The Memory of All Ancient Customs: Native American Diplomacy in the Colonial Hudson Valley 9780801464126

Table of contents :
Contents
List of maps
Preface
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
Chronology
Introduction: Politics and Society
1. Ties That Bound
2. Patterns of Diplomacy
3. Struggling with the Dutch
4. Living with the English
5. Friends and Enemies
6. In the Shadow of the Longhouse
7. Change and Continuity
8. War and Disunity
9. Disaster and Dispersal
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

THE MEMORY OF ALL ANCIENT CUSTOMS

The Memory of All Ancient Customs N AT I V E A M E R I C A N D I P LO M AC Y I N T H E CO LO N I A L H U DS O N VA L L E Y

Tom Arne Midtrød

Cornell University Press Ithaca and London

Copyright © 2012 by Cornell University All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850. First published 2012 by Cornell University Press Printed in the United States of America Midtrød, Tom Arne, 1976–   The memory of all ancient customs : Native American diplomacy in the colonial Hudson Valley / Tom Arne Midtrød.    p. cm.   Includes bibliographical references and index.   ISBN 978-0-8014-4937-6 (cloth : alk. paper)   1.  Indians of North America—Hudson River Valley (N.Y. and N.J.)—Politics and government—17th century.  2.  Indians of North America—Hudson River Valley (N.Y. and N.J.)—Politics and government—18th century.  3.  Indians of North America—Hudson River Valley (N.Y. and N.J.)—Government relations.  4.  Indians of North America—History—Colonial period, ca. 1600–1775.  5.  Hudson River Valley (N.Y. and N.J.)—Ethnic relations.  6.  New York (State)—History—Colonial period, ca. 1600–1775.  I.  Title.   E78.H83M53 2012   323.1197—dc23    2011044665 Cornell University Press strives to use environmentally responsible suppliers and materials to the fullest extent possible in the publishing of its books. Such materials include vegetable-based, low-VOC inks and acid-free papers that are recycled, totally chlorine-free, or partly composed of nonwood fibers. For further information, visit our website at www.cornellpress.cornell.edu. Cloth printing

10  9  8  7  6  5  4  3  2  1

To Lisa Darice Coley, 1957–2011

Conte nts

List of maps  ix Preface  xi Acknowledgments  xxiii Abbreviations  xxv Chronology  xxix

Introduction: Politics and Society

1

1.  Ties That Bound

21

2.  Patterns of Diplomacy

41

3.  Struggling with the Dutch

61

4.  Living with the English

80

5.  Friends and Enemies

99

6.  In the Shadow of the Longhouse

122

7.  Change and Continuity

143

8.  War and Disunity

167

9.  Disaster and Dispersal

191

Conclusion Notes  217 Bibliography  269 Index  289

210

M a ps

  1.  Native peoples of the Hudson Valley   2.  Indian peoples of Long Island and the lower Hudson Valley   3.  The middle Atlantic region in the mid-seventeenth century   4.  Indian settlements on the upper Delaware   5.  The Hudson and the Susquehanna valleys in 1771

xvi xvii 108 149 172

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P r e face

On August 2, 1762, a local official of Dutchess County, New York, recorded the oral testimony of a thirty-six-year-old Hudson Valley Indian named David Ninham. This witness, who was in all likelihood identical to the later sachem (or chief ) Daniel Nimham, described himself as “a River Indian, of the tribe of the Wappingers, which tribe were the ancient inhabitants of the east shore of the Hudson River, from the city of New York to about the middle of Beekmans Patent,” while another people called the Mahicans “were the remaining inhabitants of the east shore of Hudson River; that these two tribes constituted one nation.” Nimham said he could easily understand the language of his people’s Mahican neighbors, as it “is very little different from the language of the Wappinger tribe,” and added that he for some years had been living with the Mahicans in the Protestant mission community at Stockbridge, which was located in the northern Housatonic Valley in Massachusetts. This area was at the eastern limits of the country of the Mahicans, whose historic core territory straddled the northern Hudson Valley.1 Recorded during the closing decades of the colonial period, at a time when the Wappingers and their neighbors had been in sustained contact with Europeans for more than 150 years, Nimham’s testimony points to both continuity and change in Native American political structures and relationships in the Hudson Valley area. Nimham could evidently not remember (or at least did not say) that in previous decades such other Native peoples as the Wiechquaesgecks, Kichtawancs, and Nochpeems had occupied the east bank of the Hudson, south of his own people’s homeland. These peoples had by then disappeared as functioning political groups or organizations, but Nimham had a clear sense of current territorial and political divisions and, if anyone had taken the trouble to ask, he might have been able to account for the past and present territorial claims of the Esopus Indians living west of the Hudson and those of their northern neighbors, the Mahicans of Catskill Creek. Although not as diverse as a century before, when it had been home

xi

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to more than a dozen more Native groups, the Hudson Valley continued to house several distinct peoples in the late eighteenth century. As Nimham’s testimony further shows, the Wappinger people had strong ties to their Mahican neighbors, a relationship in many ways typical of Native political and diplomatic life in the Hudson Valley. The Wappingers and the Mahicans were separate and politically independent peoples, but in Nimham’s deposition these groups were nevertheless described as so close that they constituted one nation, a choice of words that may have reflected Nimham’s own understanding of their relationship rather than merely that of a European interpreter or scribe (as Nimham understood and could speak English). The resettlement of Nimham and other Wappingers at Stockbridge was a recent development—less than a decade old in 1762—but this movement of population was an expression of far older patterns of predominantly peaceful and cooperative relations among Hudson Valley peoples. Nor was this the first time one Valley group had afforded neighbors and friends hospitality or shelter within its territory, and even given these people a share of its lands. (As one of several signatories to a Mahican land sale to English colonists in January 1763, Nimham himself appears to have been offered land among the Mahicans).2 Daniel Nimham’s account provides a glimpse into a world of Native interactions and relationships beyond the full understanding—or even ken— not only of modern scholars but also of European officials and colonists, both in the 1760s and indeed during the entire period of sustained contact between Hudson Valley Indians and Europeans. Except in times of crisis, few seventeenth- or eighteenth-century Europeans showed much interest in the doings of the Wappingers or other Hudson Valley peoples, and they were largely ignorant of how these groups interacted and related to one another. This was true of the Dutch, who founded the colony of New Netherland in the Hudson Valley in 1624, and even more true of the English, who conquered the Dutch province forty years later, renaming it New York. In a sense, the Europeans always remained at the fringes, not at the center, of a complicated and multifaceted Indian world. In this book I reconstruct this now lost world, focusing especially on political relationships, ties of kinship, networks of exchange, and other forms of interactions among Native groups and peoples. By placing relations among Native peoples at center stage, this investigation highlights the importance of inter-Indian diplomacy and other modes of intergroup relations, and holds that these patterns of interaction formed an essential part of how the Native peoples of the Hudson Valley understood the world in which they lived. Ties to neighboring peoples were an important part of the outlook of the Indians

P r e f a c e      xiii

of the Hudson Valley, and often informed their strategic, political, and military choices. The evidence presented points toward the existence of a vast and complicated Native social and political world of diplomacy and interaction separate from the world of the European colonizers, and even from the sphere of intercultural relations created together by Europeans and Indians. Among themselves, and in relation to Indians in other areas, the Natives of the Hudson Valley maintained a coherent system of diplomatic relations based on fictive and actual kinship ties, channels of gift exchange and communication, and a series of customary practices that eased cooperative interaction. This social and political landscape was not static, but remained an important part of Native life into the Revolutionary years, and continued to function largely independently of European control. Indeed, colonial observers were only dimly aware of its existence, as they were at the periphery, not at the center, of this inter-Indian landscape. Native American history neither began nor ended with first contact with Europeans. Diplomatic, political, and social exchanges among different peoples have a long history in North America. Indeed, intercultural frontiers existed for centuries before the Europeans arrived. Relations among separate Indian groups and peoples both predated European contact and continued to be of great importance long after colonization began. In this book I do not deny the importance of the colonizers, nor do I attempt to write these newcomers out of the story (which is neither possible nor desirable); I spend considerable time discussing the changing relations Hudson Valley Indians had with both the English and the Dutch. I propose, however, that much insight may be gained from examining how Indians interacted with other Indians, not just with Europeans, which has tended to be the focus of most research on Indians in the colonial period. Hudson Valley Indians lived in a world far too complicated to be described simply as a binary juxtaposition of Natives and newcomers.3 The choice of the Hudson Valley as an area of examination is driven primarily by evidence of abundant interactions among the Native peoples in this region in the seventeenth and eighteenth century. The Hudson Valley proper contained two main linguistic-cultural groups when the Europeans arrived. Munsee speakers inhabited the entire mainland around Manhattan Island, including the present county of Westchester and northeastern New Jersey, the entire Hudson Valley north to present-day Saugerties in Ulster County on the west bank of the Hudson and to the northern part of presentday Dutchess County on the east bank, and the Minisink country north of the Forks of the Delaware River. The Minisinks should perhaps not be called

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a Hudson Valley people, but they had close contact with groups living in this area and, at least in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century, laid claims to land in the immediate neighborhood of the Hudson. They therefore appear frequently in the following pages. The Mahicans inhabited the Hudson Valley from the Munsee-speaking areas north to Lake Champlain, and also had a population concentration in the upper Housatonic Valley in present Massachusetts and Connecticut. The account in this book also includes the people of the western part of Long Island (generally believed to have been Munsee speakers). Central and eastern Long Island was inhabited by Quiripi-Unquachog and Montauk speakers, people who were culturally more closely related to populations in southern New England than to the Munsee and Mahican speakers on the western part of Long Island and the Hudson Valley proper. These Natives had only sporadic interaction with Indians living along the banks of the Hudson, and are therefore not part of this book, although their relations with their western Long Island neighbors are taken into account where appropriate. Peoples such as the Massapequas and Matinnecoks of western Long Island are thus considered to be part of the area covered by this book, while neighboring groups to their east such as Setauketts and Unquachogs lie outside of it.4 The Hudson Valley region (like any geographical focus) is, of course, a somewhat artificial category, but it is a category I believe people during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries would have understood. The Hudson Valley was divided between members of two linguistic groups, and a number of studies of these Indians have followed the linguistic divide and treated them separately, sometimes describing the lower Valley as “Munsee Country” and its inhabitant as “Munsees,” as if they were something approaching a united people. There is a great deal of merit to studying these ethnic or linguistic groups, but, as Daniel Nimham’s testimony suggests, Native diplomacy and other forms of political and social relations frequently crossed linguistic lines, and for the purposes of this investigation it is natural to group Mahicans and Munsee speakers together. The term Munsee is not recorded until the eighteenth century, when it referred to former residents of Minisink country. I use the word Munsee only to describe these and other people specifically identified in historical records as such. I refer to Indian residents of the lower Hudson Valley as Munsee speakers. Many of these people would become Munsees when they resettled in Minisink country or other areas outside of the Hudson Valley during the colonial and early republican periods. These expatriates are among the ancestors of the Munsee people that exist today.5

P r e f a c e      xv

Hudson Valley Indians also maintained ties to Natives in neighboring regions, and at times these relations could exercise a powerful influence on their political behavior. Nevertheless, it is fair to say that the peoples of the Valley had more frequent interactions and tight social, political, and diplomatic relations with their immediate neighbors than with anyone else; when Hudson Valley Indians make their appearance among Indians living in New England or other adjacent or distant areas they appear more as supporting actors than as central players in local diplomacy and politics.

Sources and Methodology European colonists and officials were normally quite unconcerned with the internal affairs of the Hudson Valley Indians, and, when they did take note of them, they often operated with vast generalizations. Late seventeenthand eighteenth-century writers, in particular, were habitually inexact, and frequently grouped all Native people in this area under the general category River Indians, a term that sometimes referred specifically to the Mahicans and at other times to Hudson Valley Indians in general. Even when this was not the case, Europeans were only rarely interested in Native intergroup relations, and then only as far as these might in some way affect colonial society. These and other shortcomings of the source base present a formidable obstacle to understanding how the Natives of the Hudson Valley related to one another, but the evidence the Europeans produced still contains much valuable information and makes it possible to describe the contours of these patterns of inter-Indian interaction.6 A central premise of many arguments I make in this book is that Indians tended to deal with the colonizers as they did any other group of people. Accounts of diplomatic relations among Indian peoples are sparse, but Indian-European relations are better documented. I therefore treat records of interaction between Natives and newcomers as reflections of practices at work in Indian-Indian affairs. At its most simple level, this means that when leaders of different groups cooperated in negotiations with Europeans, I assume that they also worked together in other arenas. Beyond that, I see the Indian custom of addressing Europeans by kinship terms as a reflection of how they conceived of ties to other peoples in general. If sachems or other leaders sought to resolve conflicts by offering Europeans gifts, I take that as evidence of how they were accustomed to conciliating Indians with comparable grievances. In some instances, I suspect that Indian-European diplomatic records have preserved watered-down versions of Native customs.

Map 1.  Native peoples of the Hudson Valley

Map 2.  Indian peoples of Long Island and the lower Hudson Valley

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Although meetings between sachems and colonial officials sometimes contain references to Indian spirituality, these religious elements were likely far more prominent in inter-Indian negotiations, where both parties could draw on shared cosmological assumptions. Although extant records are often Eurocentric, I assume that historic Indians were not. Because colonial Europeans were generally ill-informed of inter-Indian matters, the records they left behind tend to portray the actions of Indian peoples as reactions to initiatives undertaken by Europeans, discounting the importance of developments at work among Native groups. I have tried to rectify this inherent bias by discussing cases where developments that may at first glance seem to stem from European activities may equally well be interpreted as the result of inter-Indian interaction. Colonial records also have a tendency to portray Indians as easily manipulated. When Indians expressed grievances, both government officials and colonial interest groups often blamed scheming Europeans who supposedly used the Natives as dupes. If an Indian group resisted encroachments on their land, European officials and land claimants might accuse other Europeans of manipulating the Indians for their own purposes. Admitting that the Indians did feel wronged would invite uncomfortable questions not only about the legitimacy of particular transactions but about the colonial project itself. The sources thus often ascribe the motivations underlying disputes to European rather than Indian actors, but I assume that Native people operated from reasons of their own.

Plan for the Book During the first decades of trade and colonization in the Hudson Valley, the Dutch showed little curiosity about the cultures of the Natives they encountered. For that reason, no clear picture exists of the political landscape of this area until the 1640s, when the potential for conflict between locals and newcomers began to escalate. Later Dutch and English records contain more information, but are still a far cry away from providing an adequate account of Native life in the Hudson Valley. Nevertheless, the evidence indicates that the Valley Indians belonged to multiple political groups or organizations headed by generally competent leaders capable of speaking for relatively large numbers of followers. In the introduction, I provide an overview of the political and social structures of the Hudson Valley during the first century of permanent contact with Europeans. I show that in spite of upheaval caused by colonization and demographic decline, the Native political structures in this area evinced considerable stability and continuity over time.

P r e f a c e      xix

The Hudson Valley was home to several politically independent peoples, but strong ties linked these various groups to one another, forming a widespread network of diplomatic interaction. Actual kinship connections among individuals and fictive kinship connections at the collective level provided social and political glue that bound the Valley together. These kinship connections were reinforced by a shared religious-ceremonial life and widespread gift exchange networks. These connections are the topic of chapter 1. In chapter 2, I describe how Native diplomatic networks operated in practice. The Valley Indians maintained channels of communication and intelligence exchange, mechanisms for the regulation of territorial boundaries, and methods for resolving conflicts among members of different peoples. Although these peoples did not form a confederation or permanently constituted alliance, social, political, and cultural practices and customs nevertheless structured how they interacted with one another, and these interactions were predominantly peaceful and cooperative. After the commencement of Dutch colonization in 1624, the Hudson Valley Indians initially attempted to integrate these newcomers into their esta­blished system of intergroup relations. This is the subject of chapter 3. The Natives found the Europeans unwilling to adapt to local custom, and relations between Dutch and Indians were therefore often marked by conflict and violence. Nevertheless, as the Dutch period came to a close in 1664, the Hudson Valley Indians had reasons to feel that they had scored at least some victories in their dealings with these foreigners, who at times seemed as if they were ready to acquiesce to Native practice. Indeed, the relationship between Indians and colonists still fell far short of domination of the latter by the former. During the early period of English rule in the Hudson Valley, local Native populations increasingly had to acquiesce to many aspects of foreign rule, and at least acknowledge their dependence on the government of New York. How Hudson Valley Indians abandoned their claims to complete equality with the newcomers and began to describe the provincial governor as a father figure and protector is the subject of chapter 4. But the Indians’ acceptance of foreign domination was far from complete, and in reality colonial authorities often had little control over the affairs of the Natives. The English remained largely on the outside of the Native diplomatic system that continued to function in the Hudson Valley, and had little knowledge of its operation. The Indians of the Hudson Valley not only interacted with one another but also with Natives in neighboring regions, and their ties to these groups influenced their political and strategic behavior. As I will show in chapter 5,

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especially important to Hudson Valley Indians were relations to the Susquehannocks to the west and the Iroquois to the north of the Valley. The Valley Indians had a periodically antagonistic relationship with the Iroquois, but they could hope to use their predominantly friendly relations with the Susquehannocks to counterbalance Iroquois power. The importance of interactions with neighboring peoples is especially noticeable during the years 1664–71, when many Hudson Valley Indians allied with New England peoples to their east in waging war against the Mohawks and other Iroquois, a campaign in part made possible by continuing hostilities between the Iroquois and the Susquehannocks. The long period between the last decades of the seventeenth century and the mid-1700s was a time of great change in the Valley’s political makeup. These years saw widespread population movements, as Indians from other areas settled in the Valley and its immediate neighborhood and Hudson Valley Indians left their homeland for distant locales. The Native presence in the Valley was far less visible than before, especially after about 1700, when most of the peoples or political groups known from previous decades appear to have disintegrated. During these decades the Valley Indians were vulnerable to pressure both from the colonial authorities and from the powerful Iroquois (partners of the English). These developments are accounted for in chapters 6 and 7. Nevertheless, Hudson Valley Indians retained a great deal of independence from the Iroquois and the English alike, and if there were changes in the Valley’s political landscape, there was also continuity. Among those Native groups that continued to function as visible political organizations, older patterns of diplomatic, political, and social interaction continued to operate and remained an important component of the worldview of these peoples. The 1750s and 1760s constituted a period of unrest among the Indians of the Valley, and the Native diplomatic system was weakened by the ongoing imperial and English-Indian conflicts that reverberated throughout eastern North America at this time. These conflicts caused fissures both within individual peoples and in relations among formerly closely allied groups. These developments were to a large extent the result of the migration of Valley Indians to other areas, especially to the west. Migrants came into contact with and were influenced by new groups of people, and the expatriates in turn exerted influence on their compatriots at home. In chapter 8, I show that those Indians who remained in the Valley were torn between their sympathy with Indians at war with the English in Pennsylvania and other western areas and their need to maintain peaceful relations with the European majority

P r e f a c e      xxi

population at home. Faced with these pressures, some chose neutrality or alliance with the English, while others joined the war against these Europeans. As the Hudson Valley entered the Revolutionary period in the 1760s and 1770s, the Valley’s old system of intergroup relations showed clear signs of weakness, due both to the divisions created by years of conflict and to an intensified drive by the English colonizers to deprive the Natives of their land. Hunger for land on the part of the English impelled a growing number of Indians to leave their homeland; an additional pull came from their relations to other Native peoples, who were actively encouraging Hudson Valley Indians to resettle in regions to the west. But those Indians who remained in their homeland still maintained some patterns of interaction familiar from earlier decades. It was ultimately the turmoil of the Revolutionary War that destroyed the old Indian political and social landscape. Although the Valley Indians initially attempted to maintain a posture of neutrality in the Revolutionary War, they ultimately found themselves forced to side with the British and their Native allies, as described in chapter 9. The warfare ultimately forced the remaining Hudson Valley Indians to leave the last of their old territories, and the social and political climate of the new republican era no longer had any room for independent Indian peoples.

Ack now l edgments

I have accumulated many academic and personal debts during the years since I first began my research for this book. I owe a particularly large debt of gratitude to the faculty in the Department of History at Northern Illinois University. My advisor, Professor Aaron Fogleman, provided me with years of personal and scholarly advice. During the course of my studies, Aaron became not only an academic advisor but a good friend, and he and his wife, Vera Lind, let me and my wife, Shannon, stay rent free in their house for a year after I had finished graduate school and they were out of the country. This generous offer came as a sorely needed economic relief, and was made without hesitation, even though Aaron must have known than our laissez-faire approach to yard work meant that their lovely garden had regressed to a state of nature by the time they returned home. I would also like to thank Jim Schmidt and Sean Farrell for their help and encouragement, and my gratitude extends to all the faculty and staff in the History Department at Northern. The department kindly offered me a job as temporary faculty for a year while I was struggling to find an assistant professor position in a tight job market. My thanks also go to the faculty and staff in the Department of History at the University of Iowa and particularly to Jackie Rand, who always believed in my scholarship from the beginning, as well as to Stephen Vlastos, with whom I have shared many pleasant conversations since I began at Iowa two years ago. I also owe a professional debt to the many hard workers at the archival institutions where I conducted my research. My thanks go to the archivists and staff at the New Jersey State Archives in Trenton, the New Jersey Historical Society in Newark, the Rutgers University Libraries in New Brunswick, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania and the American ­Philosophical Society in Philadelphia, the New-York Historical Society in New York City, the Connecticut State Archives in Hartford, the Newberry Library in Chicago, and the Massachusetts State Archives in Boston. Among these many professionals I would like to single out Ken Gray at the Ulster County xxiii

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Archives in Kingston and Jim Folts at the New York State Archives in Albany for special thanks. I am also grateful to the Moravian Archives in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, the Massachusetts Historical Society in Boston, and the British Library in London for permission to use microfilms of their manuscript holdings, and to the staff at the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College, Illinois, for the use of their microfilm collections. I also appreciate the kind assistance of the New York State Library in allowing me to reproduce a map from their collections in this manuscript. Michael McGandy at Cornell University Press deserves special mention for helping me see this book through to publication. Michael has been professional and helpful from the start, and he has done all he can to make the sometimes painful process of manuscript revision go as smoothly as possible. The anonymous reviewers enlisted by Cornell also deserve my thanks for their constructive criticisms and suggestions. I likewise tip my hat to the sharp pen of copy editor John Raymond. I also gratefully acknowledge Ethnohistory for their gracious cooperation in letting me include in this manuscript materials that appeared in an article published in their journal: “Strange and Disturbing News: Rumor and Diplomacy in the Colonial Hudson Valley,” Ethnohistory 58:1 (Winter 2011): 91–112. My parents, Marit and Stein Midtrød, have always been a source of great support for me, and I thank my grandmother, Ingeborg Ødegaard, for passing on her love of history to me, even though she believes I came to it indirectly through her father, who passed away before I was born. Beyond my biological family, I would like to thank Mary Morse and Danette Oswood, who have been like sisters to me with their steadfast friendship. My wife, Shannon Coley, has been source of support in ways too many to name. She has patiently listened to my long expositions and monologues about Indians and Europeans in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and she has been my constant sounding board for successful and unsuccessful ideas. I have dedicated this book to my mother-in-law Lisa Coley, who welcomed me into her family as if I were one of her own and to our great sorrow passed away before this work reached completion.

A bb r e vi ations

101BC 101 Box Collection, Ulster County Archives, Kingston, New York. ALG Application for Land Grants (“Indorsed Land Papers”), New York State Archives, Albany, New York. AP Peter A. Christoph and Florence A. Christoph, eds., and Charles T. Gehring, trans., The Andros Papers, 1677–1678: Files of the Provincial Secretary of New York During the Administration of Sir Edmund Andros (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1990). ARSCM A. J. F. van Laer, ed. and trans., Minutes of the Court of Albany, Rensselaerswyck, and Schenectady, 1668–1673 (Albany: University of the State of New York, 1926). CTA Connecticut Archives, 1629–1820, Connecticut State Archives, Hartford. CM Council Minutes, 1668–1783, New York State Archives, Albany, New York. CP Council Papers (“New York Colonial Manuscripts”), New York State Archives, Albany, New York. CRP Samuel Hazard, ed., Colonial Records of Pennsylvania/Minutes of the Provincial Council of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: JO. Severns & Co., 1852; reprint, New York: AMS Press, 1968). CMG Charles T. Gehring, ed. And trans., Council Minutes, 1655–1656: New Netherland Document Series Volume VI (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1995). CMVL A. J. F. van Laer, ed. and trans., New York Historical Manuscripts: Dutch, volume IV, Council Minutes, 1638–1649 (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1974). DPD Charles T. Gehring, ed. and trans., New York Historical Manuscripts: Dutch, volumes XVII–XIX, Delaware Papers (Dutch Period): A Collection of Documents Pertaining to the Regulation of Affairs on the South River of New Netherlands, 1648–1664 (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co. Inc., 1981). DHNY Edmund B. O’Callaghan, The Documentary History of the State of New York (Albany: Weed, Parsons, 1849–51). xxv

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ERA A. J. F. van Laer, ed., and Jonathan Pearson, trans., Early Records of the City and County of Albany and Colony of Rensselaerswyck (Albany: University of the State of New York, 1918). FOCM Charles T. Gehring, ed. and trans., Fort Orange Court Minutes, 1652–1660 (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1990). GEADB Peter R. Christoph and Florence A. Christoph, eds., Book of General Entries of the Colony of New York, 1674 –1688: Orders, Warrants, Letters, Commissions, Passes, and Licenses Issued by Governors Sir Edmund Andros and Thomas Dongan, and Deputy Governor Anthony Brockholes (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1982). GENL Peter R. Christoph and Florence A. Christoph, eds., Book of General Entries of the Colony of New York, 1664–1673: Orders, Warrants, Letters, Commissions, Passes, and Licenses Issued by Governors Richard Nicolls and Francis Lovelace (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1982). HLD A. J. F. van Laer, ed., Documents Relating to New Netherland, 1624 – 1626 in the Henry E. Huntington Library (San Marino, Calif.: Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery Press, 1924). HP Correspondence and Papers of Governor Sir Frederick Haldi­ mand, 1758–91, Additional Manuscripts 21661–21892, British Library, London. Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. HSP HTR Records of the Towns of North and South Hempstead, Long Island, NY (  Jamaica, N.Y.: Long Island Farmer Print, 1896). JP James Sullivan, ed., The Papers of Sir William Johnson (Albany: University of the State of New York, 1921–39). JR Reuben Gold Thwaites, ed., The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents (Cleveland, Ohio: Burrows Brothers, 1898; reprint, New York: Peageant Book Company, 1959). KP Dingman Versteeg, trans., and Peter R. Scott and Kenneth StrykerRodda, eds., Kingston Papers (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1976). LIR Lawrence H. Leder, The Livingston Indian Records, 1666 –1723 (Stanfordville, N.Y.: Earl M. Coleman, 1979). LPC Cadwallader Colden, The Letters and Papers of Cadwallader Colden (New York: New York Historical Society Collections, 1919). MAC Massachusetts Archives Collection (1629–1799), Massachusetts Archives, Boston. Moravian Archives, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. MOA

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NJA William A. Whitehead, ed., Archives of the State of New Jersey (Newark: Daily Advertiser Printing House, 1880). NJD New Jersey Secretary of State’s Deeds (“Colonial Conveyances”), New Jersey State Archives, Trenton, New Jersey. NJHS New Jersey Historical Society, Newark, New Jersey. NNN Franklin Jameson, Narratives of New Netherland, 1609–1664 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1909). NYCD Edmund B. O’Callaghan and Berthold Fernow, eds., Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York (Albany, N.Y.: Weed, Parsons, 1853–87). NYHS New York Historical Society, New York  City. NYSA New York State Archives, Albany, New York. OBTR John Cox Jr., ed., Oyster Bay Town Records (New York: Tobias A. Wright, 1916). ROD Records of Deeds, 1652–1884, New York State Archives. VRBM A. J. F. van Laer, ed. and trans., Van Rensselaer-Bowier Manuscripts (Albany: University of the State of New York, 1907). WFP Winthrop Family Papers, 1537–1990, microfilm version, Massachusetts Historical Society.

Ch rono logy

1609:

Henry Hudson initiates permanent contact between the Europeans and the Hudson Valley Indians. Dutch fur traders visit the Hudson Valley over the next several years. Dutch traders operate the trading post Fort Nassau at Castle Island in present-day Albany between 1614 and 1617.

1624:

Dutch colonization begins as the West India Company (WIC) founds the colony of New Netherland. The first settlements are Fort Orange at the site of present-day Albany, followed by New Amsterdam on Manhattan Island in 1626. In the first few decades, the colony is dependent on the fur trade.

1626–29: The Mohawk-Mahican War. The victory of the Mohawks heralds the beginning of Iroquois ascendancy over neighboring peoples. The centrality of the Iroquois to the fur trade gives them bargaining power with the Europeans. 1639–43: Dutch demands for tribute from the Indians of the lower Hudson Valley and repeated instances of intercultural violence lead to growing tension between Indians and newcomers. 1643–45: Kieft’s War. Following a Dutch massacre of Tappan and Wiechquaesgeck refugees and the failure of a preliminary peace treaty, most Indian peoples in the lower Hudson Valley take up arms against the Dutch. About one thousand Indians perish in the conflict before peace is restored. 1645–55: Increased Dutch migration to the Hudson Valley and mounting pressure on Indian landholdings contribute to renewed tensions between Indians and colonists. Rensselaerswyck, a feudal manor around Fort Orange, develops an agricultural industry. The colony becomes an exporter of tobacco, wheat, and lumber, mainly through the village of Beverwyck (later Albany). 1655:

The Peach War. Indian warriors from several parts of the Hudson Valley clash with militiamen in the streets of New Amsterdam on September 15. The Indians burn Dutch settlements around Manhattan and take about one hundred colonists as captives. Dutch and Indian leaders resolve the crisis through a series of protracted negotiations.

1658:

Growing tension between Indians and colonists at Esopus lead to sporadic acts of violence. xxix

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C h r o n o lo gy

1659–60: The First Esopus War. Local Dutch colonists precipitate war with the Esopus Indians by attacking a party of Indian men. The Esopus Indians receive some covert military aid from the Wappingers and Minisinks, and Mahican diplomats work to negotiate an end to the conflict. Esopus leaders court Susquehannock support, but are forced to conclude a humiliating peace with the Dutch in July 1660. 1663–64: The Second Esopus War. Following renewed tensions with their Dutch neighbors, the Esopus Indians launch a surprise attack on local Dutch settlements. The Dutch gain military ascendancy by the fall of 1663, but the war lasts until the sachems of neighboring peoples negotiate a peace treaty in May 1664. 1664:

An English fleet forces the surrender of the Dutch colony to the Duke of York in August. The colonial population at the time was close to nine thousand people. Apart from a brief period of Dutch reoccupation between 1673 and 1674, the area, renamed the province of New York, remains under English jurisdiction until the American Revolution.

1665:

New York governor Richard Nicolls concludes a treaty of friendship with the Esopus sachems in October. The Nicolls Treaty forms the basis for relations between the Esopus Indians and the English for the following century.

1664–71: The Iroquois War. The Mahicans and many peoples from the lower Hudson join with Indian groups in New England in waging war upon the Five Nations, who are simultaneously at war with the Susquehannocks. This conflict is the last time Hudson Valley peoples openly resist Iroquois power. 1675–76: Metacom’s War (King Philip’s War). War breaks out between the English and Indian peoples in New England. Many New England Indians seek refuge in the Hudson Valley, particularly at Schaghticoke in Mahican country. The Iroquois intervene in the war on the English side and use the upheaval as an opportunity to assert their superiority over neighboring Indian peoples. 1675–77: English officials and Iroquois leaders create the Covenant Chain alliance at a series of treaties at Albany. The neighboring Hudson Valley peoples fall under some degree of joint Anglo-Iroquois domination from then onward. 1689–97: King William’s War. The English and the Iroquois fight the French colonists of Canada and with varying degrees of success pressure the Indians of the Hudson Valley to supply them with auxiliary forces. 1692-94: Mahican and Minisink diplomats arrange to have a number of Shawnee refugees from the Illinois Valley in Illinois resettled in Minisink country on the borders of the Hudson Valley. 1701–13: Queen Anne’s War. English officials attempt to pressure Hudson Valley peoples to supply them with auxiliary troops for a planned invasion of Canada.

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1703:

A number of Indians from Schaghticoke resettle in Mohawk country in defiance of New York authorities.

1712–14: War between the Tuscaroras and the English in the Carolinas cause disturbances among the Indians in the Hudson Valley. 1713–44: The Long Peace. The absence of imperial war means that the Indians of the Hudson Valley are free from English and Iroquois military impositions, but this also reduces their military and diplomatic value in the eyes of the English. 1720:

Armed Wappingers expel an English surveying party from their Dutchess County homeland, but following the intervention of New York authorities ultimately agree to let the survey be completed.

1722–27: Gray Lock’s War (Dummer’s War). The English of Massachusetts fight the Abenakis. Some Schaghticokes from the Hudson Valley join this conflict on the Abenaki side. 1727-28: Strong tensions develop between Indians and colonists in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Minisink sachem Manawkyhickon calls for war against the English. The Shawnees abandon their settlements in Minisink country. Many Shawnees relocate to the Susquehanna River. 1734–35: John Sergeant begins his Congregationalist mission among the Mahicans in the Housatonic Valley. The mission settlement of Stockbridge is created in 1736. Many Mahicans from the Hudson Valley subsequently resettle in that area. 1740:

The Mahicans, Schaghticokes, and Wappingers send a joint message urging the Abenakis to be neutral in case of war between Britain and France.

1740–46: Moravian missionaries are active in the Mahican village of Shekomeko in northern Dutchess County. Following the dissolution of the mission, many of the converts move to Gnadenhütten in Pennsylvania. 1743:

The Esopus Indians expel a surveying part sent by Johannes Hardenbergh to make measurements of his land patent in Ulster County, but the eventual outcome of the dispute is that Hardenbergh obtains the title to enormous areas of land in 1746.

1744–48: King George’s War. England and France go to war. Mahican leaders worry about signs of impending conflict between the English and the Mohawks and join Wappinger delegates on a diplomatic mission to New York City in the spring of 1745. 1754–63: The French and Indian War (the Seven Years’ War). The war comes to the Hudson Valley with an Abenaki raid on English settlements at the Hoosick River in August 1754. The nearby Schaghticokes defect to the French and Hudson Valley Indians come to fight on both sides in the conflict. Many Indians leave the Hudson Valley and resettle in areas farther west during these years.

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C h r o n o lo gy

1756:

Faced with persistent hostility from the local English, many Esopus Indians and other Hudson Valley peoples seek refuge among the Iroquois. The Wappingers living on the Pompton River reaffirm their friendship with the government of New Jersey. Other Wappingers under the leadership of Daniel Nimham seek refuge among the Mahicans at Stockbridge.

1758:

Wappingers and Munsees who have taken up arms against the English conclude a treaty of peace at Easton. Their leaders sign a quitclaim to their lands in New Jersey.

1760–63: As hostilities wind down, a number of Hudson Valley Indians begin to return to their homeland. The Esopus Indians who sought refuge among the Mohawks in 1756 have returned home by the fall of 1763. Wappinger and Mahican expatriates in Pennsylvania resettle at Wyoming on the Susquehanna River together with Indians under the leadership of Delaware headman Teedyuscung. This settlement soon comes under threat from English trespassers from Connecticut. 1763–65: Pontiac’s War. The Hudson Valley is not the site of fighting during this conflict, which is centered around the Great Lakes, but many Indians with Hudson Valley backgrounds fight the English in the west. 1763–75: Hudson Valley Indians face renewed English pressures on their lands. Wappinger leader Daniel Nimham unsuccessfully struggles to recover Wappinger lands in Dutchess County. Many Hudson Valley Indians resettle in Ohio country and other western areas. 1771:

The last colonial census finds that the province has a population of 167,000 colonists, a ninefold increase from the first census in 1698, when the population was 18,000. Much of the population is engaged in agriculture in the Hudson Valley and on Long Island, and in trade from the port of New York. The province is a major supplier of food and lumber to the British sugar colonies in the Caribbean.

