Pocumtuc

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Residential area of ​​the Pocumtuc and neighboring tribes around 1600

The Pocumtuc or Pocumtuck were Algonquin- speaking Indians who lived in what is now western Massachusetts and the adjoining areas of Connecticut , Vermont, and New Hampshire . Around 1600 their number was estimated at more than 5,000 people. In the early phase of European settlement, the Pocumtuc, together with several neighboring tribes, formed a loose tribal confederation , the so-called Pocumtuc Confederation .

After several wars and severe epidemics, they joined the newly formed Wabanaki Confederation in the north and the Mahican Confederation in the west as part of the Abenaki and soon lost their separate identity.

residential area

The residential area of ​​the Pocumtuc stretched along the Connecticut River ( Quonnenektacut - "Long River") in western Massachusetts, about from the border with Connecticut northward to southern Vermont and southwestern New Hampshire . Their main village bore the tribal name and was near today's Deerfield , so they were often called Deerfield Indians . 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.

population

It can be assumed that the Pocumtuc had more than 5000 tribesmen around the year 1600. But already after the King Philip's War (1675–1676) there were hardly any survivors, because in the past 75 years an uninterrupted series of devastating epidemics and wars against the Iroquois and English had almost destroyed the tribe. A small group, consisting of about 600 Pocumtuc and Nipmuck who had fled , found refuge in the Mahican village near Schaghticoke on the Hudson River . Another group moved north to the Western Abenaki , either to Missisquoi or to Saint Francis in Québec . Gradually, the Pocumtuc and Nipmuck from Schaghticoke also went to the Western Abenaki. Presumably some of the Western Abenaki living in Vermont and Québec are descendants of the Pocumtuc today.

Associated groups

The Pocumtuc consisted of several groups, most of which were named after their main village and at the beginning of the 18th century mostly joined the Abenaki or Mahican:

  • Agawam , also Ag (g) awom (e) , Agawanus , Onkowam , Igwam or Auguam : Their main village of the same name was near today's Agawam , directly across from Springfield , Massachusetts. They lived on the lower reaches of the Westfield River (formerly: (West) Agawam River , the upper reaches was known as the Woronoake River ), as well as on the west bank of the Connecticut River. However, they were sometimes considered nipmuck .
  • Mayawaug ("where paths, rivers or borders come together") Their main village was in the valley of the Connecticut River near present-day (west) Suffield in northern Connecticut.
  • Nameroke : Your main village of the same name was near today's Enfield in northern Connecticut, east of Mayawaug .
  • Mattabesic
  • Nonotuck , also Nonotuc , Nanotuck or Nonotucke ("in the middle of the (Connecticut) river"): The main village of the same name was located near today's Northampton in western Massachusetts and was probably identical to the Norvottuck .
  • Norvottuck , also Norwottuck , Norwotog , Nalvotogy , Nalwotogg or Nolwotogg ("in the middle of the (Connecticut) river"): They lived on both sides of the Connecticut River in the area around today's Hatfield and Hadley in western Massachusetts, their main village of the same name was near Hadley probably identical to the Nonotuck .
  • Pachasock : They lived along the upper reaches of the Westfield River near what is now Westfield and West Springfield in southwest Massachusetts and therefore called their tribal area Woronoco ("land of river meanders").
  • Peskeompscut : Their main village was their favorite fish and salmon fishing grounds on the Connecticut River at Peskeompscut ("Great Waterfalls") and what is now the parish of Turners Falls in the city of Montague in northern Massachusetts.
  • Pocumtuc , also Pocumtuck , Pocomtook , Pocutuc or Pokamtakuke : Their main village, Pocumtuck , was near present-day Deerfield in the Connecticut River valley in northwestern Massachusetts, which is why the entire Pocumtuc Confederation was often referred to as the Deerfield Indians .
  • Scitico , also Squitkko : Their main village of the same name was east of today's Enfield in the north of Connecticut, thus east of Nameroke and Mayawaug .
  • Sqawkeag , also Squaeg or Squakheag : Their main village of the same name was located near today's Northfield in northern Massachusetts, but sometimes considered as Nipmuck .
  • Woronoake , also Woronoco , Woronock , Woronoake or Waranoke ("land of river meanders"): Their tribal area Woronoco stretched along the upper reaches of the Westfield River and its tributaries in southwest Massachusetts and inhabited three villages, each under the leadership of a sachem or sagamore.

