Early History of Connecticut

Dr. Russell Lawson Chair; Division of General Studies, Bacone College

At the time of first European exploration in the fifteenth century, Connecticut was primarily a forested area. Trees overspread its landscape and adorned its hills, darkened its valleys, and edged its rivers. Animals of all types filled the forests; some were beasts of prey, others suitable food for the country’s early inhabitants, still others fur-bearing animals. Wild turkeys roamed the woods, herons fished in the marshes along the banks of the rivers, and quails, partridges, and smaller birds abounded in the forests and open country. Many kinds of fish inhabited the ponds, creeks, and rivers; shellfish were caught along the shores of Long Island Sound. CONNECTICUT’S EARLY INHABITANTS The aborigines of Connecticut depended more on hunting and fishing than on agriculture. The hunter’s bow, carved from hickory wood, was from three and a half to four feet long, and so difficult to string that only the experienced hunter could bend it. Arrows were made from reeds, elder sticks, or any slender pieces of wood; the Indian craftsman used flint to form the lethal tip, the sharp point fashioned by much patience and perseverance. Hunters usually hunted alone, bringing to lodge and village various species of wild fowl: pigeons, quail, wild turkeys, and partridges in the forests; cranes, geese, and ducks along the shores of rivers, ponds, and marshes. Otter, beaver, rabbit, raccoon, squirrel, deer, moose, and bear provided food and fur. Wild cats, wolves, and foxes were valued for fur alone. Occasionally hunters joined together into grand hunts that brought in huge quantities of game. Hunters departed after the fall harvest, sometimes with their families, to areas they had previously marked for deer hunting. Each hunter and family would mark out an area in which they built a small hunting house and set traps on deer paths. Wolves might discover a hunter’s bounty before he could return to collect it, at which point he would set another trap for the wolf. When winter came, the trappers would abandon their temporary shelter, shoulder the dried meat collected during their stay, and return to the village; sometimes the trip was fifty or sixty miles in the snow. The Native Americans fished in a variety of ways, and with several types of weapons and traps. On the river, sea, and in ponds, they used a canoe. Canoes were of two kinds, the most prevalent of which was the birch-bark canoe, made of the bark of the white birch; this canoe was very light and manageable, but likely to overset in rapid waters. The other was a dugout canoe, made by burning and scrapping a hollow out of a large tree trunk; it was comparatively heavy and strong, constructed out of large tree trunks. Canoes were forty or fifty feet in length, and capable of holding up to twenty men. Spears or hooks captured small fish easily; larger fish were caught with nets fashioned from wild hemp. Occasionally porpoises and whales were thrown near the shore by heavy storms, and provided the Native Americans with an abundant food supply and new variety for their diet. Indian farmers confined themselves primarily to raising beans, maize, and tobacco; the fruits cultivated later were nearly all introduced by Europeans. Women and children tended corn and beans; men took care of the tobacco crops. Much of the fieldwork was done by hand; the only implements used by the Native Americans were spades constructed of wood, or a large shell fastened to a wooden handle. One family could raise, in a single season, two or three harvests of corn, each between twelve and twenty bushels. The corn was spread on the ground to dry, carefully shielded from overexposure to sun and dew, and then buried in the earth to preserve for the coming winter. The clothing of the Native Americans was made from skins, cured to be soft and pliable, sometimes ornamented with paint and beads manufactured from shells. Occasionally they wore mantles, which were fashioned of overlapping feathers in imitation of birds. Women dressed in a leather shirt ornamented with fringe, and a skirt of the same material, fastened around the waist with a belt and reaching nearly to the ankle. They dressed their hair in thick plaits that fell around their necks, and sometimes ornamented their heads with bands of wampum. Men went bareheaded, their hair trimmed in a variety of ways according to their fancy. Some might shave one side and leave the other long; another might shave his entire head except for a strip two or three inches in width running from the forehead to the nape of the neck; shorter hair was often thoroughly stiffened with paint and bear