Connecticut Water Trails Association
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Connecticut Water Trails Association |
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Connecticut Water Trails Program
History Of Connecticut's Water Trails
Native Americans
The Western Nehantics
An Algonquian tribe formerly occupying the coast of
Connecticut front Niantic bay to Connecticut
River. They once formed one tribe with the Rhode Island Niantic,
which was cut in two by the Pequot invasion.
Location
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" 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 language of the western Niantic is classified as
Pequot-Mohegan.
Connecticut Village Locations
Niantic (Nehantucket) -
East
Lyme,
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.
The first recorded inhabitants of what is now
East Lyme.
What remained of the Nehantic tribe in the
East Lyme area declined
through the 19th century.
In 1870 the tribe was declared officially extinct, allowing their
reservation land in Black Point to be sold off.
They were subject to the Pequot, and had no
political connection with the eastern Niantic. They were nearly
destroyed in the Pequot war of 1637, and at its close the survivors were
placed under the rule of the Mohegan. They numbered about 100 in 1638,
and about 85 in 1761. Many joined the Brotherton Indians in New York
about 1788, and none now exist under their own name. They had a small
village near Danbury
in 1809. Several
mixed Niantic Mohegan live at Mohegan,
Conn., the descendants of a pure Niantic woman from the mouth of
Niantic River. Their voices are commonly
said to have been high-pitched in comparison with those of their
neighbors.
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.
Attawanhood - third son of Uncas, sachem of the
Western Nehantics, held the tribes last stronghold at Eight Mile Island,
an island in river between Lyme and
Essex.
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