Culture

Like their neighbors, the Pocumtuc were semi-sedentary and moved to the main sources of food in the annual cycle. They cultivated fields in the fertile river plains and planted corn, beans and squash . Their residential area was also rich in game, and in the spring large schools of fish moved up the Connecticut River and its tributaries. Certain places on the river where the fish could be caught as easily as possible were popular storage areas. Fish caught in abundance were dried on scaffolding in the sun or over a smoking fire and eaten later.

In addition to the heavily frequented north-south trade route along the Connecticut River, there were also several important east-west connections across the Pocumtuc residential area, for example the Mohawk Trail , which connected the Indians of the inland with those on the Atlantic coast. This gave the Pocumtuc good trade relations with other tribes and access to goods from inland and from the coast.

With the neighboring Mohawk in the west they waged almost continuous war. Their larger villages were therefore strongly fortified and all the Pocumtuc tribes had formed a loose confederation for mutual protection.

history

Pocumtuc raid on Deerfield, Massachusetts

The European settlement of the inland quickly advanced north and west. Agawam was settled in 1636, but Pocumtuc (Deerfield), less than 60 kilometers upstream the Connecticut River, was not established until 1669, and at that time there were still vast unpopulated areas between the western outposts of the colonies and the Connecticut Valley. Therefore, the Indians in the interior had a later contact with European culture than their neighbors on the coast.

The war between the Mohawk, on the one hand, and the Mahican and Pocumtuc, on the other, over control of the game-rich mountains between the Hudson and Connecticut Rivers existed for many years before the Europeans arrived. The Pocumtuc were closely connected with the Mahican through a common language and culture and consequently also involved in the conflict between the Mahican and the Mohawk. An incident is known in 1606 when a large Mohawk warband attacked the fortified Pocumtuc village near Deerfield.

Dutch and English

The Dutch entered the land of the Pocumtuc around 1610 and one of their first tasks was to broker an armistice between the warring parties. They wanted to trade with all of the tribes and it took them seven years to reach a fragile armistice. However, when the Mohawk realized that the Dutch and Mahicans were opening up new trade links in the valley of the Saint Lawrence River to their enemies, the local Algonquin and Wyandot , they took up arms again in 1624.

The Mahican allies, the Pocumtuc and Sokoki , were also drawn into this war. In 1628 the Mahican suffered defeat and had to withdraw to the east side of the Hudson River. The Mohawk then turned their attention to the Mahican allies and attacked the Sokoki villages in the north. The Pocumtuc were relatively well protected from the Mohawk by the Mahican villages on the upper Housatonic Rivers and in western Massachusetts.

A devastating smallpox epidemic struck all of southern New England from 1633 to 1635, killing at least 500 Pocumtuc. Around 1633, English traders from Boston and Plymouth traveled west and reached the Connecticut River. They set up their first permanent trading post south of the tribal area of ​​the Pocumtuc at what is now Windsor in Connecticut, interrupting all fur deliveries to the Dutch downstream to the lower Connecticut River.

The Dutch saw their fur trade in the region endangered and in return they fortified their trading post at what is now Hartford . The English in turn built Fort Saybrook at the mouth of the river and the Dutch were completely cut off from New Amsterdam . More English settlements followed and soon the entire valley of the lower Connecticut River was occupied by British colonists against the resistance of the Pequot .

Pequot and Wappinger war

In 1637 the Pequot were defeated by the English in the Pequot War . After that, the colonists were able to settle all of Connecticut without resistance, while the Mohegan, under their Sachem Uncas and with English support, rose to become the ruling tribe of the region. The sudden power of the Mohegan caused unrest among the neighboring tribes and in 1640 an alliance was formed between Pocumtuc, Narraganset and Mattabesic . Even so, the Mohegan defeated the Narraganset at Shetucket in 1643, subjugated several Mattabesic tribes in western Connecticut, and all had to pay tribute to the Mohegan.