grease so it would stand up straight. Men’s clothing consisted of leggings of deerskin and a breechcloth. Both sexes wore moccasins, which were often ornamented with embroidery or wampum. In the summer, men often dispensed with their leggings; in the winter, they protected themselves from the bitter cold by adding a mantle of skins to their garments. Connecticut Indians sometimes painted themselves, women more often than men, since men seldom applied paint except when they went to war. Sachems and great men wore caps and aprons heavily wrought with different colored beads. Beaded belts were also worn, some of which contained so great a quantity of wampum as to later become valuable to the English colonists. Wampum beads were used as currency as well as ornamentation. They were used in trade and in paying tribute; sometimes they were manufactured into belts to be given in dealings with other tribes. Made of two kinds, black and white, the former was fashioned from mussel shells, the latter from the inside of conch shells. Both were carved and perforated using crude implements, yet were shaped and finished into neat, delicate pieces. Small quantities of wampum have been found and preserved in the rooms of Connecticut’s museums and historical locations. The Native Americans used a variety of cooking implements. Dishes and bowls were made from wood. Baskets were woven of rushes, or long grass, and were often painted with images of flowers, birds, fishes, and animals. Pails with handles were constructed from birch bark. Pots were fashioned from baked earth. The most common Indian food was succotash, a mixture of corn and beans, which was boiled in earthen pots and sometimes seasoned with fish, either fresh or dried. Sometimes they mixed succotash with ground nuts and artichokes, or made a sauce thickened with flour made of walnuts, chestnuts, and acorns. Indians also made cakes of corn meal, wrapping them in leaves and roasting them in the ashes. Those living near the seashore furnished their tables with shellfish, sometimes fresh and sometimes dried. Connecticut Indians lived in houses twenty to forty feet long, some longer, and up to thirty feet wide. The best had a bark construction nearly impervious to the weather. The framework was built by setting poles firmly in the ground, bending them together, and fastening them at the top. The larger and more warlike tribes inhabited fortified villages, which were situated on a hill so as to observe an approaching enemy. Dwellings were closely set together, with an open space in the center for ceremonies, amusements, or transacting tribal business. The entire village was fortified by the trunks of young trees, firmly planted in the ground and forming a close fence or palisade ten or twelve feet high. CONNECTICUT’S VARIOUS NATIVE AMERICAN TRIBES Although Connecticut’s many Native American tribes were scattered throughout the state, few groups had large populations, and many became quickly extinct after the coming of the early settlers. Divisions between tribes were amorphous, making it difficult to distinguish one from another. Ethnologists, however, distinguish four main groups among the aborigines of Connecticut: the Nipmuck, the Sequin or “River Indians,” the Matabesec or Wappinger Confederacy, and the Pequot-Mohegan. The first of these, the Nipmuck, occupied the northeastern corner of the state and part of Massachusetts. They had no ruler of their own, and were subject to one or another of the neighboring tribes. The “River Indians” consisted of a group, or league, of tribes under one chief, and called the central part of the present state their own. The Matabesec, who were forced to share their territory with the Mohican of eastern New York, occupied the western part of Connecticut. Both the “River Indians” and the Matabesec were broken up into a number of localized tribes. The former were subdivided into such tribes as the Tunxis, Poquonnuc, Podunk, Wangunk, Machimoodus, Hammonasset, and Quinnipiac; the latter counted among their tribes the Pootatuck, Wepawaug, Unocwa, and Siwanoy. The Pequot and Mohegan, although politically distinct, were linguistically and otherwise closely related tribes, and actually formed a single people. They established themselves in the southeastern section of Connecticut before 1600. All of the Connecticut tribes were frequently invaded by the powerful Mohawk, who for many years and at varied times kept them under complete domination. The rivers of Connecticut hosted various tribes at different times. The Tunxis, sometimes also called the “Sepous,” was a considerable tribe that lived on the Farmington River, eight or ten miles west of the Connecticut. At an early