1775–83: The American Revolutionary War. The Stockbridge Mahicans support the Revolutionaries, while many Mahicans in other areas side with the British. The Esopus Indians struggle for neutrality, but most of their people ultimately join the British alliance. By the end of the conflict, most Hudson Valley Indians have gone into exile.

THE MEMORY OF ALL ANCIENT CUSTOMS

Introduction Politics and Society

Their original homes lay far to the east, and by the early nineteenth century their memories of ancestral political divisions were growing dim. In the early 1820s, Unami-speaking Delaware informants told U.S. government investigators nothing of the Assupinks and Siconeses or other groups in the Delaware Valley who were the direct ancestors of their people. Perhaps they remembered but did not care to share, but other informants did stress the importance of older Native groups. Captain Chipps, a Canadian Munsee interviewed at Detroit in 1824, highlighted eight tribes; among these were both the Delawares and the Munsees, peoples that had consolidated from older groups during the colonial era, but also “Mo-hí-ga-ny or Stockbridge,” “Waùb-ping or Opossum,” “U-sópe-see or Esopus,” and “Scàh-ti-co.” Charles Trowbridge learned that the Mauhe¯¯ekunee, Sho¯o¯pshee, Oa¯pingk or Oppossum, and the Ska¯a¯hteekoa were “nations formerly residing upon the shores of the Atlantic.” These peoples were all former residents of the Hudson Valley. The Mo-hí-ga-ny were the Mahicans, and the U-sópe-see or Sho¯o¯pshee and Waùb-ping or Oa¯pingk were their Esopus Indian and Wappinger neighbors. The Scàh-ti-co or Ska¯a¯hteekoa were the Schaghticokes, descendants of New England refugees who had settled in the Hudson Valley in the 1670s. The Mahicans persisted as a distinct people, and while the latter three had disappeared as separate groups, some people still remembered when the Hudson Valley was their home.1 1

2       

Introduction

At least during the period of contact with Europeans, Hudson Valley Indians were part of multiple independent, and in some cases sizable, political groups, and they had effective leadership structures capable of providing a high degree of stability, even in the face of foreign invasion and war and massive depopulation. The surviving evidence points to the presence of political leaders capable of speaking for several hundred followers, even after foreign epidemics had decimated local populations. Together these leaders and their peoples created a sphere of sustained diplomatic, political, and social interaction that was surprisingly stable for almost two centuries following first contact with Europeans.

Groups and Population Numbers During the centuries before the arrival of the Europeans, Hudson Valley Indians, like their neighbors in the upper Delaware Valley, maintained a dispersed settlement pattern. Excavations of Hudson Valley sites show no evidence of the large and compact villages or towns known from Iroquois areas, and the Hudson Valley Indians lived in hamlets or even smaller settlements, consisting of a few family longhouses or wigwams. Nucleated villages existed on western Long Island, but these may postdate the beginning of Dutch colonization in 1624. These findings perhaps indicate that Hudson Valley Indians had a somewhat looser political organization than their Iroquois neighbors, but as evidence from the early contact period suggests, Native political society did not end at the purely local or family level. A 1658 description of the area around Rondout Creek (near the future site of Kingston) in by West India Company (WIC) director Petrus Stuyvesant suggests that the Esopus Indians of present-day Ulster County on the west side of the Hudson lived in small and scattered settlements at a time when these Natives had a political organization capable of causing considerable difficulty for the colonizers. Their Wappinger neighbors east of the Hudson (in present-day Dutchess County) were likewise a coherent polity in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but no Wappinger villages are known from historical records. Hudson Valley Indians maintained dispersed settlements long after the beginning of colonization. In 1679, Dutch travelers Jasper Danckaerts and Peter Sluyter observed small and scattered settlements consisting of a few houses near the Raritan River in central New Jersey, but found that the people living in these hamlets respected the authority of nearby sachems, who might live miles away. Political organizations could function effectively without compact settlements.2 The earliest written accounts of the political structure of the Hudson Valley are quite rudimentary. The first European observers simply ­categorized

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the locals according to their perceived attitudes toward the newcomers. In 1609, Robert Juet, Henry Hudson’s mate, drew a distinction between the apparently hostile Natives of New York Bay and the lower river and the friendly inhabitants farther upriver, noting the area near the Catskill Mountains as “the place where we first found loving people.” This distinction between hostile Natives below the Catskills and friendly ones above, echoed by Emanuel van Meteren in 1610, may map onto the geographical division of the Valley between Mahicans and Munsee speakers, but it is more reasonable to suppose that the reception the crew met with depended more on how they treated the locals. Initially, the coastal Natives were eager to trade and quite friendly to Hudson’s men. Trouble broke out when an exploratory party skirmished with some of the locals near the Narrows, but in the following days the crew again met people eager to trade, even after the Dutch had taken two hostages. The same held true for the downstream voyage after a stay with the Mahicans, until the killing of a Native man who was trying to steal a crewmember’s pillow near Stony Point triggered several acts of violence.3 Further Dutch trading and exploration expeditions in the years immediately following Hudson’s first visit yielded more differentiated descriptions of the Valley’s Native societies. The 1614 map Carte Figurative plotted several populations, placing the Manhattes, Wikagyl, Pacahmi, Woarnecks, and Mahicans on the east side of the river, and the Mechkentiwoom, Tappans, and Waronawanka on the west bank. The Sanichans appear to the south in present New Jersey, and the Iroquois and Susquehannocks (Minquas) are shown in their respective territories in the larger region depicted. A map of Nie Nederlandt from 1616 showed the Mahicans straddling the northern Hudson Valley. Authors writing during the first years of colonization provided further names, and some of the groups mentioned in the early documents (like the Mahicans and the Tappans) would play prominent roles in the following decades. Others, like the Wikagyl and Mechkentiwoom, never appear in later records, and their prominence on early maps may have been the result of Dutch confusion.4 Early Dutch observers produced no exhaustive description of the political landscape of the Hudson Valley. Writing in the early 1620s, Johan de Laet and Nicholas van Wassenaer spoke of a multiplicity of nations and languages, but gave no indication of the size of their populations or their territorial extent. De Laet held that chiefs or sachems were little more than heads of families, while Van Wassenaer claimed that many settlements would unite under one leader in wartime. In the 1650s, Adriaen van der Donck, who had lived in New Netherland for several years, noted multiple layers of sociopolitical orga-

4       

Introduction

nization, with chiefs of households, settlements, and tribes, but he operated with vast generalizations, and did not necessarily distinguish between Hudson Valley Indians, Iroquois, Susquehannocks, and New England peoples.5 The unclear descriptions of Native societies left by early observers have made it hard to arrive at a firm understanding of the political structures of the Valley. It is now clear that De Laet and Van Wassenaer overestimated the degree of linguistic diversity in this area and that Van der Donck was right that all Indians along the Hudson spoke some version of what he described as the Manhattan language group, which included the closely related and mutually intelligible Munsee and Mahican tongues. Subsequent scholarly explanations of political organization range from the absence of real political structures beyond extended family bands to large tribal organizations and confederacies with an essentially feudal structure spanning large parts of the Valley.6 Records from diplomatic contacts between Natives and Europeans provide the best guide to political structures in the Hudson Valley, and these accounts show no evidence of paramount leaders or large confederal structures. The first diplomatic meeting in New Netherland for which even a partial record exists (possibly held in late 1639 or early 1640) was attended by envoys from several peoples living on the lower Hudson and nearby areas who would figure prominently in Hudson Valley diplomacy, including the Massapequas, Wappingers, Tappans, Wiechquaesgecks, and Hackensacks. Treaties with representatives of multiple peoples were common in this area.7 Diplomatic records show that the Europeans dealt with leaders who spoke for quite large numbers of followers. If the Hudson Valley lacked organization beyond the extended family, Dutch officials would have found Native political life even more confusing than they actually did. Dutch and early English records reveal somewhere between twenty and twenty-five lower Hudson Valley groups involved in some aspect of diplomacy with the European colonizers in the seventeenth century. This number excludes names that appear only once or twice on early maps or in the lists of Dutch writers, but includes such exceedingly poorly documented groups and communities as the Nochpeems east of the lower Hudson and the settlement of Mareckkawich on western Long Island. Many of these named groups recur quite frequently in colonial records over several decades and, in all likelihood represented the highest level of permanent political organization known in this area.8 How Native people conceived of or related to these groups is uncertain. It is clear that the Mahicans of the upper Hudson were a permanent ethnic group that was central to the identity of historic Mahican individuals, but for

P o l i t i c s a n d S o c i e ty         5

the lower Hudson Valley this is less certain. Many names of political groups in this area were also the names of localities, and it is not always clear to what extent people identified with these communities on a permanent basis. At least some individuals could easily move from one group to another. Massapequa and Matinnecock were names of both localities on southwestern and northwestern Long Island, respectively, and of political organizations with their own leadership. But were they also the names of separate peoples? A Dutch record from 1645 suggested that the Matinnecocks had relocated or fled to Nissequogue on central Long Island, implying that Matinnecock was both a people and a place, but this assertion may simply have been a Dutch effort to impose some order on a confusing situation. In another instance from western Long Island four decades later, a son of Massapequa sachem Tackapousha was described as “formerly of Massapage and now Inhabitant upon Cow Neck,” a tract north of Massapequa. Here Massapequa is a mere place name, but while Tackapousha himself seems to have been living near Cow Neck by 1687, he was still “Sachim of Majeteeg” four years later.9 Because European records are a poor guide to historic Indians’ inner identity, I refer somewhat loosely to the political organizations in question as groups, polities, and peoples, and I do not speculate much about what the Indians felt about these communities. It is, however, clear that many members of the Esopus and Wappinger peoples, at least, remained Esopus Indians and Wappingers for quite some time when they appeared in areas other than their seventeenth-century homelands. Esopus is a location, but the name Wappinger referred specifically to a people. The Dutch named the Wappinger Creek after the people living there; the Wappingers called this stream Mawenawasigh. In 1653, a western Long Island Indian referred to Wappinger country as Opingona, which has connotations of a national homeland. The Wappinger and Esopus peoples have a documented history of well over a century following their first appearance in Dutch records in the mid-­seventeenth century, and Indians of later generations remembered them as distinct peoples even longer. Although many Wappingers and Esopus Indians would in time become part of the modern Munsee people, Esopus and Wappinger seem to have functioned much as ethnic categories along the lines of the Mahicans.10 The size of these groups or peoples is hard to determine, but some political organizations appear to have represented relatively large numbers of individuals. Figures are especially sketchy for the lower Hudson Valley but they allow for several thousand people living in this area, which means that many of the two dozen or so Native groups that appear in Dutch records must have had reasonably large populations. A modern estimate places the precontact popu-

6       

Introduction

lation of the Mahicans of the upper Hudson at about fifty-three hundred, a figure close to that asserted by late-eighteenth-century Mahican leader Hendrick Aupaumut, who wrote that “before they begun to decay, our forefathers informed us, that Muhheakunnuk nation could then raise about one thousand warriors who could turn out at any emergency.” If the warriors (fit adult men) comprised around 25 percent of the people, the Mahicans would then number about four thousand. It has been suggested that Hudson Valley Indians did not practice agriculture to any large extent, and could therefore not sustain sizable populations, but at least as far as upriver regions of the Valley are concerned, historical and archaeological data indicate that such peoples as the Esopus Indians did practice maize agriculture and produced surplus stored in corn pits. The situation in coastal areas is less clear, but the relationship between farming and demography is uncertain, and it may be, as has been argued for coastal New England, that the adoption of maize agriculture followed rather than caused population growth.11 Following first contact with Europeans, Native populations in the Valley went into drastic decline. The first large outbreak of Old World disease in this area was the smallpox epidemic of 1633–34, which struck the entire Northeast. By 1643, disease had reduced Mohawk populations by 60 percent, but even if the Hudson Valley Indians experienced a comparable decline, some of the leaders who appear in Dutch records must have spoken for hundreds of followers. In the 1650s, Van der Donck wrote that before the coming of smallpox, Native populations were ten times larger, and a quarter century later Jasper Danckaerts held that smallpox and other diseases had only left a thirtieth of the previous population numbers alive. Meanwhile, Daniel Denton, a resident of Hempstead on western Long Island, marveled how God made room for the English “by removing or cutting off the Indians, either by Wars one with the other, or by some raging mortal Disease.” The Natives saw an obvious connection between epidemics and Europeans, and some suspected the newcomers of deliberately spreading disease.12 But the Indians did not disappear, and early records hint at populations of not inconsiderable size. In 1650, a Dutch official wrote that the Matinnecocks consisted of thirty families, suggesting a population of at least 150 persons, and this man noted that much land formerly cultivated by the Natives was now vacant, evidence of significant demographic decline. During the first Esopus War between 1659 and 1660, West India Company officers estimated the number of Esopus warriors to be somewhere between four hundred and six hundred men. These figures may have included auxiliaries from neighboring peoples, as 110 Highland Indians—a term that may refer to any Indians living in or near the Highlands east of the lower Hudson but here

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probably meant the Wappingers—had reportedly joined the Esopus warriors in October 1659. Even if this was the case, however, and one allows for exaggerations by nervous Dutchmen, the Esopus Indians must have numbered at least several hundred people.13 Later figures confirm the impression that political organizations in the Hudson Valley could be fairly large. According to figures provided by Charles Wolley, Anglican chaplain in New York City from 1678 to 1680, the Tappans on the west side of the lower Hudson in New Jersey and southern New York had 150 fighting men, the Wiechquaesgecks 70, and the Minisinks of the upper Delaware Valley 300 when Wolley was in New York. These groups may then have had a population of 600, 280, and 1,200 people respectively, and their pre-epidemic numbers would be far higher. According to testimony from 1693, the Tappans and their southern neighbors the Hackensacks could together raise as many as 350 warriors, suggestive of a combined population of 1,400 even at this late date (although this figure was probably exaggerated). In May 1695, a delegation of Indians from Queens County on western Long Island told the governor of New York that they had about 40 fighting men, a figure repeated by a county officer in 1711, which may mean that their total population was at about 160 persons during these years, a clear decline since 1650, when the Matinnecocks alone may have numbered as many. If one applies Van der Donck’s earlier estimate of 90 percent population decline, the pre-epidemic Native population of western Long Island may have reached 1,600 persons. In 1708, George Muirson, Anglican minister of the parish of Rye in southern Westchester County, within the old territory of the Wiechquaesgecks, noted that “the Indians, the natives of the country, they are a decaying people. We have not now in all this parish twenty families, whereas not many years ago there were several hundreds.” This estimate must represent a population of at least 100 persons, and only a few years before the number of Indians in this relatively small area had been much larger.14

Chiefs and Followers Formal political structures were relatively uniform throughout the Hudson Valley. Early observers noted the presence of hereditary sachems, who guided their people with the assistance of a council of elders. These early accounts are quite similar to those of late eighteenth-century commentators such as David Zeisberger and Hendrick Aupaumut, demonstrating considerable stability over time and space. Sachems were not rulers in the European sense; they did not hoard wealth and had to provide for their own subsistence. As leaders lacking coercive authority, sachems had to be receptive to the views

8       

Introduction

of their followers and willing to bend to their will. Aupaumut wrote that the Mahicans obeyed the sachem as long as he conducted himself according to the demands of his office, and a good sachem was “looked upon as conductor and promoter of their general welfare” and was like “a great tree under whose shade the whole nation is to sit.”15 Hudson Valley Indians arrived at political decisions through a form of noncoercive, consensus-oriented negotiation found in many parts of the Northeast. Early Dutch observers held that the Indians either lacked government or had a political system that was democratic to the point of inefficiency. Hudson Valley leaders had to implement policies through steering, prodding, and painstakingly constructing communal consensus rather than simply commanding obedience. Van der Donck explained that the chiefs and their councils of “nobles” and elders would deliberate in seclusion before they summoned the entire community to gain its approval, without which no progress was possible. During the short-lived truce between the Dutch and the Indians of the lower Hudson in 1643, an unnamed chief explained to David de Vries that he wanted to keep peace with the Dutch, but his young people were clamoring for war. West India Company director Willem Kieft, who urged the chief to kill these militants, did not appreciate the finer points of Native politics, but his successor Petrus Stuyvesant displayed greater insight. When the Esopus sachems in sent word in May 1660 that they wanted peace with the Dutch, Stuyvesant realized that the chiefs alone could not make peace, and demanded to know whether the Esopus Indians as a collective body were earnest in this desire, as the sachems could not force the warriors to obey. As it was, the peace process could commence only when Esopus sachem Sewakenamo sent word that he had consulted all segments of Esopus society—the experienced warriors, the women, and the young men—and found them all desirous of peace. In July 1663 Hackensack sachem Oratam deferred a Dutch request for a land purchase by saying that he had to consult his young men who were out hunting, and the older warriors at any rate opposed the transaction.16 Formally constituted age and gender categories played some role in the Native political process. There was at times some level of tension between the sachems and elders and the younger men, often described by the chiefs as rash people who disregarded their advice. To what extent consultations of age groups represented a real process of negotiation is harder to ascertain, and kinship ties probably played a larger role in people’s political decisions. When he negotiated a land cession from the Esopus Indians in 1677, Governor Edmund Andros asked for the consent of the sachems, the young men, the women, and the boys, but when the grantors left their marks on the deed,

P o l i t i c s a n d S o c i e ty         9

they did so as representatives of family groups. Gender and age constituencies may have been a ceremonial formality whose importance lay in the how it cut across family ties and thus stood as an expression of a social and political unity transcending immediate kinship loyalties. According to Aupaumut, the appointment of the Mahican chief sachem was preceded by a councilor making a formal notification to all age and gender categories that made up Mahican society.17 Some evidence suggests that the Indians of western Long Island possessed a more hierarchical or authoritarian form of government than the peoples of the Hudson Valley proper. The western Long Islanders were in close contact with peoples to the east, who in some ways differed quite substantially from the peoples of the Hudson Valley. Wyandance of Montaukett, in particular, was a powerful eastern Long Island chief whose leadership fit well within an established tradition common to southern New England. Some western Long Island sachems also had kin among the eastern chiefs, and the western Long Islanders may in some ways have resembled these easterners more than they did the Natives living along the Hudson, in spite of the close contact and linguistic kinship they had with the peoples of the lower Hudson Valley. The internal affairs of the western Long Islanders are poorly documented, but a record from 1659 refers to the brother of Massapequa sachem Tackapousha as the “young sachem,” a term that echoes the institution of dual sachemship found in southern New England. Daniel Denton portrayed Long Island sachems as powerful leaders who wielded substantial authority and received obeisance and deference from their followers, but he may have based his descriptions on the groups to the east.18 Hudson Valley Indians, at least in principle, observed a distinction between civil and military leadership, a division common among northeastern Indians. Van der Donck wrote that the chiefs and councilors governed public affairs in times of peace, only consulting war leaders during hostilities. Other sources also show a generally clear distinction between sachems and military leaders or captains. Among the Delawares, chiefs surrendered their leadership to their captains in times of war, as a chief must strive to preserve peace, and could have nothing to do with war. Aupaumut described the same practice among the Mahicans. Aupaumut and other informants stressed that military leadership was based on merit, not birth. Some captains did come from prominent families, however. Osaways, a son of Tackapousha of Massapequa, appears under the name Captain Opasum or Opsven in English records, and in the mideighteenth-century Mahican society into which Aupaumut was born some captains had strong ties to elite lineages. Captain Jacob Cheeksaunhunk, who led Mahican warriors in the Seven Years’ War (1754–63), was a grandson of

10       

Introduction

Benjamin Kokhewenaunaunt, who was then Mahican chief sachem. Cheeksaunhunk’s cousin Jacob Naunauphtaunk also held the rank of captain.19 This division of leadership should therefore not be exaggerated. A record from 1657 lists a Hackensack leader named Acchipoor as “sachem and chief warrior,” and in 1680 his compatriot Hans or Perewyn described himself as “captain and Sakemaker [sachem].” In 1644 New Netherland colonists accused the sachem Penhawis of the western Long Island community of Keschaechqueereren of organizing attacks on European settlements on Long Island. When the Massapequas supplied auxiliaries for the Dutch campaign against the Esopus Indians in September 1663, their sachem, Tackapousha, negotiated the terms for their participation with the colonial authorities and may have led his warriors in the field. This may betray a form of chiefly authority close to that of societies in southern New England, where sachems did have a strong military role, but the Esopus sachems were also among their warriors during this conflict, and while some sachems might have favored peace with the Dutch, others counseled continued war.20 Although most leaders visible in European records were men, evidence of female political influence is apparent, and women may have played an important role in decisions of war and peace. The Catskill Mahicans had a female chief in 1650 and at a conference with agents from Maryland in July 1682, the Mahican, Catskill, and Esopus delegations included a female chief each. These agents had come to negotiate an end to attacks on English-allied Indians in the Chesapeake, and the Hudson Valley Indians promised to cease these strikes. As Jasper Danckaerts explained, women could spur revengemotivated warfare by pressuring men to seek revenge through conspicuous mourning over slain relatives, and ending such raids might require the involvement of female negotiators. The female Esopus chief was a woman named Mamaruchqua, and the meeting in 1682 was not the first time she had been involved in negotiations regarding Esopus hostilities abroad. When the Mohawks in April 1675 accused the Esopus Indians of attacking their French allies, “Mamareocktwe” was one of three leaders who met with the local Dutch magistracy at Kingston to answer this charge.21

Land and Authority Although some women became chiefs and diplomats, women most often appear in records relating to land transactions, both in the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries. Some records include women among the grantors, while others state that women had empowered male relatives to act in their names. Eighteenth-century accounts make it clear that men did not

P o l i t i c s a n d S o c i e ty         11

interfere in the maize planting of their women, and it is possible that women were the primary owners of agricultural land and the men (as hunters) of game-bearing woodland. But since women and men appear as co-owners of the same tracts of land, which might be woodland, agricultural ground, or both, it appears that males and females had equal rights to family lands. When Mannonckqua, a leader of the Mahican community of Shekomeko, lay on her deathbed sometime around 1680, she left instructions for both her son and daughter to receive their inherited land rights. Some decades later, a woman named Mamaskonok was “Chief owner” of lands in southern Albany and northern Dutchess counties, and both women and men—including her two grandsons—took part in a sale of land headed by her in 1714.22 Beyond the fact that both men and women held land, Native patterns of landholding are poorly understood. At times Hudson Valley Indians treated their homelands as cohesive territories that were the communal property of entire peoples. Led by their sachems, the Indians sometimes made collective cessions of land to Europeans. But in other cases the Indians behaved as if their lands were divided into parcels owned by individuals, probably family heads. This is true both of records from northern New Jersey, western Long Island, and Mahican country from the 1630s and of accounts from the following century. It is uncertain how far such parcels were the permanent property of these landholders, but individuals often sold land to Europeans. Sachems sometimes witnessed or otherwise gave their explicit consent to these sales, but this was far from always the case, and some individual land claimants objected to conveyances made by influential chiefs. In November 1684, a man named Korough protested a sale west of the Hackensack River made by the sachem Memshe of Tappan. Charles Wolley called Memshe the “greatest Sachim” in the Hudson Valley, but Korough still denied his right to this land, even though he was probably identical to Coorang or Korand, an associate of Memshe. This man was a landholder along the Hackensack River, and the limit of his lands was used as a boundary in a sale in this area in October 1684.23 It is fair to say that Hudson Valley chiefs exercised less centralized control over land than their counterparts in southern New England, who acted as the owners of communal territories and had the power to allocate land to their followers. When Esopus sachem Pemerawaghin participated in a land sale in 1684, he was merely one of several “Inferiour owners,” while three other members of his people were “Principall owners” of the land in question. In this case the sachem was evidently not considered the supreme owner of land in which he had a vested interest. In an account of his family’s past landholdings recorded in 1762, Daniel Nimham recalled that “The Indian Nation the

12       

Introduction

Wappingers” had granted a tract of land to his father, the sachem Nimham, so that the populace allocated land to the chief, not the other way around. Daniel further suggested that while land might belong to individual families, some form of communal control remained, as he remembered that his maternal grandfather Awansous left his lands to his sons Tawanout (or John van Guilder) and Sancoolakheekhing, “to whom the Body of the Nation solemnly confirmed their Fathers Lands according to the Custom of their Nation at a publick Feast, & sacrifice.” When Sancoolakheekhing died without issue, “the Nation confirmed the whole of the Lands to John Van Gilder.”24

Hierarchy and Localism Although the Munsee-speaking inhabitants of the lower Hudson were divided into multiple independent groups, the Mahicans to the north were a loosely unified political group. Aupaumut wrote that the Mahicans had one chief sachem titled Wi-gow-wauw, as well as Who-weet-quan-pe-chee, or councilors, who were the other Mahican chiefs. Aupaumut placed the center of the Mahican polity at the site of Albany, “which was called Pempotowwuthut, Muhhecaneuw, or the fire place of the Muhheakunnuk nation, where their allies used to come on any business whether relative of the covenants of their friendship, or other matters.” Earlier evidence corroborates this description of a relatively unified Mahican polity. A man called the Mahieu or Cat was captain of the Mahicans in 1626, at which time Monnemin, who gave his name to Monnemin’s Castle, a stronghold near Fort Orange (Albany), was the Mahican “general chief.” Multiple Mahican leaders appear in later records, but during the Dutch period the foremost of these was Eskuvias, usually called Aepjen by the Dutch. Aepjen and other Mahican leaders had ties to a Hudson River settlement called Schodack or Aepjen’s Island, and may have belonged to a chiefly lineage from that location. Wattawit, who succeeded Aepjen as premier Mahican chief in the late 1660s, sold land at Schodack together with his mother in 1663. Aupaumut, another associate of Aepjen, was likely an ancestor of Hendrick Aupaumut. Another Aupaumut was a chief among the Mahicans in the Hudson Valley from the second decade of the eighteenth century at least until 1737.25 But localism was a strong feature of Mahican society, and the Mahicans at Catskill sometimes pursued their own foreign policy, in some cases in cooperation with Munsee-speaking neighbors. Catskill chiefs did have close ties to other Mahican leaders. Mahak Niminaw (or Maechschapet), a sachem of Catskill in the 1660s and 1670s, formerly lived at Schodack, and Kessienwey, one of the most visible Catskill sachems in the late Dutch period,

P o l i t i c s a n d S o c i e ty         13

occasionally appears in European records simply as a Mahican. In 1662, he was one of several owners of a tract of land at Claverack east of the Hudson, although Catskill territory lay across the river to the west. And even though the Catskills often had their own diplomatic representation at meetings with Europeans, they normally did so in concert with other Mahicans. On the other hand, both European officials and Native diplomats often referred to the Catskills as a separate group, and records from the years of Dutch conflict with the Esopus Indians (who had close relations with the Catskills) between 1659 and 1664 highlight their independent activities. In 1669, during their second war with the Mohawks, the Catskills made peace independently of the other Mahicans (who remained at war until 1671), but at the same time as their Esopus friends.26 Localism also prevailed among the Mahicans living in the northern parts of the Housatonic Valley in Massachusetts and Connecticut, an area the Dutch referred to as Westenhook or Wayattano. The southern parts of the Housatonic belonged to peoples collectively known as the Paugussetts. Although little is known about Mahicans in the Housatonic Valley until the eighteenth century, at least some of the Wayattano or Westenhook Indians who occasionally appear in seventeenth-century Hudson Valley sources were of Mahican affiliation. In 1679, a group of these people sold land at Kinderhook in Mahican country—in the presence of witnesses explicitly identified as Mahicans—and in 1685 Mahican sachem Wattawit appeared as a witness to a land grant in Westenhook. In 1676, a delegation of fifty Indians from Wayattano at the head of the Stratford or Housatonic River came to see Governor Andros at Manhattan in the company of Wiechquaesgeck sachem Wessecanoe. The Hudson Valley Mahicans normally dealt with New York through the council fire (or forum for diplomatic policy discussions) tended by the magistrates of Albany, and while the situation in Mahican country on the upper Hudson was at this time quite chaotic due to disturbances caused by Metacom’s War (also known as King Philip’s War, 1675–76) in New England, this incident nevertheless illustrates how the Housatonic Mahicans (like the Catskills) at times cooperated with Munsee-speaking neighbor peoples in pursuit of their own goals.27 Like the Catskills, the Housatonic Mahicans nevertheless had strong ties to other Mahican groups. In later decades, a growing number of Mahicans resettled on the Housatonic, where, after the mid-1700s, the community of Stockbridge became the center of Mahican politics. In the meantime Housatonic Mahicans had close contacts with their Hudson Valley kin, and during the early decades of the eighteenth century people in both these areas recognized Corlair or Metoxon as Mahican chief sachem. Born around 1670, Corlair

14       

Introduction

resided near the Dutch settlement of Freehold on the west side of the upper Hudson in 1743, but between 1702 and 1738 he sold land in the Housatonic Valley in the townships of Sharon and Salisbury in northwestern Connecticut. At least from the 1720s, he was “allowed by all to be ye Chiefe Sachem of the Indians in those parts” and was explicitly identified in 1735 as “the chief Sachem of the whole Nation.” Corlair seems to have been living in the Hudson Valley at that time, and in 1736 he and other Hudson Valley ­Mahicans accompanied a delegation of Housatonic leaders to a meeting with Governor Jonathan Belcher of Massachusetts. In Boston the Housatonic speaker introduced Corlair as “the Chief Man of the River Indians our Tribe.”28 Among other Hudson Valley people, levels of authority or distinctions between superior and subordinate (or local) chiefs are poorly documented. European records show that several groups that appear as single political organizations in their dealings with Europeans had multiple chiefs or sachems. Colonial scribes did not necessarily distinguish between the hereditary sachems and other leaders such as council elders and captains. Ackhongh, a Wiechquaesgeck envoy to a meeting with Dutch authorities in 1660, was listed as a councilor, and Wessecanoe and another Wiechquaesgeck sachem named Amõne “had each of them a Counsellor with them without whom they were not willing to speak” when they met with Governor Andros in March 1676. It is not known whether one of these sachems possessed greater authority than the other, although Wessecanoe was better known to Europeans. The four Esopus leaders listed as representatives of different families who signed a land cession to Andros in 1677 may have represented four chiefly lineages. The three other sachems who also left their marks may have been junior members of these families, although up to seven Esopus sachems appear in later documents. English records show that the Esopus Indians had a single chief sachem in the eighteenth century, but it is not clear whether this was a merely a term used by the English for the most visible diplomatic spokesman of this people or an actual Esopus position of authority.29 In some cases, distinctions between chiefs can be made, but the larger meaning of such differentiation is unclear. Van der Donck wrote of chiefs of individual settlements and chiefs of larger groups, but while a single sachem might appear as the foremost spokesman of his people, it is rarely clear what authority this chief had over other sachems. Local divisions of larger groups did exist among some peoples living on the lower Hudson. The sachem Pennececk was chief of the Hackensacks living at Achter Col in the Newark Bay area, and leaders of other Hackensack localities also appear in seventeenth-century records. Such distinctions are not necessarily evidence of hierarchies where some sachems commanded subsachems. Such relations

P o l i t i c s a n d S o c i e ty         15

existed in southern New England to the east, where Edward Winslow found that the “Sachims cannot bee all called Kings, but onely some few of them to whom the rest resort for protection, and pay homage unto them.” In the Hudson Valley, however, it is not a given that the leaders who are most visible in European records (because they handled foreign policy matters) wielded authority over other chiefs in internal affairs. In some cases local chiefs rose to the position of spokesmen of larger groups only to step down again once the matter at hand was resolved. Oratam was the foremost Hackensack sachem from the early 1640s, yet during the so-called Peach War in 1655, Pennececk was the most visible chief. At the sale of Staten Island in 1657, Oratam again acted as the principal leader, setting his mark as the first of the witnesses, directly before Pennececk.30

Effects of Contact and Early Colonization Although documentary records testify to the presence of stable political groups negotiating with European officials beginning in the late 1630s or early 1640s, it is possible that these groups had emerged as a result of European activities, and that the political structure of the Hudson Valley was thus quite new. On Long Island, the situation was especially complex. On the eastern part of the island, the most notable development was the rise of the powerful sachem Wyandance of the Montauketts, who by the midseventeenth century had become the foremost chief among the indigenous communities in that area. On western Long Island, developments are less clear. Western Long Island was characterized by several small communities whose membership could be fluid. Some of these communities disappeared during the early colonial period, while others rose in their place. David de Vries counted sixteen western Long Island chiefs at a council in early 1643, but he did not make it clear whether these chiefs all represented distinct communities. Records from the 1643–45 war (Kieft’s War) show only six or seven clearly identifiable communities on this part of the island. Of these, the Massapequas, Matinnecocks, Rockaways, Secatogues, and Nayacks were prominent also in later decades, while the village of Mareckkawich disappears after 1645. Later accounts show the presence of such other communities as the Canarsees and Mericokes, but the leaders of the various western Long Island groups were often related, and their different settlements should perhaps not be understood as establishing clearly distinct groups or peoples.31 The European invasion created so much turmoil that some political reconsolidation necessarily took place, but the evidence often allows for ­different

16       

Introduction

interpretations of the scale of these changes. In the case of the Esopus Indians the sources may point to political continuity from the earliest years of Dutch trade in the Valley, or to the emergence of a new group in the 1650s. Early Dutch records and maps show two groups, the Waranawankongs and Waronecks, living at Esopus, but are unclear about the location of these people and of the place of Esopus itself. The Carte Figurative places both Esopus and the Waronecks east of the Hudson and the “Waronawanka” on the west, while De Laet in 1625 grouped them the other way around. The first known reference to a single Esopus people appeared following the Peach War in 1655, when Mohawk envoys asked Fort Orange officials to live in peace with the Indians at Esopus. Earlier that year, WIC director Stuyvesant referred to a prisoner from “Esopus or Waerinnewangh.” This may indicate the consolidation of two groups by the 1650s into the familiar Esopus Indians, perhaps as a result of pressure brought by the recent Dutch settlements in their neighborhood. Later records for the most part make mention only of the “Esopus Indians,” but in 1682 they were referred to as “Esopus Indians otherwise called Warrenock,” or “Warrenacockse,” suggesting that these were synonymous terms. If Esopus and Waronecks were interchangeable terms, this group has a documented history back to 1614, and the Waranawankongs may have been a local community of Esopus affiliation or a neighboring group that became absorbed by an enduring Esopus organization. Alternately, these terms could have been just different names for the same people.32 As Native populations steadily declined, some groups must have reached a point where they were no longer viable as independent political actors, at least not in relations with the Dutch, the Iroquois, or other great powers. Mergers and formations of new groups may have resulted, but since these new groups were similar to their antecedents in size and organization, the overall political system of the Valley remained largely the same. Most groups identified in early Dutch records disappeared during the early years of colonization; among the peoples listed on the 1614 Carte Figurative, only the Mahicans and Tappans appear in references postdating the beginning of Dutch colonization by more than a few years. The Pachamis, who also appear on this 1614 map, have been somewhat uncertainly assumed to be identical to the people later called Tankitekes under the sachem Pacham.33 Although the absence of clear reference to such groups as the Hackensacks and Wappingers until the 1640s may mean that these organizations were recent configurations, it was more likely a reflection of the fact that Dutch relations with Hudson Valley Indians had until then mostly remained limited to trade and occasional land purchases. The higher levels of Native sociopolitical organization may only have been in operation when strictly