The British and Dutch alike armed their allied tribes with firearms, and violence subsequently escalated in southwestern New England. The Wappingers on the lower Hudson River fled to the Dutch from the Mohawk, but were attacked by Dutch soldiers at Pavonia , who killed 80 Wappingers. This led to the outbreak of the Wappinger War (1643–1645), in which, in addition to the Wappingers, the Lenni Lenape in New Jersey and some groups of the Metoac in western Long Island were involved. The Dutch turned to the Mahican and Mohawk for help and even English colonists from Connecticut supported the Dutch. In 1645 the Lenni Lenape were defeated and suffered heavy losses. Some of them went to the Mahican while others were taken in by the Pocumtuc.

Iroquois Wars

The Wyandot or Hurons were the archenemies of the tribes of the Iroquois League with whom they competed in the fur trade. In the winter of 1648/49 they were attacked by the Iroquois and put the French, English and Dutch colonies in an uproar. The Wyandot, formerly a people of over 16,000 people, were literally wiped out by European diseases and the Iroquois. Faced with the Iroquois threat to their settlements and the fur trade, the French supported an alliance of the Pocumtuc, Sokoki, Penacook and Mahican against the Iroquois. The British were also asked to join, but they distrusted the French and refused. The new alliance initially brought an end to the Iroquois attacks because the Mohawk had to concentrate on the war against the Susquehannock in Pennsylvania . This conflict ended in 1655 and after that the Mohawk again turned violently against their enemies in the east.

The Pocumtuc were now between two fronts. In the west they had to defend themselves against the Iroquois, in the southeast they had to support the Mattabesic, allied with them, against the Mohegan. In the winter of 1658/59 there was a brief war in which the Pocumtuc sachem Onapequin led a punitive expedition against Mohegan villages. The war against the Mohawk, however, was by no means short, spreading across western and northern New England and by 1660 it had reached the Eastern Abenaki in Maine . By 1662, the Iroquois were actually at war with all of the Algonquians in New England, with the exception of the tribes in the southeast, the Wampanoag , Nauset , Narraganset, Niantic, and Mohegan.

English and French traders had armed the Algonquin well with firearms and thus enabled them to initially assert themselves against the Iroquois. The enemy war parties marched in both directions along the Mohawk Trail to raid one another. Squawkeag warriors attacked the eastern Mohawk villages in 1663 , but by then the Mahican had been driven from the Hudson Valley and taken to the Housatonic River in western Massachusetts. In the summer of 1663 the Pocumtuc suffered the worst attacks and asked the Dutch to act as peace brokers. This attempt was unsuccessful, however, and in December a large group of Mohawk and Seneca warriors raided the main village of the Pocumtuc near Fort Hill , now Deerfield in Massachusetts. The attack failed and the Iroquois lost more than 200 warriors, but the Pocumtuc now had no more able-bodied men. The Penacook and Sokoki sent warriors as reinforcements, but in the spring of 1664 the Pocumtuc finally gave up their main village.

The Pocumtuc were tired of war and asked the Mohawk for peace negotiations. The Pocumtuc allies, however, did not agree and tried by all means to prevent a peace agreement. The Iroquois negotiators were murdered en route to the Pocumtuc and several Mohawk villages were attacked by Sokoki and Mahican. As a consequence, the Mohawk launched raids on Pocumtuc villages. Squawkeag survived the war with a mixed population made up of members of the Pocumtuc, Sokoki and Nipmuck, but the remaining Pocumtuc had to flee south to the Agawam and Norvottuck or east to the Penacook.

In the meantime the English had taken New Amsterdam from the Dutch and called it New York. They concluded a friendship and trade treaty with the Mohawk, who no longer had to fear that they would be involved in a war against the English. The Mohawk's next target was the Pocumtuc's allies, the Sokoki and Penacook, in the east. At this time, the English traders broke off their relations with the Algonquians and moved to Albany in order to win the Iroquois as new trading partners.

In the winter of 1665/66, 1,200 French soldiers arrived in Canada and their attacks on Mohawk villages brought relief to the beleaguered Algonquin. The Mohawk, in turn, asked the British for help and the previously concluded trade agreement was converted into a military alliance. In the summer of 1666, the Mohawk attacks led to the Penacook, Sokoki and Kennebec . By 1668 the Penacook had fled their home in New Hampshire to the Eastern Abenaki area in southern Maine. The English, however, watched inactive and presumably delighted as the Mohawk drove the Algonquins living in southern and western New England out of the country and paved the way for settlement.

