Mattabesic
The Mattabesic were Algonquin- speaking Indians who lived in what is now western Connecticut between the Housatonic and Connecticut Rivers and formed a confederation of several small tribes. Their number is estimated to be more than 10,000 around 1600. Like other New England tribes, they were semi-settled and seasonally migrated between relatively consistent locations. Their main diet was maize grown by women, as well as fish and game. Many of the tribes are now considered extinct.
Surname
There is no collective term for the Algonquin tribes in western Connecticut. The name Mattabesic is the name of a village of the indigenous people in this region and was chosen arbitrarily to summarize this tribal group, which could also be called Paugusset, Quiripi (after their language), Wampano or Potatuck.
language
The language of Mattabesic strains was Quiripi or Wampano, an Algonquian dialect, also from the Western Metoac strains in the central Long Iceland and the Wappingern on the east side of the lower Hudson River was spoken. The Indians of southern New England were familiar with the vocabulary and pronunciation of their immediate neighbors at the beginning of the 17th century, but the quality of communication deteriorated the further they moved from their immediate surroundings through trade, hunting or war.
Groups of Mattabesic
| group | residential area |
|---|---|
| Hammonasset | at the mouth of the Hammonasset River |
| Massaco | at Simsbury and Canton |
| Menunkatuc (also Menunkatuck ) | on the coast at Guilford |
| Paugussett | on the east side of the Housatonic River northwards to about Waterbury |
| Peaquanock | west of the Housatonic River north to Danbury |
| Podunk | on the east side of the Connecticut River at East Windsor and East Hartford |
| Poquonock | on the west side of the Connecticut River at Windsor Locks |
| Pequannock | west of the Housatonic River |
| Potatuck | in the valley of the Housatonic River between Newtown and Woodbury |
| Quinnipiac (also Quiripi ) | on New Haven Bay and the rivers that flow there |
| Sicaog | today's center of Hartford |
| Tunxis | on the Farmington River west of Hartford |
| Wangunk | on both sides of the Connecticut River between Hartford and Haddam |
| Weantinock | in the valley of the Housatonic River above Danbury |
However, it must be noted that the tribes of the Lenni Lenape (Delaware) , Wappinger , Mahican , Mattabesic and the Western Metoac, as already mentioned, all belonged to the Eastern Algonquin and could therefore hardly be distinguished from outsiders culturally and linguistically.
Therefore some historians count the Hammonasset , Massaco , Menunkatuck , Paugussett , Podunk , Poquonock , Quinnipiac (also Quiripi) , Sicaog and Tunxis to Wappinger , also the Wappinger groups of Manhattan , Nochpeem , Kichtawank , Rechgawawanc , Sintsink , Wechquaesgeek and Wappinger often counted among the Munsee (the so-called Northern Delaware , a dialect group of the Lenni Lenape ).
The Manhattan are also sometimes counted among the Wappingern, while the Paugussett and Mattabesic are often viewed as separate tribes or tribal groups. The Canar Sea , Massapequa , Matinecock and Rockaway, on the other hand, are sometimes included in the Munsee or Western Metoac .
Culture and way of life
Livelihood
At the beginning of the 17th century, the Mattabesic had techniques for growing and storing food that had been continuously developed for several centuries. The men cleared the oak, elm, ash and chestnut forests to make room for the cultivation of maize. The smaller trees were felled, but the larger ones were burned from below so that the ashes could enrich the soil.
Breaking the ground with hoes from the shoulder blades of deer was a woman's job, the only exception being tobacco, which was mainly grown by men. In April the women started planting corn in small mounds by placing 4 grains in each mound and adding fish heads as fertilizer. Squash , beans and the first green corn could be harvested in the middle of summer, but the main harvest did not take place until September. Obviously, these different plants formed an ideal symbiosis : the beans between the corn enriched the soil with nitrogen, which the corn needed, while the strong corn stalks provided the climbing bean vines with the necessary support. The squash that grew on the ground received the necessary shade from the maize in order to ripen.