P o l i t i c s a n d S o c i e ty         17

needed. Most of the time, the local level of politics sufficed; for some tasks, such as foreign relations, higher levels of organization were needed. For that reason, Dutch officials may not have recorded the presence of large Native political organizations until the late 1630s and early 1640s because until that time they had had limited interaction with that level of Native political integration. The Dutch showed little interest in Native political structures and for a long time saw themselves not as colonizers but as traders and visitors on the periphery of the Native world. Not until Director Willem Kieft in 1639 decided to levy tribute in maize and wampum on Indians on the lower Hudson did such familiar groups as the Wappingers and Wiechquaesgecks suddenly appear in Dutch accounts. This aggressive policy called for the mobilization of the highest level of Native political organization, and mounting tensions between Dutch and Natives in the following years ensured its continued visibility.34 Unlike other Native polities in the Hudson Valley, the Mahicans appear with relative frequency in early Dutch accounts, but this does not neces­ sarily mean that this group was older or more stable than other peoples in the area. The 1614 map shows the Mahicans, Tappans, and Pachamis in their respective territories, and the two latter groups received brief ­mention by Dutch observers in 1624 and 1625, only to disappear from the records until the 1640s. This may mean that the Mahicans were the Valley’s only lasting political organization predating colonization. More likely, the record reflects the fact that early Dutch visitors had more contact with the Mahicans than with other any Hudson Valley group. According to Mahican traditions recorded by Moravian missionary John Heckewelder in the late eighteenth century, the newcomers negotiated a treaty that apparently allowed the Mohawks to cross Mahican territory and trade with the Dutch. Following this agreement, the Dutch erected the trading post of Fort Nassau on Castle Island in modern Albany, within Mahican territory. This post remained in operation between 1614 and 1617. When the West India Company commenced colonization in 1624, they established Fort Orange at the future site of Albany, settling colonists around this post. The Dutch were thus familiar with the Mahicans from New Netherland’s earliest history, and the war between the Mohawks and the Mahicans in the latter half of the 1620s ensured that Mahican political visibility remained high, especially because the commander of Fort Orange made the fatal error of intervening in the conflict on the Mahican side, obliging his superiors to negotiate a settlement with the Mohawks. Until the Mohawk victory in 1628 or 1629, the war crippled the fur trade, ensuring continuing Dutch concern for Mahican affairs. Given the general Dutch lack of interest in Native politics, the lack of evidence of

18       

Introduction

other large political organizations is not evidence of their absence, and the Mahicans, too, only make sporadic appearances in the records from the end of the Mohawk war until the 1640s.35

Stability in a World in Turmoil In spite of signs of upheaval and reorganization, the lengthy careers of a number of known Native leaders hint at considerable political stability after the beginning of colonization. Given the turmoil wrought by foreign disease and European invasion, it is not a given that sachems should be able to stay in office for several decades. Aepjen first appeared as Mahican sachem in 1645, and was still leader of his people in 1667. Wattawit, his successor, likewise had a long term in office, and is known from sources between 1663 and 1686. Oratam of Hackensack was the foremost spokesman of his people for at least twenty-three years following his first recorded appearance in 1643 (he had died by October 1667). Even the Esopus Indians, who suffered defeat in two wars against the Dutch, had continuity in their leadership; Sewakenamo was still one of their sachems in 1681, having first appeared in European records in 1658. But no one could match Massapequa sachem Tackapousha, who was the foremost sachem on western Long Island from 1645 until at least 1697. His health was failing by 1695, when a delegation of Queens County Indians told the governor of New York that “Our old father Tapushe” was ill and could not come to see him, but he still managed to oversee a sale of land at Fort Neck in June 1697.36 Little information directly documents the succession of sachems among Hudson Valley Indians, but transitions from one chief to another do not appear to have caused instability. Scholars have described both Mahicans and Munsee speakers as matrilineal groups in which sachemships descended in the female line. Aupaumut explained that when the Mahican chief sachem “is fallen by death, one of his Nephews, (if he has any) will be appointed to succeed his Uncle as a Sachem, and not any of his sons.” But inheritance from father to son was certainly not unheard of in the Hudson Valley, and in practice bilateral inheritance may have been the norm, particularly on western Long Island. Tackapousha was son of Penhawis of Keschaechqueereren and probably a nephew of Mechowodt of Massapequa, the cousin of Penhawis. He became the heir of both men. In most instances, the records merely show the disappearance of one sachem and the first appearance of another. Sometimes the relationship between these leaders is clear. Corruspin first appears as representative for his brother the chief of the Haverstraws in March 1660, and then shortly thereafter as chief himself. Assuming that

P o l i t i c s a n d S o c i e ty         19

these brothers had the same mother, this would be a clear example of smooth matrilineal succession, and the sachemship at any rate remained in the same family. Corruspin was still “Sackima van Haverstroo” in April 1671. In some cases, sachems may have appointed their own successor from relatives with hereditary right to the sachemship, as indicated by writer Thomas Budd. In February 1664, Hackensack sachem Oratam designated Hans (Perewyn) as his successor, though the relationship between these two men is not clear.37 In some cases, continuity in leadership found expression in new sachems adopting the names of their predecessors. This practice is especially well documented among the Esopus Indians. Calcop, recorded as a newly named Esopus sachem in 1670, was obviously not the chief of the same name who appeared in 1658. There were at least three leaders with the name Ankerop. The first of that name appears in records between 1669 and 1709, and in 1711 Tackawaghkin or young Ankerop declared to the magistrates of Ulster County that he desired from then on to be known by the name of Ankerop. In 1746, Esopus leader Monhaw appeared under the title “the Right Ancrop,” as well as “Moonhaw or Ancrop.” Since other Munsee speakers had unique names, and would not allow the names of the dead openly to be spoken (like Indian people of both the Delaware and southern New England), the appellations of these sachems may be titles rather than personal names. Successive Mahican leaders were called Aupaumut and multiple Wappinger leaders appear under the name Nimham. Stephen Cowenham, an active Wappinger leader in the mid-1760s, was the son of Cowenham (or Cowenhahum) whose mark appears on a deed to land in Dutchess County in 1702. It is unknown whether Hudson Valley Indians, like the Iroquois, ceremonially raised a new sachem into the name and place of the deceased, although Tackawaghkin’s formal declaration of his name change indicates some ceremonial significance. On the other hand, some Natives in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries used the names of their fathers as patronymics, a ­practice documented on western Long Island and the adjacent mainland from the 1690s and among the Wappingers from the mid-1700s. The existence of this practice complicates the efforts to trace Native individuals over time.38

Diversity and Unity Indians in the Hudson Valley during the Dutch and early English periods of New York history were part of several independent and in many cases relatively large political groups, headed by sachems and other skilled leaders. Much of the available evidence points to great continuity in political culture, even in the face of foreign invasion and large-scale depopulation.

20       

Introduction

Local autonomy was the normal state of affairs, and this was true even among the relatively unified Mahicans, but this in no way means that the Valley was a mere collection of disconnected political groups. Hudson Valley Indians were bound together by intricate bonds of actual and fictive kinship, reinforced by political and ritualistic practices, forming a coherent and widespread diplomatic network. These ties often crossed cultural and linguistic lines, making Mahicans and Munsee speakers part of the same sphere of sustained diplomatic and political interaction.

Ch a p te r 1

Ties That Bound

Striking under cover of darkness, the attackers took the Indians by surprise. On the night between February 25 and 26, 1643, West India Company soldiers and New Netherland citizen volunteers massacred 120 Wiechquaesgeck and Tappan men, women, and children camping at Pavonia in present-day New Jersey and near New Amsterdam on Manhattan Island. The Natives were refugees seeking shelter from enemy war parties, and WIC director Willem Kieft now felt he had a chance to avenge recent killings of Dutch colonists by individual Native men. Dutchmen David de Vries and Cornelis Melyn recoiled at the scenes of terror that followed, as children were snatched from their mothers’ breasts and hacked to pieces in front of their parents.1 A depressingly familiar example of European conduct in North America, this atrocity shows more than the Dutch will to result to brutal force; it also sheds light on connections and ties among Native peoples, for anger at these atrocities would soon spread throughout the Hudson Valley and set the Dutch colony aflame. Although the political structure of the Hudson Valley consisted of multiple independent political organizations, the Valley was no mere collection of disconnected groups. Strong and complex ties bound these peoples to one another. Kieft and other Dutch officials assumed that they could treat the various Native peoples in isolation from one another, that violence directed against any one group could effectively be contained. In February 1643 the 21

22    

C h a pt e r 1

Dutch authorities were determined to punish Indians who (in their view) had injured their colonists. They had no intention of starting a large-scale war, however, and Kieft was careful to reject calls to launch a simultaneous strike against the Indians of western Long Island, as these people had never harmed the Dutch. Kieft apparently assumed that a strike against one group of Natives would be of little concern to its neighbors. Yet in 1643, Dutch violence proved impossible to localize. In spite of preliminary treaties of peace, the situation soon escalated and retaliatory violence spread throughout the Valley. By August, the Wappingers had begun attacking Dutch vessels on the Hudson, to the resentment of one Dutch observer, who felt that these people had no business interfering in Dutch difficulties with other Native groups.2

Real and Fictive Kin Indicative of the ties that bound the Hudson Valley together was the apparent ease with which some individuals could move among distinctive political organizations, at various times either appearing as members of different groups known to have been largely independent of one another or as sellers of land within the territory of other peoples. A few examples will here suffice. In 1649, the leader Seyseykimus or Sesekemu appeared as chief and participant in a land sale in Wiechquaesgeck territory, but before that he had represented the Tappans at the 1645 peace treaty with the Dutch, and he may be identical to Seysey, a western Long Island leader known from land transactions between the 1630s and 1650s. If so, Seyseykimus would not be the only person involved in land affairs both in Wiechquaesgeck country and on western Long Island. A man named Pathung sold land in southern Westchester County together with a Wiechquaesgeck sachem in 1666. He also participated in land sales in this area in the 1680s, in one case as an associate of Wiechquaesgeck sachem Wessecanoe, but in 1685 he served as a witness when Tackapousha and other western Long Islanders authorized Suskaneman of Matinnecock, Tackapousha’s son Samous, and a man named Quarapin to dispose of land at Oyster Bay. Pathung witnessed a sale of Massapequa land in 1694, but two years later he again sold land in Westchester County, and participated in further land sales in that area during the first years of the eighteenth century. Wessecanoe first shows up as a Wappinger delegate at the peace treaty between the Dutch and the Esopus Indians in 1660, and at the end of his documented career, in 1690, he was also one of two sachems of the Kichtawancs, neighbors to the Wiechquaesgecks. Memshe, who in 1670 witnessed the renewal of the treaty concluded between Governor Richard Nicolls of New York and the Esopus Indians in October 1665, later went

T i e s T h at B o u n d      23

on to become sachem of Tappan. He may also have been the Minisink chief recorded under the name Memmesame in 1664, and in 1695 he was again associated with that people as he participated in a sale of land to Arent Schuyler together with the sachem Iaiapagh and other Minisinks.3 Identifications of individuals are sometimes based on conjecture, but may nevertheless reveal telling patterns. It is unclear whether an Esopus Indian identified as Captain Jan Bachter was identical to the Catskill Mahican leader Onekeek (who was brother to the sachem Mahak Niminaw) called Jan de Backer by the Dutch, but the former appeared as owner of land in Mahican territory in northern Dutchess County, east of the Hudson, in January 1683. Although other Esopus Indians had land rights at Catskill (west of the Hudson), Jan Bachter was one of the few members of that group known to have sold land east of the river. Even if he was not identical to Onekeek, this is a sign that he had ties to the Mahicans. It is possible that the purchasers simply acquired a deed from a man with no right to sell, but then it is peculiar that they made sure to record Jan Bachter’s Esopus background, which left this transaction open to challenges from anyone familiar with the Valley’s Native territorial boundaries. Many deeds make no mention of the group affiliation of the grantors.4 The movements of these and other Native individuals among groups and territories in the Hudson Valley were probably the result of kinship connections and intermarriage among members of the Valley’s different societies. The mobility of many leaders and individuals was likely the product of people having hereditary rights to land and leadership in several locations and among several groups of people. To some extent, it was also the result of migrations of displaced people, as many Hudson Valley Indians moved westward into parts of New Jersey in the latter half of the seventeenth century. Wappinger sachem Nimham may have been a displaced leader from western Long Island who settled in Wappinger country east of the Hudson via northern New Jersey, but since a record from 1764 described Nimham as “Son of Sackoenmack of Dutchess County,” this is not clear. It is at any rate unlikely that host groups would grant immigrants full rights to land (and particularly to leadership positions) unless these peoples already had strong ties to one another. If the identification of Wessecanoe as a Wappinger delegate in 1660 is correct, he moved south, toward the center of colonial settlement. The Wappinger homeland did not see the arrival of European colonists until the late 1680s. Presumably, kinship to a Wiechquaesgeck chiefly lineage led to his accession to this sachemship. The European invasion and the increased mortality rate that went with it may have made movements of such leaders more frequent, but without existing kinship ties, they would probably

24    

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not have taken place. One may further assume that Wessecanoe appeared as sachem of the Kichtawancs because he also had relatives among that group. His family certainly had ties to the leaders of that people. In 1682, both Kichtawanc sachem Emient and Wessecanoe’s brother Conarhande served as witnesses to a sale of land in present-day Westchester County, and Emient may have been identical to Emmen, a Wiechquaesgeck sachem mentioned in 1676.5 Such ties of kinship explain why isolated incidents of Dutch violence reverberated throughout the Valley, mobilizing people who did not seem to be directly affected themselves. Apart from sheer revulsion at the Dutch atrocities in February 1643, as well as the possibility that some Natives made preemptive strikes against future Dutch aggression, the large number of people killed meant that many of the dead had living relatives among other Hudson Valley peoples. These relatives would be under obligation to seek revenge, and since warfare led to further loss of life, the conflict tended to spread. The Dutch were apparently surprised when the Wappingers suddenly joined the fray, but if many of these people had kin among the Wiechquaesgecks, who were hard hit by the Dutch, their involvement in retaliatory strikes was almost a given. Kieft did, in fact, have an opportunity to stop the spread of violence, and at a peace conference in April 1643 he gave Native delegates presents to compensate them for their losses. To reconcile the parties involved, these gifts would have to be redistributed among the relatives of all the dead. According to David de Vries the Natives did not feel that the Dutch offered as much as they should, and went away grumbling that the director had spoiled an opportunity to bury the memory of the massacre permanently.6 Little direct documentation exists for kinship relations among members of different Hudson Valley groups, but some circumstantial evidence is available, and among other North American peoples, kinship was crucial to people’s treatment of strangers and other outsiders, and consequently to foreign affairs. Strangers were potentially dangerous people. Before friendly relations with them could be established and maintained, they must somehow be made safe. Making outsiders kin was a primary way of making them friends and allies. Once related by marriage and kinship, people belonging to different groups were bound by reciprocal obligations to one another. A remark made by a western Long Island leader suggests that Hudson Valley Indians adopted this approach as a way of dealing with the first Europeans. In March 1643 this chief reminded De Vries that when the first Dutch traders arrived, the Natives had taken care of them and given them their daughters to sleep with. Consequently, they were now kin, and “there roamed many an Indian begotten by a Swanneken [Dutchman].” The Dutch now had obligations

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to their Native kin, but had shown themselves so villainous “as to kill their own blood.” It seems reasonable that intermarriage could function to create similar bonds also among Hudson Valley Natives. According to Van Wassenaer, Native itinerant traders engaged in middleman trade between the Dutch and other Indians often took wives at different locations along their trade routes, possibly to ensure that people would receive them as kin wherever they went.7 Clans or phratries may have added another layer to the bonds connecting individuals belonging to different Hudson Valley groups. Clans or phratries are groups of people having a common relationship on the basis of their shared spiritual association with a particular animal. People sharing the same totemic animal considered each other relatives, though not necessarily on the basis of real or perceived common descent. It is well known that the Munsees and the Mahicans had a functioning clan system from the late eighteenth century onward. According to Aupaumut, the Mahicans were divided into the Bear, Wolf, and Turtle clans, with the Bear clan being the clan of the chief sachem. The Munsees, like the Delawares, likewise had three clans, but substituted Turkey for Bear. Seventeenth and early eighteenth century records do not directly document the existence of clans in the Hudson Valley. Etowohkaom, the Mahican man who was presented as one four “Indian kings” at the court of Queen Anne in 1710, was painted with a turtle as his clan symbol, but since the visit of these alleged kings was orchestrated by New York officials who valued political theater over ethnography, this is hardly solid evidence. Native animal figures on deeds may be clan symbols, but a wide variety of marks appear, including a horse or deer left by a Mahican in 1717. Turtles or tortoises were quite common Native marks, appearing also in jewelry and rock art dating from early contact and precontact times, but the turtle is a well-known religious symbol from Native creation myths.8 The first clear evidence of clans among Hudson Valley peoples comes from a January, 1746 account of a meeting between Orange County officials and a group of Indians from the town of Cashetunk or Cochecton on the upper Delaware. These people consisted of two clans, Wolf and Turkey, and “were then debating out of which Tribe a Sachim should be chosen to govern the Whole.” That these Indians had only two clans—rather than the tripartite division found among Munsee people in later years—may be because they were Wappinger expatriates from the Hudson Valley. They may well have had three clans in their homeland. Given the general lack of Dutch and English interest in the social structures of Hudson Valley Indians, the Native clan system was likely far older than what the sources reveal.9

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Clans would tend to facilitate interaction among members of different peoples. Dealing with people from outside of local communities was an important function of clan organizations. Native people did not necessarily identify themselves as Turtles or Wolves on a daily basis, but when they encountered strangers or outsiders these clan affiliations assumed greater importance. When visiting a distant settlement, a Turtle could expect to be received as a relative by members of the Turtle clan there, so that diplomats or emissaries could always expect to receive hospitality and help from members of their own clans. Additionally, clans tended to be exogamous, so that if members of one clan dominated an individual Native settlement, people would have to seek spouses elsewhere, which would further encourage the movement of individuals throughout the Hudson Valley, creating new bonds of kinship among different peoples.10 Especially important to diplomatic relations among the various Native political organizations in the Hudson Valley were kinship ties among members of chiefly lineages. According to Van der Donck, the members of leading families were proud of their status and rarely married below their station. The children of sachems would therefore often have to find marriage partners from chiefly families of neighboring peoples, and such matches would serve to strengthen and renew alliances. Colonial officials occasionally recorded kinship relations among chiefs. Dutch records testify that a brother of Esopus sachem Sewakenamo was sachem of the Haverstraws in 1664. The Haverstraw sachems were among the many Natives chiefs who worked to negotiate an end to the wars between the Dutch and the Esopus Indians in the 1660s. In March 1664, Sewakenamo’s brother assured a Dutch officer that the Esopus sachems wanted peace with the Dutch. In June1660 a Dutch official on the Delaware River reported that the chief sachem of the Susquehannocks was on his way to Stuyvesant to mediate between the Dutch and the Esopus Indians. Traveling with this chief was the sachem of Hackensack, and in his company was the brother of Esopus sachem Premaeker, who had recently been killed by Dutch troops. It is not clear whether Premaeker’s brother was a Hackensack or an Esopus Indian, but given the extent to which Hackensack leaders labored to make peace, it is not unlikely that they had kin among the Esopus chiefs. It is safe to assume that sachems generally had extensive kinship connections, not the least because while Hudson Valley Indians were mainly monogamous, sachems often had two or more wives.11 On western Long Island, the leaders of several communities were related to Massapequa sachem Tackapousha. As son of Penhawis and nephew of Mechowodt, the most influential leaders on western Long Island in the 1630s, Tackapousha had a strong family background when he first appeared

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as spokesman for the Massapequas and neighboring western Long Island groups at the 1645 peace treaty. In 1656, Tackapousha appeared as recently chosen chief sachem of the Massapequas, Matinnecocks, Secatogues, Mericokes, Rockaways, and Canarsees. No further mention is made of this exact status, but he remained the foremost leader on western Long Island for the remainder of the century. In the 1670s, Tackapousha’s son Monuguamy was sachem of Rockaway, and other sons of the Massapequa sachem evidently became sachems of the Canarsees and Mericokes.12 Tackapousha’s family had multiple ties to neighboring groups. At least from 1659, Tackapousha shared the sachemship with his younger brother Chipyconnaw, more commonly recorded as Chippy or Chepous. By 1683 Chippy was married to a sister of Matinnecock leader Suskaneman (or Runasuck). Such relationships explain the claims of Tackapousha’s kin to Matinnecock lands. An agreement made in 1683 stipulated that upon the death of Matinnecock leaders Suskaneman and Werah, any unsold Matinnecock lands would be divided between Suskaneman’s eldest son Surukunga and the son of Chippy and Suskaneman’s eldest sister. Both Chippy and his son William Chippy had by 1689 also become two of the “Cheiff heads” of the Secatogues, who lived directly east of the Massapequas. These men were close associates of Weamus, who was sachem of Secatogue during the late seventeenth and first years of the eighteenth century. Chippy was dead by August 1696, when William Chippy was described as “son and Heire of Old Chippy deceased.” Joseph Chepous, who participated in sales of Secatogue lands in 1705, was presumably a son of William Chippy.13 As European records suggest, western Long Island sachems had widespread kinship connections through intermarriages with other chiefly families. In 1666, Quashawam, daughter of Wyandance of Montaukett, testified that both Tackapousha and her father were relatives of Matinnecock sachem Asharoken or Assawkin, as was Quashawam’s mother. These leaders were also related to Nasaskonsuk, sachem of Nissequogue on the north shore of central Long Island. In addition to family relations among the various western Long Island leaders, kinship thus connected these sachems to non-Munseespeaking chiefs to the east, and perhaps to families throughout the island.14 Dealing with strangers, and by extension foreign policy, were among the foremost tasks of the sachems. Foreign emissaries and other strangers were conducted to the house of the sachem, where they lodged and were entertained during their stay. Henry Hudson had received offers of such hospitality when he arrived in Mahican country, and apparently disappointed a local sachem when he insisted on sleeping on his ship. When David de Vries went to negotiate with the Indians of western Long Island in 1643, the Natives

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took him to the house of Penhawis, where he rested from the fatigue of his journey. Aupaumut wrote that “whenever strangers arrived at their fireplace they are directed to go to Sachem’s house. There they stay until their business is completed.” Such chiefly hospitality was essential to smooth diplomatic relations, and Zeisberger explained that the sachems and councilors took care that visitors were well entertained, as doing so would ensure that they had a good reputation among other peoples.15 Chiefs and their kin loom so large in accounts of Native-European diplomacy that it is tempting to see foreign affairs as a game played among leading families. Dutch and early English records contain frequent references to relatives of prominent Hudson Valley sachems acting as diplomatic envoys to Europeans or to other Indians, either alone or as part of the retinue of the chiefs. In July 1663, Sauwenaroque, sachem of Wiechquaesgeck, brought his brother along to a meeting with Dutch officials, and in March the following year the sachem’s brother appeared in his place. In October 1679, Jasper Danckaerts and Peter Sluyter met Tantaqua or Jasper, the brother of a Hackensack sachem, who was going to Long Island to meet one of the chiefs there. Tantaqua was a minor Hackensack leader, mostly known from deeds to land in New Jersey, but he was confident that other Indians would not harm the Dutchmen when they had befriended the brother of a sachem. Members of chiefly families were effective ambassadors because of their close relationship to the sachems they represented. They were also likely to have kin among allied chiefs. Relatives of sachems might one day become sachems themselves, so that involvement in diplomacy was part of their training for leadership.16 Although they may have been outside of normal lines of succession among people generally understood to have been matrilineal, the sons of Hudson Valley sachems often participated in diplomatic affairs. Among matrilineal peoples, sons are sometimes described as members of the lineages of their mothers, and even as a kind of nonrelative of their fathers. Hudson Valley sachems, however, often groomed their sons for public affairs. Several sons of Esopus sachems took part in the later renewals of the Nicolls Treaty of 1665. Sachemoes, son of Catskill sachem Kessienwey, attended a meeting with Dutch officials in November 1663. On his visit to a sachem on Long Island, Tantaqua brought with him his nephew, a sachem’s son. Sachem’s sons were close to the chiefly lineages and may have had relatives (and leadership rights) among other peoples. Some sachem’s sons did become sachems. An Esopus sachem named Bywackus or Bowaskus, known from the early 1670s, was a son of Sewakenamo. Although Europeans observers might mistake nephews for sons, there are good reasons why a sachem’s son might become a sachem himself. The several chiefly lineages of the Esopus Indians were likely to

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intermarry, and the sons of sachems might therefore inherit sachemships through their mothers. Chiefly succession may also have been adjusted if the female line went extinct, a clear possibility given the epidemiological effects of colonization. The active role played by sachems’ sons highlights the importance of chiefly families to Indian intergroup relations.17 At the level of sachemship, alliances and ties among groups or individual leaders occasionally found symbolic expression in one person assuming the name of another. In 1626, a chief from the lower Hudson made an agreement with WIC secretary Isaack de Rasiere to handle Dutch negotiations aimed at opening trade relations with the Susquehannocks. To symbolize his relationship to the Dutch, this leader assumed the name Isaack during his mission to Susquehannock country. Tackapousha first emerged in Dutch records under the appellation Meautinemin, which may have been a variation of the name of Miantenomie (Miantomino), a noted Narragansett sachem. Both these men used similar short forms (Antinome and Antinemo) of their names. In 1642, Miantenomie had been west to the Hudson Valley trying to enlist the peoples there in an anti-English coalition. Thirteen years later, Tackapousha recalled that Penhawis had charged him to make peace both with the Dutch and the Narragansetts, which shows that his family had some dealings with Miantenomie’s people. In the Hudson Valley itself, Hackensack sachem Hans apparently used the name of Esopus sachem Sewakenamo in land conveyances dating from the 1670s. Esopus sachem Calcop had the same namesake as one of two Connecticut Valley Indians executed for the murder of an English soldier at Albany in February 1673. This may be coincidental, but one of the men hanged at Albany was the son of Pocumtuck sachem Chickwallop, and the Pocumtucks and the Esopus Indians had been part of the same anti-Iroquois military alliance in the late 1660s.18

Kindred Peoples Beyond actual ties of kinship or clan affiliation among individuals, Native groups tended to see each other as fictive or metaphorical kin at a collective level. The practice of different people relating to each other in kinship terms, so that one people might be brother, nephew, or uncle to another, appears to have been almost universal in Native America. This custom is, however, poorly documented in Hudson Valley sources, particularly for the Dutch period. Scribes rarely quoted the speeches of Native diplomats verbatim, so kinship terminology often went unrecorded. In August 1663, Mohawk delegates told the court at Fort Orange that the Mohawks, the Catskill Mahicans, and the Dutch were all in one league as brothers. Catskill sachem Kessienwey

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referred to the Dutch as brothers in November of the same year. Records of negotiations between the Dutch and the Indians contain promises and offers to live together like brothers, a term that reflects Native kinship terms, although Europeans may have used brotherhood as a metaphor for peace. At any rate, the Hudson Valley Indians would be unusual if they did not conceive of alliances and relations among different peoples in terms of kinship. Documents from the English period often record the use of kinship terms, most often in Native-colonial contexts, but on occasion also among different Indian groups.19 These metaphorical kinship ties were based on historical or mythical relationships among different peoples. Hendrick Aupaumut recalled that the Mahicans had saved the Shawnees from the Iroquois, who were ready to “swallow” them, and in gratitude the Shawnees acknowledged the Mahicans as their elder brothers. Aupaumut’s explanation recalled the role of the Mahicans in settling a number of Shawnee refugees from the Illinois Valley in Minisink country in the 1690s, and the Shawnees likewise acknowledged their Minisink hosts (and later their Munsee successors) to be their elder brothers. The Munsees and the Mahicans, on the other hand, were simply brothers. The Munsees also were brothers of the Delawares, while the Mahicans (like many peoples) acknowledged the Delawares as their grandfathers, at least in the latter part of the eighteenth century. This status originated in traditions recalling that the Mahicans and other peoples were originally Delawares who had separated from their parent people. Aupaumut explained that the Delawares were grandfathers to the Mahicans “according to the ancient Covenant of their & our ancestors to which we adhered without any devition in these near 200 years past,” but interaction between these peoples is poorly documented until the eighteenth century.20 Such kinship relations structured interactions among different peoples, imposing certain claims and obligations. According to Aupaumut, ever since the Mahicans helped them, the Shawnees “have felt themselves under the greatest obligation to obey our voice.” As younger brothers, the Shawnees were bound to listen to Mahican advice. In 1741, the Mahicans at Stockbridge invited the Shawnees to accept a Congregationalist missionary, putting them in mind of the privilege of an older brother to instruct his younger sibling. During Pontiac’s War in 1763, Stockbridge leaders felt compelled to instruct their younger brothers to quit the war against the English according to their old promise to heed their word. As grandchildren of the Delawares, on the other hand, the Mahicans, like so many other groups, had the benefit of their advice and counsel.21 In practice, this was a flexible system that allowed Native groups to interpret the discursive context of kinship in ways that suited their needs. Whereas one

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people might be nephew, son, or younger brother to another, the implications of this status were open to a variety of interpretations, leaving Native groups considerable room for maneuvering. In a somewhat cryptic message received in February 1748, some Indians (probably Mahican expatriates) living near Detroit implored the Housatonic and Hudson Valley Mahicans for aid against the French. The senders of the message addressed the Mahicans as “My Father at Mahekun” and reminded them that a good father would care for a son in need. This was an attempt to use the language of obligation between father and son to procure Mahican aid, but the recipients construed the relationship in a different light. The Mahicans responded that their father no longer had his full strength, while his son was now “grown up to be quite a Man.” Although their relations were as solid as ever, an old and infirm father could not be expected to protect his adult son. When the Delawares joined Pontiac’s War against the English, the Stockbridge Mahicans thought their grandfather had grown “old & Childish,” a claim that allowed them to distance themselves from Delaware warfare against the English, while upholding the language of fictive kinship.22 Just a few scraps of information directly document fictive kinship usages in the Hudson Valley itself, but the little evidence there is suggests that the various groups conceived of each other as brothers and equals. In February, 1675 Mahican delegates told English officials that they, the Westenhook Indians, and the Highland Indians (the Wappingers, and possibly also the Wiechquaesgecks and others) were now united as one, and that the Europeans and all the Indians were now brethren. Twelve years later, in January, 1687 a group of Westenhook Indians told Hudson Valley landlord and Albany official Robert Livingston that the Mahicans of the Hudson Valley were their brethren. In 1740, the Mahicans of Stockbridge, the Wappingers, and the Schaghticokes sent joint belts of wampum to the western Abenakis living at the mission community of St. Francis, declaring that “three of your brethren send you this message from the Highlands Monhekun and Scattekook.”23 The practice of referring to friendly or allied peoples in kinship terms represents a kind of projection of local structures, practices, and customs onto a larger scene. The obligations and duties of kindred peoples were merely larger versions of relationships among individual relatives in day-to-day life. The Mahican practice of seeing the Shawnees as their younger brothers simply mirrored relations among siblings in their own society, as Mahicans had clearly defined roles for older and younger children of the same parents, expressed in specific kinship terms. When these terms recurred in diplomatic relations, both parties involved had a clear understanding of the duties and obligations they entailed, rooted as these were in daily experience. The custom of addressing nonrelatives as kin was likewise a part of daily life, as

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friends greeted each other using kinship terms. Indeed, this custom sometimes confused early colonists. During an investigation of a disputed land sale in present-day Westchester County in 1661, it was discovered that two Indian men “were called brothrs but were not naturall brothrs.” The tendency of practices and solutions operating at lower levels of organization to be projected to higher levels of integration is sometimes referred to as involution, and it is found in several features of Native diplomacy. Sachems were also like fathers to their people. Queens County Indians referred to Tackapousha as their old father and when the Mahican chief sachem died, his people became like fatherless children.24 Kinship was also part of the cosmological outlook of Native people, ultimately encompassing nonhuman living creatures as well as supernatural and elemental beings. Whereas Europeans considered themselves to be separate from nature, Indians tended to see the world of animals and humans, and plants, as “a great society of which they are the head, whom they are appointed, indeed, to govern, but between whom and themselves intimate ties of connexion and relationship may exist, or at least did exist in the beginning of time.” The Delawares called the rattlesnake their grandfather and would not kill this reptile. Animals and all other living creatures were spiritual Other-Than-Human-Persons, and might reveal themselves as guardian spirits in Native dream quests. Native people were also related to such spirit beings as the Sun and the Moon, as well as to elemental forces, such as fire, grandfather to the Delawares.25

Religion and Diplomacy Religious and spiritual ceremonies and festivals played an important role in contracting, renewing, and maintaining relationships among Native groups in the Hudson Valley. Statements by several early observers indicate that religious ceremonies attended by members of different peoples served political ends, giving diplomacy a spiritual dimension. David de Vries wrote that Indians in New England held a festival centered on the ceremonial reburying of the bones of their ancestors, gathering members from many neighboring peoples together: “Under cover of these ceremonies, dances, feasts, and meetings, they contract new alliances of friendship with their neighbors.” They would be united, just as the bones of their ancestors were now commingled in the ground. This ceremony is unknown from Hudson Valley records, but secondary burials of bones also occurred in this area. An archaeological excavation on Staten Island in the early twentieth century uncovered bones from half a dozen persons mingled in the same grave. Van der Donck

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explicitly linked festivals to politics and diplomacy, holding that feasts and big meetings were not common among the Indians, “but are sometimes held to deliberate on peace, war, contracts, alliances, and agreements.” Large native festivals sometimes worried colonial officials, who understood that these were times of important political and possibly military decisions. When Dutch troops and New England mercenaries in 1644 surprised a Native settlement near Poundridge, they found that the Indians had gathered to celebrate a religious ceremony. Several visiting Wappingers were in attendance. In the early English period, Charles Wolley found early winter to be a time of sacrifice among Hudson Valley Natives, and “a great many Sacka-makers or Kings meet together, and Feast.” English records from the Delaware Valley also document festivals and ceremonies gathering sachems and people from different communities.26 The importance of spiritual and religious ceremonialism to Hudson Valley diplomacy is not surprising, since the sachems, who normally conducted diplomatic negotiations, were religious as well as political leaders of their own people. Although Hudson Valley peoples had shamans and other religious specialists adept at communicating with the spirit world and curing people of disease and demonic possession, several early observers made mention of the spiritual roles also of sachems. A Dutchman writing in the late 1640s, in fact, held that the sachems had little to no authority, except when it came to leading dances and other ceremonies. Danckaerts found that the chiefs of the Nayack Indians on western Long Island were also their “medicine-men and surgeons,” and Hackensack leader Hans described himself as a captain, sachem, and medicine man. Both Tantaqua and Hans seemed happy to discuss Native religion and creation stories with their Dutch visitors, indicating, perhaps, that a sachem and a sachem’s brother were possessors of sacred knowledge. Swedish colonist Per Lindeström wrote that sachems in the Delaware Valley led religious ceremonies at the beginning of the winter hunting season, and sachems also played an important role in rituals and feasts among southern New England Indians.27 Even in the absence of religious festivities, diplomatic negotiations often contained obvious spiritual and ceremonial elements. Grand religious feasts were not the only arenas where emissaries and leaders from different Native groups met, as pressing political matters could hardly wait for seasonal festivals. Negotiations with European officials likewise took place outside the context of Native festivals. Even in these cases, however, elements of Native spirituality are evident. At the final peace treaty with the Dutch in May 1664, Esopus sachem Sewakenamo called on a god called Bachtamo to watch over the peace. Overt expressions of Native religiosity rarely appear in European