period, the tribe was subject to the sachem, Sequassen, who sold Hartford to the English. They formed a part of the great tribe or confederacy whose principal seat was the valley of the Connecticut River. Many artifacts have been found here, including arrowheads wrought from flint, stone heads for war axes, wampum beads, and bowls or mortars scooped out of stone. Northwest of the Naugatuck River dwelled the clan known as the Potatuck. The Quinnipiac lived on the seashore stretching from the place of the Wepawaug on the west to that of the Hammonasett on the east; Guilford Native Americans, once considered a distinct tribe, were very possibly a sub- tribe of the Quinnipiac. The Quinnipiac also extended along the shore from Milford to Madison, holding the bay of New Haven, and the rivers that empty into it, as fishing places. Across the Connecticut River, in the eastern part of the state, dwelled larger populations of Native Americans. The Podunk inhabited the towns later known as East Windsor and East Hartford. The Podunk here were closely connected with those living on the opposite side of the river, and early land deeds with the English were signed by sachems of both clans. Further down the Connecticut was the territory of the Western Nehantic, which extended from the river, eastward along the seashore, and to a small stream that still retains their name. Along the seashores, where fishing afforded a sure supply of food, the Narragansett had the largest population in New England. On the banks of the Thames, ten or twelve miles from the Sound, dwelled the large clan later known as the Mohegan/Pequot. The Mohegan/Pequot were also members of the family known as the Mohican, or Mohicander, who lived on the banks of the Hudson. The Pequot were the largest, most warlike, of all the aboriginal tribes in Connecticut. From the Niantic River on the west, their villages extended along the stony hills of New London County to Wecapaug, ten miles east of the Paucatuc River. Scholars believe the Pequot migrated from the north to the east shortly before the arrival of the English. They may have been on a long journey from the Hudson, on a quest to find country in which to have an easier subsistence for their large population of hunters. The Pequot eventually found a large portion of the eastern country well adapted to their needs; they claimed it as their own, however, they were completely surrounded by enemies. Numerous Narragansett on the east, and small tribes bordering them on the west were frequently subject to Pequot war parties in their fierce determination to conquer. A part of the Connecticut Valley, as well as the whole country between the Connecticut and the territory of the Narragansett, fell into their hands. The western Nehantic became their allies. The Pequot conquered along the seacoast as far as the bay of New Haven. They crossed the Sound in canoes conquering the eastern inhabitants of Sewan Hacky, or Long Island. During this time they carried on a continuous struggle with the Narragansett, who inhabited the area that is now the state of Rhode Island. Although the Narragansett had far superior numbers, they were inferior to the Pequot primarily because they were less warlike. FIRST DUTCH EXPLORATION The first explorers to have contact with the Native Americans of Connecticut were Dutch navigators Adraien Block, Hendrick Corstiaensen, and Cornelis Mey. While on an exploring expedition in 1614, they arrived at the mouth of the Hudson River. Having already visited a Dutch settlement on the Island of Manhattan, they separated and each sailed in a different direction. Corstiaensen rounded the eastern coast of New England; Mey examined the southern shore of Long Island and then sailed southward as far as Delaware Bay. Block, who had lost his vessel to fire shortly after his arrival on the Hudson, immediately laid the frame of a new ship. After completion of his new boat, forty-four and a half feet long and eleven feet wide, he named it the Restless. In this little vessel, Block passed through the East River, which he named Hellegat, and entered Long Island Sound, then supposedly a deep bay. On the right and left, unknown and unvisited shores stretched along the sandy edge of the water, showing a glimpse of the interior forested lands beyond. Leaving Long Island, then called Metoac or Sewan Hacky (land of shells), he sailed along the unexplored coast of Connecticut. Block gave to the small islands at the mouth of the Norwalk River the name of Archipelagoes; further on, he discovered the mouth of the Housatonic and named it the River of the Red Mountain. Continuing his voyage eastward, he came to the mouth of a large stream, which he named the