Beans, corn and squash were often eaten together, increasing protein intake . The Indians invented the vegetable dish , which is still known today under the Algonquin name Succotash .
While some guards stayed behind to pull weeds and protect the young plants from birds and wildlife, the majority of the villagers moved to the coast to collect clams and oysters and to catch fish. Wild edible plants, nuts and fruits supplemented the diet and changed depending on the place and season, for example blackberries, blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, wild grapes, walnuts, chestnuts and acorns. Some of it could be dried and stored for bad times.
In the autumn, the harvest surpluses were stored for the winter. The dried corn was placed in woven sacks or baskets and buried in large holes or trenches to be consumed during the fall and winter. These deep, mat-covered holes in the ground were hated by the English settlers. They called this facility Indian barns and didn't like it because their grazing cattle often fell through the mats.
Before the onset of winter, people went hunting in small groups. Deer were the most important game and were either killed by individual hunters or driven into pens specially built for this purpose in collective actions. Moose, bear, lynx and puma were hunted for both their fur and their meat. In addition, the Mattabesic fished in ice holes in frozen ponds in winter, but in the warmer seasons they caught fish with nets or pots.
In the vicinity of enemy neighbors, the villages were surrounded by protective palisades made of fire-hardened sharpened stakes. A typical settlement included long, mat-roofed apartment buildings, storage pits, menstrual huts, and special religious buildings. In summer there was life and conviviality in the villages and in the public squares there were celebrations where people sang and danced to the accompaniment of drums and rattles.
religion
The supreme religious authority among the Mattabesic was the powwow or shaman , invariably a man whose calling came through a dream or vision. He oversaw the public rituals performed regularly at harvest time and in the middle of winter . There were also rituals in critical situations such as drought, famine, disease and war. The harvest ritual took place in a special longhouse near the Sachem's residence. It attracted many participants and lasted for several days, during which there were partying, dancing and distributing gifts that had previously been collected for this purpose by wealthy tribe members.
The shamans were both admired and feared for their relationships with the powerful spirits, for they demonstrated their power on special occasions, for example to help the hunters to succeed, to influence the weather, to predict the future, to cure the sick and in war Defeat enemies.
trade
A lively exchange of goods took place between the various tribes, which connected them both at group level and personally. The trade network connected different villages within the region, but also villages of other tribes in adjacent areas. This trade network existed long before contact with the Europeans, but it was undoubtedly influenced quickly and significantly by the introduction of European trade goods. The forests and river banks were criss-crossed by numerous, well-used paths used to carry goods and transmit messages. People who were lucky enough to be related to the local sachem or the shamans were primarily beneficiaries of this lively exchange of goods. A preferred trade item of the Mattabesic was wampum , consisting of cylindrical pearls that were made from the vertebral column of the snail shell ( Venus buccinum ) for the white variant, while the pearls for the darker variety were made from the purple part of the quahog shell ( Venus Mercenaria ) Variant were manufactured. Wampum became a real barter and was probably an important means of getting the Indians of South New England into the European money economy.
Political organization
The individual groups of the Mattabesic did not have a uniform political structure. Some of their villages were very small and many of the groups had fewer than 500 members. The sachem's authority was hereditary and usually limited to only one or a few villages. The Mattabesic political organization was typical of most of the Algonquin tribes from the Canadian provinces to the Algonquin in North Carolina . Well-organized confederations like the Narraganset, Pequot, Mahican and Powhatan were the exception rather than the rule. The lack of governance seems to indicate that the Mattabesic were not as developed as their neighbors, but that is a mistake. Only a few villages were fortified, which suggests little military activity. Obviously the Mattabesic lived in peace with each other and with their neighbors, so that they had little reason for an elaborate leadership system. This fact was difficult for Europeans to understand. Their own society had been through centuries of wars and conflicts and could not understand the meaning of this system, which had no recognizable hierarchical structure and no absolute ruler. As a result, the Dutch and English were desperately looking for someone with the authority to sign contracts.
