THE HISTORY OF STRATFORD

Golden Hill Indians
The Housatonic
The Wepawaug
Cupheags and Pequannock
Weantinock
Goodyear's Island
Indian Slaves
Indian Remnants
Indian Troubles
New Indian Papers

THE HISTORY OF STRATFORD

Wm. Howard Wilcoxson

Stratford Indians

Trouble with the Indians

Establishing Title to the Land

Indian Deeds and Relics

White Hills Purchase

FORREST MORGAN

Lifestyles, Government, Religion and War

Indian Titles and Mohegan Land Troubles

Sowheag, Uncas, and Miantonomo

Owenoco, the Son of Uncas

THE HOUSATONIC

CHARD POWERS SMITH

The Promised Land
Heathen in the Land
The Lord's Scouts

The Land and The Lord

The Next Seven Tribes

ALEXANDER JOHNSTON

Connecticut Indian History

The Pequot War

Chard Powers Smith - The Housatonic

Heathen in the Land

"Being desired {wrote the Reverend John Higginson, late pastor at Guilford, in 1659} to expose what I remember concerning the transaction between the English of Coneckticott and the Indians along the Coast from Quilipioke {i.e. Quinnipiack or New Haven} to the Manhatoes about the land the substance of what I can sya us briefly this: that in the beginning of the yeare 1638, the last weeke of March Mr. Hopkins and Mr. Goodwin, being imployed to treat with Indians and to make sure of that the whole tract of land in order to prevent the Dutch and to accommodate the English who might come to inhabite there, I was sent with them as an interpreter (for want of a better) we having an Indian with us for a guide, acquainted the Indians as we passed with our purpose and went as far as about Norwalk before we stayed. Coming thither on the first day we gave notice to the Sachem and the Indians to meet there in the second day there was a full meeting (as themselves sayd) of all the sachems, ould men and Captains from Milford to Hudson River. After they had understood the cause of our coming and had consulted with us and amongst themselves and that in as solemn a manner as Indians use to doe in such cases they did with an unanimous consent express here desire of the English friendship, their willingness the English should come to dwell amongst them and professed that they did give and surrender up all their land to the English sachems at Coneckticott it being no long after the English conquest and the fear of the English being upon them; it being moved amongst which of them would goe up with us to signifie this agreement and to present their wampum to the sachems at Coneckticott; at last Waunetan and Wouwequock, Paranoket offered themselves and were much applauded by the rest for it. Accordingly those two Indians went up wih us to Hartford. not long after there was a comitee in Mr. Hooker's barne, the meeting-house hen not buylded, where they two did appeare and presented their wampem; (but ould Mr. Pichin one of the magistrates there then) taking him to be the interpreter, then I remember I went out and attended the business no further. So that what was further done or what writings there were about the business I can not now say, but I suppose if search be made something of the business may be found in the records of the court, and I suppose if Mr Goodwin be inquired of he can say the same for substance as I doe and William Cornish at Saybrooke who was there."

The affidavit of Nicholas Knell confirmed what Mr. Higgison said, and added that he remembered "the payment of money to the Indians as gratuity for the gift."

The affidavit of Thomas Stanton made the point that the Pequots had previously conquered the territory of the Pequannocks and considered it as theirs, so that it passed to the English by conquest of the Pequots; and he added that the Pequannocks "did intreat Mr. Hopkins and Mr. Haynes {then Magistrates} that some of the English would come and dwell by them that so they no be in fear of their enemies, the uplanders {the Mohawks?} and that the English should have all their land only providing them sone place for planting; which I think is but a reasonable request, and I hope you will attend rules of mercie in that case; not that they shall be their owne carvers what they will and wherefore their exorbitant humour will carry them to disposes you and your houses. Experience proves it; give an Indian an inch and he will take an ell . . ."

Altogether, there is little doubt that the English acquired the Stratford territory by legal conquest, and it is probable that the sachems, less than a year after the Great Swamp Fight of 1637, "the fear of the English being upon them," confirmed the acquisition by gift, or by sale for a token figure. Yet, a few years later, when the English had duly "attended rules of mercie" by leaving them land for both panting and fishing, the natives began to question the original acquisition. At the same time, the consciences of the colonists were troubled about it, for at first single settlers, and presently the colonial government, obtained new cessions of the same land by purchase for good consideration. Nevertheless, "the exorbitant humour" of the Indians having been aroused, they continued to make a racket of their claims, and generally there was bad blood about it for half a century, leading sometimes to open hostility, though never to war. The Stratford difficulties were an example of the effects of a process which, though legal, is against universal human conscience. And, legal or o, it shows the inconclusive results of conquest by a supposed "master race."

For English and practical purposes, the military expedition of 1637, was the discoverer of the coast west of he Connecticut River. It led to the settlement of New Haven in 1638 and of the first two plantations at the mouth of Great River a year later. Meanwhile and thereafter those heroes of greed and adventure, the trappers and the traders, were pushing up the wilderness. By 1642, Messrs. Wakeman, Goodyear, and Gilbert of New Haven had sailed or paddled thirteen miles up the river and built a trading post at Paugasset, or Derby. In 1644 Goodyear paddled or poled up thirty miles farther of mostly fast water and built a large post on what is still called Goodyear's Island, just below the Lover's Leap rapids and the big Fishing Cove at Weantinock, or modern New Milford. How much father these adventurers penetrated is a matter of conjecture. There is no record of exploration above New Milford until the 1670's.

The entrance of Awanux - the English - into the Upper Valley, as at Milford and Stratford, was to the sound of their muskets making good a punitive expedition. In 1676 King's Philip's War, which had convulsed all of New England, ended with the death of the brilliant Wampanoag sachem. In August, Major John Talcot, with a body of Connecticut soldiers and friendly Indians from the Connecticut River, pursued a party of two hundred Indian fugitives along the Indian trail-later the "Great Road"----from Westfield to Albany, crossed the "Ausotunnoog River" at a ford at the Great Wigwam ---- the spot now marked by a stone between the river and the big brick schoolhouse ---the Indians made their encampment. Here Talcott attacked them at dawn, killed twenty-five, captured twenty and routed the rest, many of them "sorely wounded, as appeared by the dabbling of bushes with blood, as was observed by them that followed---a little further." One story glorifies the slaughter with the information that the river was reddened by it. A later account adds that "there were sundry lost besides the forty-five aforementioned, to the number of three score all; and also that a hundred and twenty of them are now dead of sickness." As already suggested, it may have been at the time or just before Major Talcot's victory that the Housatonic Indians vacated the Great Wigwam and the surrounding territory.

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