A flood of new Puritan immigrants came into the country, many of whom settled in the now nearly deserted Connecticut Valley. Around 1670, the English settlements pushed up the Connecticut River to western Massachusetts, the home of the Pocumtuc. The present-day towns of Westfield, Northampton, Hadley, Hatfield, Deerfield and Northfield emerged. The Mohawk came every year to collect tribute from the few Pocumtuc still living there.

King Philip's War

Siege of Brookfield, Connecticut in King Philip's War

The remaining in Massachusetts Pocumtuc fought in King Philip's War (1675–1676) on the side of King Philips and the Wampanoag, a loose federation of tribes in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, against the English. In late June 1675, a wampanoag was killed near the English settlement of Swansea . With that began the King Philip's War.

Despite the warnings and their majority, the English initially ran into major problems. The Wampanoag and their allies were well armed with firearms, partly by the French, but also by the English themselves. After a series of raids on settlements in southeastern Massachusetts, Philip deftly evaded the English troops in July 1675 and moved west to Nipmuck Area to continue the war in the Connecticut Valley.

Reinforced by Nipmuck warriors under Sachem Sam and Pocumtuc warriors under Sachem Sancumachu, Philip and his Wampanoag attacked Northfield and Deerfield in September, while 700 Pocumtuc wiped out an entire division of English troops near Hadley. The raids continued south and hit the settlements and farms at Westfield, Northampton and Springfield. Even the Agawam, who were always considered friends of the English, went over to Philip. At the beginning of winter the situation of the English looked critical and they were forced to hide in their forts.

But despite weapons and ammunition in abundance and a sufficient number of warriors, Philip had the same problem that all Indians lamented in their wars against Europeans: he was unable to feed a war force of this size for long periods. To avoid a famine in the winter camp at Hoosick , Philip left the camp and moved to Squawkeag with a large force . He could no longer wait for warmer weather, but launched a series of raids across southern New England in February 1676. Philip's warriors continued to starve, and when the English attacked a camp near Turner's Falls in May, they killed 400 debilitated Indians including the Pocumtuc sachem, Sanchumachu.

The alliance slowly fell apart and Philip fled with his Wampanoag to southeastern Massachusetts. During the summer months, Philip evaded the pursuit and found a hiding place at Mount Hope. In August, however, he was discovered by Indian scouts in the service of the English and 173 Wampanoag were either killed or captured. Philip narrowly escaped arrest, but among those detained were his wife and nine-year-old son. In Plymouth they were put on a slave ship and sold to the West Indies. On August 12, 1676, British troops surrounded Philips' camp and shortly afterwards he was shot by an Indian scout. His head was cut off and displayed on a stake in Plymouth for 20 years.

Colonial wars

The English and Mohawk hunted Philips allies and burned the Indian corn fields at Squawkeag. The remains of the Pocumtuc that had stayed at home had to flee. Many of them moved north to the Sokoki and with them on to Missisquoi , Cowass and Saint Francis in Québec. Others went west to the Mahican in the valley of the Housatonic River or accepted the offer of the governor of New York, who assured them asylum in Schaghticoke. Few groups of the Pocumtuc remained in the Connecticut River valley until the 19th century. Mixed with Nipmuck and refugees from other New England tribes, it soon became impossible to maintain the tribal identity. In the following years the inhabitants of Schaghticoke were called River Indians or Schaghticoke by the English .

In the fall of 1677, a Norvottuck sachem named Ashpelon undertook a series of raids on Dearfield and Hatfield. The Pocumtuc got a real chance of retaliation in King William's War (1689–1697) and in Queen Anne's War (1701–1713). In the colonial wars between France and England, the Sokoki and Saint Francis Indians, as allies of the French, brought death and ruin to all of New England. On February 29, 1704, several hundred Abenaki , Pocumtuc and members of other groups took part together with French soldiers under their leader Jean-Baptiste Hertel de Rouville in the Raid on Deerfield , partially burned the city down, killed 47 English settlers and kidnapped 122 to Montreal . Many of them died on the way.