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diplomatic records, but reference to a generic God might be an allusion to a native deity or deities. Pledges of friendship lasting while the Sun and Moon endured may likewise have had religious significance, since these celestial bodies were spirit beings in Native cosmology. Native delegates occasionally performed dances as well as chants and songs at meetings with Europeans.28 Colonial officials sometimes found that they had to participate in rituals and symbolic acts. The Cochecton Indians who met with Orange County officials in 1746 chose Colonel Thomas De Kay as the representative of New York in the renewal of their covenant with that province. De Kay was consequently “chained to them for an Hour or better as a Token of being united again in Bonds of Friendship with the English and to be true to them As long as the Sun and Moon endured.” This ceremonial bond is reminiscent of a dance performed upon the renewal of alliances among Indian peoples, during which the participants held hands to symbolize the chain of friendship that bound them. Other symbolic actions are more obscure. At a conference with Governor Henry Sloughter in 1691, Tackapousha’s young son presented a bundle of brooms for the governor’s servants, as Jacob Leisler’s regime following the Revolution of 1688 “had kept and left the Courts very foul and they now supposed they wanted cleaning.” This metaphor would be understandable enough also to Europeans, but ritual sweeping away of evil influences was a feature of Native religious rites, at least among later generations of Munsee and Mahican expatriates, so perhaps this gift had a deeper spiritual significance. In July 1714 a delegation of Hudson Valley Indians assured Governor Robert Hunter of their friendship and “if there has been any thing amiss they sweep it out of Doors.” Condolence ceremonies covering the graves and the memory of the dead on both sides became standard diplomatic practice during the colonial period.29 As in the case of fictive kinship relations, the use of religious festivals and ceremonies to create, maintain, and renew alliances and bonds among different peoples may be seen as a larger or scaled-up version of religious ceremonialism at the local level. Feasts and ceremonies were instrumental in strengthening ties among relatives, individual households, and neighboring communities, much as feasts attended by sachems and representatives of different peoples renewed alliances. Several seventeenth-century observers made mention of various feasts, but rarely went into detail, and frequently lumped all manner of feasts and ceremonies under the umbrella term kintekay (or cintecoy). William Penn attended a Delaware harvest ceremony, “to which all come that will.” Accounts by eighteenth-century missionaries reveal that individual families arranged sacrifices attended by all their relatives, close and distant, and welcomed visitors from other communities

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or settlements. Both members of different Mahican communities and guests identified as “strangers” attended Mahican festivals and ceremonies described by John Sergeant in the mid-1730s. The “general meeting of the River Indians,” attended by Mahican delegates from the Hudson and Housatonic valleys in 1735, was mainly a forum for policy discussion—­including, however, the controversy created by conversions to Christianity—but featured dancing “round a hot fire till they are almost ready to faint and are wet with sweat.” As in the case of “international” meetings attended by members of different Indian peoples, internal councils tended to mix politics and features of religious ceremonies, another way in which diplomatic practices were rooted in local experience and custom. There was perhaps no firm distinction between internal and “international” conventions, since members of one group might well have relatives in another. If sachems such as Tackapousha held feasts for all their relatives, these rites would naturally be attended by kinfolk who held leadership positions among other peoples.30 The presence of similar ceremonial complexes among peoples living throughout the Northeast (and beyond) would further tend to make intergroup festivals and feasts easy to celebrate and arrange. Native peoples from Florida to southern New England observed Green Corn dances and ceremonies at the time when green corn was first edible in late summer. Van Wassenaer alluded to such celebrations among Hudson Valley Indians in the month of August. The same rite was found among the Shinnecocks on eastern Long Island, as well as the Iroquois, New England groups, and other neighboring peoples. In August 1736, Mahicans from the Housatonic Valley went west to the Hudson to attend a kevtikaw; this may have been a Green Corn ceremony. Several decades earlier, in August, 1658, a gathering of hundreds of Indians at Esopus worried local colonists. At least in postcontact times, Munsee-speaking people of the Hudson Valley celebrated versions of the Gamwing or Big House ceremony. Archaeological findings of effigy faces and impressions in pottery closely resembling wooden masks and carvings representing the Mësingw or Living Solid Face worshipped at the Big House ceremony indicate that this rite had its origins deep in precontact times. Van der Donck mentioned face carvings as decorations in the houses of chiefs, again suggestive of the spiritual role of Hudson Valley sachems. Effigy faces similar to the Mësingw have also appeared on non-Munsee sites on eastern Long Island and in Mahican territory. False Face masks are also a feature of Iroquois midwinter rites. The Gamwing was a ritual renewal of the world through a symbolic reenactment of creation, and the general importance of renewal in Native cosmology points to a telling intersection

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of spiritualism and diplomacy. Just as rituals renewed covenants between humans and spirits, periodic meetings and exchanges of gifts were needed to renew alliances and other diplomatic relationships. Other archaeological findings suggest that bear ceremonialism known among nineteenth-century Mahican and Munsee descendants in Canada also took place in the Hudson Valley in earlier times.31

Gift Exchange The spiritual dimension of diplomacy is reflected in the use of wampum, the primary material manifestation of diplomatic exchanges in this part of America. These white or purple (usually called black) tubular shell beads filled a variety of functions in Native diplomacy. Wampum served as accreditation for messengers, assurance of the seriousness or veracity of a statement or proposal, a pledge of fidelity at treaties and agreements, and as a record or mnemonic device. Wampum was also a coveted trade article, and Europeans often perceived (and came to utilize) the beads as a form of currency. Beyond these practical functions, wampum was a spiritual substance, a medicine capable of clearing the mind of negative influences, such as sorrow, mourning, and hostility, and pave the way for peace and reconciliation. White wampum represented social, cognitive, physical, and spiritual well-being, while black beads stood for asocial or socially liminal states of being, such as mourning, sorrow, and war. A belt of wampum could function as a call to peace and to purify the mind of hostility, and the beads themselves were the spiritual medium conducive to this mental transformation.32 The role played by wampum in Native American diplomacy was a facet of the general importance of gift giving in intergroup relations in the Hudson Valley and other regions in the Northeast. Throughout Native North America, mutual exchanges of gifts must accompany all diplomatic councils and meetings, a facet of Native political culture that Europeans sometimes grasped quickly. In 1626, two years after the commencement of Dutch colonization, WIC secretary Isaack de Rasiere stressed the importance of such exchanges, and Van der Donck wrote that gifts must ratify all treaties and agreements. A proposal or agreement not backed up by such offerings was of little worth. Without gifts, an agreement was not binding, and the rejection of proffered gifts represented a refusal to agree to or comply with a request. Gifts exchanged created bonds and obligations; gifts refused or withheld ­represented hostility, or at least the absence of friendship. The inadequacy of Dutch presents contributed to the failure of the 1643 peace treaty, and in 1647, two years after the final conclusion of peace, Hudson Valley Indians

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were again complaining that the Dutch had not given them all the presents they had promised. Immediately before the outbreak of their first war with the Dutch, the Esopus Indians voiced similar complaints.33 Beyond gifts exchanged at particular treaties and other meetings, networks of gift exchange were important to maintaining alliances and friendly relations among Native peoples. Native groups tended to see trade as a form of ­reciprocal gift giving. Trade served to create and maintain alliances, and without such ongoing exchanges, friendly relations could not exist. ­European records on occasion record exchanges of diplomatic gifts among Indian groups. At a meeting with Governor Richards Nicolls in 1668, Tackapousha revealed that Wiechquaesgeck people under the leadership of the sachem ­Sauwenaroque (or Shewenorockett) had collected a quantity of wampum about two years before and sent it to him at Massapequa. Consequently, his people now had “a mynde to make a Collection of some amongst themselves & to send it to them at Wickers Creecke in returne.” The need to reciprocate ensured that exchanges continued.34 In inter-Indian contexts, trade and diplomacy were hard to disentangle, as sachems or other Native envoys would never visit other Indian groups without bringing some goods with them as presents. Occasionally, the purpose of diplomatic journeys may have been the act of gift giving itself. In August, 1670, Tackapousha obtained a passport to go with forty of his people to visit Indian friends in New England “to make some acc[ustom]ed presents to them.” In August 1678, a delegation from the Wiechquaesgecks and two other peoples from the east of the lower Hudson went to visit the Mohawk and Mahicans to present them with two bands of wampum. Whether the fact that both these journeys took place in August had anything to do with late summer harvest ceremonialism cannot now be determined. The wampum offered on these occasions was a valuable commodity, but items of little value, such as simple sticks of wood, would do in a pinch. Diplomatic visits such as these were vital to maintaining and renewing alliances, which is evident in the frequency with which some Native leaders came to see the governor at Manhattan simply to renew friendship, always insisting on reciprocal gift exchanges. Aware of the importance of these visits, Governor Thomas Dongan in April 1684 reproached a Minisink delegation for not coming to see him sooner. Not visiting neighbors could be a deliberate slight. In January 1661, Mohawk delegates traveling through Esopus country on their way with presents to the Susquehannocks revealed that they would avoid calling on the Esopus Indians as a deliberate sign of disrespect.35 Diplomatic gifts reflect the general role of generosity, sharing, and reciprocal gift giving in Indian cultures. Europeans frequently took note of the

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hospitality and generosity of Native people, who freely shared their possessions. Generosity was a central social virtue in Native American societies, acting as glue binding the social order together. Refusing to give or share was a fundamentally antisocial act, tantamount to denying the existence or significance of social ties. Spurning proffered gifts meant denying the importance of reciprocal relations, a threatening gesture in a social order built to a large extent on mutual obligations. The obligation to give and the obligation to reciprocate ensured that the flow of exchange never ceased, tying societies together. Lindeström warned his readers that visitors must accept and eat the food given them by their Delaware hosts, or risk turning them into enemies.36 The importance of reciprocal gift exchanges is most visible in relations between sachems and their people. European observers expressed surprise at the lack of visible wealth in the hands of Native chiefs, noting that the sachems often gave much of what they owned to their followers. The duty of the chief to give and redistribute goods was virtually universal in Native America. After land sales, the Delaware sachems redistributed the proceeds to their followers, “hardly leaving themselves an Equal share with one of their Subjects: and be it on such occasions, at Festivals, or at their common Meals, the Kings distribute, and to themselves the last.” In the obligation to give one may perhaps find the reason for chiefly polygyny, as a sachem needed the assistance of several wives to produce surplus enough to be generous in the eyes of his followers. De Rasiere, in fact, sensed a connection between the duty of sachems to provide for visiting strangers and their custom of having more than one wife. Sachems gave gifts to maintain their authority, perhaps as a way of repaying their compatriots for their leadership positions, or as a way of exercising control by putting their people under obligation in return for chiefly generosity, but they were also recipients of presents. Sachems received gifts at diplomatic councils, and protocol required both Indian and European visitors to give presents to the sachem. At least in the eighteenth century, sachems also received voluntary contributions from their followers, both male hunters and female maize farmers. They also received donations of wampum jewelry if they fell short of beads for official purposes. Among the Delawares, chiefs and their wives had to take care of their own maintenance, but other women often helped the chief ’s wife tend her fields, and elderly chiefs received donations of game.37 Reciprocal exchanges permeated all levels of Native society. Marriages started with mutual gift giving between the relations and friends of the bride and the groom, and marriage was itself a kind of reciprocal exchange

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system, as the wife and husband gave each other the fruits of their respective labor. Religious feasts were always occasions of gift giving, both from hosts to guests, and to various spirit beings, who received sacrifices in return for past and future benefits. Hunters offered foods to birds, fish, and mammals. Ultimately, spirits, animals, plants, and even the dead were recipients and givers of gifts. Written sources testify that Hudson Valley Indians interred the dead with goods, although mortuary offerings rarely appear in archaeological sites in this area. The dead also received gifts at later ceremonies and offerings. David Brainerd, who worked as a missionary among the Mahicans at Kaunaumeek east of the Hudson and later on the Delaware River in the 1740s, explained that the Indians supposed the dead “stand in need of favours from the living, and yet are in such a state as that they can well reward all the offices of kindness that are shewn them.”38 Diplomatic gifts were therefore an outgrowth of a system of giving that existed at all levels of Native society and culture. As far as actual artifacts were concerned, diplomatic gifts naturally became gifts in other contexts, as sachems redistributed presents to their followers, who might in turn give them away to other people. Similarly, when sachems gave wampum or pelts to European officials or Indian chiefs, they had obtained some of these objects from their own people, as indicated by Tackapousha in 1668. Occasionally, diplomatic gifting and other forms of redistribution directly intersected; Penn observed that when a sachem in the Delaware Valley sold land, the neighboring sachems and their people were also present, and received a share of the proceeds. All these sachems in turn subdivided the proceeds among their people, so that gifts given at the level of diplomacy immediately became part of the larger system of reciprocal exchange.39

Foundations of Friendship Strong ties of actual and fictive kinship bound Hudson Valley groups together in a widespread network of intersocietal contact and interaction. Members of one group often had relatives among neighboring peoples, and on a larger level entire peoples were fictive or metaphorical kin. Rooted as they were in daily experience, these relations entailed duties and obligations understandable to all members of society. Spiritual ceremonies and reciprocal exchanges of gifts and favors worked to reinforce and renew these ties. This discussion by no means provides a complete picture of the diplomatic arenas where members of different peoples may have interacted with one another. In New England to the east, games such as “foot-ball playing onely in Summer, towne against towne” brought people from various communities together.

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These kinds of festivals are not found in Hudson Valley records, but Daniel Denton made it clear that football was popular among the Long Islanders. At any rate, Hudson Valley Indians had good reasons to cooperate and maintain friendly relations with one another, and the spread of warfare in 1643 shows that they often did. The ties that bound these various people to one another were strong, and these linkages formed the basis for a widespread diplomatic network.

Ch a p te r 2

Patterns of Diplomacy

Rumors traveled freely among the Indian peoples in the colonial Hudson Valley. In February 1700, the Highland Indians— probably the Wappingers—heard reports of “troublesome times” brewing in New England to their east. Such stories of impending unrest might have been no more than yet another idle tale, but the Wappingers felt they could not risk ignoring these reports, and therefore resolved to investigate the matter. Three messengers consequently went out to gather more reliable intelligence. These men brought belts of wampum both to the Catskills and to a colonial official at Albany, but could learn nothing of this matter from them. They also visited the Schaghticokes, and, having given a third belt, found out that there was no truth to the rumor. This was a costly and ultimately unnecessary effort from the point of view of the Wappingers, but the tale of these events provides a welcome glimpse of Indian intergroup relations in action.1 Native groups in the Hudson Valley spent considerable energy and ex­pense in order to obtain correct information and intelligence from their ­neighbors— a difficult task in an increasingly unsafe world. The importance of these efforts is reflected in Native oral traditions of the first coming of Europeans to the Valley. According to later accounts, the first appearance of a Dutch ship in the Valley led to considerable confusion and fear, and runners went out to all the neighboring chiefs to report this new phenomenon. Even before the Europeans had made landfall, rumors had spread throughout the 41

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country. With the coming of the Europeans, the world had suddenly become more insecure and difficult to interpret than ever before, and rumors and uncertain reports continued to be a source of anxiety during the period of colonization.2

Information Exchange To obtain reliable information, Native peoples maintained channels of communication, relaying news among different groups. European colonists were only dimly aware of these networks, and some of the recorded references are frustratingly vague. In January 1672 a Kingston official reported that the Esopus Indians had sent a message to the Minisinks for the purpose of being informed about something, but the official had no idea what that was, only that they expected an answer within four days. Obtaining correct intelligence, or merely disproving untruths, was both important and difficult, and the Mahicans appointed an official messenger called Uh-nuh-kau-kun to be the vessel of reliable messages and news. The holder of this office “must be a man of veracity: for if he tell a falsehood, his feathers will be pulled off.”3 In addition to procuring intelligence, Hudson Valley leaders took care to preserve information about their diplomatic relations and agreements with other peoples. Strings and belts of wampum exchanged at diplomatic meetings functioned both as pledges and records, and might be adorned with mnemonic patterns representing treaties and agreements. When Dutch troops plundered an Esopus stronghold in September 1663, they seized thirty-one belts and several strings of wampum as booty. The Indians carefully preserved these indigenous documents, hanging them up in a bag in the residence of the sachems. The council bag belonged to the office of the sachemship, and Aupaumut explained that in “this bag they keep all belts and strings which they received of their allies of different nations.” In the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Hudson Valley Indians also kept treaty transcripts and other written documents from their dealings with Europeans. The Esopus Indians carefully preserved their copy of the treaty with Richard Nicolls from 1665; when their sachems met with Ulster County authorities to renew this treaty in June 1712, the magistrates had to peruse the Indians’ copy, apparently lacking their own. Esopus envoys still had the treaty document (as well as other papers) in May 1769. The Wappingers likewise collected paper documents, taking care to obtain certificates from their meetings with the governors of New York.4 To preserve the memory of their treaties and agreements, sachems and other leaders took care to instruct the young people, holding special meetings

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for that purpose. Danckaerts wrote that after a council the sachems called together all the children gifted with powerful memories, showing them each belt or string of wampum and explaining to them the significance of each article. John Heckewelder related that the Indians assembled some of their most talented young people once or twice a year at a spot in the woods, and there spread out the contents of the council bag, so that a speaker could explain the significance of each belt. Aupaumut also wrote that the Indians would assemble and pass around belts of wampum, repeating their significance. The Mahicans further held periodic councils to convey their traditions to the younger generation, nineteenth-century Mahican leader John W. Quinney explained: “Here, for the space of two moons, the stores of memory were dispensed; corrections and comparisons made, and the results committed to faithful breasts, to be transmitted again to succeeding posterity.” At the last of these councils (sometime in the late eighteenth century) two young men educated at John Sergeant’s mission school committed part of these oral traditions to writing; one of these men was probably Aupaumut.5 Exchanges of information may be understood as a relatively visible feature of a larger set of Indian-Indian interactions. At least in conversations with Europeans, Indian leaders described the exchange of intelligence as a reciprocal duty incumbent on allies and friends. In July 1701 the speaker of a delegation of Mahicans and Schaghticokes assured Lieutenant Governor John Nanfan that they never heard any news without acquainting their brethren the magistrates of Albany, and desired that the English would return this favor. In March 1711, Esopus sachem Ankerop likewise asked Ulster County officials for a reciprocal exchange of intelligence, assuring them that “if he hears any bad news from any part agst [against] the Christians that he give notice and advertise them of the same and desires the Christians may do the same.” Participants in news exchange networks were likely to share other things as well. The paths that carried rumors could also carry gifts, a vital component of Native American diplomacy. Indeed, exchange of news automatically involved the exchange of gifts, since any piece of intelligence came with a present as pledge for its veracity, and even a simple request for information involved the expenditure of some wampum or other goods. The channels of information might also be the roads traveled by sachems and other dignitaries, war leaders seeking allies, and potential marriage partners and relatives. The spread of stories may therefore be understood as glimpse of a far larger network of social and political interaction hidden from contemporary European colonists and modern researchers alike. The content of rumors is often far less important than what the dispersal of such tales reveals.6

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Conflict Resolution News exchange was a sign of friendship, but friendly relations had to be maintained, among other things through the resolution of real and potential conflicts. During the colonial period, the peoples of the Hudson Valley fought wars against Europeans and sometimes attacked Indians in neighboring areas, but they only rarely fought one another. Yet, individual acts of violence always had the potential to escalate into wider conflict. Homicide carried with it the danger that relatives of the deceased would call for or take revenge, and if killer and victim were of different peoples, retaliatory violence often meant war. A bizarre set of misunderstandings leading to the death of a sachem spurred a group of Delaware River Indians to wipe out the Dutch settlement of Swanendael in 1631, even though the Dutch were not directly responsible for his death. The Iroquois mourning wars waged for the purpose of taking captives destined for death, or for adoption in order to replace deceased relatives, are well known. It is uncertain how far Hudson Valley Indians conformed to the Iroquois model, but these Indians certainly did raid their enemies for revenge and often took prisoners. Most European captives were lucky enough to be released either for ransom or in fulfillment of treaty obligation, but other captives were taken and given to the relations of people killed in war to satisfy their demand for vengeance.7 When Native leaders sought to prevent the outbreak of hostilities that might follow violence and other forms of unrest, they followed a set of rituals centered on reconciling the offended party by giving gifts. Although IndianIndian conflict resolution is poorly documented in Hudson Valley records, accounts of Native-European interaction, supplemented with material from other parts of North America, make it possible to provide a sketch of this facet of the Valley’s diplomatic customs. In cases of homicide, the goal was to stay the vengeance of the bereaved and prevent further violence. Upon receiving word of an act of violence committed by one of their people, the sachems would contact the leadership of the victim’s people. Following declarations of good will, the injured party received a present to wipe away the tears of the mourners. The condolence gift consisted of voluntary contributions collected from the killer’s compatriots. Among the Hurons and Algonquins, such donations were a matter of prestige, as people were eager to demonstrate their concern for the public welfare of their communities. This gift probably came with a condolence ceremony that eased the grief of the bereaved and ritually buried the dead. In the summer of 1700, chiefs from the French-allied Catholic Iroquois came to Albany to make condolence gifts and give satisfaction for the death of a Schaghticoke killed by one of their

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people. These gifts were often wampum, which had the power to clear the mind of sorrow and other negative influences.8 If the peoples concerned were friends and allies—and thus fictive kin— acceptance of gifts would conclude the matter, as further bloodshed meant fratricidal war. Kieft’s attempt at reconciling the Indians of the lower Hudson failed because of the inadequacy of his presents and because the scale of the recent atrocities had proved that the Dutch were not true kin. Homicide was the most serious threat to peace, but lesser offences activated similar responses. The Esopus sachems (though somewhat unwillingly) offered wampum in compensation for the destruction of Dutch livestock and property in September 1659, and in July 1682 both the sachems of the New England refugees at Schaghticoke and their Mahican hosts offered several strings and belts in atonement for the wounding of a black slave in Albany.9 Diplomatic conflict resolution was an extension of similar practices at the local level. The politically noncoercive societies of the Hudson Valley did not see punishment of offenders as necessary for social order. According to seventeenth-century Dutch observers, the Indians treated thieves fairly mildly. Adriaen Van der Donck claimed that victims of theft, could enlist the aid of the sachem of their community, who would order the goods restored, but merely reprimand the thief, an act of social shaming that Van der Donck described as a remarkably efficient deterrent. Resolution of murders typically came in the form of gifts proffered to the kin of the deceased by the relations of the offender. It was up to the victim’s kin to call for revenge and it was the role of the sachems to prevent revenge by arranging for a peaceful settlement. Aupaumut explained that when a Mahican killed another member of his people relations of the victim might take revenge, but if the killer “repented of his crime, had been useful to his friends and relations, and was beloved by them, in such a case they collected a quantity of wampum and gave it as a ransom for his life.” If this was not done, the killer might save himself by capturing an enemy of his people to die in his stead or give the victim’s kin a scalp decorated with wampum. Either “was received as Nanptanteon, or a ransom instead of his own death.” The gift of a human life held great spiritual power. Among Indians in the Great Lakes region, gifts of captives often served to restore amicable relations among allies in the wake of murder. In 1762, the Mahicans at Stockbridge received a Panis (a generic term for Plains Indians and not necessarily a Pawnee) captive from the Abenakis of St. Francis in atonement for the murder of one of their people.10 This way of dealing with violence was widespread and evinced great stability over time and space, at least in form. It is thus natural to assume that it was a custom with roots deep in precontact times. In his description of the

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Indians on the neighboring Delaware River, William Penn in 1683 noted that the killing of a woman required twice the amount of wampum given for killing a man, as “she breedeth Children, which Men cannot do.” Moravian missionary David Zeisberger wrote the same in the eighteenth century. According to Delaware leader Captain Pipe, the death of a woman still required more wampum in the early 1800s. The intracommunal negotiations described by Captain Pipe were broadly the same as those outlined by Van der Donck more than a century and a half earlier. At the level of international relations, Zeisberger’s description from 1777 is reminiscent of that of Jesuit missionary Father Lalemant from 1645. Daniel Denton claimed that incest and murder might lead to capital punishment, but was here probably referring to a practice from eastern Long Island. His description of how the sachem personally shot the offender resembles the customs of southern New England Natives, to whom the eastern Long Islanders were culturally close. Perhaps the Indians on western Long Island practiced similar customs, but there is no evidence that Natives living along the Hudson did. Early observers noted the effectiveness of nonpunitive practices in securing communal harmony, as Indians rarely committed offenses against one another, except in the case of drunkenness, in which they case they blamed the drink, not the man.11

Borders and Territories Native groups in the Hudson Valley all occupied discrete territories, but how they delineated and regulated boundaries between their respective lands is now difficult to determine. Both Indians and Europeans in the Valley took the existence of Indian territoriality for granted. Native spokesmen might give detailed accounts of their people’s borders, and deeds and other land records might use such territorial limits as reference points. Native petroglyphs and other rock carvings may have marked territorial borders even in the precontact era, but almost all the sources dealing with borders and territories derive from the activities of colonial land buyers, who needed exact boundaries between different claimants to be secure in their titles. It is therefore not clear to what extent territorial boundaries predate European colonization. In precontact times, Indian groups in the Northeast tended to inhabit the land on both sides of drainages and river valleys. Beyond these core territories they utilized large hunting and foraging grounds with permeable boundaries that allowed several groups to make use of them at once. Legal difficulties might ensue when European buyers held deeds for overlapping parcels of land from members ofs different Native groups. Sometimes

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these contenders sought to show which Indians had been the true owners of the land in question, generating documentation that is obviously quite problematic, since firm boundaries may not have actually existed.12 In some cases European land records show customs of boundary regulation that were Native in origin. In 1765, two New York colonists giving depositions regarding the former boundaries of Hudson Valley Indians claimed that a boundary point between the Minisinks and the Esopus Indians was at pond called Maratangie, possibly located near the head of Shawangunk Kill. The Esopus Indians and the Minisinks shared the beaver-rich pond and had agreed that the hunters of whichever group arrived first in the hunting season would have use of the pond that year; if they came simultaneously, neither would hunt at the location, possibly to conserve the local beaver population. Although this information appeared in a partisan context, both deponents had knowledge of the Indians in question. Hendricus Dubois claimed to have information from Esopus leader Monhaw, and Evert Terwilliger cited a conversation with “old Maringaman,” known from deeds to land in southern Ulster and northern Orange counties in the late 1600s and early 1700s. This practice must have postdated the fur trade, before which beavers were not an especially valuable resource, but it was still a Native invention.13 Boundary areas might be shared, but Native people still had a sense of territoriality. On eastern Long Island, the Peconic River formed the boundary between the Shinnecocks and their neighbors the Southold or Yeanocock Indians, and in this boundary zone hunters were free to kill animals for food, but “ye young eagles that were taken in the nests, and the deere that were drowned or killed in the water, It was ye Indians customs to carry ye said eagles & the skins of the Deere to those Sachems of Indians that were the true owners of ye land.” In particular, the pelts and fat of drowned bears belonged to the Shinnecocks. In southern New England, hunters customarily gave the skins of deer shot in water to their chiefs. Although such tribute to particular sachems differed from the friendly competition between Esopus and Minisink hunters, these practices represent a comparable custom of resource sharing in boundary areas.14 As far as hunting grounds were concerned, it was not uncommon for Hudson Valley Indians to join the hunting expeditions of allied peoples. This practice no doubt fostered amicable relations, as it is easy to see how sharing the excitement, toils, and rewards of hunting might forge strong personal bonds among members of different peoples. In 1643, an Indian couple living near David de Vries’s home at Tappan was out hunting with Indians from western Long Island, among whom they had friends. In 1700, two of the three Wappinger envoys who went out in search of information went

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hunting with the Schaghticokes when their task was completed, while the third returned home with the news. These were individuals, but in other cases larger groups of people went out hunting together. In 1692, a Minisink leader told Governor Benjamin Fletcher that as his people were poor, they “design to goe along with the Showannoes Indians to hunt in their Countrey” in the west. The Minisinks had just agreed to let a group of Shawnees settle in their country on the upper Delaware, and could now expect to make use of Shawnee hunting grounds in return. Among other Native groups, such as the Great Lakes Indians, allied peoples sometimes received access to each other’s hunting grounds, in some cases on the condition that they surrendered commercially valuable furs.15 Scattered pieces of information provide other intriguing clues to Native people’s regulation of territories. The location of the southern boundary of Esopus territory suggests that border locations may have been sites of social or religious celebrations. Governor Thomas Dongan’s 1684 land purchase from several Esopus Indians extended as far south as the lands of the Indians living at Murderers Creek (now called Moodna Creek). A sale made by these Indians the following year shows that the border lay near the cove called the Danskamer or Dancing Chamber (near modern Newburgh), which explains why Dutch authorities during the Second Esopus War (1663) authorized skippers to apprehend all Indians encountered between the Danskamer and Catskill. The Murderers Creek Indians were a local group of Haverstraw affiliation. A leader named Werekepes was identified as “sachem of the Murders Creek” in 1684 and 1685, but in 1683 both he and at least two of his associates had been followers of Haverstraw sachem Sakaghkameck. A later commentator held that the claims of the Esopus Indians might have extended south to the Moodna, but that might still place the Danskamer cove within a boundary area shared by the Esopus Indians and their southern neighbors. Although New York colonists in the 1670s held that the cove derived its name from a revelry of Dutch people interrupted by the Indians, the place seems to have the site of Native rather than European festivities. De Vries encountered a “riotous” party of Indians at the Danskamer in April 1640, and in August 1663 the woods near the place reportedly rang from the kintekaying (feasting) of the Indians. Such boundary locations may have been places where members of different groups met to hold celebrations on shared ground; or perhaps rituals at such places served to confirm agreed-upon borders.16 During the colonial period, land purchases complicated the regulation of territorial boundaries, and as a response to this challenge, Hudson Valley sachems were sometimes present as witnesses to the land conveyances of their

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neighbors. Several Indian deeds from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries record the presence of sachems and representatives of more than one political organization. In April 1671 the sachems of Tappan, Haverstraw, and Minisink witnessed a sale by Hackensack leaders of land in New Jersey. When Governor Dongan bought land from the Esopus Indians in 1684, the sachems of Haverstraw and Murderers Creek were among the witnesses. It was in the interest of these sachems to know who owned what land, and particularly to ensure that a neighbor’s sales did not encroach upon their own land, but this was not the only motivation. There was little reason why Memshe of Tappan should fear that a sale made by a brother of Wiechquaesgeck sachem Wessecanoe in 1681 should threaten his territory across the Hudson, but he still witnessed this transaction. As reported by William Penn, such witnesses probably received a share of the goods given by the purchasers. Delaware sachem Nutimus explained that this was done so that everyone would remember the transaction. Making sure that neighboring sachems knew the exact extent of the sale could be a way of countering future attempts to enlarge the bounds of the purchase, and the gifts distributed to the witnesses meant that land conveyances could also serve as a way of renewing and strengthening ties with allies and friends.17

Allies and Adversaries The spread of war after the Dutch attack on the Tappan and Wiechquaesgeck refugees in February1643 shows the strength of intercommunal ties among virtually all Indian groups in the lower Hudson Valley, but it is unclear to what extent these various peoples forged a cohesive alliance. Pacham of the Tankitekes played a leading role in rallying people to the anti-Dutch cause following the failed peace treaty of April 1643. During the conflict between the Raritans and the Dutch earlier in the decade, Pacham had described the Dutch as his best friends, but he would not tolerate attacks on people who were likely his friends and relatives. By then an inveterate enemy of the Dutch, Pacham was conspicuous by his absence when several of his neighbor sachems sued for peace in April 1644. The gradual spread of conflict, however, shows that neither Pacham nor any other leader commanded a tight alliance or confederation. By August 1643 Wappinger warriors had begun attacking Dutch vessels on the Hudson, but other Natives delayed military operations until they had harvested their corn, and some were still trading with the Dutch. In early October, Indian warriors struck the immediate neighborhood of New Amsterdam and destroyed the Pavonia settlement on the New Jersey shore, but some groups, notably the western Long Islanders,

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remained at peace for a while longer. Nevertheless, once war had erupted, it is unlikely that military leaders did not stay in touch and coordinate their operations, and the way in which the Indians made peace demonstrates a high degree of cooperation among the different sachems.18 Although peace, like war, came about gradually, peacemaking was a cooperative venture, as the sachems pooled their diplomatic resources. In April 1644 the sachems of four Hudson Valley peoples made a truce with Kieft, and several Long Island groups withdrew from the conflict a few days later. Some of their neighbors remained aloof from the peace process for another year, but by the treaty of peace in August 1645 all Native groups in the Valley appear to have laid down their arms, although they did not all have representatives at the treaty. Some prominent groups, like the Esopus Indians, received no mention in Dutch records either during the war or at the conclusion of peace, but since the Esopus Indians denounced the warfare of the Dutch in 1658, they probably did have some involvement in the war, and their leadership may have sanctioned the peacemaking of other sachems. Others had representation through mediators. Pacham was again absent, but he had authorized other chiefs to negotiate on his behalf. Mohawk ambassadors also attended the treaty in the capacity of mediators.19 The progress of peace reveals loose blocs of political organizations within the lower Hudson Valley. The leaders who sued for peace in April 1644 represented the Wappingers, Wiechquaesgecks, Nochpeems, and Kichtawancs, all groups from the east side of the lower Hudson. These peoples were closely related, and their tight relationship continued also in later decades, as indicated by their joint diplomatic delegations to colonial governors. A sachem from Wiechquaesgeck and another from Kichtawanc came to visit Governor Edmund Andros in January1676, and four delegates representing the “Wappnignes & Wigchquighskeck” came to Manhattan to renew their covenant with the province of New York in June 1698.20 These constellations did not constitute a firm geopolitical division of the Valley. The sachems east of the Hudson also had close ties to their west bank relatives. In April 1643 Oratam represented both east and west bank peoples, and sachems from both sides of the river were sometimes part of the same diplomatic delegations. During the Second Esopus War, the Wappingers lent considerable support to the Esopus Indians across the Hudson. The Hackensacks, Tappans, and Haverstraws formed another loose political bloc. The leaders of the Tappans and Hackensacks were especially close, and often cooperated in negotiations with European officials. The last known reference to either of these two groups as coherent peoples is a rumor of a combined Tappan-Hackensack conspiracy against the English in 1693. The western

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Long Islanders tended to cooperate, but from the late 1640s the Nayack Indians began to grow increasingly close to the Hackensacks and Tappans. This reorientation coincided with their gradual relocation to Staten Island after the sale of the land at Nayack by Mattano and other leaders in 1652. Mattano was subsequently chief of Staten Island and Nayack. There were still an Indian settlement at Nayack in 1679, and Staten Islanders maintained claims to land on western Long Island at least until 1664, when two followers of Mattano sold land near Hell Gate. Staten Island fell within the claims of both the Tappans and the Hackensacks, and the islanders had land rights on the west bank of the Hudson. Hackensack leader Hans became chief of the Hackensacks, Tappans, and Staten Islanders in 1669, a sign of the growing strength of this bloc, but he does not seem to have held this position for long.21 An exception to the generally friendly relations among Indians in the Hudson Valley was the tense relationship between the Raritans and many neighboring groups. The Raritans, who lived on the New Jersey mainland beyond Staten Island, were apparently not a single cohesive people, but rather an assortment of refugees and displaced persons from neighboring areas, including some from the Delaware Valley. At least from the early 1640s, many Hudson Valley Indians were clearly unfriendly to at least some of these people. A Dutch assault on a Raritan settlement in July 1640 sparked no retaliation in other parts of the Valley and when New Netherland authorities a year later offered Indian warriors a bounty on Raritan heads, some Natives took up the offer; Pacham gave Kieft what he claimed was the head of a Raritan chief.22 This hostility probably had as much to do with established indigenous patterns of conflict as with Dutch encouragement. Even before Kieft’s bounty, most Hudson Valley groups were apparently quite unconcerned with the fate of the Raritans, in contrast to their reaction to later Dutch attacks. Hostilities against the Raritans also persisted in the absence of Dutch efforts. In September 1659 a Dutch Delaware official reported that the Raritans had fled for fear of Indians from Manhattan. Dutch sources indicate that some Hudson Valley groups were enemies to Natives living beyond the Raritans toward the Delaware, particularly the Sanhikans, an Unami-speaking Delaware Valley group. In 1628, this intense enmity made overland travel between the Hudson and the Delaware perilous. If some of the Raritans hailed from the Delaware, the willingness of Hudson Valley warriors to fight these people fits well with their larger conflict with peoples to their south, a hostility that may have stemmed from the migration of Delaware Valley people into the neighborhood of the Hudson Valley. If the Dutch would pay them to fight