Fresh River. This river later became the pride of New England and was called the Connecticut. Ascending the river, he sailed about half way between the present city of Hartford and the village of Windsor. Here he found a Native American fort, or village, belonging to a tribe he called the Nawaas. From this point, he turned his course down the river and reentered the Sound, sailing until he discovered its eastern opening into the main ocean. Before leaving the coast, Block also discovered and explored Narragansett Bay, to which he gave the name Nassau Bay. He communicated with the inhabitants of these shores, and described them as having a shy disposition. He called them “Nahicans.” It was, perhaps, the Nehantics with whom he met. Not long after Block’s discovery of Connecticut in 1614, Dutch traders began to visit the country. They soon established a large trade with the Native Americans, especially in furs. The United Company of the New Netherlands first conducted Dutch settlements on the Hudson, but the more powerful and famous West India Company replaced this corporation in 1621. In April 1631, a sagamore named Waghinacut went to Massachusetts. He was dissatisfied with the Dutch, in particular with an agreement giving all tribes freedom to trade and forbidding attacks on enemies within the trading-house boundaries. Waghinacut’s trip was an attempt to induce the English to send a colony to his part of the country. Unable to persuade the English there, he traveled to Plymouth with the same purpose, but was equally unsuccessful. The English were, however, soon awakened by reports of the immense trade in furs that the Dutch were conducting in the Connecticut Valley. As a result, English colonists began to dispatch vessels to Connecticut to trade. Several were sent as early as 1633. In July of that year, two inhabitants of Plymouth made a proposition to the Massachusetts government to establish a trading post on the Connecticut River for the purpose of obtaining hemp and furs. Governor John Winthrop refused on the grounds that the country was hostile Native American territory. Determined to effect the settlement nonetheless, William Holmes of Plymouth sailed up the river in 1633 and, despite threats from the garrison at the Dutch fort, erected an English trading-house in what is presently Windsor, a little below the junction of the Farmington River with the Connecticut River. BRITISH CONFLICTS WITH THE NATIVE AMERICANS The English threatened the Pequot by their activity on the Connecticut River. While Dutch traders had acknowledged the Pequot claim of ownership of the lands, the English had paid tribute only to its original owners, ignoring the claims of the conquerors. The offended Pequot did not, immediately retaliate. It was not long, however, before the Connecticut settlers became involved in a life and death struggle with the Pequot. The first act of violence was the murder of Captains Stone and Norton on their way up the Connecticut River to trade. During the summer of 1633, Stone sailed a vessel from Virginia to trade on the coast of New England. Before long, reports came back to the effect that he and his company had been killed, his vessel burned, and plunder taken from it divided between the Pequot and Nehantic. In October 1634, a Pequot messenger arrived at the Bay. Still involved in conflicts with the Dutch, the Native Americans hoped to establish stronger trade with the English. The deputy Governor, Roger Ludlow, accepted the gifts offered by the Pequot messenger, but also revealed that the English would never consent to a treaty until the Pequot had surrendered the murderers of Stone and made restitution for the destruction and plunder of his vessel. The Native Americans claimed responsibility for their actions, but asserted that Stone had provoked his fate by violent conduct. The English had no good evidence to disbelieve the claim of the Pequot. After some deliberation, conditions for a treaty were drawn up and signed by both parties. The morning after this business was conducted, a report reached Boston that several hundred Narragansett waited at a place called Neponsett to kill the Pequot messengers on their way home. Although the report proved to be false, the colony authorities, now fully aware of the depth of hostility between the two tribes, undertook to negotiate peace between them. Neither tribe would negotiate with the other directly, but they preferred peace to war. A treaty was eventually concluded between the two, which continued until the fall of 1636. The killing of the adventurer John Oldham off Block Island in 1636 led to an ill-advised reprisal by a force from Massachusetts under Captain Endicott. The