history
Dutch and English
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The Paugusset and Peaquanock at the mouth of the Housatonic River had their first contact with Dutch traders around 1610. In 1622 they established a permanent trading post near what is now Hartford , from which flourishing trade with all of the tribes in Connecticut was conducted. The Pequot on the Thames River in eastern Connecticut were the most powerful tribe in the region at this time and therefore determined to dominate trade with the Dutch. After raiding some Mattebesic near the trading post, the Dutch took a Pequot sachem hostage, demanded a ransom and a promise to release it, not to disrupt trade in the future. Eventually reason prevailed, both sides recognized the advantages of peaceful trade and settled the dispute. The Dutch then made no more attempts to dispute the rule of the other tribes in the region with the Pequot.
In the same year the Pequot began a war with the powerful Narraganset, occupied their residential area in western Rhode Island and controlled their trade with the Dutch. After the successful completion of this action, they turned south, sailed across the Long Island Sound and subjugated the Metoac on Long Island , who were leaders in the manufacture and trade of wampum. Several small tribes of the Nipmuck in the north and the Mattabesic in the west were attacked by the Pequot during this time and brought under their rule.
The English filed English claims in 1622 on the Hudson and Connecticut Rivers. The Dutch had to react with this in order to underpin their own interests. Newly arrived Dutch colonists were distributed to several points on the Connecticut River, the Delaware River, the Hudson Estuary, and further upstream. Fort Oranje was founded in 1624 on the site of today's city of Albany . In 1627 the Dutch sent a delegation to the British in Plymouth to divide up the lucrative fur trade monopoly among themselves. Both parties signed a contract in which the Dutch were assured the monopoly of trade on the south coast of New England and in the valley of the Connecticut River. This agreement only lasted three years, until increasingly militant Puritans settled in Massachusetts. They simply ignored the earlier agreement and within a few years the English and Dutch became bitter competitors in the fur trade on the Connecticut River. In 1633, Boston traders set up a trading post at what is now Windsor , north of the Dutch post at Hartford, and thus intercepted the Indian trading partners from the north.
The Dutch built a fortified trading post on the Connecticut River, which they called the House of Good Hope . In response, the English built Fort Saybrook in 1635 at the mouth of the Connecticut River, which cut off the Dutch from the sea.
English colonization of the Connecticut Valley began in 1636. Many of the Mattabesic groups on the river hailed the arrival of the English as an opportunity to break free from the yoke of Pequot supremacy. As early as 1633 another epidemic hit the tribes in eastern Massachusetts and reached Connecticut in 1634. Despite their losses from the disease, the Pequot threatened the English colonists on the Connecticut River and raided individual settlements. In the summer of 1636 the English launched a retaliatory action and in 1637 the Pequot War broke out .
The Pequot War
On May 1, 1637, the leadership of the Connecticut Colony declared the offensive war against the Pequot. Both Connecticut and Massachusetts launched separate campaigns against the Pequot, with each colony hoping to destroy this tribe before the others. Connecticut Captain John Mason marched with 90 English and hundreds of Native American allies to a fortified Pequot village on the Mystic River . Despite the recent secession of the Mohegan and the losses caused by the smallpox epidemic, the Pequot currently had an alliance of 26 tribes and possessed considerable combat strength. The main village of the Pequot on the Mystic River was destroyed by Mason's troops and at least 500 residents were killed on May 26, 1637 in the Mystic massacre .