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these enemies, so much the better, but the Valley Indians did not attack the Raritans merely to please the colonizers. Not all Hudson Valley Indians were enemies of these people, and there was some level of friendly contact between at least the Esopus Indians and the South Indians in the 1660s and 1670s.23 Events surrounding Kieft’s War also show Mahican involvement in the affairs of the lower Hudson Valley, but the exact role the Mahicans played during these years is unclear. Mahican sachem Aepjen represented the Wappingers, Wiechquaesgecks, Kichtawancs, and Sintsincks at the treaty of peace in 1645, but two years earlier Mahican warriors had triggered a chain of events that contributed to the outbreak of war. The Wiechquaesgeck and Tappan refugees targeted by Dutch troops in February 1643 had fled from attacks by warriors from the area around Fort Orange; several writers identified the attackers as Mahicans, which would make this the only known instance of hostility between the Mahicans and other Valley Indians. De Vries believed that the Mahicans wanted to levy tribute on the Tappans and Wiechquaesgecks, but other reports merely noted that Mahican warriors armed with guns bought at Fort Orange killed several Wiechquaesgecks and took others captive. The motives for this attack remain unclear, and Mahican warriors may have been mere auxiliaries to the Mohawks, as Mahican warriors participated in Iroquois raids on the Hurons and other French allies in the 1640s and 1650s. Cornelis Melyn seems to have thought that the attackers were Mohawks, as did John Winthrop, who suspected the Dutch of instigating the attacks.24 There is little evidence to support speculations that Mahican activities on the lower Hudson in the 1640s were the beginning of a period of Mahican domination of other Hudson Valley peoples. According to this view, Aepjen appeared as spokesman for peoples east of the lower Hudson because the Mahicans had conquered these groups and from then on headed a large River Indian confederacy including most or all of the peoples of the Hudson Valley. But the treaty of 1645 was the only time a Mahican directly represented neighboring peoples at a treaty with Dutch authorities, and European observers betrayed no awareness of Mahican dominance of the Valley. During the Peach War of 1655, WIC director Petrus Stuyvesant hoped that the Mohawks—who had acted as mediators and guarantors of peace in 1645— would assist the Dutch. He did not expect the Mahicans to fill this role. In 1649, three Wiechquaesgeck grantors of a parcel of land in present-day Harlem made an oblique reference to their “Rulers on the North River” (the Hudson), but while this statement has been interpreted as an allusion to Mahican dominance, the deed itself shows that these men were not chiefs, but needed the permission of their own sachem to sell the land. The rulers of the North River may therefore have been local sachems and leaders. Mahican

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oral histories have also been cited in support of the idea of a Mahican-led confederacy, but Hendrick Aupaumut held that the Mahicans had always been “distinguished in peaceableness,” and “loved not superiority over their fellow Indians, or using authority as tyrants over any nation.” John Quinney believed that the Mahicans had once belonged to a great confederacy, but thought this league predated European contact and disintegrated shortly thereafter. Rather than a campaign of conquest, the attack in 1643 stands as an aberration from the normal Mahican policy of maintaining peaceful relations with neighboring peoples.25

Mediators Mediation was a highly visible feature of intergroup relations among Hudson Valley Natives. European records frequently show sachems of one group relaying messages or speaking on behalf of the sachems of another, especially during periods of unrest. The nature of the documentary record means that one most frequently sees Native envoys acting on behalf of other Indians in dealings with Europeans, but it is safe to assume that this was an established indigenous practice and that go-betweens were a feature of negotiations among Indian groups. Sachems were naturally skilled at reconciling differences among their own followers, a necessity in consensus-oriented, noncoercive political systems. Among their own people, they adjudicated marital disputes and played a role in reconciling the kin of killer and victim in cases of homicide. Following the Dutch massacres in February 1643, western Long Island sachems agreed to represent the Dutch on a peace mission to the Hackensacks, Tappans, and their neighbors. This effort resulted in the ultimately unsuccessful peace treaty in April of that year. Most of the western Long Islanders eventually joined the war against the Dutch, but mediation continued to play a vital role over the following years.26 Although some leaders sometimes spoke on behalf of others, it would be a mistake to interpret this practice as evidence of clear power relations, or of a kind of patron-client relationship. Mediators such as Oratam of Hackensack did not represent themselves as overlords of other groups and their leaders, but rather as go-betweens authorized to speak on their behalf. There was often little permanence when it came to who spoke for whom. Oratam represented several groups on the lower Hudson at the April 1643 treaty, but he was not a permanent spokesman for these peoples. When the Kichtawancs and their neighbors sued for peace in April 1644, they did so without his assistance. In 1645 Oratam again represented several of his neighbors, but not the same neighbors as in 1643; the Tappans now sent their own delegation, while others were represented by Aepjen. Oratam remained an

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active mediator in later decades. He was a skilled diplomat and strove to maintain good relations with the Europeans. The Mahicans had remained at peace with the Dutch, which explains why Aepjen appeared in the role of peacemaker; an effective go-between naturally had to be on good terms with both sides.27 Mediation could lead to influence, but Hudson Valley sachems such as Oratam did not necessarily become mediators because they wielded power over other leaders and their peoples. It was true that powerful groups and leaders might be especially effective mediators because they had great political clout. Mohawk ambassadors oversaw the treaty of 1645, apparently at the request of the Dutch. But this was not always the case, and sometimes less influential leaders appeared as speakers for more powerful ones. Penhawis and Mechowodt were the most influential western Long Island leaders before the war with the Dutch, and it was Penhawis who took the lead when De Vries met with these Indians in March 1643. But it was Gauwarowe of Matinnecock who spoke for his neighbors when the Matinnecocks, Massapequas, and Secatogues sued for peace in April 1644. At the final peace treaty, however, Tackapousha of Massapequa took the lead in the negotiations.28 Instead, mediation was as a reciprocal duty allied or friendly groups owed one another. In August 1658 a Mohawk delegation asked the Dutch authorities at Fort Orange to assist them in their planned peace negotiations with the French of Canada. When these officials proved reluctant, the Mohawks stressed that the assistance they had given the Dutch as mediators obligated the latter to reciprocate. That mediation was a reciprocal duty does not mean, of course, that it could not also be a route to asserting or increasing one’s power. Mediation was central to securing French influence among Indians in the Great Lakes region. In the Hudson Valley, peacemakers such as Oratam became influential precisely because they could make or preserve peace, and great powers bordering on the Valley, such as the Mohawks and the Susquehannocks, used mediation as a way to expand their influence over the peoples there. Still, mediation was not at its core a consequence of relations of domination and subordination, at least among the Indians of the Hudson Valley itself. Even the powerful Mohawks might request other Indian peoples to speak on their behalf. In 1664 the Mohawks requested Mahican help in negotiating a peace with the Pocumtucks and Sokokis in New England, peoples with whom the Mahicans had friendly relations.29

Interlinguistic Interaction Intergroup relations and networks of interaction and diplomacy frequently crossed ethnic or linguistic lines, as is evident in the close relations between

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the Mahicans and their Esopus neighbors. The Mahicans and their Munseespeaking neighbors were part of the same sustained network of social, political, and diplomatic interaction. In the seventeenth century, relations between Mahicans and Esopus Indians are especially well documented, in part because the two wars the Esopus Indians fought with the Dutch generated so much information. There was at least some degree of intermarriage among these people. A Dutch record from August 1661 mentions a Catskill Mahican man married to an Esopus woman. During their second war with the Dutch, a number of Esopus Indians sought refuge in Catskill territory, and apparently settled there on a permanent basis. Several Esopus Indians sold land at Catskill in 1682 and 1684, suggesting that the Catskills had granted these people full rights to land or that Esopus people had married into Catskill families and inherited claims to land. In the first of these sales, the Esopus grantors stipulated that the transaction would not be finalized until the buyers had given a small present to Catskill sachem Mahak Niminaw, but the record from the second sale made no mention of Mahican chiefs. Some Esopus Indians appear as sellers of land in Mahican territory east of the Hudson. In July 1686 the sachem Calcop and two other Esopus men sold land at the future site of the town of Rhinebeck, but whether they actually lived in this area is not clear.30 Although less well documented in the early period, there were also tight relations between the Mahicans and the Wappingers. Apart from recorded political and military cooperation between these groups, other forms of interaction appear in European records. Mahican sachems Wattawit and Emmeninick appeared as witnesses to a land mortgage given by a Highland Indian named Tapuas in May 1683. A man called Speck or Waspacheek, who shows up in several documents from the 1670s and 1680s, was identified as a Highlander in a land sale from 1680 and had land interests in Wappinger country near Poughkeepsie. But Waspacheek also participated in at least one sale of Mahican land, with the explicit consent of Mahican witnesses. On that occasion, Waspacheek and his relatives were identified as Westenhook Indians or Housatonic Valley Mahicans, and it was probably possible for a person to belong to both the Mahican and the Wappinger peoples through kinship connections to both groups.31 On western Long Island, Munsee-speaking groups had close contact with peoples living to their east. The linguistic affiliation of the various western Long Island peoples is, in fact, uncertain. The Matinnecocks may have belonged to the eastern Quiripi-Unquachog language group, which (given their close relations with the Massapequas and other Munsee speakers) would mean that linguistic boundaries were easily transcended in this area. Whatever the case, western Long Island sachems such as Tackapousha were related to Wyandance and other sachems on the island’s east end, and the presence

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of pottery associated with eastern Long Island and Connecticut on western sites indicates an eastern presence. An Indian named Robin, who committed suicide at Southold on eastern Long Island in 1654, had previously lived at Flushing to the west.32 Western Long Island Indians sometimes cooperated with their eastern neighbors on political and ritualistic occasions. In December 1675, during Metacom’s War, New York authorities moved to stop a religious celebration attended both by western Long Islanders from Rockaway and their eastern Unquachog neighbors. Eastern leaders appeared as witnesses to land transactions on western Long Island, and the overlapping boundaries on the island caused difficulties for leaders like Tackapousha, especially when his kinsman Wyandance sided with English claimants. At least in negotiations with Europeans, eastern and western leaders acted as go-betweens or mediators on each other’s behalf. During the early English period, the Unquachogs and Shinnecocks sometimes joined with western groups such as the Massapequas in sending diplomatic delegations to the government of New York. Although the eastern Long Islanders were oriented far more toward New England than toward the Hudson, developments in the east often influenced the behavior of the west enders, and east-west interaction was therefore an important part of the political and diplomatic landscape in this area.33 Additionally, the Hudson Valley’s Native population grew more diverse during the early colonial period, as neighboring Indians—primarily displaced people from New England—resettled in the region. After the Pequot War (1636–37), many Pequots sought refuge on eastern Long Island, and some may have fled farther west as well. When Niantic sachem Ninegret returned from a visit to the area around Manhattan in early 1653, he brought with him “a Conecticott Indian dwelling on the other side of hudsons Riuer,” possibly a Pequot. Pequot sachem Robin Cassacinamon witnessed the conclusion of Governor Nicolls’s treaty with the Esopus Indians in October 1665. His attendance at this conference hints at friendly relations between Pequots and Hudson Valley Indians. The same month, Cassacinamon also accompanied Mahican sachem Aepjen to a meeting with the governor. In March 1677 one of Tackapousha’s sons told Governor Edmund Andros that a Pequot man had recently visited the Indians at Rockaway. Other New England Indians also settled in various parts of the Hudson Valley and on western Long Island during these years. In 1684, Matinnecock leaders Suskaneman and Werah granted land to an Englishman who had married a Narragansett woman they described as one of their own nation. Although this woman married an Englishman, expatriates were a potential source of military strength, labor, and marriage partners to people whose own numbers continued to dwindle.

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A number of Indians from western Connecticut settled in the Ramapo Mountains area and other parts of northeastern New Jersey and southwestern New York after the mid-seventeenth century. Taphow, an early eighteenth-century sachem in northern New Jersey, may have been one of these migrants.34 A notable facet of the immigration of neighboring Indians to the Hudson Valley in the late seventeenth century was the encouragement displaced populations received from the English rulers of New York. At least in the period between the mid-1670s and the first decade of the eighteenth century, New York officials recognized the value of a sizable Indian population, which meant hunters for the fur trade and warriors to protect their borders from the French and their allies. This policy originated under Governor Andros, who during Metacom’s War began to offer New England Indians shelter in his province. New England officials wanted Andros to extradite or kill these refugees, but the governor resisted these demands, and in March 1677 ordered that “all strange Indyans that come in, may live and be incorporated under ye Maques, Mahicanders, and Esopus, or other our Indyans, and be equally protected.”35 This policy could not succeed without the cooperation of the resident Native population of the Hudson Valley. To attract Indian migrants, colonial officials relied on Indians who had established ties to the target populations. In April 1676, when Andros received a delegation of Indians from the Housatonic accompanied by Wiechquaesgeck sachem Wessecanoe, he offered them protection within the borders of New York, adding that he had heard good reports of them from the Wiechquaesgecks. This Housatonic delegation may not have accepted the governor’s offer, but in May Andros instructed an English officer to send a Mahican to New England with the message that “all Indyans that will come in & submit, shall be received to live under the protection of the Government.” The Mahicans and several other Hudson Valley groups were old friends of these New England peoples.36 A combination of war in New England, governmental encouragement, and preexisting ties among Indian people led to the emergence of the Schagh­ ticoke people. Andros realized that many New England Indians were seeking refuge with the French, supplementing Canada’s military strength with Indians hostile to the English. In August 1678 he decided to reserve land for the refugees in New York. Officials from Albany suggested that the refugees might live at the Hoosick River, a tributary of the upper of the Hudson, within the northern parts of Mahican country. Mahican leaders were probably involved in this decision. The settlement at Hoosick became the nucleus of the Schaghticokes people—not to be confused with the Schaghticokes of Connecticut—and during the following decades New York officials hoped to

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use the ties the Schaghticokes had to other Natives to attract these people to New York. In the late 1690s, Governor Lord Richard Bellomont sought to use the Schaghticokes to draw Abenakis to his province, as he realized that many Schaghticokes were of Abenaki descent and continued to intermarry with Abenaki people. But it is unclear if any Abenakis came, and during the imperial peace following the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, New York authorities abandoned their policy of attracting such migrants, although they continued to see the Schaghticokes as a military asset and fretted when growing numbers of that people began to resettle in Canada in the early eighteenth century.37 The expatriates at Schaghticoke became the most visible Native addition to the Valley’s diplomatic landscape in the seventeenth century. Initially referred to as North or Northern Indians (general terms for New England peoples), these refugees quickly found their place as a Hudson Valley people. In addition to Abenakis, the refugees included other New England Indians, such as Pocumtucks from the area near Deerfield in central Massachusetts. Massachusetts obtained quitclaims to ancestral lands in that area from several Schaghticokes in 1735. The Schaghticoke Mamangquat, who sold land in an area called “Nassowa” within Massachusetts in 1710, may have been descended from the Nipmuck community at Nashaway. From the beginning of their settlement at Hoosick, the Schaghticoke had a close relationship to their Mahican hosts. At the trial of two North Indians at Albany in July 1682, both Schaghticoke sachem Wamasachkoo and a delegation of Mahican leaders were in attendance. The Mahicans thanked the justices for speaking kindly to their North Indian friends. There was also a number of Mahicans living at Schaghticoke. In 1703, a group of Schaghticoke people called Mohawk country the place “where our Nation formerly Dwelt and kept there fyre Burning.” This claim puzzled colonial officials, but it made sense if some of these people were Mahicans, as the Mohawk Valley may have been Mahican territory as late as the 1400s. From the mid-1680s the Indians at Schaghticoke began to send their own diplomatic delegations to negotiate with the governor of New York and the authorities at Albany. In 1685, they declared that they would follow Governor Thomas Dongan’s advice and “nott be north Indians any longer butt all River Indians . . . & behave our selfs like River Indians,” a sign of their commitment to their new homeland.38 In political and social organization, the Schaghticokes resembled the older peoples of the Hudson Valley. When Wamasachkoo was mortally ill in December 1685, Schaghticoke envoys indicated that he would be

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succeeded as sachem by his brother, which may be a sign of matrilineal inheritance. The familiar division of civil and military leadership is also in evidence. In 1710, Schaghticoke leaders indicated that they had “three old men that were Sachims” and three military leaders or captains. They may also have developed a clan division similar to that which may have existed among their Munsee-speaking neighbors. On a lease of land executed by a group of people referred to as “Native Indians Sachems and Proprietors of the Schakhook Country or thereabout” in June 1734, animal marks that seem to represent the tripartite division of Wolf, Turkey, and Turtle appear. One of the grantors of this lease was Wauweyaheck, who became sachem of the Schaghticokes in 1726. These animal drawings also appear on a deed conferred by some of these grantors earlier that month. On both these documents clear identifications of the creatures depicted are admittedly hard to make. Kinship and other personal ties between Schaghticokes and other Hudson Valley Indians are hard to prove, but a man called Wapanoos, who participated in a land sale together with Schaghticoke sachem Wenpack in 1732, may have been identical to a Wappinger contemporary of the same name. If so, some Schaghticokes had connections to one of the most prominent Wappinger lineages, as this man was a cousin of the sachem Nimham.39 The Schaghticokes were especially close to the Mahicans. These groups often sent joint delegations to negotiate with European officials, and their close association is exemplified in the manner their spokesmen recited the origins of their relationship with the Europeans. In August 1700 the sachem Sacquans told Governor Bellomont that his people could remember when “there were not any Christians on this river and the first Christians that came settl’d upon Renselaer’s ys land whom wee lov’d as soon as wee see them.” This account was the Mahican tradition of the first coming of the Dutch, but Sacquans was a Schaghticoke—he had a namesake among the Norwottuck people or one of their neighbor communities in the Connecticut Valley—and he proceeded to recall that it was “now six and twenty yeares ago since wee were allmost dead when wee left New England and were first received into this government,” which reflected the experience of the North Indians. A year later, Sacquans first stressed how fortunate his people had been since they came from New England, and then proceeded to recall that it was “ninety years agoe since our covenant chain was first made” when the Mahicans first received the Europeans. On this occasion, Sacquans further indicated that he spoke for all Indians belonging “to this County of Albany from Katskill to Skachkook,” meaning that he represented both Schaghticokes and Mahicans.40

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Contours of a Diplomatic System The Indian peoples of the Hudson Valley maintained a widespread and coherent diplomatic system. Native leaders had established routines for resolving disputes between members of different peoples. In the case of more serious conflicts involving whole groups, leaders of neighboring peoples worked as mediators. This network should not be described as a formal alliance, much less a confederation along the lines of the Iroquois, as there were no permanent councils or other forums coordinating the activities of member groups. The various Hudson Valley peoples were at any time free to pursue their own polices independently of their neighbors, but ties of kinship, custom, and friendship structured their political choices. The diplomatic system consisted of a set of common practices and patterns of interaction facilitating cooperative relations. Custom and mutual understandings, rather than formal alliance structures, governed these relations. These patterns of interaction crossed the linguistic division between Mahican and Munsee speakers, and could easily facilitate contact with neighboring peoples and integrate Native refugees from nearby areas, at least to the extent that these peoples shared a similar cultural background. One set of newcomers, however, was more difficult to incorporate. Although Europeans became central actors in Hudson Valley politics, in many ways they always remained outsiders. Europeans might become fictive and actual kin, but far too often they did not understand, or simply ignored, the obligations and duties this status entailed. Try as they might, Native diplomats could never really manage to make Europeans understand, much less respect, the proper way of managing intergroup relations.

Ch a p te r 3

Struggling with the Dutch

The sachems of nine Hudson Valley peoples had gathered to meet with New Netherland authorities in Fort Amsterdam. The treaty concluded on May 15, 1664, brought a formal end to the second war between the Dutch and the Esopus Indians, and the agreement imposed harsh terms on the Esopus people. But while some scholars have described the end of this conflict as the final act of Native accommodation to European rule in the Hudson Valley, the treaty itself fell short of Native submission to the Dutch. Although the Dutch sought to penalize the Esopus Indians, they did not compel them to accept formal Dutch sovereignty. The treaty was instead drafted as an agreement between equals. Oratam of Hackensack and Mattano of Nayack and Staten Island, the sachems who had done the most to facilitate the negotiations, were to be guarantors of peace, responsible for waging war on whichever side first broke the pact. Although it was unlikely that these sachems would take that step, this article enshrined the principles of equality and mutuality among the signatories. The Esopus Indians were to come to Manhattan to renew the treaty every year, and if they brought presents, the Dutch would do the same in return—a nod to Native notions of reciprocity. Armed resistance might be over, but it was still not clear that the Indians had accepted the Europeans as their superiors.1 Although the Hudson Valley Indians could integrate Native American outsiders in established patterns of intergroup relations without great difficulty, 61

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they found Europeans hard to deal with. Like other Native peoples, the Valley Indians hoped to pressure the Europeans to find their proper place (as the Indians saw it). This was ultimately an impossible task, because the strangers would neither follow local custom nor enter into extensive reciprocal relations with the Natives. Intercultural interaction was therefore fraught with tension. By the time the English captured New Netherland in 1664, the Indians had come to accept the reality of European power. But they also had reason to think that they had scored some points in the struggle to make the newcomers adapt to local modes of behavior and continued to maintain their claims to formal equality with the local Europeans.2

Integrating Strangers The first challenge the Indians faced as contact with the Dutch commenced was simply to make sense of these bizarre strangers. Some Hudson Valley Indians had caught a glimpse of members of Giovanni de Verrazzano’s expedition, which briefly visited New York Bay in 1534, but sustained contact only began with Henry Hudson’s visit in 1609. The Indians may initially have ascribed a supernatural origin to the Europeans, but eighteenth-century Indian traditions of how the ancestors had received the newcomers as gods are better understood as post facto explanations for the ultimately disastrous decision to let the Europeans settle in America in the first place. Van der Donck’s claim that the Indians wondered whether Hudson’s crew were devils or men only reflected the widespread use of the word manitou (spirit being) as a metaphor for any extraordinary phenomenon; although the Indians were impressed with European technology, they did not seem awed by Hudson’s crew.3 During the fur trading phase in the years immediately following 1609, the Indians found the returning strangers to be unpredictably aggressive, but they were also a source of valuable goods. The language barrier made communication difficult, but actions spoke loudly enough. In 1611, Dutch traders abducted two young sons of a local sachem (probably to train them as interpreters), and fighting among commercial rivals sometimes caught Indians in the crossfire. Some of the locals responded to provocation and violence in kind. One of the two sachem’s kidnapped sons, who had been repatriated by 1619, arranged an attack on a Dutch vessel near Manhattan. Others held that the goods the Dutch brought were valuable enough to put up with their rowdiness. The Mahicans found it advantageous to let the Dutch operate the trading post Fort Nassau in their country between 1614 and 1617. As Indian diplomats later reminded Dutch leaders, local people gave food and shelter to early traders. Some Natives were willing to accept permanent

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Dutch settlements in their territories following the beginning of the West India Company’s colonization project in 1624. The Mahicans let the West India Company establish Fort Orange at the future site of Albany and settle eight families there. The center of New Netherland came to be on Manhattan, where the Dutch founded New Amsterdam in 1626, after making a purchase of the island. The Natives continued to live on Manhattan, and probably construed this transaction as permission for the Dutch to live on their land, rather than a permanent sale. The strangers were still few, and the trade they brought was a source of material benefit.4 Once the Europeans had settled in their country, the Natives needed some way to make these newcomers fit into local relationships and (like many Native peoples) they hoped to do so by making them kin. This process started during the fur trading phase, as some of the Long Islanders, at least, admitted traders to sexual relations with local women. The Dutch surplus of males during the early stages of colonization enhanced the likelihood of matches between European men and local women. The Natives could expect to absorb the foreigners through intermarriage, and if they persisted as a separate group they would be tied to their neighbors through mutual obligations incumbent on relatives. That by 1643 there “roved many an Indian who was begotten by a Swanneken” ought to have meant that Indians and colonists would treat each other like friends and relatives.5 Unfortunately, Indian hopes were dashed. Most matches between Indian women and European men were short and informal. In the late 1630s, colonial authorities made some effort to prohibit sexual relations with Indians, and while the more sexually liberal Indians may have been less concerned, casual liaisons were no basis for stable relations. European men who did maintain long-term relationships with Indian women failed to honor customary obligations to the relatives of their mates. With the exception of a few Mohawk individuals, there is little sign of functioning kinship relations between Indian children and relatives of their European fathers in New Netherland.6 Barring the assimilation of the strangers, Hudson Valley Indians could reasonably expect the Europeans to find their place as one among the Valley’s many independent peoples. There is no sign that Hudson Valley Indians recognized the Dutch as a superior authority, nor did the latter actually demand such formal submission. The Netherlands, in principle, recognized the sovereignty of Native peoples. According to a clause in a deed from January 1639, Mechowodt of Massapequa placed his people under the protection of the West India Company, but the Dutch probably only inserted this clause to counter English claims to Long Island, and neither side later treated this transaction as an establishment of Dutch suzerainty.7

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The Indians may even have seen the Europeans as junior partners beholden to the Native population for the privilege of settling in their country. After Kieft and his council had decided to tax the Natives of the lower Hudson, some of the Tappans expressed surprise at the director’s presumption, as he had come to their country without being invited by them. A delegation of Native leaders lectured the Dutch authorities that they were the ones indebted to the Indians, who had allowed them to reside in their country, and reminded them how they had furnished early Dutch arrivals with food. The Dutch might have authority over lands given them by the Indians, but for the rest the Natives remained masters and would not tolerate demands for tribute or obedience. The Dutch owed their presence in the Hudson Valley to the Natives, and if anyone was to be the senior partner in their relationship, it must be the Indians. The assistance the Indians had given early traders and colonists was not made irrelevant by changing times and circumstances. This kindness continued to structure how these peoples should interact. In later decades, the Mahicans, in particular, often recited memories of their early relationship with the newcomers at diplomatic councils, but other Indians also recalled that the Europeans once had been weak and dependent on their aid. These recitals strongly resemble accounts of how the Shawnees became younger brothers to the Minisinks and Mahicans, who had saved them from their enemies and given them a place to live. In 1692, some of the Mahicans who played a role in bringing the Shawnees to Minisink made a direct comparison of these situations, and asked New York governor Benjamin Fletcher to receive them kindly “as they in former dayes had received the Christians when they first came to America they Pray the same likewise in behalfe of the strange Indians they have brought along with them.” What distinguished the Europeans from the Shawnees was that the latter remembered the debt to their old benefactors.8 Although the Dutch and later the English were often willing to use the language of fictive kinship by calling Indian diplomats brethren, they were less ready to take the next step and act toward the Indians as kinfolk should. To Indian people, fictive kinship was rooted in immediate social realities, which made its duties and obligations intuitively obvious. The Europeans were quite ignorant of these matters, but the real problem was that they were unwilling to accept tutoring and adapt to Native expectations. Dutch officials felt no sense of obligation to the Natives, but rather held that the Natives were indebted to them. Kieft’s administration sought to exact tribute from the Indians on the disingenuous grounds that the WIC’s troops protected them against their enemies.9

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The Failure of Reciprocity Hudson Valley Indians found the Europeans unwilling to adapt to Native notions of reciprocal gift exchange. The newcomers understood the importance diplomatic gifts, but the primary arena of intercultural exchange was trade, and while the Dutch distinguished between commercial and diplomatic exchanges, Indians denounced trade for profit as ungenerous. Friends and neighbors ought to be generous to one another. Individual colonists often gave gifts to Native trading partners in the Dutch and early English period, but the Europeans rejected the idea that trade was in principle a form of gift exchange, and the authorities discouraged gift giving by traders. Profit-based trade was a poor basis for a firm alliance, as it rendered friendship and the needs of the respective parties irrelevant. In July 1660 envoys from the mighty Iroquois managed to convince the court at Fort Orange that their need for ammunition entitled them to free ammunition, but this was a rare occurrence.10 It was impossible to make the strangers participants in local ceremonial life. To the extent that ceremonies and festivals served to strengthen and renew intergroup relations, participation in rituals was necessary for full membership in the Valley’s diplomatic system. Detailed descriptions by early observers show that Indians allowed Europeans to attend such ceremonies, but if they wanted the Europeans to participate in these rites, they must have been disappointed to find them openly scornful of their religion. Some Indians eventually tired of European attitudes. Denton claimed that if any English came upon the ceremonies of Long Island Indians, “it puts a period to their proceedings, and they will desire their absence, telling them their God will not come whilst they are there.” Ceremonialism could thus not serve as a way of bringing Indians and colonists together.11 In spite of these difficulties, trading soon led to close contact between individual Europeans and Indians. Although some scholars have stressed the apparent social distance between the Dutch and the Indians, ordinary Natives and colonists encountered each other in a variety of settings. Indians desired manufactured metal kettles, cloth, knives, hatchets, and beads, while colonists sought beaver furs, the only cash “crop” in the region. By 1639, the West India Company had abandoned its failed policy of restricting trade to company agents, and fur trading thus took place on an individual level, often within colonial homes. Indians and colonists also traded foodstuffs and other locally consumed commodities. The first colonists depended heavily on Native food, and food trading was still important enough to warrant official regulation in the early 1640s. Hudson Valley Indians also produced a number

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of manufactured goods for trade with Europeans, most notably wampum, which was in heavy demand among the Iroquois and other inland peoples, a market the Dutch decided to supply in exchange for furs. A shortage of coins also led to the adoption of wampum as legal tender in New Netherland. This demand stimulated wampum production among Indians in coastal areas, particularly on Long Island. Indians also sold a number of other goods, such as decorative leather pouches, hempen rope, and canoes.12 From the earliest decades of colonization, Indians and colonists in many parts of the Hudson Valley lived in a world of frequent cross-cultural interaction. Some Natives and colonists were not only trading partners but employers and employees. From the outset of colonization, the Dutch expected Natives to fill some of their need for labor, and Indians came to perform many services for their colonial neighbors. Several documents show that Natives performed agricultural labor for Europeans, and some Indians worked as domestic servants. Indian messengers often carried messages for officials in various parts of New Netherland. Beyond such labor arrangements, Indians and Europeans were neighbors and acquaintances. David de Vries could easily recognize individual Natives living close to his plantation near Tappan. Indians often visited colonial towns and villages, where they might lodge in private homes. Both sexes were participants in intercultural exchanges. Native women often appear in European records, while some Dutch women were traders. That several colonial women knew the Munsee and Mahican languages well enough to serve as interpreters hints at the frequency of such interaction.13 Native-European interaction often led to quarrels and episodes of violence, and while this must be expected in intercultural encounters, the nature of these disagreements reveals the difficulty of fitting Europeans into Native modes of interaction. As early as the 1630s, the Dutch had a poorly documented conflict with the Raritans. As part of the peace agreement in 1634, the Dutch agreed annually to send a sloop to trade with the Raritans. This arrangement may seem to fit Native ideas of trade as the basis of friendship, but in the spring of 1640 the Raritans attacked the traders, whom they clearly did not see as facilitators of peace. The Dutch-Raritan conflict was the most serious symptom of tension before the outbreak of full-scale war in 1643, but other incidents also highlight the failure of trade to ensure peace. A Dutch report from 1644 listed Native resentment at Dutch trading practices as being among the reasons for the war.14 Failure of reciprocity characterized many of these problems. When it came to labor relations, the West India Company was only willing to pay Natives half of what it paid European workers. The tendency of employers to

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cheat Native laborers out of their wages also contributed to intercultural tension, notably ahead of the First Esopus War. Beyond this problem, labor relations were another area where Europeans seemed unwilling to reciprocate. In 1680, Hackensack leader Hans expressed annoyance that Danckaerts and Sluyter expected him to serve as their guide when Europeans were unwilling to do labor for Native people. At least in the eighteenth century, Indians commonly helped neighbors with labor-intensive tasks, such as bringing in the harvest. Such assistance was likely a reciprocal duty within the community, but the laborers still received compensation in victuals. Sometimes Indian people asked Europeans to assist them with their labor. Indians often sought out smiths to have their tools and weapons repaired, and a Mohawk delegation explained that they expected this service performed even if they could not pay; neighbors owed each other that much. The Mohawks also wanted officials at Fort Orange to send them thirty men to help repair the palisades of one their towns, and the refusal of the local court to comply with this request may have violated Native notions of reciprocity. The haughty Europeans were unwilling to act as good neighbors, and in the summer of 1658 the Esopus Indians forced local colonists to plow their cornfields. To colonist Thomas Chambers, this was merely intimidation, but it may have been a ritual attempt to force the Dutch to conform to established patterns of reciprocity. When the normally arrogant Europeans deigned to perform labor for Indians, they reacted with positive surprise. The willingness of Moravian missionaries among the Mahicans in the 1740s to help their Native hosts with their labor contributed to the relative success of their missions.15 European livestock represented a different challenge. Hudson Valley Indians had no experience with domesticated animals (except dogs), and the destruction caused by free-ranging livestock in Indian cornfields was an entirely new challenge to intergroup relations. Although Dutch authorities in 1640 warned their colonists to prevent such destruction (which raised the price of the Native corn sold to Europeans), the depredations continued, and Indians responded by killing the trespassing animals. Dutch observers listed the destruction of crops and killings of livestock as being among the reasons for the outbreak of Kieft’s War (1643–45). This problem contributed to tensions between colonists and Natives at Esopus. In some cases, Indians targeted European animals even without an immediate cause, perhaps because these creatures were living symbols of the foreign presence. A Catskill man married to an Esopus woman reportedly killed a horse as a sign of contempt for the Dutch. The problem of livestock never really met with a resolution. The newcomers seemed intent to have their own way, showing scant regard for the welfare of Native cultivators.16