Most of the Pocumtuc and Nipmuck, however, who lived as refugees in Schaghticoke, were mostly in the awkward role of neutral observers. Their behavior was viewed with suspicion by the English, for their warring relatives had nothing but contempt for them. So there was a constant exodus from Schaghticoke to Canada until the last 60 Schaghticoke Indians moved to Saint Francis in 1757.

Gray Lock

Gray Lock was a pocumtuc from Schaghticoke from the Waranoke tribe. After moving to the Sokoki in Missisquoi, he made a name for himself as a feared and successful leader. In the so-called Gray Lock's War (1723-1727) he terrorized the entire western New England from a hiding place near Missisquoi. The English were unable to catch him, kill him or stop his dreaded raids. After Maine 's Dummer's War ended in 1725 with the defeat of the Eastern Abenaki and a peace treaty, the English sent gifts and an offer of peace to Gray Lock, but more raids followed in response. The Governor of New York, the Iroquois and the Penobscot tried to mediate, but Gray Lock ignored them all. There is evidence that Gray Lock was absent when a peace treaty between England and France was signed in Montreal in July 1727 . But shortly afterwards he ended the war without ever signing a treaty with the English. Gray Lock was 70 years old and the highest mountain in Massachusetts, Mount Greylock, 1064 m high, bears his name.

19th and 20th centuries

Like the other Western Abenaki, many Sokoki and the descendants of the Pocumtuc fled to Canada and settled in Saint Francis and Bécancour , where they converted to the Catholic faith and sometimes took on new names from saints of the Christian Church, such as St. Germain and St. Francis . In the war of 1812, the residents of Saint Francis Indians and Bécancour provided two companies for the British armed forces and today refer to that participation as the last time they were on the warpath , although many of them participated in both world wars. After the war of 1812, parts of the eastern lands were given over to white veterans and settled, who lost their value as hunting and trapping areas for the indigenous people. Most of the tribe members moved to new hunting grounds north of the Saint Lawrence River , in an area that belonged to the Algonquin of Trois Rivières but was abandoned by them in the 1830s. Still, some families returned to their ancient homes in the United States for hunting, fishing, and as guides for surveyors and tourists.

Some Sokoki have stayed in St. Francis and Bécancour, although many groups have left these places over the years. Today, Sokoki people are scattered across New England , with many going to big cities like Boston to find work. Neither the state of Vermont nor the US has ever recognized land claims or the tribal status of the Sokoki who live there. The Sokoki, today organized in the St. Francis / Sokoki Band , filed numerous claims for ownership of parts of their old residential area, but all of them have so far been rejected. Even the application for state recognition submitted in 1982 has not yet been decided.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Details in Sherburne Friend Cook: The Indian Population of New England in the Seventeenth Century. University of California Press 1976, p. 57.
  2. ^ Pocumtuc History: Population
  3. ↑ Not to be confused with the Agawam near present-day Ipswich on the Ipswich River, MA, who belonged to the Penacook Confederation , as well as the Agawam near Wareham, Massachusetts, who lived on the Agawam River and Wareham River in southeast, MA, and the Wampanoag -Confederation (or Wôpanâak ) belonged to
  4. ↑ See also the alphabetically sorted dictionary by RA Douglas-Lithgow: Native American Place Names of Connecticut. 1909, Applewood Books reissued 2001.
  5. ↑ the neighboring Nipmuc spoke the L dialect, other tribes on the Connecticut River, such as the Pocumtuc Confederation, spoke the R dialect, so that different spelling variants have come down for the settlements and the river valley - such as Nonotuck (Northampton) and Norvottuck (Hadley, Hatfield).
  6. ^ The Westfield Story
  7. ^ Pocumtuc History: Subtribes
  8. ^ Pocumtuc History: Culture
  9. ↑ a b c d Pocumtuc History: History
  10. ↑ Evan Haefeli, Kevin Sweeney: Captors and Captives: The 1704 French and Indian Raid on Deerfield . Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press 2013. ISBN 978-1-55849-503-6 .
  11. ↑ Bruce G. Trigger (Ed.): Handbook of North American Indians . Vol. 15. Northeast , pp. 177ff. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington DC 1978 ISBN 0-16004-575-4

literature

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