After this defeat became known, many of the Pequot allies, smaller Mattabesic, Nipmuck and Metoac tribes, hurriedly changed sides, while the remaining Pequot left their villages and tried to flee west to the Dutch on the Hudson River. But only a few made it. On July 13, 1637, Captain Mason with his command and the allied Mohegan surrounded the fortified, swamped, Pequannock village of Sasqua near today's Fairfield , where a large group of Pequot and their Sachem Sassacus had found refuge. After negotiations, 200 Pequannock, mostly women and children, were allowed to leave the village. In the ensuing battle, 20 Pequot warriors lost their lives, but another 60, including their sachem Sassacus, managed to escape and they reached the Mohawk in what is now New York State . They had experienced the fighting power of the English, killed Sassacus and sent his head to Hartford, the capital of the young colony of Connecticut, as proof of friendship. The Pequot War ended with the utter annihilation of the Pequot as a tribe when British soldiers and their Indian allies hunted, killed or captured the last of the tribe's survivors.
Of the roughly 3,000 Pequot at the beginning of the war, less than half survived. On September 21, 1638, the victorious Indian allies signed a treaty with the colonists that became known as the First Hartford Treaty . Most of the approximately 1,500 surviving Pequot were either sold into slavery in the West Indies or distributed among the Mohegan, Narragansett, and Metoac. They were divided into small groups and prohibited from ever calling themselves Pequot. Every tribe, including the Mohegan, who had given refuge to the Pequot, had to pay a heavy fine in the form of wampum to the English or give up a corresponding amount of land to the colonists. On the other hand, the Pequot provided the Mohegan with a larger number of additional warriors and with a population of nearly 3,000 tribesmen and a formal alliance with the colonies of Massachusetts and Connecticut, they emerged from the Pequot War as one of the most powerful tribes in southern New England.
Indian power struggles
The Mattabesic did not initially realize that they had traded the supremacy of the Pequot for a far greater evil: the Puritan colonists. After the Pequot War, most Indians realized that these godly Puritans were nothing more than greedy, violent land robbers. They appropriated both the land and the lucrative wampum trade of the Pequot. For the Mattabesic, Paugussett and other tribes of the region, the Indian allies of the English, the Mohegan, also proved to be far more aggressive and dominant than the Pequot. The Mohegan began subjugating and taking tribute to smaller neighboring tribes , as well as from various Mattabesic and Nipmuck groups. The Narraganset in Rhode Island viewed these activities with increasing suspicion.
Meanwhile, there was a dispute among the colonists between the Puritans and the supporters of the dissident Roger Williams in Rhode Island. The English colonies in Connecticut and Massachusetts united to form the New England Confederation in 1643 , but excluded Rhode Island, leaving Roger Williams and his followers isolated. Despite all efforts of their sachem Miontonimo to find new allies, the Narraganset were almost on their own and decided to deal with the Mohegan alone, but were defeated in the decisive battle at Shetucket. After that, the Mohegan were the absolutely dominant tribe in all of southern New England and ensured that the English settlers west of the Connecticut River could spread without resistance from the Mattabesic.
The Wappinger War
Although little is known about it today, the Wappinger War (1643–1645) was one of the bloodiest and cruelest wars of extermination against the Indians. The sometimes tiny Mattabesic tribes were unable to hold their own against the combined fighting strength of the English soldiers and Mohegan warriors. This was particularly evident when some Mattabesic warriors from western Connecticut joined the Wappingers to fight the Dutch in the Wappinger War. Although the Dutch were almost defeated at the beginning of the conflict, the situation changed immediately when in 1644 two companies under the command of Captain John Underhill , consisting of Mohegan scouts and Connecticut colonists, rushed to their aid. In the same year there was a Dutch-English attack on a Siwanoy village near Greenwich , in which almost 700 Indians were killed. By the end of that war in 1645, nearly 1,600 Wappers and Indian allies had lost their lives.