Pequot, enraged by Endicott’s forces and their retaliation in the form of destruction to some Pequot houses and corn, attempted to form an offensive alliance with their enemy, the Narragansett of Rhode Island. Had the English not been alerted to this plan, the settlers might well have been defeated. They quickly made efforts, however, to convince the Narragansett to remain their allies. Through the fall and winter of 1636-1637, a series of Indian attacks at Saybrook, Wethersfield, and other settlements kept the settlers in a constant state of alarm. On May 1, 1637, the General Court of Hartford decided to take the field against the Pequot. Ninety men were levied, forty-two from Hartford, thirty from Windsor, and eighteen from Wethersfield. Captain John Mason was put in charge of the expedition. Ten days later, Mason’s party, with seventy Mohegan allies, sailed down the Connecticut River to Saybrook, where they joined Captain Underhill with twenty men from Massachusetts. As the Pequot were in possession of two strongly fortified encampments and had a force of about five hundred warriors, the undertaking was a formidable one. The original plan, to attack from the western or Thames River side, where the movements of the forces would have been under the constant observation of the Native Americans, was abandoned. The main body of troops was sent over to Narragansett Bay to attack from the east. On the morning of May 24, the long overland march began for Mason’s band, now numbering seventy-seven Englishmen, sixty Mohegan, and four hundred Narragansett. The Indians were more of a hindrance than a help, since they feared the powerful Pequot; their tenuous loyalty to the English might have constituted a menace if the attack had failed. May 26, an hour before dawn, the English advanced on the chief fort at Pequot Hill, West Mystic. It consisted of a circular area of several acres, surrounded by a twelve-foot palisade, and containing about seventy wigwams. The surprise was successful for the English; both entrances were taken and the work of slaughter began. It was a slow and confused business. Mason, therefore, decided to burn the encampment. Aided by a rising wind, the flames swept the fort; those attempting escape were shot down, the Mohegan and Narragansett helping in this work. The destruction of the main body of the Pequot was complete, with a loss to the English of only two killed and twenty wounded. Learning of the violent ruin to their fort and its inhabitants, the Pequot from Fort Hill attempted to avenge the fatal attack, but were driven off by Mason’s men. This was the most decisive battle ever fought on Connecticut soil, although one more action was undertaken before the war was brought to an end. In a swamp fight at Fairfield on July 13, 1637, Mason undertook and destroyed the fleeing remnants of the Pequot, 180 of which were taken captive; a few fugitives fled to New York tribes. A period of relative peace followed. On September 21, 1637, a treaty of friendship was concluded between the English of Connecticut on one side; on the other side were Uncas (the Mohegan sachem) and Miantonomo (sachem of the Narragansett). However, tension grew as the settlers began to take over more of the Native American hunting grounds. The fate intended for the Indians was clear, but before submitting to more land confiscation, the original owners of the territory rallied in a number of conflicts. According to the treaty with the Mohegan and the Narragansett, the Connecticut colonists claimed the country in which the Pequots had formerly dwelled as their own by right of conquest. This large tract lay on the coast, between the Niantic and Paucatuc rivers, and comprised the ancient large townships of New London, Groton, and Stonington. The English soon sought the lands on the seacoast lying west of the Connecticut River. Grateful for protection against the Pequot, Mohawk, and other powerful tribes, the Quinnipiac who claimed this area signed a treaty with the colonists in 1638, giving them all their land wherever it might extend, together with all the rivers, ponds, and trees which belonged to them. It is doubtful that the Native Americans understood the full ramification of selling their lands to the colonists. The treaties for purchase were written in a foreign language, and they likely had little concept of the reality that would take away their rights and privileges to hunt and plant on the territory they had long inhabited. English colonists continued to seek lands from other tribes. In December 1638, the New Haven settlers made a treaty with a tribe that claimed ownership of a substantial area located eight miles east of the Quinnipiac River. In February 