Lion Gardiner
Lion Gardiner (* 1599 in England ; † 1663 in East Hampton in New York ) was an English officer , engineer and early settler on Long Island . He acquired the island named after him, Gardiners Island , which is still owned by the family today.
biography
Lion Gardiner was born in England in 1599. There is no information about the early years. The first written records are from the Netherlands, where Gardiner was a 30-year-old English officer and engineer in the service of the Prince of Orange . Here he earned his reputation as a specialist in fortress construction . Because of this quality, the responsible persons of the later Connecticut colony hired him . Gardiner and his Dutch wife, Mary Wilemson, arrived in Massachusetts in November 1635 . In April 1636 they moved to the mouth of the Connecticut River with a small group of English colonists, an area that was completely uninhabited by whites at the time. Lieutenant Gardiner had Fort Saybrook built here, while farms and houses for the settlers were built outside the fortifications.
The Pequot War
Several incidents had occurred between the Pequot and settlers before a Boston trader was killed by some Narraganset on Block Island in the summer of 1636 . This was taken as the occasion for the Pequot War (1636–1637). In April 1637, Pequot Indians attacked English settlements on the Connecticut River in retaliation for previous massacres, killing 30 colonists. Thereupon the English leadership declared war on the Indians in Hartford . In a letter to those responsible in Connecticut, Gardiner rejected the war because in this remote place he feared for the lives of his family and the few colonists. Gardiner's protest was unsuccessful, however. In May, a small army of 90 soldiers led by Captain John Mason and Captain John Underhill moved south from Hartford and made a stop at Fort Saybrook.
Gardiner took his family and the colonists inside the ramparts for protection. Gardiner's later report shows that some soldiers were abducted, tortured and killed by the Pequot. After several incidents, the fort's crew was increased by 80 men and the English replenished their troops with Mohegan warriors , traditional enemies of the Pequot. The soldiers were preparing to attack the nearby Pequot Fort on the Mystic River . The attack took place on May 25, 1637, the Pequot Fort was surrounded by the besiegers and set on fire. The fleeing residents were driven back into the flames. Gardiner's account of the Mystic massacre has survived:
- ... and God blessed their purpose and their ways, so that they returned home with a victory to the glory of God and the glory of our nation. They killed 300, burned their fort and took many prisoners.
On the other hand, Captain Underhill's report, published in London in 1639 , said 1,000 Pequot were dead, three times more than Gardiner's estimate. According to historians, English soldiers hunted and killed fleeing Pequot for months. In 1637 almost the entire tribe of the Pequot was wiped out, historians later spoke of a war of extermination.
Wyandanch
After the war, Gardiner's life changed significantly when the Montaukett Wyandanch , coming from Long Island, visited Fort Saybrook. Gardiner wrote about this in his report:
- Three days after the fight came Waiandance (Wyandanch), brother of the Sachem of Long Island ... He wanted to know why we were angry with all the Indians. I replied, "No, only those who have killed the English. You should kill all Pequot who come to you - you send me their heads as proof." ... he drove back and sent me five heads.
This began the friendship between Lion Gardiner and Sachem Wyandanch. Two years later, in May 1639, Gardiner's term of service in Connecticut came to an end and he acquired Manchonat Island from the Montaukett, later called Gardiners Island. The island has a size of around 13 km² and the purchase price consisted of clothing, a gun, powder and a large black dog. For the Indians, who knew neither land ownership nor sale of land (as was practiced in Europe) from their culture, the business was more like a partnership agreement. The purchase contract has been preserved and bears Gardiner's signature and a Montaukett sachem mark. Shortly after moving to the island, Gardiner's daughter Elizabeth was born.
Gardiner's purchase of the island, which he initially called the Isle of Wight, would not have been possible without Wyandanch's consent. His people, the Montaukett, had suffered under the rule of the Pequot and were grateful to Gardiner that the English had destroyed their common enemies.
In the spring of 1653, a group from Niantic raided Wyandanchs village at Montauk Point, killing more than 30 Montaukett. The sachem's daughter was among the prisoners. Gardiner went to Rhode Island to rescue the girl for a ransom. The friendship between the Indian and the Englishman seems to have been sincere. It revealed itself from the side of Wyandanchs on documents in which the Montaukett sold large parts of their traditional land to Gardiner. The representations of an Indian and an Englishman often appear here. One of these documents relates to a large piece of land that is now the town of Smithtown , which Wyandanch transferred to Gardiner when his daughter returned to Montauk . Gardiner became the largest landowner in Long Island's history with nearly 400 square kilometers. A series of smallpox epidemics hit the Montaukett in such a way in the late 1650s that ultimately only a third of the tribe survived. After Wyandanch's death in 1659, the few Montaukett moved near East Hampton and were there under the protection of Captain Gardiner and Reverend Thomas James.
In 1660, Gardiner wrote his report on the Pequot War entitled Relation of the Pequot Warres . The text was long lost until it was rediscovered in 1809 and published in 1833.
Lion Gardiner died in 1663 at the age of 64 and was buried in East Hampton.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Lion Gardiner
- ↑ a b c Relation of the Pequot Warres
- ↑ a b The Settler and the Sachem
literature
- Lion Gardiner: Relation of the Pequot Warres
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Gardiner, Lion |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | English officer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1599 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | England |
| DATE OF DEATH | 1663 |
| Place of death | East Hampton (New York) |