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Violence and Authority The most dangerous and difficult cause of contention between Indians and colonists in the Hudson Valley stemmed from repeated instances of intercultural violence. Killings and other forms of violence involving Indians and Europeans had begun with Hudson’s voyage in 1609. These confrontations continued through the early trading period and became an increasingly serious problem during the first decades of colonization. Although Dutch records tend to highlight Native violence against Europeans, the Natives were the victims at least as often as they were perpetrators. Dutch records often fail to show why Indians committed violence against Europeans. Not until 1647 did it come to light that an Englishman killed by Indians before Kieft’s War had met his fate while trying to rob Native corn pits on western Long Island.17 Alcohol exacerbated this problem. The Indians did not know alcohol before the Europeans arrived, but it soon became an important trade commodity—too profitable for official bans on this trade (issued regularly starting in1643) to be effective. Intoxication lowered inhibitions against violence, and several episodes leading to war between the Dutch and the Indians of the lower Valley involved inebriated Indian men. The killing of a Dutchman at Newark Bay by a drunken Hackensack was among the foremost casus belli for Kieft’s War, and violence committed by intoxicated Esopus men contributed to the eventual military confrontation with the local Europeans. On the other hand, even when liquor was involved, most violent encounters stemmed from preexisting grievances. Although drink played a role when Esopus men set fire to a Dutch house in May 1658, this household had been the target of previous attacks—evidence of some long-standing grudge. It is also possible that some Natives drank alcohol for the purpose of doing injury to their adversaries. Indians often excused violence committed while the perpetrator was drunk.18 The most serious aspect of intercultural violence was not that it took place, but that the Natives and Europeans did not agree on how to deal with such incidents. Since violence had been a feature of intercultural interaction ever since 1609, both sides must have realized that some level of violence was unavoidable. Among the Indians, killing could be met with revenge, as when a young Wiechquaesgeck killed a Dutchman to avenge the murder of his uncle several years earlier. This act of vengeance contributed to the outbreak of war in 1643. But at least from the point of view of sachems interested in amicable relations, revenge was not the ideal response. The sachems attempted to atone for murders committed by their people by offering gifts

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and customary condolences, but found that the Europeans saw retribution as integral to the process of justice. A killer must die to pay for the life of his victim. The West India Company had from the start instructed its officers to insist on European notions of justice in cases of murder. The problem with this approach was that retribution could easily lead to counterretribution. When WIC soldiers killed several Raritans while on a mission to exact punitive damages for alleged thefts of hogs on Staten Island in 1640, these Indians soon retaliated. In response, the Dutch authorities offered other Indians a bounty on Raritan heads. In the wake of a murder committed by a Wiechquaesgeck in 1641, the Dutch prepared to send troops to punish these Natives for refusing to surrender the killer.19 From the perspective of the sachems, the newcomers were extraordinarily difficult to negotiate with, in part because they lacked proper leaders. Prior to Kieft’s War, Indians on the lower Hudson reportedly told Dutch colonists that the latter had neither a great sachem nor chiefs, and, in a sense, the director and other Dutch officers did fail to fit Native notions of leadership. Without the hereditary rank and kinship connections of chiefs, these men were, as Narragansett sachem Miantenomie said of colonial officials in New England, “no Sachems, nor none of their children shall be in their place if they die.” More critically, sachems were ideally men of peace, while the director was as much a military as a civil leader. The Indians were not unfamiliar with some overlap of civil and military leadership, but demanding vengeance in negotiations with sachems was hardly chiefly behavior. In 1642, Hackensack leaders felt that negotiations with Kieft involved mortal peril. When he rejected the gifts they offered in atonement for the death of a Dutchman, they feigned agreement with his demands lest he detain them by force. Colonial officials thought the Indians were insolent for defying Dutch demands, but to Native leaders the Dutch seemed both stubborn and aggressive. Kieft was no man of peace, and while his successor Petrus Stuyvesant was less sanguine, he, too, was a military leader who might violate Native expectations. Stuyvesant met with the Esopus sachems following the unrest at Esopus in the summer of 1658, and when the sachems said that it was their drunken young men who had injured the Europeans, the director challenged the warriors to fight his soldiers on the spot. Civil chiefs could not easily negotiate with people who seemed to have only belligerent military leaders.20 These issues were tied to questions of sovereignty and authority. Should the Indians adapt to the ways of the newcomers, or should these people, as juniors settling in the territory of the Natives, follow local custom? These questions were similar to the issues raised by Kieft’s demands for tribute from the Indians of the lower Hudson. At that time, several Indian leaders

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had made it clear that they in no way felt obligated to the Dutch. European notions of justice also ran counter to the central ideological convictions of the Valley’s noncoercive political organizations. Dutch officers did not necessarily insist that the Indians accept the Dutch judicial system, but they did demand that killers suffer death, whether at the hands of colonial authorities or their own sachems. Either way was impossible within the political culture of the Indians. A sachem with the power to act as executioner represented a form of political authority they rejected. The Natives would at least have found it understandable if relatives of murdered colonists had simply taken revenge, but when colonial leaders intervened—not to negotiate a settlement but to pressure the Natives to aid the Dutch pursuit of retribution—they faced a completely unfamiliar situation.21 When sachems and colonial officials failed to find mutually acceptable ways to deal with violence, murder not atoned for could be a cause of war. Violence followed by revenge triggered and escalated the wars fought during Kieft and Stuvyesant’s administrations. Kieft ordered his troops to attack the Indians in 1643 for the explicit purpose of avenging colonists killed by Indians, and both the Peach War of 1655 and the First Esopus War (1659–60) were triggered by single acts of violence. Of course, there were other causes, such as the decline of the beaver population on the lower Hudson, which by 1640 had probably reduced the economic importance of the Indians to the Dutch, although there were still beavers to be found in the Hudson Valley even in the late seventeenth century. A map of the Rumbout Patent in Dutchess County from 1689 shows three small bodies of water identified as “beaver ponds” with an Indian wigwam next to one of them. The colonial population also grew in size in the early 1640s, and the Dutch accelerated purchases of Indian land. As more Indians and colonists became close neighbors, problems such as the destruction of crops by livestock increased. On top of these problems came Kieft’s demand for tribute from the Indians of the lower Hudson. Still, the question of unresolved deaths was an especially dangerous source of tension. Because Dutch and Indian leaders lacked common procedures for dealing with homicide, violence was hard to contain. Once war broke out, retaliatory violence spread.22 Under these conditions, individuals acting independently of their leaders could drive public policy. The Dutch-Indian wars were not the result of a careful strategy. Instead, they happened almost by accident, as the WIC’s men were swept away by events beyond their full control. Part of the explanation for the wars rests on the actions and motives of ordinary Natives and colonists, and some of the colonists allegedly urged the authorities to attack the Wiechquaesgecks and Tappans in 1643. Not content with these strikes,

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some Dutchmen called for attacks on the Indians on western Long Island. Kieft refused, but some colonists decided to steal maize from these Indians. A resulting skirmish left three Natives dead. The Long Islanders saw this episode as an act of war, and Kieft felt a need to conclude a formal peace with their chiefs. When sixty-four canoes with five hundred warriors from various locations along the Hudson converged on New Amsterdam on September 15, 1655, the town’s residents had cause for alarm, especially as the warriors began to search houses in quest of their enemies, the North Indians of New England. But colonial officials and Native captains managed to reach an agreement for the warriors to withdraw. Actual bloodshed later that day, resulting in the Peach War, only began when a clash of warriors and nervous militia led to several deaths. The situation was thereafter beyond the control of leaders on either side. The colonists who attacked a party of carousing Esopus men on the night of September 20, 1659, had acted on their own private initiative, but this act triggered the First Esopus War and unleashed a series of events that would preoccupy much of the attention of colonial and Native leaders for the remainder of Dutch rule.23

Reconciliation and Its Discontents In spite of the catastrophic losses they suffered in their war with the Dutch in the 1640s, the Indians of the lower Hudson may have come to see the outcome of the conflict as a kind of moral victory over the newcomers. More than a thousand Natives perished in the war, but the Dutch came to see the conflict as a tragic mistake. Dutch lives and property had been lost, and wartime atrocities led to a great deal of soul searching in the Netherlands, as the Dutch liked to see themselves as a peaceful and just people. Blaming the war on Kieft, the West India Company wanted reconciliation with the Natives, and ordered the new director, Petrus Stuyvesant, to maintain peaceful relations. To that end, in August 1647 Stuyvesant’s government ordered that a present be given to the Indians to confirm the peace. The Dutch denied owing the Natives these gifts as compensation for wartime losses, but they distanced themselves from the violence of Kieft’s regime. At a meeting with Stuyvesant in 1658, the Esopus sachems made Kieft’s War a point of comparison with minor acts of violence recently perpetrated by their own people. In their view, the Indians occupied the moral high ground, but Stuyvesant dismissed this line of reasoning as irrelevant, since it concerned the previous regime. Shifting the blame onto Kieft meant denying a sense of moral debt to the Natives, but initially the Indians may have seen the effort of colonial leaders to distance themselves from Kieft as a repudiation of past strong-arm

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tactics and even as an admission of war guilt. The knowledge of the Dutch desire to avoid conflict was widespread among the Natives, at least according to Dutch colonists, who in 1651 complained that the Indians committed violence under the pretext that the local Dutch had no right to resist them since the Dutch government had ordered them to keep the peace.24 When it came to the thorny issue of conflict resolution, the Natives had reason to think that the Dutch would now follow local custom. The treaty of 1645 stressed that individual murders should not lead to war, but failed to spell out procedures for resolving this difficulty in the future, merely stipulating that the injured party should complain to the leaders of the other side, who would bring the killer to justice. In the postwar years, the Dutch were more reluctant to pressure Indian leaders to extradite or kill murderers, the issue that had led to war in the first place. In 1650, the West India Company expressed concern about recent difficulties with the Natives, but commended Stuyvesant for settling the matter peacefully. To the Natives it might seem that the Dutch had seen reason. In May 1658 colonists at Esopus complained that the Indians said that if they killed Dutchmen they could merely pay with wampum. Although perhaps mere mockery, this statement suggests that some Esopus Indians felt confident that their notions of justice would prevail.25 In the early 1650s, however, a counterreaction to what the Dutch saw as growing Native assertiveness made it seem as if the newcomers were about to resume their stubborn and often violent ways. By early 1652, the Amsterdam directors had taken note of reports of growing Native violence, and were now inclined to see Kieft’s War as a time when the Company’s soldiers had forced the Natives to live peacefully and honestly. In April, the directors warned Stuyvesant of the dangers stemming from the Native belief that the Dutch authorities were not allowed to punish Indians for acts of violence, and suggested a military alliance with the New England colonies in case of a new Indian war, a possibility first raised in 1648. The negotiations with the English failed, but the Indians might have viewed such scheming with alarm. In early 1652, the Nayack Indians on western Long Island found rumors that Stuyvesant planned to attack them quite plausible.26 Conflicts over landownership also began to expose further intercultural differences. Native sellers and European buyers had quite different notions of what land sales actually meant in terms of rights conveyed. The Indians initially saw sales as grants of usufruct rights. As the Massapequas explained in 1660, they had sold the English villagers of Hempstead the grass, not the land itself. The Natives insisted on the preeminence of their original property right and might demand new payments to confirm old sales, not unlike

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how alliances were renewed with gifts. European buyers disagreed, but might give new payments to satisfy particular claimants. In the early 1640s, Indians on Staten Island told Cornelis Melyn that they had sold their land to former WIC director Pieter Minuit, but added “that it was their custome, when a New Governr came to such a place, that there should be a Gratuity given them; thereby to continue the friendship between ye Indians & or nation,” which Melyn, who had obtained the title to the island, granted them. After his tenants had fled the island during Kieft’s War, Melyn had to give the Natives another gift. The Dutch authorities procured a new Indian deed to the island in 1657.27 From the late 1640s, land disputes led to growing tension. The Staten Island Indians and other Natives had continued to live on land covered by grants to Europeans. As long as there was no influx of colonists this was not a problem, but following Kieft’s War increased immigration fueled demand for arable land. The colonial population grew from about five hundred people in 1645 to almost nine thousand by 1664, as the colony changed from a trading post to a farming society. In 1647, the English of Hempstead (who lived under Dutch jurisdiction) accused Tackapousha of plotting to kill them, and while Stuyvesant saw this claim as a ploy to seize the sachem’s land, this episode opened a long struggle over Massapequa land. Other disputes followed. In 1652, the Dutch authorities annulled several large undeveloped land grants to facilitate colonial settlement. They also denounced people who told the Natives that colonists sold each other land for higher prices than they paid Indian grantors. In June of that year, some Indians demanded new payments for land allegedly sold at Flatbush (in modern Brooklyn). Stuyvesant felt it best to give in to their demands. The authorities sought to avoid a confrontation, but a few years later conflict over land at Esopus contributed to the outbreak of a new war.28 It is partially in the context of renewed Dutch pressure that one should understand the Peach War of September 1655. The background of this episode was a source of confusion to Dutch officials at the time and has remained so ever since. Explanations have ranged from an effort to assist the Swedish Delaware River colony (which at the same as Hudson Valley warriors came to New Amsterdam time was under assault by Dutch forces led by Stuyvesant) to an attempt at avenging a Native woman murdered while plucking peaches in a Dutch orchard. Since members of several groups participated in the expedition, the motives might have been diverse. These people had somewhat differing experiences with the Dutch. While the Wiechquaesgecks were immediate neighbors of an expanding colonial population, the Wappingers would not see European penetration of their country for decades.

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What the Dutch accounts share are the limited goals of the expedition. If the Natives meant to launch a military assault on New Amsterdam, they could have done far more damage when hundreds of warriors were in the streets and seemed to have the town in their power. The warriors handled the citizens quite roughly, but no blood was spilled until eight or nine in the evening, and the Natives had been on site since early morning.29 The Peach War may in part be seen as a kind of disciplinary measure aimed at reminding the Dutch of the dangers of returning to the ways of Kieft. The need to reinforce the lessons of the 1640s was especially urgent if the Natives feared that Stuyvesant’s imminent conquest of New Sweden would increase Dutch power. The massive search for a small number of North Indians within New Amsterdam made it plain that the Indians had the power to enter the city at will. If the Indians did not seek to make some kind of point to the Dutch, they were oddly blasé about the reaction of the Dutch residents, whom they treated as mere obstacles in their search for North Indians.30 In the end, the Peach War did not amount to a full-scale war. Following the clashes in New Amsterdam, Native warriors made retaliatory strikes in the neighborhood of Manhattan, and took as many as one hundred Dutch men, women, and children prisoner. The Dutch authorities were reluctant to retaliate, both for fear of the lives of the captives and because Stuyvesant did not want another war. What ensued was a series of protracted negotiations over the captives, whom the Indians gradually let go in exchange for ransom, a strategy that allowed for the gradual return of tranquility. By September 1657 the Indians held only four Dutch children, whom they probably released soon thereafter.31 The Peach War did increase a tendency among Dutch officials to see interaction between Natives and colonists as problematic. Stuyvesant was inclined to blame the rash residents of New Amsterdam for the outbreak of hostilities, and during the negotiations that followed his government sought to minimize contact between Indians and colonists, which they feared would ruin the fragile truce. The conflict renewed concerns from the 1640s that intercultural interaction led to hostility. Dutch officials revived plans to have their scattered colonists relocated to compact villages and hamlets, which would increase security and cultural separation alike. The authorities further hoped to strengthen cultural limits by restricting Indian visitors in New Amsterdam to designated trading places and forbidding the residents of all Dutch settlements to lodge Natives at night.32 Achieving greater separation was more difficult. Following the tensions that erupted between Indians and Europeans at the Esopus in May 1658,

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Stuyvesant pressured the local Europeans to form a compact village named Wiltwyck, but other colonists stayed on their farms. During the First Esopus War the authorities repeatedly urged their people to form villages and hamlets. In March 1660, Stuyvesant told a delegation of lower Valley sachems that while trading would be confined to a designated market place, sellers of firewood might go wherever they chose. There was no more mention of the orders against lodging Natives. The treaty after the Second Esopus War barred the Esopus Indians from entering Dutch settlements, but many residents of Wiltwyck (Kingston after the English conquest) profited from Indian trade, and in defiance of court orders continued to welcome Native trading partners.33

Conflict and Diplomacy The outbreak of the Peach War shows that intercultural relations remained tense, but the aftermath of this conflict demonstrates that the Dutch authorities were increasingly ready to rely on diplomatic negotiations to resolve their difficulties with the Native population of the Valley. The measured response to the events of September 1655 seems a world apart from the aggressive militancy of Kieft’s administration twelve years earlier. Stuyvesant, in particular, was willing to go to great lengths to prevent the escalation of the conflict into another war. By late 1657 the West India Company directors in Amsterdam were calling for Stuyvesant to subdue by force some of the Native groups most hostile to the Dutch, but the director resisted such demands, realizing, perhaps, that if the Dutch struck the first blow, any new conflict might be difficult to contain.34 By the mid-1650s, the Dutch had become far more willing to work within and utilize Native diplomatic channels and networks of communication. From their first years in America, the Dutch had been wary of involvement in Native politics, but they had found indigenous networks useful to their own purposes. In 1626, Secretary De Rasiere sought to open trade relations with the Susquehannocks by working through the connections of a Native leader from the lower Hudson, but not until the volatile 1640s did the Dutch begin to make extensive use of such Native networks. Following negotiations conducted by De Vries at Rockaway in March 1643, Kieft managed to persuade Long Island sachems to convince the leaders of the Tappans, Hackensacks, Kichtawancs, and others to conclude a treaty of peace in April. This treaty brought no lasting peace, but later in the war Dutch officials again relied on the assistance of Indian leaders to conduct their negotiations. In early 1645 the Dutch concluded a treaty with the Mohawks, as a result

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of which Mohawk ambassadors attended the peace treaty signing in August. Mahican sachem Aepjen spoke for several Hudson Valley groups at this treaty, but his presence had more to do with the dynamics of inter-Indian relations than with Dutch diplomacy.35 The two wars between the Dutch and the Esopus Indians show the persistence of older sources of tension, as well as the growing danger presented by European land hunger. The events leading up to the First Esopus War show that unresolved violence, the depredations of livestock, alcohol, and personal grudges still contained the seeds of hostilities, and in this case competition for land was a major source of contention. In May 1658, Thomas Chambers seemed eager for a war that would bring the Dutch possession of the rich lands at Esopus. In subsequent negotiations with the Esopus sachems, Stuyvesant sought to pressure the Indians to sell or cede their land. Tensions continued to mount until the Dutch attack in September 1659 led to war. The Second Esopus War (1663–64) was in the main a continuation of the first, and had its origin in the resentment of Esopus people over the land cession extracted at peace treaty in July, 1660. In particular, the Natives resented the formation of a second Dutch settlement in their country, called the New Village (Hurley). They claimed that they had never ceded or received payment for some of the land attached to it. To resolve this source of tension, the provincial authorities in May 1663 decided to give the Indians a present in compensation, but on June 7 Esopus warriors attacked both Wiltwyck and the New Village, burning the latter to the ground and killing and capturing dozens of colonists.36 But these wars also show a growing Dutch involvement in Native diplomacy. After some discussion, the Dutch authorities in February 1660 decided formally to declare war on the Esopus Indians, but they took care first to secure the peace with other Indians at a conference in early March with most groups living on the lower Hudson. On this occasion, the Dutch again brought up the difficult issue of intercultural violence. The sachems seemed to agree that killers on both sides should suffer death, but since Stuyvesant had suggested in February that the Dutch should be willing to ignore murders recently committed by other Indians, he did not intend to insist too strictly on that point. In the wake of the war, the West India Company suggested that Stuyvesant should proceed against the Nevesinks and Raritans (who were accused of killing several colonists), but the director was hesitant. He stressed that he had refused the gifts the Nevesinks had offered in atonement, but he did not think a new war was advisable. During the Second Esopus War, colonial officials again made treaties securing the neutrality of other Valley peoples. More than ever before, the Dutch seemed reliant on Native

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networks. They frequently asked Indian diplomats for intelligence regarding the Esopus Indians and relied on these chiefs to communicate and negotiate with the leadership of their enemies on behalf of the Dutch.37 The growing involvement of the Dutch in Hudson Valley diplomacy enabled Indian leaders to put pressure on the newcomers. In both Esopus wars, chiefs were instrumental in making peace. In 1625, the West India Company had anticipated that its officers might have to mediate among warring Indian peoples, but, as it turned out, peacemaking fell to sachems rather than directors. In earlier years, mediators had worked in vain. Pacham had tried to reconcile the Dutch and the Hackensacks in 1643. In 1659 they had more success. By November, Mahican and Mohawk leaders had negotiated a truce between the Dutch and the Esopus Indians. In March 1660, Dutch forces broke the truce and attacked an Esopus settlement, just days after the Wappingers had asked for peace for the Esopus Indians, but in spite of another Dutch attack in May, the chiefs persisted. Following the intercession of Aepjen and other Mahicans, as well as the Wappingers, Oratam of Hackensack and Corruspin of Haverstraw held negotiations that led to the treaty signing in July that was attended by envoys from seven Hudson Valley groups and both the Susquehannocks and Mohawks. Pressure exerted by the chiefs was the main reason the Dutch made peace, although Stuyvesant also stressed the perils of summer warfare, when thick foliage afforded Native warriors cover. During the second war, mediators were less active, though a number of sachems did negotiate the release of Dutch captives. The main reason for the lower level of diplomatic activity lies in the growing unrest among Indians in neighboring areas, which prevented the chiefs from devoting all their attention to the Esopus war. In December 1663, after seven months of war and several Dutch victories, Oratam, Mattano, and a Wappinger leader named Neskewetsim arranged for a truce. Further negotiations by Native leaders resulted in a treaty of peace in May of the next year.38

Partial Gains and Defeats On the eve of the English conquest in August 1664 the Natives still had not managed to integrate the Dutch into the local political landscape. The newcomers remained hesitant to forge reciprocal ties with the Indians and never developed extensive alliances. In 1652 the West India Company advised Stuyvesant to seek aid from the local Indians in case of an attack from New England, and he may have taken steps to that end. In 1653, New England officials accused the Dutch of forging a Native conspiracy against them. Testimony given by several Indians, including Matinnecock leader Suskaneman,

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indicates that Stuyvesant did approach Native leaders about a defensive alliance. Adam, a western Long Islander, claimed that Stuyvesant had visited Ackicksack (Hackensack), Opingona (Wappinger country), and Warranoke (Esopus country) to solicit allies, though this testimony is a bit suspect, as Adam also said the director had been at “Monnesick,” which would be the first recorded European visit to Minisink. These negotiations led to no visible results, perhaps because the Dutch feared that reciprocal alliances might entangle them in inter-Indian affairs. In 1663, Minisink envoys asked Stuyvesant for a piece of ordnance as protection against the Iroquois, but the Dutch would not risk angering the Iroquois. The Dutch perhaps came close to developing a true alliance with the Massapequas, who aided them with warriors against the Esopus Indians. At both a conference in March 1660 and the peace treaty signing at Esopus in July, Stuyvesant stressed that he would consider an attack on the Massapequas as an attack on the Dutch. But when Tackapousha later sought aid in case of an attack by the Narragansetts, the Dutch only promised his followers refuge and they expected payment for military supplies.39 During the last two decades of Dutch rule, the balance of power in the Valley shifted decisively in favor of the Dutch, but the Indians might still have thought they had scored some victories in their struggle with these immigrants. Colonial population growth and continuing Native decline meant that the newcomers grew ever stronger, but on occasion the Dutch seemed somewhat ready to adapt to Native ways. They seemed to regret a war that had been triggered by disputes over conflict resolution, which encouraged the Indians to think that the Dutch would now honor local custom. The sachems could also derive satisfaction from their ability to work with the Dutch through diplomatic channels. Native leaders could not make the newcomers find their place as juniors partners beholden to the locals, but in the context of diplomacy, they achieved a second best outcome, as the Dutch and the Natives were in principle equals in their treaties and agreements. The peace treaties with the Esopus Indians imposed harsh conditions on that group, obliging them to accept Dutch ideas of justice in the case of homicide, but they did not include the imposition of Dutch sovereignty. The treaty of 1664 recognized the Dutch and the Esopus Indians as formal equals, both answerable to Oratam and Mattano, the guarantors of peace. The western Long Islanders accepted the protection of the Dutch government in 1639, but this was really only a countermeasure to English pretensions to the island. Tackapousha recognized Stuyvesant as protector of Indian lands on western Long Island in 1656, but he remained less than submissive to the Dutch government. The

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sachem declared his hostility to the Indians who had participated in the Peach War, but neither the Dutch nor the Massapequas would make a separate peace with these Indians, and they would give each other mutual satisfaction for any future injuries. During the Esopus wars, the Dutch found the Massapequa auxiliaries far from docile, and Tackapousha insisted on his own conditions for military participation in the war.40 When the Duke of York took over New Netherland, the Valley Indians had accepted the reality of European power in their homeland, but they had still not accepted foreign domination. They maintained their claims to equality with the newcomers and their status as independent political organizations. The year 1664 also marked the end of actual warfare between Indians and colonists in the Valley, but it is not clear that the end of war stands as the symbolic end of resistance. With the possible exception of the Second Esopus War, the wars between the Dutch and the Valley Indians were not part of a concerted Native resistance campaign, but sprang from local incidents of violence. To what extent the Natives were by then materially dependent on the newcomers is also unclear. Although Hudson Valley Indians wanted European goods, it is not a given that they could not do without them. During his stay at Manhattan in the late 1670s, Charles Wolley found the Indians capable of manufacturing stone axes and other forms of Native technology, and Long Island Indians made stores of bows and arrows in response to rumors of an English attack in 1694. Excavations in the mid-Hudson Valley and in northeastern New Jersey and southeastern New York indicate that Native ceramic and lithic technology had not given way to European goods by the mid-1660s but persisted into the early 1700s.41 But the Dutch were always somewhat reluctant imperialists. Although the Valley Indians no doubt often found them to be arrogant and unreasonable, they had not in principle come to North America in quest of dominion. To the very end of New Netherland, Dutch authorities continued to worry that establishing a settlement colony was not the right course of action and that restricting their presence to coastal trade might after all have been the wiser choice. The English suffered from no such doubts.

Ch a p te r 4

Living with the English

New York Council president Peter Schuyler and his colleagues were worried when they met with a group of Schagh­ ticokes at Schenectady on July 6, 1703. At Schaghticoke, these Indians had served as a useful buffer against French and Indian incursions from Canada, but now they were determined to leave their settlement and resettle in the country of the Mohawks. Their departure would expose outlying farms in Albany County to the enemy, and Schuyler urged the Indians to turn aside from their purpose, invoking the name of their father the governor. But while the Schaghticokes acknowledged themselves to be the children of Governor Edward Hyde, Viscount Cornbury, of New York, and addressed Schuyler as a father in his place, they did not feel obliged to obey his orders. Instead, they posited another interpretation of relations between Natives and newcom­ ers, reminding Schuyler that “wee were ye first setlers of this Countrey and that When you Came (meaning ye first settlement of Christians here) You Entred into a Covenant with us whereby you Cannot Pretend To have any Command over Us.” Schuyler told the Indians that they should at least wait for the arrival of the governor, but they refused. Visibly annoyed, they left Schenectady and continued their journey to the Mohawks.1 This brief episode reveals several dimensions of the relationship of the Schaghticokes and other Hudson Valley Indians to the province of New York. As they had done for decades, these Natives acknowledged their dependence 80

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on the provincial government, expressed in their references to the governor as their father, a change from the days when the Valley Indians had claimed complete equality with the Europeans. But the Indians did not see their position as children to an English father as a form of outright submission. They stressed that they had entered a covenant with the newcomers of their own free will, and that the ties that bound them were bonds between equals. During these years, the Natives also had to accept some of the core English assumptions regarding land tenure, and Indian groups close to the center of the province had to accept some meddling in their internal affairs. But their relationship to the governor-father was open to different interpretations, and the Indians continued to claim equality with the colonial population in gen­ eral. The Indians still insisted on reciprocal exchanges of gifts and maintained the superiority of their own modes of justice. When it came to diplomacy and other forms of interaction among Indian peoples, it is uncertain how important the English really were, as their involvement with indigenous intergroup relations in the Valley was marginal, in spite of occasional attempts to intervene in Indian-Indian affairs. At least as far as the Valley Indians were concerned, the government of New York never developed a cohesive approach to Indian relations. Rather than heading an integrated alliance, the English maintained a series of bilateral ties to vari­ ous Native groups, and the provincial authorities were content to leave the management of these relationships to lower-level local officials. The English were a powerful force, but there were limits to their interest and control, and inter-Indian relations continued to function largely independently of the colonial government.

Arrival of the English The English understanding of the relationship between Indians and Europe­ ans was different from that of the Dutch and potentially more problematic for Native peoples. Unlike the Dutch, the English were firmly commit­ ted to colonization and settlement, and while they recognized the practical necessity of making land purchases from Native owners, they in principle denied that the Indians were true proprietors of their own land. The English did not recognize Native sovereignty. They held that their king’s author­ ity extended over all people living within the dominions he claimed. To the English, Dutch imperialism might seem lax and too accommodating to Native ways. Rhode Islander Roger Williams thought the Dutch had made “a most unworthy and dishonorable peace with the Indians” in 1645 and in the wake of the Peach War held that the Indians in his region “hope and

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threaten to render us slaves, as they long since (and now most horribly) have made the Dutch.”2 But the differences between these imperial powers were not immedi­ ately obvious. The treaty between Governor Richard Nicolls and the Esopus Indians in October 1665 was formally between independent equals and to a large extent merely modified the treaty from 1664. The new treaty included a further cession of land, but also ameliorated some of the harsh condi­ tions placed upon the Esopus Indians by the Dutch. The conquest led to no immediate revolution in diplomatic relations between Indians and colonists. The Nicolls Treaty did not oblige the Esopus Indians to surrender sover­ eignty or submit to the Duke of York or even to the King of England. At first, the English trod carefully. In a message to Oratam in May 1666, Philip Carteret, the first governor of the new colony of New Jersey, addressed the “Honoured Sachamore” of the Hackensacks as a respected equal. Carteret spoke of friendship and amity, not of submission to the crown or to the New Jersey proprietors. Carteret could recognize Oratam as a man of honor, and concede that he held a position analogous to his own.3 Unknown to the English, the years immediately preceding and following the conquest of New Netherland was a time of repeated disasters for Hudson Valley Natives, accelerating their demographic decline and weakening their position vis-à-vis the Europeans. The English were a clear minority in the Valley and felt surrounded by potentially threatening Dutch and Indians. In 1741, seventy-three-year-old John Worth testified that he could remember the time when “there were an hundred Indian Men to one white Man” in northern New Jersey. The English were then fearful when the Indians com­ plained of unfair land dealings. But the Native population of the Valley was in decline in the 1660s. Warfare with the Dutch and the Iroquois led to loss of life, and evidence suggests that widespread outbreaks of epidemic disease in 1661 and 1663 hit large parts of the entire region and probably devastated Indian populations.4 The English conquest produced mixed reactions among the Indians. The Esopus Indians and other people who had long-standing grievances against the Dutch may have welcomed the takeover. Although there is no evidence to support Dutch suspicions that the Esopus Indians and Wappingers were conspiring with English colonists under West India Company jurisdiction to facilitate a coup, the Nevesinks were plotting with disaffected English colo­ nists on western Long Island. In spite of Dutch counterefforts, the sachem Popamora and other Nevesink leaders set their marks to a deed conveying their lands to a company of Englishmen from Gravesend in March 1664. These and other colonists from that town made further purchases in that

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area the following year. On the other hand, Tackapousha, Oratam, and other leaders who had worked hard to cultivate good relations with New Neth­ erland must have viewed the conquest with dismay. A Hackensack leader had warned the Dutch of the English intrigues with the Nevesinks and was also among the sources of the rumors of plots between English and Esopus Indians and Wappingers.5

Land In some parts of the Valley the conquest immediately led to renewed quar­ reling over land. During the first years of English rule there were several land purchases west of the Hudson in what was now New Jersey province, the largest of which was the sale of the future site of Elizabethtown by Mattano and other Native leaders associated with Staten Island. Closely affiliated with the Hackensacks, these Staten Islanders had land claims also on the adjacent mainland, and Hackensack leader Hans was party to the sale. Following the English conquest, New Jersey began to receive English immigrants, and fric­ tion arose between these newcomers and the local Indians. Newark colonists were in a land dispute with the Hackensacks in 1666, obliging an envoy from Governor Carteret to negotiate a settlement. This quarrel was serious enough to reach the ears of Indians living in the Connecticut Valley. Dif­ ficulties also arose over the status of Staten Island, to which two Native deeds were in existence. Following tension between Staten Island colonists and the local Natives, New York governor Francis Lovelace held a meeting with the Indians and agreed to purchase the island once again, on the condition that the Indians would now leave for good. In October 1675, Governor Edmund Andros thought there were no Indians living on the island, but Indians con­ tinued to reside on parts of this land in the eighteenth and even into the early nineteenth century.6 Ongoing land disputes on western Long Island found no immediate reso­ lution after the conquest. The Massapequas and Matinnecocks had long had problems with their English-speaking neighbors from Hempstead, Jamaica, Oyster Bay, and other Long Island towns. This continuing quarrel was probably the main reason why the western Long Island Indians accepted the protection of New Netherland authorities in 1656, for they were no doubt aware that the Dutch authorities distrusted the English. In the 1660s, Stuyvesant had to mediate between the Hempsteaders and the Massapequas to prevent armed conflict. In January 1664 Tackapousha told Dutch officials that the English of Flushing were pressuring him to sell them land, and also warned that English colonists were talking of an English invasion of New

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Netherland. In response, the Dutch council pointed out that Mechowodt had sold all land on western Long Island in 1639, so it could not be sold again. Significantly, this sale had stipulated that the Indians retained the right to live on the land that had been alienated. After the conquest, the Matinnecocks brought a land claim against Hempstead before Governor Nicolls. The Indi­ ans could no longer count on Dutch-English antipathy, but Nicolls had little love for the English Long Islanders, whose agitation for representative govern­ ment he found a nuisance. In October 1666, Nicolls negotiated a compromise under which the Matinnecocks were to retain the right to plant on the land in dispute and also receive a present in return for signing a quitclaim, but similar disputes would continue almost to the end of the seventeenth century.7 Land conveyances and the problems that went with them had clear impli­ cations for the issues of Native sovereignty and European domination, and documentation generated by these transactions illustrate several ways in which Hudson Valley Indians in the latter half of the seventeenth century had to accept the procedures and assumptions of colonial governments. In the 1640s, the Staten Island Indians held that Cornelis Melyn had lost his land rights when his tenants had fled the island, meaning that deeds could lose their power through nonoccupancy and the passage of time, or at least that they could be overturned if the Indians ejected the Europeans by force. When Governor Lovelace made the final purchase of Staten Island in 1670, on the other hand, the Indians only disputed the interpretation of the old deeds. They did not argue that the deeds had lost their power through age. Although Valley Indians in the coming decades often questioned the accu­ racy or authenticity of particular deeds, they no longer disputed the validity of deeds as vessels of permanent land rights.8 Hudson Valley Indians may have used deeds in ways that secured contin­ ued access to resources on alienated land, but this strategy implicitly con­ firmed the power of documents to regulate access to natural resources. Some deeds show that Indians reserved access to fishing, hunting, and foraging wild plants, but it should not be presumed that sellers that did not secure such provisions felt they had given up access to these resources. At the Treaty of Easton in October 1758, an Indian speaker insisted that when the Natives sold land in New Jersey, they had not meant to give up rights to hunting, fishing, and gathering wood. At this treaty, Munsee and Wappinger leaders signed a quitclaim to all land in New Jersey, but reserved their right to fish and hunt on unenclosed land. Some Indians had long before then clearly accepted that sales to Europeans carried with them this risk of losing access to such resources. At the sale of the future site of New Paltz in May 1677, the Esopus Indians insisted on continued access to hunting and fishing. It