Flight and displacement
Life had become hopeless for many Mattabesic and they could not find a way out of this predicament. The Massaco were conquered in 1654, had to pay tribute to the Mohegan, and were eventually incorporated into the tribe before the Mohegan sold the Massaco land to English settlers. Several Mattabesic groups on the Massachusetts border, the Newashe, Peskantuk, Poquonock and Sicaog, wanted to avoid this fate and joined the Pocumtuc in western Massachusetts. They were at war with the Mohawk and were urgently looking for allies. When the Pocumtuc were defeated by the Mohawk in 1665 and forced to retreat from the Connecticut River, many of these Mattabesic tribes also fled with them, first to the east and later to the north, where they finally joined the Abenaki in northern New England.
The remaining Mattabesic tribes in central Connecticut did not fight, but they too were ousted by the English settlers and moved westward into the valley of the Housatonic River. Here it was mostly not about the exodus of whole tribes, but the groups dissolved into individual families, which were taken in by the Paugussett and other tribes on the Housatonic River. This area was not settled until the 18th century because of its rough, rugged landscape. Other groups gathered in mixed Indian communities such as Farmington and Naugatuck. By 1658, the Fairfield and Stratford settlers had stripped so much land from the Mattabesic that the Peaquanock petitioned the General Court at Hartford to grant them a piece of land before the colonists took everything away from them. In 1659 the Golden Hill reservation was established for the Mattabesic at what is now Bridgeport , the first 80 acres (3.238 km²) Indian reservation in what would later become the United States.
With the exception of the Podunk, no Mattabesic tribe took part in King Philip's War (1675–1676). As a result of this conflict, many southern New England tribes left their homes or were completely wiped out. By 1680 only about 1,000 Mattabesic lived in Connecticut, at least half of them belonging to tribes on the Housatonic River, namely the Paugussett, Peaquanock, Potatuck and Weantinock. The white settlers claimed more and more Indian land and in 1680 the General Court in Hartford established two more reservations, each of 100 acres (0.405 km²) for the Paugussett: Turkey Hill in Derby and Coram Hill in Huntington . In addition to the three small Mattabesic reserves, there were a number of mixed Mattabesic parishes, such as the Paugussett Village at Naugatuck and the Tunxis Settlement at Farmington , which had to hold their own on an ever-shrinking land base. Only the Weantinock and Potatuck in the far west and northwest of Connecticut were initially able to keep some land in their former residential area. But even this insignificant land ownership gradually passed into white hands.
18th to 20th century
In the 18th century, the Mattabesic lost almost all of their Connecticut land, in most cases without their knowledge or consent. When checking the legal land transfers today, these appear in many cases extremely questionable, because the signatures of the Indians on the documents look indistinct and blurred, possibly they were signed under the influence of alcohol.
The Pequannock and Paugusset at the mouth of the Housatonic River lived in the immediate vicinity of English settlements and were the first to be displaced. Some went north to the Indian settlement of Lonetown near Redding . The Peaquanock Ramapo moved to the mountains of northern New Jersey that still bear their name today. The Paugussett were dissatisfied with their land in Coram Hill from the start because it was too rocky and poor to grow corn. So they sold 20 acres (80,940 m²) of it in 1714 and the remainder in 1735. There was better land on the Golden Hill reservation. Around 1760 there were still four Indian families living there who had stubbornly refused to leave the country. Of their original 80 acres (0.324 km²) only 6 (24,282 m²) were left. Except for half an acre (2,024 m²), this land was also distributed among the colonists, with the claim that the Golden Hill Indians would soon be extinct anyway!
In 1765 the Paugussett were finally assigned 20 (80,940 m²) of the original 80 acres: 12 acres in Nimrod Lot and 8 acres in Rocky Hill Lot. The last land in Naugatuck was sold in 1812 and Turkey Hill in 1826. Today the Golden Hill reservation is exactly 0.26 acres (1052 m²) in size.
