sicaogs so in 1623 they started to erect a fort laying claim to the area. The fort was named "House of Good Hope". It was finished in June of 1633 and had two cannons. That is when they bought the land around them again from Sachem Wapyquart. It was a Dutch mile along the river between the hill and the Little stream (Park River) and a third of a Dutch mile wide. The fort was situated on a Point created by the Park River. They later moved back to New Amsterdam.

Then in 1622, an event which was to have far reaching effects occurred when a Dutch West Indian trader, Jacques Elekens, seized a Pequot sachem named Tatobem the Tyrant near House of Good Hope (Hartford) Connecticut in retaliation for Pequot raids on the trading post. Elekens threatened to kill Tatobem unless he, Elekens, received a "heavy ransom". The Pequots responded with a tribute of one-hundred-forty fathoms of purple and white beads. Since one fathom equals 240 to 260 beads, the total received by the Dutch trader was approximately thirty-five thousand beads. Elekens killed Tatobem anyway.

When the Connecticut Valley became known to Europeans around 1631, it was inhabited by what were known as the River Tribes — a number of small clans of Native Americans living along the Great River and its tributaries. Of these tribes the Podunks occupied territory near the mouth of the little river, and the land that now makes up the towns of East Hartford, East Windsor, South Windsor, Manchester, part of Ellington, Vernon, Bolton, Marlboro and Glastonbury. The region north of the Hockanum River was generally called Podunk; that south of the river, Hockanum; but these were no certain designations, and by some all the meadow along the Great River was called Hockanum.

After the English began to settle in this area around 1630, much of this land was reserved to the Podunks by the General Court. During this time, the Podunks were governed by two sachems, Waginacut and Arramamet, and were connected in some way with the Indians who lived across the Great River, in Windsor. The Podunk tribe consisted of three bands: the Namferoke (Podunk, "fishing place"), who lived near the village of Warehouse Point; the Hockanum (Podunk, "a hook", or "hook shaped"), led by Tantonimo, who lived near the village still known as Hockanum; and the Scanticook (Nipmuc, "at the river fork"), who lived on the north bank of the Scantic River near the section called Weymouth - their leader was called Foxen (or Poxen). Foxen, a.k.a. Poxen, witnessed land deeds in 1640. He became the great councilor of the Mohegan (Mohegan, "wolf people") and his name appears repeatedly in early records.

Prior to the English-Narragansett war, the relation of the Podunk to the early English settlers appears to have been for the most part peaceful, and until about 1675 they lived in close proximity. In the Winter of 1635, the ill-prepared settlers at Hartford were kept alive with gifts of "malt, and acorns, and grains." However, the English restricted the Podunk in many ways. Smiths were not to work for the Podunk, and none but licensed traders were to buy their corn, beaver, venison, or timber. The English forbid any trade in arms, horses, dogs, or boats, or in "dangerous" supplies, as cider or alcohol. The Podunk were forbidden to enter the English houses or handle the arms of the settlers, nor were they to bring their own arms into the towns; and if found in the plantations at night they were to be arrested by the guard, or, resisting arrest, to be shot. The Podunk were not allowed to harbor stragglers, or strange Indians in their villages; and in 1653 were required to give up their arms in token of their fidelity. In 1659, Thomas Burnham (1617 - 1688) purchased the tract of land now covered by the towns of South Windsor and East Hartford from Tantinomo. "Fort Hill" is probably the fort to which "one-eyed" Tantinomo, withdrew at the time of his quarrel with Oncas and Sequassen in 1665, when the English so unsuccessfully attempted arbitration between them. By 1736, the Podunk had amalgamated with others to form the Schaghticoke tribe.