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is not clear in this case that these Esopus people had accepted the principle that land sales had the power to convey such rights, but the Mahicans selling land on Roloff Jansen Kill to Robert Livingston in July 1683 apparently did. They agreed to give Livingston the heads of any deer they killed in return for fishing and hunting rights. According to later testimony, Staten Island Indians had come to a similar arrangement with Cornelis Melyn in the 1640s, but at this early date all Indians were not necessarily willing to accept such arrange­ ments, as one of the charges brought against Melyn by Director Stuyvesant was that he had taken game away from the Indians by force.9 Selling land to Europeans did not mean surrendering, and may, in fact, have been a relatively effective way of delaying some of the worst effects of the foreign invasion of Native homelands, but even when they functioned as a strategy of subtle resistance, land sales represented an accommodation to European understandings of property rights. Land sales, of course, brought tangible material benefits in the form of European goods, enabling Native leaders to distribute goods to their followers as a way of securing their sta­ tus. The Natives eventually realized that they would have to live with the expanding and land-hungry European population. Gradual and piecemeal alienation of territory could be a way of buying peace with the newcomers, as well as buying time, possibly in the hope that future disasters (such as epi­ demics) might in time weaken the Europeans. Additionally, the Natives may have granted land to Europeans in an effort to place the newcomers in a position of obligation to the generous Indian grantors, which would explain why Native land sellers so often accepted low prices from European buy­ ers. Price is, of course, a relative concept, but in some cases it is evident that grantors showed considerable largesse. In April 1677, Esopus sachem Calcop told Governor Sir Edmund Andros that his people were willing to surrender disputed land in the northern parts of their territory for a blanket, a shirt, and a loaf of bread, a price so low that the bemused governor asked the assembled Esopus Indians three times if they were truly content. Some records state that Natives gave colonists land for free, sometimes as com­ pensation for injuries they had caused the colonists, but also for the sake of friendship.10 Land transactions could therefore serve Native ends, but even when they did the fact remains that the Natives became entangled in the legal property regime of the European newcomers. They could work within this system, but it was at heart a foreign construct. The English, in particular, often saw Indian occupancy as an obstacle to the expansion of colonial settlements. Governor Lovelace was eager to resolve the ongoing disputes between Hempstead and the town’s Matinnecock neighbors, holding that as long as it was unclear who

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really owned the land, it could not properly be settled and “improved” for the benefit of the Duke’s territories.11 When they sought to challenge the validity of particular European land claims, Hudson Valley Indians often found themselves forced to resort to the foreign judicial system of the newcomers, which was tantamount to accept­ ing that colonial law applied (at least in part) to them. Apart from the obvi­ ous danger of not receiving fair treatment, accepting the authority of English courts of law represented a loss of sovereignty and independence. To resolve the dispute between Hempstead and the Matinnecocks, Nicolls in September 1666 directed the Indians to the court of assizes, and both the Matinnecocks and Tackapousha’s Massapequas fought for their lands in English courtrooms in the 1670s and 1680s.12 Not all efforts to resolve disputes over land took place in court, as Tacka­ pousha and other sachems also took their complaints directly to the governor. In May 1670, for instance, Tackapousha again reported encroachments by the people of Hempstead. The sachem complained to Governor Lovelace “of ye English about him who are so Covetous that they take their Land away from him every day a little & a little.” Such meetings took place within the context of diplomacy and served to underscore that the sachems represented functioning political organizations. For that matter, when a sachem appeared as spokesman for his people in court, the judicial and diplomatic spheres in a sense merged, and the courtroom took on some semblance of a diplomatic council.13 It is clear, however, that Hudson Valley Indians often had to utilize English judicial mechanisms starting in the late seventeenth century. Some Hudson Valley Indians petitioned the colonial authorities for redress of grievances in land cases. In August 1705 a man named Sackawawaggra petitioned for pay­ ment for land possessed by Stephen van Cortlandt in Westchester County, alleging that the surveyor had assigned Van Cortlandt more land than Sacka­ wawaggra had sold. Petitioning was an English judicial channel, and Indians needed the assistance of an English scribe or notary to draw up written peti­ tions. Tackapousha ultimately found it necessary to resort to a foreign legal document. In June 1687, both he and Matinnecock sachem Suskaneman pro­ cured written land patents for 150 and 200 acres, respectively, from Governor Thomas Dongan. These patents obliged the Indians to pay an annual token sum of one shilling to the governor and forbade them and their descendants from selling these lands without permission. In December 1694, Suskaneman complained to Governor Benjamin Fletcher that Hempstead colonists were cutting timber on his land, and Fletcher acknowledged his patent. Neverthe­ less, Suskaneman rented out part of this land for a period of no less than five hundred years in 1696 and Tackapousha’s successors sold his grant in 1700.14

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The Father and His Children Increasingly, during the first decades of English rule in the Hudson Valley, Indian groups and their leaders began to accept their reliance on the good will of the English, a friendship that came with a degree of meddling in their internal affairs. From the mid-1670s, at least, it is clear that peoples liv­ ing close to the center of the colony at Manhattan found themselves forced to accept a high degree of English intrusion into their daily lives. In April 1671 the English at Hempstead presumed to tell the Indians at Rockaway not to admit any “strange Indians” among them and ordered all Indians not belonging to Rockaway to depart. It is unknown whether the Indians com­ plied, but it is clear that their English neighbors now felt that they had the upper hand.15 A change in posture gradually became evident at meetings with the gov­ ernors and other colonial officials, as Native delegates abandoned their claims to complete equality with the newcomers and began to acknowledge the superiority of the provincial government of New York. This change was reflected, among other things, in the new practice of addressing the governor as a father. When fictive kinship terminology is recorded, Hudson Valley sachems had previously addressed their colonial counterparts as brothers and equals, but from the mid-1670s Native leaders began to call the governor of New York their father. In April 1677, representatives of the Mahicans and “other River Indians” recalled that the “Christians and wee many years ago have always been freinds & brethren and now of Later years ye Govr. Genl: is become or father.” By the last two decades of the seventeenth century, father or Father Corlaer—following the Iroquois council title for the governor of New York—had become a standard form of address at meetings between the governor of New York and the Mahicans and the Schaghticokes. The governors in turn addressed these Indians as children.16 The metaphor of the fatherly governor is best documented for the Mahicans and Schaghticokes, and it was tied to their tight inclusion in the Anglo-Iroquois Covenant Chain alliance created at Albany. Through this partnership, New York and the Five Nations sought (among other things) to control many Native peoples. Governor Andros and the Iroquois forged the Covenant Chain in the wake of Metacom’s War in the mid-1670s, and the Mahicans and Schaghticokes were tied to the Covenant Chain from the outset through their relations with Albany. That the Mahicans and Schagh­ ticokes were children signified their junior status in the  Chain.17 On the other hand, some Native groups that had little to do with Albany and the diplomatic structures there also came to use this term. The

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Shawnees who settled in Minisink country in 1692 addressed Governor Fletcher as Father Corlaer, a term they had probably taken from either the Mahicans or the Minisinks. A Minisink delegation addressed Governor Lord Bellomont as father at a meeting in 1698. Both the Minisinks and the Shawnees for the most part remained aloof from the Covenant Chain at Albany. The Minisinks lived in an area contested by New York and New Jersey, and both they and the Shawnees maintained intermittent relations with both provincial governments, as well as with Pennsylvania. In 1769, agents from New York attempted to use the claim that the Minisinks had acknowledged their submission to New York as an argument for placing their old homeland under the jurisdiction of New York rather than New Jersey. In the mid-eighteenth century, the governors of New Jersey still referred to the Minisinks, as well as the Wappingers and various New Jersey Indians, simply as brethren.18 For some prominent Hudson Valley groups, such as the Esopus Indians and the Wappingers, the metaphor of fatherhood is not directly recorded, mostly because these groups had far less direct contact with the gover­ nors than did the Mahicans and the Schaghticokes. These peoples, like the Minisinks and the Shawnees, maintained separate relations with the English, independently of Albany and the Iroquois alike. At a meeting with Governor Robert Hunter in July 1714, a delegation of Hudson Valley Natives (prob­ ably Esopus people) merely said they had always looked upon the English “not only as friends but as Brothers,” but from the first decades of the eigh­ teenth century the governors commonly called all non-Iroquois Indians in New York children. Governor Hunter used this term to address a delegation of “Nappaner” Indians in June1719, even though these Natives referred to Hunter as their brother. The Native delegates did not protest the use of this term, implicitly recognizing Hunter’s status as their father.19 To Hudson Valley Indians, the term father did not carry English or European connotations of stern and authoritarian patriarchy. Natives and Europeans might use the same kinship terminology without agreeing on the roles and duties these terms conferred. When Indians referred to gov­ ernors as fathers, they did not necessarily accept them as patriarchs. It is unclear whether Native or colonial leaders first took the initiative to use the metaphor of fatherhood in diplomatic language, but if Indians first supplied the term, they would expect their new father to be kind and mild, at least if one judges by how Native fathers indulged their own children, who rarely experienced stern treatment from parents. A father was not unimportant, as indicated by the close relationships between a number of Hudson Valley sachems and their sons, but to the Indians he ought to be a caring protector

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more than a commanding patriarch. In February 1748, Indians who claimed to be metaphorical sons of the Mahicans made it clear that they expected their fatherly assistance, care, and protection. Native envoys might make similar appeals to their father the governor of New York. In October 1694, Shawnee delegates told Governor Fletcher that they “desire your Excel.s Protection and Liberty to hunt Wee own you for our father and Promise to Pay our obedience to this Government Every Year.” In this context, paying “obedience” obviously referred to an annual renewal of their covenant with New York.20 A related metaphor likened the governor or the government he repre­ sented to a great tree whose branches offered the Indians shelter. Schaghti­ coke envoys customarily invoked this image to describe the protection they received in New York after their flight from New England, but the image of the tree of welfare was used also by the Mahicans and the western Long Island Indians. In April 1691 Tackapousha affirmed that “he Considered the government in the figure of a Mighty tall and spreading tree and Prayed to have leave to Sleep under the branches thereof.” The use of fictive kinship terminology by western Long Islanders is not recorded, but Tackapousha, at least, invoked the image of the governor as a protector, which was an important aspect of fatherhood. Hendrick Aupaumut used the image of a tree of protection to describe the care the Mahican chief sachem had for his people. If the Mahican Wi-gow-wauw was father and protector of his people, Tackapousha recognized that the governor of New York stood in much the same position. But while Hudson Valley Indians did not expect fathers to be patriarchs, it is clear that children occupied a lower position than fathers within the context of diplomacy. Mohawk envoys reacted quite negatively in September 1688 when Governor Andros addressed them as children, mak­ ing it clear that they wanted no change in their old status as brethren to the English.21 Although many Hudson Valley Indians eventually came to recognize the governor of New York as their father—and thus the senior partner in their relationship—they did not extend that recognition to the English in gen­ eral. The king’s sovereignty extended over both Indians and colonists, mak­ ing them fellow subjects. The governor stood in the king’s place, or, before the accession of James II, at least “ye great Sachemach ye King of Englands brother.” Both sachems and governors could agree that the king was their common father and that the Indian and English were therefore brethren. The Mahicans and Schaghticokes referred to the magistrates of Albany as their brethren, and the Esopus Indians did the same to Ulster County officials at Kingston. These Englishmen were the children of their common father the

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governor. In July 1701, Mahican and Schaghticoke delegates told Albany officials that “You all that sitt here are our Brethren and the Govr is our Genll [General] Father,” assuring them that they would conceal nothing from “our Brethren the Sachims of Albany and the Govrs Christian children.” The days might be gone when Hudson Valley sachems saw the newcomers as their juniors, but they would still not concede that Europeans in general stood above the indigenous population.22 Additionally, Native leaders remembered that the origin of their rela­ tionship with the Europeans had been a covenant between mutually con­ senting parties. If the newcomers had over the course of time become the stronger party, this had not always been the case; because the Mahicans had protected the Europeans when they were small and weak, they in July 1754 expected that the English “will act by us in these circumstances, as we did by you in those we have just now related.” When Native leaders recalled how they had made a covenant with the Europeans of their own free will, they were making an implicit claim to equality with the descen­ dants of the first colonists. At times they made this claim explicit. In 1703 the Schaghticokes made it clear to Peter Schuyler that the covenant they had made with the first traders and colonists did not give the Europeans a right to order them about. A form of basic equality existed among the descendants of the parties that had entered into a mutual pact with one another.23 Of course, records from conferences and treaties are only indicators of the face Hudson Valley leaders wished English officials to see. Sachems might call governors fathers without actually seeing these officials as their superiors. At times, Native leaders let the mask drop. In 1713, a sachem of the Mahicans or Schaghticokes made it clear that he would not defer to Governor Robert Hunter, and proudly declared “I Sachem, I King, I doe what I please.” The governor was not a king, merely a king’s envoy. Diplomatic protocol nor­ mally prevented Native leaders from showing their true sentiments to the English, but ordinary people did not always feel thus constrained. After a meeting with Governor John Montgomerie in 1733, two Indians who were either Schaghticokes or Mahicans verbally abused the governor for the inad­ equacy of his gifts to their people.24 Hudson Valley leaders continued to insist on reciprocity and mutuality in exchanges of gifts at diplomatic meetings, even when they presented themselves as poor in comparison to the English. Sometimes English gov­ ernors told Native leaders that they need not give them gifts, professing themselves satisfied with the loyalty and good will of the Natives. In March 1677, when a delegation of Long Island Indians headed by Tackapousha

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presented Governor Andros with a large string of white wampum, the governor assured them that they might forego such expense and would be welcome to visit him without bringing presents. Nevertheless, Native delegates continued to present their European counterparts with presents throughout the colonial era. When Andros and other officials told the Indians they need not give, they were attempting to strike a pose of supe­ riority by monopolizing the power to give, and thus placing the recipients in a position of gratitude and obligation. But Indian leaders also knew how to play this game, and in some cases they were the ones assuring the English that they only wanted friendship, not gifts. Though poorer than the En­­­ glish, they could still don the mantle of superior generosity.25 When it came to the problem of intercultural violence, Hudson Valley Indians were no more inclined to bow to English than to Dutch justice. Dur­ ing the first years of English rule, the old issue of unresolved murders came dangerously close to leading to war on the Delaware River to the south. After Delaware River Indians killed English colonists in 1670, the governments of New York and New Jersey considered war to obtain satisfaction. Killings could still have far-reaching repercussions, and in 1675 the refusal of the Delaware River Indians to surrender the suspected killers of other colonists was a source of concern to Governor Andros. These killings apparently came in retaliation for the unexplained deaths of some Indians near Arthur Kill, the waterway separating Staten Island from New Jersey. Some colonials seemed to believe this incident was part of a conspiracy involving the Nevesinks and Esopus Indians, but Andros managed to settle the matter through negotia­ tions with the Nevesinks and Delaware River Indians.26 Colonial officials recognized that intercultural violence was a delicate affair, and even though they normally insisted on settling such matters through the English judicial system, they allowed for some elements of diplomacy to seep into the courtroom. The Nicolls Treaty stipulated that if any Esopus Indians injured Europeans, the authorities at Kingston should notify the sachems, who were then to bring the offenders to court. When an Indian man assaulted a colonist near Rochester in 1709, the magistrates at Kingston sent a message requiring chief sachem Ankerop and his colleagues appear before the court. In this case, the justices had failed in an earlier attempt to arrest the offender, but when another Indian committed some felony near Kingston in 1728, the magistrates felt that the Nicolls Treaty obligated them to notify the sachems before they issued an arrest war­ rant. Even without clear treaty obligations, colonial officials often invited Native leaders to court sessions involving members of their people. When an Albany man accidentally shot and killed a Mahican woman in May 1678,

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the magistrates invited the Mahican sachems to witness the interrogation. The sachems agreed that the killing was accidental and were satisfied with the wampum offered in compensation. The trial of two Schaghticoke men accused of wounding a black slave near Albany resembled a diplomatic council more than a court case, with Native leaders offering twelve belts of wampum in satisfaction and both sides pledging continued friendship. Most trials may not have conformed that closely to diplomatic protocol, but at least colonial officials often notified Native leaders when their people were involved. When a Rockaway Indian died at Jamaica on western Long Island in August 1677, English officials promptly invited the sachems to the following inquest.27 That Native leaders might become participants at European trials does not mean that the Indians ever accepted the superiority of European notions of justice, which is evident in a lack of enthusiasm for European-style judicial retribution. The Dutch and the English tended to assume that the Natives would be content with equal justice done to both sides and would welcome the execution of colonists who had killed Indians. But this was not the case, as relatives and friends of Indian victims of European or African violence did not seem eager to see the killers die on the scaffold. At the trial of an Afri­ can slave accused of killing a Wiechquaesgeck woman in 1679, Wessecanoe represented the interests of his people, while “Jan a Rocketts bro”—evidently a brother of the sachem Sauwenaroque—was the foremost witness for the prosecution, having been present when the perpetrator allegedly gave the victim a fatal blow. But the court could get no damning testimony from him, as he said he had neither heard nor seen anything at all, even though he had been quietly smoking by the fireplace in the room where the violence took place. Two Penny, another witness, was just as uninformative. Although it is not certain that these men were actually sabotaging the prosecution, in other instances Native people did take steps to save killers from execution. In 1702 Schaghticoke sachem Sacquans asked Governor Cornbury to spare the lives of four black slaves who had fatally wounded Minichque, who was either a sachem or captain among the Schaghticokes. Sacquans claimed that the dying man had forgiven his killers. Cornbury replied that “he could not gratify them in ye whole since blood was shed blood must be shed again,” but consented to spare three of the men and only execute the alleged ringleader. The Iroquois displayed the same dislike for judicial execution, and attempted to save the lives of both French and English soldiers condemned for murder­ ing their people.28 Since the Indians were quite willing to kill their enemies in revenge, this phenomenon is somewhat puzzling, but it may be that the power of

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European leaders to dispassionately put their own people to death sim­ ply contradicted the fundamental assumptions of the noncoercive political culture of the Natives. The issue at stake was not necessarily the welfare of the accused but to whom the right of vengeance properly belonged. Vengeance was a matter between the kin of victim and killer, and should not be relegated to a third party over whom the Native at any rate had little control. Indians may also have viewed judicial executions as a form of fratricide, as it involved killing a member of one’s own people, not an actual enemy. Since Natives and newcomers in the Hudson Valley were fictive kin, this logic might extend to condemned colonists. The Delawares likewise made a distinction between killings committed by enemies and by friends. Following the murder of three Delawares by English colonists, a Native speaker in 1728 told the governor of Pennsylvania that the Indians wanted the matter buried and forgotten, “for that what has happen’d was done by their Friends, if it had been done by their Enemies they would have resented it, but that we & they are One.”29 After a century of colonization, Hudson Valley Indians still adhered to their own notions of justice. In June 1719, Governor Robert Hunter received a delegation of “Nappaner and River Indians” in New York City. These envoys demanded justice for the recent killing of one of their people at the hands of an Englishman, otherwise “they will be constrained to take other measures or seek out for another Brother or pursue the methods usual among them in the Like afer,” meaning revenge. But the Indians were not principally after blood, but “Desired satisfaction for him in their way for tho’ it was our way to take away the Life of the offender on such an occasion yet it was not theirs but to have a price for the blood.” The Natives produced certificates from past meetings with the governor, and said that they had previously asked for satisfaction in vain, but were now determined to receive it. Hunter, however, would not bow to Indian ideas of justice. He stressed that neither English law nor religion permitted “trafficking for blood or allow of any price for the same.” Monetary compensation alone was not adequate, and if convicted, the offender must receive punishment according to his crimes. The governor cautioned the Indians against revenge, but he was willing to give a belt of wampum and other gifts to dry the tears of the bereaved and blot out the memory of the killing. Governors were willing to give gifts and perform rites of condolence, but the ideological disjunction between Indians and European notions of justice remained. This was true even in later decades, as a colonial landholder around 1748 reportedly made the Mahicans of Shekomeko the unusual proposal that the killing of a Mahi­ can by an English colonist might be settled according to either Indian or

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European custom, and if “you go according to the Indian manner, the man who shot the Indian may yet live.” It was still understood that European and Native justice were different.30

Spheres of Diplomacy Although the English soon became the dominant political power in the Hud­ son Valley, they never really came to control the Valley’s indigenous diplomatic system. Like the Dutch before them, the English in many ways remained on the outside of Native intergroup relations. Indian peoples in the Valley maintained a variety of bonds to one another, and in addition they had rela­ tions with the Europeans. These two sets of ties never merged, so that there were really two parallel systems or spheres of interactions, one consisting of friendships and alliances among Native peoples and another made up of the relationships these various groups had with the colonizers. From the admin­ istration of Governor Andros, the English increasingly sought to rely on their Covenant Chain alliance with the Iroquois to control and influence Hudson Valley Indians and many other Native peoples, but interaction among the Native peoples of the Valley itself had little to do with this Anglo-Iroquois partnership. Such groups as the Wappingers and the Mahicans related to each other independently of both the English and the Iroquois.31 In the Hudson Valley, the colonial government did not so much head an alliance of Native peoples as it maintained a series of separate bilateral rela­ tionships. Although the provincial government handled much of its Indian relations through the Covenant Chain and the council fire kept burning at Albany, colonial officials also had discrete relations with the various groups living in the Hudson Valley. These Indians interacted with one another inde­ pendently of the government at Manhattan. Diplomatic relations between Natives and colonists in the Valley were thus quite different from the French alliance in the Great Lakes region, where the Europeans became the center of gravity of an entire diplomatic system. Like Onontio, the name the Natives used to refer to the governor of New France, Corlaer became a metaphorical father to Hudson Valley peoples, but his Indian children had little need of his mediation in managing their own diplomatic affairs.32 During the period of Dutch rule, Indian-European relationships had tended to be decentralized and local. Different Native groups related to European authorities in different ways and with different parts of the Euro­ pean population. The Mahicans had relatively little direct contact with the government of New Netherland, but had long-standing agreements with the local authorities of Fort Orange and the patroonship of Rensselaerswyck.

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The peoples of the lower Valley dealt directly with the authorities at Manhat­ tan, but after the erection of a local jurisdiction at Wiltwyck (later Kingston), the Esopus Indians usually negotiated with the magistracy of that town. The Nicolls Treaty formalized this relationship by stipulating annual renewals of the peace at Kingston.33 This state of affairs continued after the English conquest. The Indians of the lower Hudson continued to meet with the colony’s central government. In 1677 Governor Andros told a delegation of Long Island sachems that they might take their concerns to the magistrates of the towns, but the Natives preferred to deal with the highest level of government, a relationship that underscored their standing as autonomous polities; they might also expect greater impartiality from the governor than from officials with a vested inter­ est in local quarrels. The Hackensacks now lived on land claimed by New Jersey, and had some contact with the government of that province, but they retained their connection to New York. The Mahicans continued their rela­ tionship to the local authorities at Albany, but as the governors often came to that town to negotiate with the Iroquois, they also were in frequent contact with the provincial executive. The Schaghticokes were in a similar position. The Wappingers sent sporadic embassies to the governor in New York City, but after the creation of a county government in Dutchess in 1714, they may have had more regular contact with nearby county officials. Although Dutchess County records do not document diplomatic councils with Indians, Native individuals appear in surviving expense accounts, and some degree of formal contact is suggested by the twelve shillings spent on a present to the Indians in 1722 and the “5/9 of rum Expended to Nimham a Sachem & other Indians” entered in 1743.34 The decentralized character of Native-European diplomacy in the Val­ ley makes it problematic to see the Dutch or English as unified blocs in their dealings with Native groups. During the Dutch-Indian wars, the colo­ nists on the upper Hudson—in the area around Fort Orange, the village of Beverwyck, and Rensselaerswyck—were not directly involved in warfare, in part because the Mahicans, their closest Native neighbors, were neutral, but also because the local authorities managed Indian relations independently of the provincial government. During the Second Esopus War, Fort Orange authorities went to great lengths to avoid hostilities with the Esopus Indi­ ans. For several months following the Revolution of 1688, the authorities at Albany refused to recognize the regime of Jacob Leisler and on their own initiative negotiated military assistance against the French from the Mahi­ cans, Schaghticokes, and Iroquois. When they wanted to recruit Wapping­ ers, Esopus Indians, and Housatonic River Indians as scouts, they sought the

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assistance of the magistrates of Ulster County, as Albany had no formal ties to these peoples.35 Local magistrates might be jealous of outside interference in their Indian relations. Governor Bellomont distrusted the leading men of Albany and conducted negotiations with the Schaghticokes through a personal agent, but after his death, Sacquans (probably at the prodding of Albany officials) in 1701 expressed his preference for dealing with the local magistracy. Local control ended only when William Johnson became crown superintendent of Indian affairs, a development Albany officials resented. Kingston officials may likewise have disapproved of Johnson’s dealing with the Esopus Indians. In May 1769, several Esopus men claimed that when they went to Johnson to complain about Ulster County magistrate Johannes Hardenbergh’s land dealings, Hardenbergh told them that Johnson “had no business with them as they were Esopus Indians.” Although Hardenbergh hoped to forestall any challenge to his land patent, he also disliked the prospect of a crown agent meddling in what he saw as county affairs.36 Native leaders knew well that the different parts of the colonial population and its leadership did not necessarily have the same goals and purposes, a fact they sometimes attempted to exploit for their own gain. The best example of this strategy was the effort of Wappinger leaders in the 1760s to preserve their lands against the heirs of manor lord Adolph Philipse by forming an alliance with local colonists and at least some county officials in Dutchess. A century earlier, the Esopus Indians had likewise sought to exploit divisions among the Europeans. In July 1663, they declared their desire for peace with the Dutch at Fort Orange, but not with the colonists at Esopus. Later the same month, Esopus leaders asked patroon Jeremias van Rensselaer and his nephew Arent van Curler to be intermediaries responsible for arranging a peaceful settle­ ment, probably because these Indians were well aware of the long-standing jurisdictional conflict between Rensselaerswyck and the WIC’s representa­ tives in New Amsterdam, a dispute that had occasionally been played out in full view of the local Indians.37 Like the Dutch before them, the English were mostly uninterested in rela­ tions among Native groups, but both colonial powers did occasionally try to interfere in Indian-Indian affairs, most notably to stop wars that threatened their interests. In the late 1660s and early 1670s, the Dutch magistrates of Albany worked to promote peace between the Iroquois and the Mahicans, who had allied with New England Indians against the Iroquois. Although English officials also worked to end this conflict, the treaty was to some extent a continuation of the earlier efforts of the Dutch at Fort Orange, who since 1662 had attempted to end the war between the Mohawks and various

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New England peoples. This conflict disrupted the fur trade and threatened to draw English troops into New Netherland, a worrying prospect, since Mas­ sachusetts sought to establish an English settlement on the Hudson. These efforts at mediation were the most significant European peacemaking activi­ ties as far as the Hudson Valley Indians were concerned, although Albany officials did play a role in stopping raids by Mahicans and Esopus Indians against Indians in the Chesapeake region in 1682.38 Dutch and English efforts at mediating among warring Indian peoples fit quite well into established Native patterns of diplomatic interaction. Indi­ ans did not necessarily welcome aspiring mediators, but at least such initia­ tives were readily understandable. After all, Native leaders often acted as mediators and peacemakers themselves. In November 1666, Mohawk lead­ ers asked Mahican sachem Aepjen to be their intermediary to the New England Indians, and Indian sachems had repeatedly worked to make peace between the Dutch and various Hudson Valley Indians. Both Mohawk and Mahican expressed appreciation for the peacemaking efforts of the Albany magistrates.39 Other efforts at European involvement in Native intergroup relations were less acceptable to Indian leaders. During the Esopus wars, Dutch authorities repeatedly wanted the sachems of other peoples to cut off all contact between their people and the Esopus Indians; friends of the Dutch should not consort with their enemies. The Natives ignored these admonitions, which were symptomatic of how the newcomers violated Native expectations of reci­ procity. After all, the Dutch made it clear that they would maintain friend­ ship with any Indians friendly to the Dutch, even if they threatened the Valley Indians. The English also occasionally sought to regulate or interfere with the diplomatic connections of the local Natives, particularly during Metacom’s War.40

Dependence and Autonomy By the second decade of English New York, many Hudson Valley peoples had come to accept the reality of growing English control, and had begun to make adjustments to accommodate this new power. The Indians had to accept many aspects of the English understanding of landownership, and often had to work through English judicial channels to hold on to parts of their dwindling territories. Native leaders began to openly acknowledge their dependence on the government of New York, no doubt a hard pill to swallow for the successors of men who had once proudly asserted that the Europeans were junior partners living on their land. The recognition of the governor

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as a father represented a departure from former practice, as the peoples of the Valley had not previously accepted any single person or group as their superior. But this departure was not complete, as the Indians still insisted on their equality with Europeans in general. Hudson Valley sachems still main­ tained that the bond between Natives and newcomers ought to be a recipro­ cal relationship between brethren. As such, Esopus sachem Sandor in 1741 “Expected that Each ought to assist the other.” As during the Dutch period, the Indians showed little will to compromise when it came to their notions of justice, an issue that concerned their core ideological assumptions.41 It would be a mistake to think that either the Dutch or the English occu­ pied the center of Native attention at all times, as Indian intergroup relations formed a sphere of interaction independent of the Europeans. Although both the Dutch and the English at times interfered in relations among Indian peoples, most of the time they had little interest in the ties and networks of the Hudson Valley Indians. Apart from times of crisis, the government of New York showed little interest in the activities of these peoples. To the Natives, however, indigenous networks continued to be of paramount politi­ cal importance. Hudson Valley peoples not only maintained a variety of relationships to one another, but were also part of larger zones of interaction involving people inhabiting neighboring regions. The strategic behavior of any one Indian group was shaped by its interaction with neighboring Native peoples, which also helped shape how that group acted toward the European newcomers.

Ch a p te r   5

Friends and Enemies

It was a day of celebration. Under the auspices of the magistrates of Albany—who expended £300  in gifts to the Indian delegates on this momentous occasion—Mahican and Mohawk envoys concluded a treaty on November 8, 1671, that brought an end to the seven-year war between the Iroquois and “the Mehecanders and all their associates.” Also attending were a number of Pocumtucks or other Indians from the Connecticut Valley, old friends of the Mahicans and other Hudson Valley Indians and their allies in the recent war. These Indians had chanced to be hunting in the neighborhood of Albany. When New York officials learned of their presence, they invited them to meet the Mohawks at Albany. The formal proceedings included exchanges of gifts and the burial of a war hatchet, but the treaty ended with a drinking bout that left one Connecticut Valley Indian dead. In spite of this fatality, the war was finally over.1 The war with the Iroquois appears to have involved—to varying degrees— almost all Native groups living in the Hudson Valley, as well as their associates in New England to the east. The conflict also concerned people living farther west, as the fortunes of the war against the Iroquois was linked to the ongoing conflict between the Susquehannocks and the western Iroquois nations. This war was one of the few occasions when literate Europeans took a strong interest in inter-Indian affairs, and it therefore serves both to illustrate the connections that existed among the Valley Indians and to 99

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situate them in relation to their Native neighbors. Since the colonizers had little knowledge of Indian-Indian relationships, and were at any rate only interested in such affairs as far as they concerned Europeans, the surviving sources often produce the impression that Europeans always stood at the center of Native attentions. This was not the case. These peoples lived in a much more complicated world, and while Europeans constituted one of the forces influencing their political, military, and diplomatic decisions, they were not the only force. The Hudson Valley Indians were members of a larger northeastern diplomatic landscape, and their relations with people in neighboring areas were an integral part of their strategic outlook. The nature of the sources means that the full extent of these ties remain unknown, but it is clear that developments among Indians in neighboring regions often reverberated in the Hudson Valley, and that the struggles of the Indians cannot be reduced to a relatively straightforward struggle between Natives and Europeans.