1639, the Paugussett sold them a considerable tract near the center of the present township of Milford. Another purchase was made at Fairfield, and the Native Americans of Guilford sold a tract extending from the Aigicomock or East River of Guilford to a place called Kuttanoo, most probably some part of the present township of New Haven. During 1640-1641, the English continued to establish themselves on the most fertile portions of the land in Connecticut. Uncas, sachem of the Mohegan, also laid claim to large tracts of land in the state. His tribe vastly increased by this time, he gained even more influence with the English colonists with whom he had become an ally. A land transaction of importance between Uncas and the settlers of Connecticut, after the treaty of 1638, was a somewhat ambiguous agreement made in 1640, in which he sold substantial Mohegan lands to the settlers. His descendants later fought a lawsuit over these lands claimed by the English in the terms of the treaty. But during his lifetime Uncas never disputed the English claim, and the English never urged their questionable right to the Mohegan territory. By 1644, the Dutch of New Amsterdam and several neighboring tribes of Native Americans, including some of the clans of Connecticut, became involved in a series of violent conflicts. In February 1644, the Dutch slaughtered and burned a Native American village in the vicinity of Stamford. The Native Americans, their warriors killed and their homes destroyed, were forced to surrender; two months later they agreed to sign a peace treaty with their former Dutch adversaries. In the next decade, conflicts continued to escalate among the various Native American tribes, and between the Native Americans and European settlers. As their hunting and planting grounds were increasingly taken over by the colonists, the Native Americans sought to reclaim their rights to the land they considered rightfully theirs to use. LAST NATIVE AMERICAN STRUGGLE: KING PHILIP’S WAR The last great struggle of the native tribes against the colonists took place in 1675, as the Native Americans rallied under Metacomet of the Wampanoag tribe (called King Philip by the colonists), as well as Rhode Island and Massachusetts Indians. Made desperate by the perceived injustice of the invaders, Philip abandoned all hope of peace and attempted to unite all the Native Americans of New England in a general conspiracy. A Christian Native American revealed Metacomet’s plans to the English; he was promptly murdered by Metacomet’s henchmen, who were captured and executed by the English. Their execution was the signal for the outbreak of what became known as King Philip’s War. In June, Philip attacked Swansea, near Mount Hope Rhode Island, killing nine and wounding seven of the inhabitants. Even the reluctant Narragansett felt forced to ally themselves with King Philip. The colonists, aware of the seriousness of the conflict, mobilized an army of a thousand men. On December 18, 1675 the Connecticut forces, consisting of 300 Englishmen and 150 Pequot and Mohegan Indians, under the command of Major Treat, joined those of Massachusetts and Plymouth. The combined forces made a desperate attack upon the Native American fort at Mount Hope. Suffering heavy losses, they nonetheless succeeded in completely subduing the Native American tribes. Many survivors of the defeated natives moved out of New England northward and southward; others established themselves in New York. The last faction broke up into small groups and settled in their original territories under the control of the colonists. A small number of Paugusset, Uncowa, and Pootatuck found a home several miles from Kent on the Housatonic River, where a reservation called Schaghticoke, consisting of about four hundred acres, was established. A band of Pequot settled near Stonington. Still another group was allowed by Governor Winthrop to settle near Ledyard. This settlement was known as the Ledyard Pequot Reservation, and comprised about 129 acres of rough land. The rest of the Connecticut’s Native American population became scattered in towns and villages throughout the region. By 1850, only about 162 Native Americans still inhabited the state. CONTEMPORARY NATIVE AMERICANS Today, Connecticut has one reservation designated for the Pequot and Mohegan Native Americans. It is located in Fairfield and New London counties. The Native Americans on this reservation numbered sixteen in 1980, and lived in thirteen housing units. A museum located in the area is maintained by descendants of the tribes, and displays the arts and crafts of the Pequot and Mohegan Native Americans, as well as items from Southwestern and Plains tribes.