Usually the Mattabesic got no money for their land, but an offer to convert to Christianity and live in Christian communities. Shortly after the first settlement, the Puritan missionaries began their work with the Mattabesic. The reorganization of Indian life went hand in hand with the establishment of a community. The tribute previously paid to the sachem has been replaced by the tithe payable to the congregation . The missionaries enacted laws to punish unacceptable Native American behavior such as idleness, fornication, leaving the church, and wearing long hair. The Puritans subjected the Indians to years of severe scrutiny before they were accepted into the church as baptized Christians.
The eastern Mattabesic tribes, the Hammonasset, Menunkatuc, Quinnipiac, Podunk, Tunxis and Wagunk, who had not been integrated by the Mohegan or Pocumtuc, gathered at Farmington, which became a Christian Indian community around 1770. Later, the various members of tribes existing Brother Towns (dt .: developed Brothers cities ), whose inhabitants later named Indians Brotherton were known and from Mohegan, Narragansett, Niantic were composed, Massachusetts and some Paugusset. Neither Christian nor traditional Indians were welcome in Connecticut, one reason why many of them went to the Christian Mahican communities near Stockbridge, western Massachusetts. In 1788 the Mohegan Samson Occom moved with 250 Brotherton Indians from Connecticut and Long Island to the Oneida in the northern state of New York and accepted an invitation from this tribe.
The Weantinock and Potatuck, who continued to live inland, remained relatively undisturbed by the white expansion until the beginning of the 18th century. After that, however, they were forced to either sell or give up almost all of their land. By 1729 the Weantinock had lost most of their original land holdings. In 1731 a large group of Christian Pequannock and Paugussett left the Naugatuck reservation under the leadership of Gideon Mauwee to settle at the old Weantinock hunting camp on the Housatonic River, in what is now Kent . Within a few years Schaghticoke developed into a refuge for Christian Indians from western Connecticut.
Missions of the Moravian Brethren
By 1740, the mixed population of Schaghticoke had risen to almost 600 residents, but they were increasingly dissatisfied with their missionaries from Connecticut and therefore moved to the Moravians in Shekomeko just across the border in the state of New York. The Moravian Brothers came from Germany in 1735, preached non-resistance and non-violence and brought about a remarkable change among many converted Indians. They embodied the most peaceful, hardworking and Christian people on the entire North American continent. They were called Moravian Indians and they lived in clean villages with names like Salem, Bethlehem or huts of grace. There they raised horses and cattle, cultivated orchards, tilled their fields, and gathered daily for worship.
Although the Moravian Brethren had contact with many tribes, the conversion of Lenni Lenape was their most important mission goal. They followed this tribe from Pennsylvania via Ohio and Indiana to Kansas . They have also served with the Mahican and Mattabesic in Connecticut and New York and with the Cherokee in Georgia and Oklahoma . The Moravian missions had limited success in terms of the number of native converted people, with only a few hundred baptized Indians per mission station. The relatively low population density of the indigenous people, the increased migration to the west, the Gnadenhütten massacre in 1782 and the presence of alcohol sellers are all reasons for the relatively low number of converted Indians. Despite this, the Moravian Missions enjoyed a good reputation and were often visited by chiefs of various tribes, some of whom adopted the Christian faith.
Around 1742 a mission of the Moravian Brothers was founded in the land of the Mattabesic, which was also called Schaghticoke. This place was nearly 2,000 acres (8.094 km²) in size in 1744 and the Peaquannock traded their last land at Redding to enlarge Schaghticoke by 200 acres (0.809 km²). Unfortunately, the Connecticut colonists disagreed with the Moravian version of Christianity. The conflicts between English colonists and missionaries grew and eventually caused the Moravian Brothers to go back to Gnadenhütten near Bethlehem in Pennsylvania. Some of their new converts joined them, but most returned to Shaghticoke after a short time discouraged.
