Location

Southwestern Fairfield County in Connecticut

Name Origin

Language Spoken

Algonquin. The R-dialect spoken by the Siwanoy was almost identical to that of the Mattabesic in western Connecticut and the Metoac tribes of western and central Long Island.

Connecticut Village Locations

Greenwich , Norwalk and Stamford

Population

Culture

Besides their villages, they had a "castle," or fort, where they could retreat when threatened. Like other tribes in the region, they relied heavily on an agriculture of corn, beans, squash. Tobacco was also grown for ceremonial purposes. Diet was supplemented by fishing in the spring and summer and hunting during the colder months. They frequently cooked their meat without removing the innards which made it difficult for some of their Dutch guests to enjoy the meal. Despite this, many Dutch are known to have married their women. Villages consisted of wigwams and mid-sized longhouses. As a rule, they only lived in their villages during the warmer months and moved to their castles for the winter. The rivers provided easy transportation for their dugout canoes.

History

The Native American Siwanoy or Sinanoy were a band of Algonquian-speaking people. By the mid-17th century, when their territory became hotly contested between Dutch and English colonial interests, the Siwanoy were settled along the East River and Long Island Sound between Hell Gate and Norwalk, Connecticut, a territory that included eastern parts of what became the Bronx and Westchester County in New York and southwestern Fairfield County in Connecticut. They are best known for their massacre of Anne Hutchinson's settlement on Pelham Bay during Kieft's War in 1643.

On August 20, 1643, a group of Siwanoy led by the sachem Wampage massacred Anne Hutchinson's dissident settlement at Split Rock in revenge for New Netherland governor Willem Kieft's February massacres of Wappani refugees from Wecquaesgeek at Corlaer's Hook and Pavonia. Hutchinson was not at fault, yet, like thousands of Indians and a number of other colonists, she was caught up in the bloody reprisals which characterized the two year conflict. The Siwanoy attack killed Hutchinson, six of her children, and nine others.

On June 27, 1654, Thomas Pell, a Connecticut physician, obtained title, in Connecticut, to a large amount of Siwanoy territory through a treaty with a number of sachems, including Wampage. This included the Pelham Islands and parts of the mainland Bronx and coastal Westchester. New Netherland authorities did not recognize this title, of course, accusing the New Englanders of continued encroachment upon Dutch territory. Pell's coup turned out to be decisive in New York history, as the 1664 English naval invasion force that conquered New Amsterdam was supported by a militia of Pell's colonists from Minneford Island.

The site of Stamford was purchased from the Siwanoy people in 1640 by Nathaniel Turner, an agent for the New Haven Colony. European settlement began the following year when a group of families moved to the site, naming the community for Stamford, England.