Paugussett
The Paugussett are Algonquin- speaking Indians who used to live in western Connecticut on the east side of the Housatonic River northwards to about the present day city of Waterbury . They belonged to a large number of small tribes from the Mattabesic group in western Connecticut, who were expelled from their settlement area early by the English colonists. 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.
Historic tribes of the Paugussett
The Paugussett were once divided into four major tribes or subgroups:
- actual Paugussett (also called Milford Indians , lived on the east bank of the Housatonic River in what is now Milford , Derby and Shelton in southeast Connecticut )
- Pequonnock or Pequannock ("cleared field" or "opened ground", inhabited approx. 80,000 to 90,000 acres along the Pequonnock River to the Atlantic coast of Connecticut, sacred place and one of their main villages was today's Bridgeport )
- Pootatuck , Pohtatuck, or Potatuck (inhabited approximately 280,000 to 320,000 acres around present-day Newtown , Woodbury, and Southbury in west and southwest Connecticut)
- Weantinock or Wyachtonok ("where the water swirls around", also called New Milford Indians , inhabited an area of approx. 340,000 to 380,000 acres on both sides of the Housatonic River and along the Still River in the extreme southeast of New York States and in the west and northwest of Connecticut, named after their main village Weantinock , today's New Milford , later joined the Mahican Confederation as Wawyachtonoc )
history
Before the first European settlers came, the Paugussett inhabited the area east of the lower Housatonic River, roughly between the present-day cities of Orange and Woodbridge in the south to present-day Waterbury in the north. The Paugusset split up in 1731 after the death of their sachem Konckapotanauh, and many of them joined other tribes. The remaining Paugussett were assigned three reservations : Turkey Hill in Derby , Coram Hill in Huntington and Golden Hill in Bridgeport . Golden Hill was Connecticut's first reservation of 80 acres and was established in 1659 on the site of what is now the city of Bridgeport. In 1760 an attempt was made to forcibly evict the Paugusset from the land and only six acres (24,282 m²) remained. The Indians won the legal battle, but the whites settled for payment and the Indians still lost the reservation rights to most of their land. In 1842 they sold the remainder of their property, then resettled on a reservation in the Trumbull area , also called Golden Hill.
The Paugussett were unsatisfied 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 square meters) of it in 1714 and the rest in 1735. There was better land in Golden Hill. Around 1760 there were only four Indian families left who had stubbornly refused to leave the country. Of their original 80 acres (0.324 km²), 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!
However, some whites did not want to wait for all of Golden Hills' residents to die out , and in August 1763 they destroyed the last wigwam , forcing residents to leave. The Connecticut parliament ( General Assembly ) then instructed a committee to find a solution to the problem. The committee's first recommendation was to give the Golden Hill residents other land in exchange for the land distributed to the colonists. This motion was rejected by parliament and a second recommendation, which called for the Paugussett to be returned all 80 acres, was not met by a majority. 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.
In the middle of the 18th century, state overseers were appointed by the government to campaign for the rights of the Paugussett. These inspectors often ran into their own pockets. Records and documents show that the guards regularly sold Indian land, but the Paugussett rarely received money for it. By 1841 they had only received a total of about $ 1,000.
In the middle of the 19th century, a Paugussett named William Sherman, who had gone to sea, returned to his old home. In 1875 he received $ 800 from the Golden Hill Foundation and bought a quarter of an acre property in Trumbull, exactly 0.26 acres (1,052 m²) in size, just enough for a single family home. He gave this land to the tribe and it became the current Golden Hill reservation , the oldest and smallest Indian reservation in the United States.
Todays situation
In 1980, the government of Connecticut again noted that the Golden Hill Tribe of the Pagussett nation is in fact a legitimate tribe and told them money to buy a state reserve to, with whom she is a 106 acre (428,982 m²) large area in Colchester purchase could . The tribe currently has 350 active members, but many of them, like most of New England's Native American people, are economically and socially disadvantaged citizens. Most of them live in the region bordering the newly acquired reserve.
In order to improve the situation of the tribesmen, Chief Quiet Hawk, as chairman of the tribal council , has filed a lawsuit on their behalf in court, which concerns former areas of the Paugussett near Bridgeport and six other neighboring towns. The federal recognition (ger .: Federal recognition ) of the strain was applied in 1982 in Washington, but has been decided negatively. The reasoning states that there is no clear evidence of their descent from the Golden Hill Pagussett.
See also
Individual evidence
- ↑ Bruce G. Trigger (Ed.): Handbook of North American Indians . Vol. 15. Northeast - Chapter: Indians of Southern New England and Long Island, Late Period, page 183ff. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington DC 1978 ISBN 0-16004-575-4
- ^ Mattabesic History
- ↑ a b Golden Hill Indian Tribe ( Memento of the original from August 19, 2006 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.