Problems with illegal land occupiers continued and between 1749 and 1751 the residents of Shaghticoke had to give up large chunks of their land. To end these actions, Connecticut formally established the Schaghticoke Reservation in 1752, but problems persisted. In 1758 and 1759, the Potatuck sold their last land in Newtown and Woogbury , but at that time almost all of their relatives lived in Schaghticoke, which was completely overcrowded. The situation in Massachusetts was different. In 1786 the last group of Stockbridge Indians left Massachusetts, including some Mattabesic, and settled with the Oneida in New York, where they met their Mattabesic relatives, who had moved there with the Brotherton at the time. In 1822, however, they and their hosts had to move again, this time to northern Wisconsin . Their descendants still live there west of Green Bay , Wisconsin.
Demographics
Around 1600, about 10,000 Mattabesic lived in more than 60 villages. Shortly before English colonists first arrived in Plymouth in 1620, three devastating epidemics had ravaged all of New England and Canada's maritime provinces, decimating the native population. It is estimated that the Mattabesic still had around 5,000 members around 1620. After 1620 there was increased contact with Europeans from Holland and England and their diseases took their toll on the indigenous people.
Shortly after the Pequot War in 1637, the Mattabesic land on the Connecticut River and the western coast of Connecticut was settled by English colonists. The expulsion of the Mattabesic brought the English hardly any problems with the natives. A few small tribes were subjugated and integrated into their tribe by the Mohegan, but most moved west into the Housatonic Valley and joined the Paugussett. By 1700, the Native American population in western Connecticut had dropped to less than 1,000. English colonization progressed more slowly here and the Mattabesic still owned about 500,000 acres (20.235 km²) of their own land. Displacement, disease and migration meant that only 77 Mattabesic lived on approximately 1,700 acres (6.990 km²) in tiny reservations in Golden Hill, Turkey Hill, Naugatuck and Schaghticoke by 1800, and 100 years later there were only 20 relatives.
Few Mattabesic were found in Connecticut at the end of the 18th century. In 1798 the population in Schaghticoke had fallen to 67 people and in 1801 there were only 35 inhabitants. They still owned nearly 1,500 acres (6.070 km²) of land, but most of it was unsuitable for agriculture. The State of Connecticut took control of the land and reduced Schaghticoke to its current size of 400 acres (1,619 km²), but a lawsuit is pending.
The Connecticut 1850 census counted 400 people of Native American origin, all of the Mohegan tribe. By 1910 there were only 22 Mohegan, 20 Mattabesic and 66 Pequot left. The 1990 census found 6,634 people in Connecticut who, according to their statements, were of Native American origin.
Todays situation
Currently, the Golden Hill Paugusset and the Schaghticoke, not to be confused with the city of Schaghticoke in New York State, are recognized by the State of Connecticut, but not by the federal government in Washington. Golden Hill near Trumbull is the oldest Indian reservation in the United States, but its size has steadily decreased and is now only 0.26 acres (1,052 m²). 1979 took the Golden Hill Pagussett, currently 120 members, a subsidy of the Department of Housing and Urban Affairs (dt about. Ministry of Housing and Urban Development ) to purchase 108 acres (0.437 square kilometers) in Colchester . The Schaghticoke own a 400 acres (1,619 km²) reserve near Kent . The 350 tribe members are a mix of Paugussett and various other Mattabesic tribes. Further descendants of the Mattabesic can be found among the Stockbridge and Brotherton Indians in northern Wisconsin.
Individual evidence
- ^ Mattabesic History - Language
- ↑ Mattabesic History - Subnations
- ^ Carl Waldmann: Encyclopedia of Native American Tribes , ISBN 978-0-8160-6274-4
- ↑ a b c d Bruce G. Trigger (Ed.): Handbook of North American Indians , Vol. 15. Chapter: Indians of Southern New England and Long Island: Early Period, page: 160ff.
- ^ Mattabesic History - Culture
- ↑ a b c d Mattabesic History - History
- ↑ Records of Moravian Missions ( Memento of the original from May 9, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Mattabesic History - Population
- ↑ Golden Hill Paugusset ( Memento of the original from June 4, 2004 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