New England Indians Relations with people in New England to the east were an important aspect of the foreign policy of many Hudson Valley peoples, but these ties are poorly understood. In early 1650, the West India Company expressed dismay that the English to the east were planning to attack the Wappingers. New England sources reveal no such designs, but a few months earlier Roger Williams had heard rumors that the Mohawks had asked the English not to attack the “Dutch Indians.” Other evidence is equally obscure. An English report from 1646 held that an intimate of Narragansett sachem Miantenomie was planning to flee to Mohawk country after he had murdered an English official. On his way there, he would tell the “Wampog Indians” that Uncas of the Mohegans was behind the killing. “Wampog” could mean the Wampanoags, but their country in eastern Massachusetts was hardly en route to the Mohawks, and the English sometimes used the term Wampeage for Hudson Valley Indians. The meaning of both these incidents remains mysterious.2 Eastern affairs were especially complicated for the western Long Islanders. These people had close ties to the Indians of the Hudson Valley, but in the 1640s they were hesitant to join the war against the Dutch. Mediation by western Long Island sachems helped bring about the failed peace treaty of April 1643. When war broke out later that year, two Long Islanders went with De Vries to negotiate the release of a Dutch captive from the Tappans. The closeness of western Long Island to the center of colonial ­settlement may explain their reluctance to join the war, but the Long Islanders also

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had to be mindful of developments to the east, where Narragansett sachem Miantenomie was seeking allies for a rising against the New England colonies. Miantenomie approached Wyandance of Montaukett (a kinsman of the western Long Island sachems) and his people about these designs, but Wyandance in the end revealed these plans to the English. As war approached in 1643, the western Long Islanders could not ignore these eastern affairs, especially since Miantenomie had come west to the Hudson Valley area in search of allies. Some Hudson Valley Indians may have been receptive to Miantenomie’s vision of a pan-Indian alliance against the Europeans, but for the western Long Islanders things were more complex. In the end, Wyandance betrayed Miantenomie’s plans to the English, and Penhawis also had a falling out with the Narragansetts. In 1655, Tackapousha alluded to past hostilities with the Narragansetts and recalled that his father had charged him to make peace with this people. Tackapousha’s alias Meautinemin may have been symbolic of this peace. Miantenomie, on his part, was assassinated by his rival Uncas of the Mohegans in August 1643. While the western Long Islanders did eventually join the war, their ties to eastern peoples remained important. In early 1645 envoys from four eastern Long Island sachems offered to assist the Dutch against their enemies. By then, the Matinnecocks, Massapequas, and Secatogues had quit the war, and the eastern sachems made it clear that the Rockaways, who had not yet made formal peace, stood under their protection. The eastern Long Islanders seemed willing to fight Indians in Hudson Valley proper, but not their neighbors on the island’s west end.3 Peoples living along the Hudson itself also had contact with eastern groups, and evidence indicates that in the early 1650s Niantic sachem Ninegret (not unlike his kinsman Miantenomie before him) sought to forge an alliance with Hudson Valley leaders. Ninegret was at that time a leading man in Narragansett politics. In early 1653 he went west to the Hudson Valley, where he crossed the river and held a meeting with several sachems on the western shore. According to Stuyvesant, Ninegret spent most of the winter with the Indians at Nayack, who had close ties to the west bank Hackensack and Tappan groups. Although New England officials suspected that Ninegret and Stuyvesant were conspiring against the English, Ninegret probably sought to recruit Hudson Valley Indian warriors against Uncas. According to Uncas, Ninegret had met with sachems west of the Hudson, where he had denounced both Uncas and the English. Uncas further claimed that Ninegret had previously hired a sorcerer from the “Monheag” or “Wampeage” sachem to poison Uncas. Although Uncas’s hostile testimony does not alone prove the existence of any agreement between

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Hudson Valley Indians and Ninegret, subsequent events indicate that Ninegret’s efforts bore fruit.4 This alliance helps shed some light on the Peach War of 1655. By September 1653, Narragansett warriors had begun to raid the Indians on eastern Long Island, and Ninegret was making threatening gestures toward Uncas. Ninegret’s enmity to the eastern Long Islanders stemmed from Wyandance’s betrayal of Miantenomie, and he now accused the Montaukett sachem of killing several of his people. Ninegret’s raids were linked both to his feud with Uncas and his agreement with the Valley Indians. In August 1654, New Haven officials held that Ninegret had hired Wampeages and other Indians “to assist him in cutting of [attacking] ye Long Island Indians . . . and that hauing done that, they intend, as it is thought, to cut of Vncas.” By September, Ninegret had Wampeages, Pocumtucks, and other “Upland” Indians on his side. A year later, when Hudson Valley warriors came to New Amsterdam in search of North Indians, some of their people had been involved in quarrels in New England for two years, and the Peach War coincided with new raids on eastern Long Island. Stuyvesant, in fact, thought the original purpose of the expedition to New Amsterdam had been to attack the eastern Long Islanders, which echoes Ninegret’s agreement with the Wampeages. English officials also sensed a connection between these events. In a discussion of Ninegret’s raids on Long Island they believed they must also take “into Consideration the late suddaine quarrel & Massacar of the Duch at Monhatoes by the Wampeage Indians and the cause and Rise whereof they doe not fully vnderstand.”5 The Peach War must have distracted Hudson Valley Indians from eastern affairs, but some of their people were active in the east in later years. In November 1658, John Winthrop Jr. was puzzled by a sudden truce between Uncas and the Pocumtucks, and further noted that “divers great sachems fr¯o about the duch and Wa¯peages have brought presents to Vncas and made a leagu wth him.” This development coincided with growing tension between the Dutch and the Indians at Esopus, but, as Winthrop sensed, the agreement did not hold. In September 1659 the Pocumtucks maintained that they could not cease their attacks on Uncas and his people as it was “not posible for them to giue notice to the Indians of the Duch Riuer and others whoe are ingaged with them and are dayly sending out [warriors] vpon the Desgine.”6 The involvement of Hudson Valley Indians in quarrels in New England led to a degree of tension between the western Long Islanders and Natives along the Hudson. It is unclear why some Hudson Valley Indians would join Ninegret against the eastern Long Islanders (or the Mohegans), but since eastern chiefs had helped the Dutch in 1645, some resentment may have

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lingered. The Massapequas and their neighbors had strong ties to east end peoples, and Tackapousha would not side with the Hudson Valley Indians against the Montauketts. In November 1655, Massapequa messengers assured Stuyvesant that their people had no part in the attacks on the Dutch, and the envoys also brought wampum sent jointly by Tackapousha and Wyandance as a sign of friendship. Tackapousha denounced the Indians who had fought the Peach War, whom he claimed had been his enemies for twelve years. The sachem further held that North Indians living in the direction of the ­Connecticut River had participated in the Peach War. Since the Pocumtucks of the Connecticut had allied with Ninegret, it seems that Tackapousha, too, felt that these conflicts were related. When Ninegret and his followers resumed their raids on eastern Long Island in 1660, Tackapousha felt threatened and asked for Dutch help. Tackapousha’s condemnation of the Peach War in part came from a desire for friendship with the Dutch, but it is telling that his envoys spoke also on behalf of  Wyandance in 1655. Although other sachems also courted Dutch good will, only Tackapousha expressed hostility to Indians in the Hudson Valley and later even supplied auxiliary troops against the Esopus Indians. In July 1663, seventeen east end warriors likewise offered to fight for the Dutch.7

The Iroquois The most significant external influence on the Hudson Valley lay to the north, and that was the Iroquois, particularly the Mohawks. Following European contact, many Hudson Valley Indians had a difficult relationship with the Mohawks, but it is unclear whether this was the case in earlier years. Eighteenth-century traditions convey an impression of ancient and persistent enmity between the Iroquois and the ancestors of the Delawares and Mahicans, but these oral histories reflect the experiences of people with bitter memories of Iroquois domination. Archaeological data suggest that interactions between the Iroquois and their Hudson Valley neighbors were reasonably peaceful. By the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the ancestral Iroquois were fortifying their settlements to the north and west, but not in areas close to the Hudson Valley. Although the Iroquois had other enemies, they did not fear attacks from Hudson Valley Indians, and these people likewise eschewed fortifications prior to colonization. All of this suggests that relations between these peoples were not historically hostile.8 The mid-1620s saw the beginning of a long period of periodically antagonistic relations between the Mohawks and their Hudson Valley neighbors, starting with the outbreak of war between the Mohawks and the Mahicans. This

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first conflict is poorly documented. Van Wassenaer placed the beginning of the war in 1626, and while De Laet in 1625 described the Mohawks as the enemies of the Mahicans, Kiliaen van Rensselaer held that the Mahicans and the Mohawks and been friends and neighbors before the war. One explanation for the war is that the Mohawks attacked the Mahicans to secure their access to the Dutch trade at Fort Orange in Mahican territory. A more recent theory finds support in the writings of Samuel de Champlain, who held that the Mohawks went to war because the Mahicans refused them passage through their country to attack the Sokokis of the upper Connecticut Valley, a western Abenaki people that at least in later decades were allies of the Mahicans. There is no evidence that the Mohawks found it especially difficult to obtain European goods, much less that the Mahicans hindered their trade with the Dutch. Although the European intrusion may have upset established balances of power and fueled Iroquois warfare by providing these Natives with weaponry, it is not clear that the effects of European activities were as important as the dynamics of Native intergroup relations in triggering this conflict.9 The Mohawk defeat of the Mahicans in the late 1620s marked the beginning of Mohawk and Iroquois ascendancy over many neighboring peoples, but it would be wrong to think that the Valley Indians were under direct Mohawk domination at any point during the first half of the seventeenth cen­ tury. In late 1628, Van Wassenaer wrote that the Mohawks had beaten the Mahicans, who had fled their land and settled along the Connecticut River. Subsequent records make it clear that there was no general Mahican exodus at this time, but the Mahicans did begin to abandon some of their lands close to Mohawk country west of the Hudson. In the 1640s, two Dutch commentators held that the Mohawks forced the Mahicans and their neighbors to pay them annual tribute, but no contemporary sources corroborate this claim. In 1801, Mohawk leader Joseph Brant wrote that the Mahicans paid tribute in wampum for two years after their defeat, but in the third year, when they “got drunk and lost the pouch [of wampum] after that there was no more given neither did the Mohawks take it hard.” If the Mahicans, who were the immediate neighbors of the Mohawks and who had been directly defeated by them in war, did not take their supposed tributary status very seriously, there is little reason why other Valley Indians should. The Mohawks rarely intervened in Hudson Valley affairs during the first half of the seventeenth century, and the Hudson Valley Indians conducted their own diplomacy and sold land to Europeans quite independently of Mohawk control.10 Although fictive kinship relations are poorly documented for these years, it is significant that no contemporary source suggests that Hudson Valley

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Indians recognized the Mohawks as fathers, uncles, or other senior relations during the first three quarters of the seventeenth century. Brant and his contemporary John Norton claimed that the Mahicans had become metaphorical women and nieces of the Mohawks when they made peace, but no other evidence documents the use of these terms. In the eighteenth century, the Iroquois routinely called the Delawares women, but did not normally refer to the Mahicans as such. During a land dispute in 1769, an Oneida delegate claimed that the Five Nations had “put Petticoats” on the Mahicans long ago, and the latter therefore had no right to sell land. Although the Iroquois had previously used this rationale to claim the right to dispose of Delaware land, they had never before described the Mahicans in this way. In 1768 the Mohawks had entered into an agreement with the Mahicans delineating their territorial boundaries. In August 1663, Mohawk diplomats referred to the Catskill Mahicans as brothers, the normal term denoting equality in fictive kinship relations.11 Mahican and possibly other Hudson Valley Indians sometimes joined Iroquois warriors in raids on the French-allied Hurons and Algonquins in the 1640s and 1650s, but while Iroquois diplomats spoke for these people in subsequent peace negotiations in Canada, they described them as allies, not tributaries. In 1658, Iroquois envoys described the French as members of the same alliance as the Dutch, the Mahicans, and the Five Nations, indicating that the Mahicans were their equals. The French often referred to these people as Loups or Wolves (a term also used for New England Indians and Abenakis), and some of the Iroquois allies may have been Esopus Indians, as this people at least in later years had difficulties with Indian allies of the French. In August 1654, Iroquois leaders secured the release of both Iroquois and Loup captives taken by the Algonquins and Hurons, and in November 1655 (in the wake of the Peach War) Mohawk envoys to Fort Orange wanted a general renewal of peace to include not only their own people but also the Esopus Indians and the French.12 But the Mohawks were one of the strongest peoples in the entire region, and some Hudson Valley Indians resented their power. The Dutch had called on the Mohawks to mediate at the end of Kieft’s War in 1645, and during the Peach War Stuyvesant had considered procuring Mohawk military aid. Even if the Mohawks did not seek to keep their neighbors in submission, their power made them a threat. In the early 1650s a number of Hudson Valley Indians were ready to join peoples to the east to neutralize this danger. In April 1650, Sokoki emissaries informed French officials that the Sokokis, the Pocumtucks, and the Pennacooks had agreed with the Mahicans to go to war against the Iroquois, pending French support. These peoples also had other

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allies on their side, particularly a nation “called Noutchihuict, very numerous and dreaded by the Iroquois,” living “between the Mahingans and Manathe.” Apparently, the Mahicans and Indians from the lower Hudson were conspiring with the New England Indians against the Iroquois. The “Noutchihuict” remain unidentified, but in September the same year, a Tappan man warned colonists at Fort Orange and Rensselaerswyck that the Dutch had sold guns to the Mohawks long enough, for the latter were planning war against them, and had sent wampum to the Tappans and Indians to the south to solicit aid. Perhaps this man hoped to sow distrust between the Mohawks and their Dutch trading partners, but the local colonial authorities reacted by sending presents to renew their friendship with the Mohawks. Neither did the Sokoki embassy to Canada yield any tangible results, although the anti-Iroquois alliance of 1650 would resurface in the 1660s.13

The Susquehannocks The Susquehannocks of the Susquehanna River to the west were another powerful people that exercised intermittent influence on developments in the Hudson Valley. The Unami-speaking peoples of the Delaware River and the Munsee-speaking Hudson Valley Indians both referred to the Susquehannocks as Minquas, as did the Dutch and the Swedes. Susquehannock society originated in the upper Susquehanna Valley, and around 1575 this people began to migrate south into the lower Susquehanna Valley, conquering and displacing the peoples there. In the early seventeenth century they began to wage war on the Delaware River Indians, eventually becoming the primary trading partners of the Dutch and later the Swedes there. Thomas Campanius Holm later claimed that the Susquehannocks were a terror to all their neighbors and had made the Delawares their tributaries. Although European sources may exaggerate the extent of their dominion, they were a powerful people in their relations with Indians and Europeans alike. In 1655 the Susquehannocks styled themselves the protectors of the Swedes on the Delaware.14 Although the Susquehannocks (like the Mohawks) at times used their influence over the Hudson Valley Indians and other less powerful neighbor peoples to obtain leverage in relations with Europeans, many Hudson Valley Indians were on quite friendly terms with this people. Both Mohawk and Susquehannock diplomats on occasion reminded the Dutch that their ability to mediate disputes made them valuable partners. In July 1649, Oratam and other lower Valley leaders told Dutch officials that the Minquas had asked them to live in peace with the Dutch, a request they were ready to heed. This

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may mean that the Susquehannocks were putting pressure on these Indians, but many Hudson Valley people were on good terms with the Susquehannocks. In 1626, Isaack de Rasiere had made use of the Susquehannock connections of a Hudson Valley sachem in an effort to open trade with this people. The presence of Minisink pottery on Susquehannock sites, and the converse occurrence of Susquehannock pottery in Minisink areas, suggests historically peaceful interaction at least between these two groups. There were further some Susquehannocks living among Indians in the Hudson Valley. Minqua Sachemack (“Susquehannock sachem”) took part in several Hackensack land transactions in the mid-seventeenth century, including the sales of Staten Island in 1657 and 1670 and a conveyance west of the Hudson by Tappan and Hackensack leaders in 1671. Thus, when Oratam and Pennececk in 1649 told Stuyvesant that the Susquehannock wanted them to remain at peace, they may have been hinting that the Dutch would do well to heed the Susquehannocks or risk jeopardizing their relationship to this powerful group.15 Hudson Valley people may have wanted to use Susquehannock power to help them contain the Mohawks. When Esopus leaders in 1658 and 1659 stressed that the Susquehannocks wanted them to keep the peace with the Dutch, they may have been hoping to draw on Susquehannock influence to counterbalance both the Mohawks and the Dutch. The Iroquois and the Susquehannocks had been enemies since before the Dutch arrived and this mutual hostility persisted until the final Susquehannock defeat in the 1670s. If Hudson Valley people felt menaced by the Mohawks or other Iroquois, the Susquehannocks were a plausible alternative ally against them. In October 1658 the Esopus sachems told Stuyvesant that the Susquehannocks would come to their country the following summer, and if they found the Dutch and the Indians at peace, they would bring their trade there. This was an obvious appeal to Stuyvesant’s commercial instincts, but the sachems may also have had an eye on the Mohawks, for later the same month they offered to give the Dutch a large tract of land and do their best see that the fur trade went to Esopus rather than Fort Orange, where trade took place under the auspices of the Mohawks. Although there is no evidence that the Mohawks barred Esopus Indians from this trade, it was undesirable to rely on their continued good will, particularly in times of unrest.16 The Esopus Indians may also have attempted to exploit rivalries among the various Iroquois nations to their own advantage. The 1650s were a time of discord within the Iroquois League, as the Mohawks and the four western nations struggled for control over Iroquois relations with Europeans, both the Dutch and the French. The western Iroquois sought to circumvent the trade

Map 3.  The middle Atlantic region in the mid-seventeenth century

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at Fort Orange, and in 1656 they arranged a trading expedition that brought thousands of beaver pelts directly to Manhattan. To the Esopus Indians, this intra-Iroquois rivalry was a potential opportunity. In October 1658 the Esopus sachems claimed that not only the Susquehannocks but also the western Iroquois had told them they were eager to trade with the Dutch. Both the Susquehannocks and the western Iroquois were more distant, and therefore less threatening, than the Mohawks.17

Intergroup Relations in the Esopus Wars The two wars between the Dutch and the Esopus Indians shed light on many of the connections and networks operating among Indian groups, as they to some degree or another came to concern not only virtually every Native people in the Hudson Valley itself but also the Indians in neighboring regions. The Esopus Indians in the main fought these wars alone, but they had sympathizers among their neighbors, and they attempted to secure assistance from groups farther afield. Development among Indians in neighboring areas influenced the stance that Hudson Valley groups took toward the Esopus Wars, making the larger context of the struggle more complex than a simple Indian-European conflict. When the first Esopus War erupted in 1659, a number of Hudson Valley Indians were involved in military operations elsewhere, which may have deprived the Esopus Indians of potential allies. Dutch colonists precipitated the war by attacking a party of merrymaking Esopus Indians on September 20, 1659. The same day, William Beeckman reported signs of hostilities between Indians from around Manhattan and the Raritans to the south. The same month, the Pocumtucks told English officials that Hudson Valley Indians were still involved in operations against the Mohegans. Some Mahicans may have been involved in Mohawk raids in Canada around this time. In 1659 or 1660, French-allied Algonquins captured a Mahican member of a Mohawk war party. The French described this man as a naturalized Mohawk, so he was perhaps an isolated case, especially since Iroquois envoys in July 1660 claimed that the Mahicans at Cohoes Falls entertained their Frenchallied enemies as guests. But while Dutch officials at this time focused almost all their attention on the Esopus conflict, a fact reflected in the sources, it is not a given that all Hudson Valley Indians were as preoccupied with this affair as the Dutch were.18 Nevertheless, the immediate neighbors of the Esopus Indians reacted quickly to the outbreak of hostilities, and lent these Natives varying degrees of support, without, however, openly going to war against the Dutch. In

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late October the Dutch commander at Esopus indicated that 110 Highland warriors were among the Esopus Indians, and the Wappinger sachems were conspicuously absent when Stuyvesant renewed the peace with several lower Valley groups in March 1660. The other chiefs told Stuyvesant that the Wappingers remained in friendship with the Dutch, but in May Wappinger sachem Kessachauw complained that some of his people were among the Indian captives taken by the Dutch. Colonial officials seem to have suspected the Wiechquaesgecks of assisting the Esopus Indians. Stuyvesant briefly had their sachem Sauwenaroque confined to prison for some unspecified harm done to the Dutch, but released him at the request of the other sachems. The Minisinks also lent some aid to their Esopus friends, as eleven of their people reportedly died in a Dutch attack on an Esopus stronghold in early 1660.19 The response of the Mahicans to the outbreak of hostilities appears to have been complicated by their relations to the Mohawks. The Mahicans at Catskill had close relations with the Esopus Indians, and the only comprehensive Native account of the Dutch attack in September 1659 comes from two Catskill men. One of these men was Catskill leader Mahak Niminaw (or Maechschapet), who was later involved in a land sale made by Esopus Indians living at Catskill. He was probably identical to Machanuk, a Mahican leader present at the meeting between Maryland officials and Mahicans, Catskills, and Esopus Indians in 1682. The provincial authorities suspected the Catskills and possibly also other Mahicans of covertly assisting the Esopus Indians, but the attitude of the Mohawks made it perilous for the Mahicans openly to support their Esopus friends. Mohawk leaders assured the Dutch that they would not assist any Hudson Valley Indians against them, but made no promise to intervene in the conflict, and complained of their continuing difficulties with the French and their allies. The Mohawks may also have been involved in Ninegret’s operations against Uncas, for the Pocumtucks indicated that both the Indians of the Hudson and the Mohawks were their allies against the Mohegans.20 It was in this context that Mahican and Mohawk envoys opened negotiations with the Esopus Indians on behalf of the Dutch, eventually bringing about the truce in early November. The Mahicans appear to have been the ones actually meeting with Esopus leaders to forge this armistice, an indication of the generally good relations they had with the Esopus Indians. But the Mohawks were also involved, and if the Mahicans were inclined to support their Esopus neighbors, they likely could not do so without incurring the displeasure of the more powerful Mohawks, who probably did not want warfare in their neighborhood while they were engaged in war farther afield. War in the Hudson Valley might interrupt the supply line between Manhattan and

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Fort Orange, and the Mohawks relied on the trade at the fort for arms. The Esopus Indians, too, were vulnerable to Mohawk pressure; because significant military assistance from their neighbors was unlikely and of the possibility of having to fight both the Dutch and the Mohawks simultaneously, they had little choice but to conclude a truce.21 In these difficult circumstances, the Esopus Indians sought Susquehannock diplomatic support. In early April 1660, three Susquehannock leaders arrived at Wiltwyck, where they told the local commander that they had come to ask for peace for the Esopus Indians. After meeting with the Esopus Indians, these envoys returned to Wiltwyck with renewed requests for peace, but the commander referred them to Stuyvesant. In early May, Stuyvesant sent interpreter Claes de Ruyter to negotiate with the Esopus sachems, stressing that the Susquehannocks, Mahicans, and others had asked the Dutch to make peace. These negotiations failed, but the Esopus Indians continued to seek Susquehannock help. On May 12, Beeckman received word that two Esopus Indians and two Mahicans had gone to Susquehannock country. Less than two weeks later, a Hackensack sachem went with presents to the Susquehannocks and returned with the Susquehannocks’ chief sachem and a brother of Esopus sachem Premaeker. The Susquehannock leader said he was going to Manhattan to make peace between the Dutch and the Esopus Indians, and even indicated that if Stuyvesant would not make peace, his people would help the Esopus Indians against the Dutch.22 Unfortunately for the Esopus Indians, the Susquehannocks used the treaty of peace in July1660 as an opportunity to assert their status as a regional great power, in cooperation with the Mohawks, with whom they had forged a new détente. If the Esopus Indians and their friends had hoped to use the Susquehannocks to counterbalance the Dutch or the Mohawks, they were disappointed, for Mohawk and Susquehannock diplomats were now working in coordination. During the peace negotiations at Wiltwyck, they took full credit for arranging a settlement and blamed the Esopus Indians for the war. The Mohawks and the Susquehannocks had common interests at this time, as they were both having difficulties with the four western Iroquois nations. The western Iroquois, who also had delegates at the treaty signing, viewed the Mohawk-Susquehannock détente with dislike. They made no move to rebuke the Esopus Indians, and told Stuyvesant that the Dutch should now release the Esopus prisoners they had taken. They also took the opportunity to renew the pact they had made at Manhattan while circumventing the Mohawk-controlled Fort Orange trade four years earlier.23 Inter-Indian relations continued to shape the strategic behavior of Hudson Valley Indians during the Second Esopus War. The Esopus Indians still

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looked to the Wappingers, Mahicans, and Minisinks for support. The year before this war, in September 1662, the rare appearance of a Dutch trader at an Esopus settlement led the Esopus Indians to fear an imminent Dutch attack, and they reacted by sending messages to these three peoples. Many Esopus Indians sought refuge among the Catskills during this conflict, while others went to the Wappingers and the Minisinks. Both the Wappingers and the Minisinks lent the Esopus Indians some military assistance, but neither openly went to war against the Dutch, and the latter had to keep an eye on the western Iroquois, who had renewed their attacks on the Susquehannocks. In August 1663 three Minisink sachems came with Oratam to Manhattan to renew the peace with the Dutch, explaining that their people feared the Iroquois and wanted no quarrel with the Europeans. The Esopus Indians still sought Minisink aid, and Beeckman reported that Esopus people were at Minisink in September 1663, but the Minisinks would not declare war against the Dutch. In March 1664, Minisink envoys told Stuyvesant that they and the Susquehannocks were allied against the Iroquois, who threatened them both.24 The Mohawks made some effort to put pressure on the Esopus Indians at the beginning of the second war, but they were soon preoccupied by other matters. Relations between the Mohawks and the Esopus Indians were tense after the First Esopus War, but the Mohawk response to the outbreak of the second war was quite muted. In late June 1663, the Mohawk métis captain known as Smits Jan or Cunackqueese (called the Flemish Bastard by the French) volunteered to go with two Mahicans and a Dutch interpreter to negotiate the release of the captives taken by the Esopus Indians. When these envoys managed only to secure the release of one captive, Smits Jan suggested that Mohawk warriors might free the prisoners by force, but the magistrates of Fort Orange were cool to this proposal, which they described as a drunken boast lacking the approval of senior Mohawk chiefs. Apart from capturing one Esopus man and mutilating his fingers, the Mohawk made no move to give the Dutch military support, and they could ill have afforded to do so, engaged as they were in several wars in other areas.25 The Susquehannocks likewise had their hands full with their own affairs, and part of what distracted both them and the Mohawks from the Esopus conflict was the sudden breakdown of the Mohawk-Susquehannock détente. The Susquehannocks and the western Iroquois were still at war. In spite of Mohawk efforts to mediate in early 1661, Iroquois raiders continued to strike the Susquehannocks. In May 1663, sixteen hundred Iroquois warriors invaded the Susquehannock homeland. The Susquehannocks managed to repulse the invaders, but they could not spare much attention for Hudson

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Valley affairs, especially since the smallpox outbreak that year came on top of their military straits. In August 1663 the Susquehannocks and the Mohawks sent a joint message to the Esopus Indians, but the same month the Mohawks killed Susquehannock ambassadors bearing gifts to their country and joined the other Iroquois against their erstwhile friends.26

The Iroquois War As far as the Mohawks were concerned, the most important development during the Second Esopus War was their growing difficulties with their various Indian enemies living in New England and areas farther east. In 1660, the Mohawks and other Iroquois launched a campaign against the eastern Abenakis in Maine. Their hostilities with the eastern Abenakis and their Sokoki allies continued through 1662 and 1663. In January 1664, Dutch officials reported that Iroquois forces had suffered heavy losses when they stormed an enemy stronghold. Stuyvesant worried that the North Indians might now send war parties into the neighborhood of the Dutch. In May, Dutch efforts to mediate appeared to have borne fruit, but after the killing of the Mohawk ambassadors by the Sokokis and Pocumtucks near Hadley on the Connecticut River, peace was as far away as ever. By mid-July 1664 the New England Indians had begun to launch raids in the immediate neighborhood of Fort Orange. Engaged as they were in wars with the Susquehannocks, the New England Indians, and the French and their allies, the Iroquois were ill equipped to let their power be felt along the banks of the Hudson.27 Since some Hudson Valley Indians were old friends of the Pocumtucks, Sokokis, and other eastern peoples, the Mohawks must have realized that some of their neighbors were likely to join the war against them. Indeed, these peoples had contemplated such an alliance in 1650. The Mohawks could therefore ill afford to alienate the Esopus Indians or any of their friends, and while the Dutch hoped the Mohawks might help end the war, this was not necessarily in their interest. If the Valley Indians remained preoccupied with the Esopus War, they were less likely to ally with enemies of the Iroquois, and some evidence hints at attempts at disengaging the Hudson Valley Indians from the anti-Iroquois coalition. While anchored at the mouth of Wappinger Creek in late August 1663, Pieter van Couwenhoven encountered two Mohawks in a canoe coming from Fort Orange carrying a large amount of ammunition. These Mohawks refused to talk with the Dutchman and continued downstream. It is possible that the Mohawks intended to give these supplies to the Esopus Indians or other Valley groups, perhaps to prolong the war with the Dutch or to present them with gifts to dissuade them

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from joining their enemies. A few days later, a Wappinger sachem told Van Couwenhoven that while he was with the Esopus Indians, Mohawk and Susquehannock envoys brought a message that made the Esopus Indians so incensed at the Wappinger that he felt forced to depart. Perhaps this was a Mohawk effort to sow distrust between these peoples to sabotage the formation of an anti-Mohawk Hudson Valley coalition allied with the New England Indians. The Mohawks may also have attempted to persuade the Minisinks to stay out of the Iroquois-Susquehannock war, for a Mohawk man reportedly briefly stayed at an Esopus stronghold in September 1663 while en route to the Minisinks.28 If the Mohawks sought to keep the Hudson Valley Indians at peace, their efforts failed, for almost immediately after the end of the Second Esopus War in May 1664, the Mahicans, and perhaps also other Hudson Valley groups, joined the anti-Iroquois alliance. Negotiations toward that end began during the first months of the Second Esopus War. In October 1663 a Mohawk man told Dutch colonists that the Mahicans, Catskills, Wappingers, and Esopus Indians were holding a great meeting with an Indian people living halfway between Fort Orange and Hartford. The conference took place near Claverack in Mahican country east of the Hudson, and a large force of warriors had gathered there. But the Valley Indians were not yet ready to join the war against the Iroquois. The Mahicans were still at peace with the Iroquois in May 1664, when the Mohawks asked Mahican and Catskill leaders to mediate between them and the New England Indians. Three Mahicans went with Dutch and Mohawk delegates to the Sokokis and Pocumtucks, but the pace process failed, and in late July Jeremias van Rensselaer lamented that the Mahicans were allied with the North Indians, who killed cattle and burned a Dutch house at Claverack. The Esopus War was over when New Netherland fell to the English a month later, but peace remained elusive.29 When the English captured New Netherland in 1664, they found the Iroquois struggling. Sometime in 1664, Mahican defenders repelled a force of six hundred warriors attacking one of their villages, inflicting heavily casualties on their foes. The agreement Iroquois leaders made with Governor Nicolls’s deputy George Cartwright in September 1664 likewise shows that they were having difficulties. This treaty stipulated that there should be peace between the Iroquois and the Esopus Indians, Wappingers, and all the Indians down the Hudson to Manhattan, but the Iroquois still asked for help to make peace “with the Nations down the River,” which indicates that by then some Hudson Valley groups had joined the alliance against them. The Iroquois insisted that the English must not assist the Sokokis, Pocumtucks, and Pennacooks, but added that “if they be beaten by the three Nations above

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mencôned, they may receive acommodacôn from ye English.” An Iroquois defeat was obviously a possibility.30 Hudson Valley Indians continued to oppose the Iroquois during 1665 and 1666. In the first weeks of 1665, Mohawk warriors launched a devastating attack on the settlements of the Pocumtucks and their neighbors on the Connecticut, but in early March John Pynchon was still dismissive of the strength of the Mohawks and held that the Pocumtucks and their allies could easily have dealt with them if Uncas of the Mohegans did not supply the Mohawks with intelligence. In October, Mahican sachem Aepjen indicated that he wanted peace, and Mahican leaders conducted negotiations at several points over the following years. Nicolls thought the North Indians might be too proud to open negotiations with the Iroquois, but he hoped that Uncas might negotiate a truce. These plans came to naught, and the following year the Mahicans were coming close to severing Iroquois access to military supplies by making it perilous to travel to Albany to trade. In July 1666 Mohawk envoys wanted to spend the night within Albany’s walls, “for we do not want to be killed by the Mahikanders.”31 How many Hudson Valley Indians had by then joined the war is hard to determine, but the conflict may have reverberated as close to the center of colonial settlement as western Long Island. In 1665, Nicolls wrote Connecticut governor John Winthrop Jr. that he hoped “to settle a full peace with the Indians above, and also bring all the Indians of Long Iland to a free consert of their submitting to the Gouvernment as their supreme upon which they will hereafter depend for Justice and to beare armes only with and for the English.” This admittedly obscure passage may suggest that Long Island Indians by then had some level of involvement in the war. Three years later, Nicolls appeared worried that the western Long Islanders would join the fray. When Tackapousha, at the head of a delegation of Massapequas, Rockaways, Secatogues, and Mericokes, informed him that he intended to send a gift to the Wiechquaesgecks in return for wampum received two years before, Nicolls stressed that the protection of the English was contingent on his people remaining at peace with other Indians. He added that while they were free to accept gifts from any Indian friends, “if it be to joyne wth any to make warre they must not do it wthout acquainting ye Governor wth it, & having his leave so to do.”32 Developments in the ongoing conflict between the Iroquois and the French and their allies worked in favor of the Hudson Valley Indians in the years between 1664 and 1666. In 1664, the Iroquois opened peace negotiations with the French. Jesuit clergymen believed that part of the reason the Iroquois sued for peace was their difficulties with the Mahicans and their allies,

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but this dynamic could work both ways, and the danger from Canada, recently reinforced by fresh troops from France, appears to have induced the Mohawks to seek peace with the Hudson Valley Indians and their allies. The western Iroquois concluded a treaty with the French in December 1665, and following three French expeditions against Mohawk country, one of which razed four villages, the Mohawks sued for peace and requested Jesuit missionaries in April 1667.33 Mohawk difficulties with the French led to an aborted peace in the fall of 1666. In August 1666 the magistrates of Albany told the Mohawks that they must make offers of peace to the Mahicans and their allies if they expected Albany’s assistance in negotiations with the French. The Mohawks promised to send presents to the North Indians and the Indians of the Hudson Valley. Both the Albany magistracy and New England officials worked to promote peace, and in September Albany officials negotiated a treaty between the Mohawks and the Mahicans. This agreement held at least until November or early December of that year, when the Mohawks gave Aepjen a belt of wampum “as a token of continuance of the peace with the North Indians,” but with Iroquois fortunes ebbing, their enemies were unlikely to keep this settlement. In January 1667, Pynchon wrote that the Pocumtucks saw the plight of the Mohawks as a military opportunity.34 The continuing war between the Iroquois and the Susquehannocks also favored the Hudson Valley Indians and their allies. The enemies of the Iroquois may have coordinated their efforts, in effect creating an alliance stretching from the Susquehanna River to the Connecticut River, and even beyond. European observers were aware that the conflicts were linked. On January 25, 1665, Richard Nicolls warned Winthrop that a force of three thousand “Senekes” was preparing to attack the Indians of the Connecticut River, but Pynchon believed the western Iroquois posed no serious threat to the Pocumtucks and their allies, as their war in the west kept them preoccupied. A month later, Nicolls reported that he had heard no more “of any attempts of the Senekes or appearance of other forces about Fort Albany; rather, that they be fallen into a war with the Susqusohannaughs.” The Jesuits cited both the war with the Mahicans and their allies and with the Susquehannocks as reasons why the Iroquois sought peace with the French. The fortunes of the Susquehannocks and the Valley Indians and their allies were linked, for while both wars lasted the Iroquois could not focus their collective might on either group of enemies. Given the extensive contacts that Hudson Valley Indians had with the Susquehannocks, it is not unlikely that these two sets of belligerents cooperated against their common foe.

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The Pocumtucks understood this situation, and were in contact with the ­Susquehannocks. In July 1671 the Pocumtucks told Pynchon that they were about to send emissaries to make a league with the Susquehannocks, whose war with the western Iroquois Pynchon realized was a matter of importance to the Pocumtucks.35 Between 1667 and early 1669, the Hudson Valley Indians and their allies continued to hold their own against the Iroquois. Mahican war parties were stalking the borders of Iroquoia, making forays into the Iroquois heartland as far as Onondaga. The activities of other Hudson Valley Indians are poorly documented for these years, but the Esopus Indians, at least, were in contact with Indians in New England. Around harvest time 1668, an old Indian man from the area around Hartford returned from a visit to Esopus. He brought word that the “Sophous Indians” had informed him that a party of Mohegans had recently brought the scalp of an Indian woman killed near Middletown, Connecticut, to Albany. In 1668, Father Jean Pierron held that their superior numbers gave the Loups the advantage in the war, but some Mahicans still favored peace. There were negotiations between the Mahicans and Mohawks in the summer of 1667, and Mahican envoys accompanied a Mohawk sachem to meet with Indians in Connecticut. In May 1668, Mahican and Mohawk delegates at Albany exchanged presents and agreed on a truce. This agreement did not hold, probably because “their were Wanting Some Sachams wch Should be Conferred in the peace makeinge.” At the same time, the Mohawks claimed that the Onondagas, and not their people, were behind recent killings of Indians in New England. In August, Onondaga chief Garakontié complained to the French that the Loups had harassed his people. Garakontié said that only the Mohawks and Oneidas (not the Onondagas) had harmed the Loups. The French were skeptical of that claim, but these contradictory accusations show that the war was not going well for the Iroquois.36 In early 1669, however, the anti-Iroquois alliance was weakened, as some Hudson Valley peoples withdrew from the war. In mid-February, “Plenipotentiarys” from the Nevesinks, Hackensacks, Esopus Indians, and reportedly also Indians from the Delaware held a meeting at Esopus. These Native leaders decided to send a present of seventy-eight large belts of wampum to the “Maquases and Sinnikens,” and requested the local magistracy to let a European accompany their mission to the Iroquois “to testify the cleannesse of their intention.” Governor Francis Lovelace of New York, who hoped this project would help lay the foundation for “universall peace in these parts,” urged the magistrates to assist the peacemakers. By late July both the Esopus Indians and their neighbors the Catskill Mahicans had concluded a

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formal peace with the Mohawks, and in early August Hackensack sachem Hans declared that the Hackensacks, Tappans, and Staten Island Indians had made peace with the Iroquois. This meant that all the Indian peoples west of the Hudson had abandoned the war. These defections coincided with a great Mohawk victory. On August 18, 1669, the Mohawks beat back an attack made by at least three hundred warriors on their easternmost village. Most of the attackers came from New England, but Lovelace indicated that some were Mahicans. These developments did not favor the enemies of the Iroquois.37 But as long as other Hudson Valley Indians continued the war, these Iroquois gains might prove of brief duration. The peace concluded with the Indians west of the Hudson was unlikely to hold as long as their friends and neighbors east of the Hudson remained at war. Lovelace recognized the reality of this situation, and wrote that the peace could not hold as long as the “Maquas will not accord with the Wappingos and other naçons of that side of Hudsons River and there being so great a Correspondence with them of the Esopus, Cattskile &c that hee that attack the one, must needs injure the other, since in all extremityes they will recourse one to the other.” The Indians that had withdrawn from the war had not necessarily abandoned their old friends. In August 1669 an emissary from “a certain Nation of the Loups who are at peace with the Iroquois” arrived at Oneida carrying twenty belts of wampum to induce the Oneidas to cease ­hostilities. Jesuit Father Bruyas noted that the Oneidas had been at war with his people as late as spring that year. Significantly, the ambassador approached the Oneidas, and not the Mohawks, the Iroquois nation with whom the ­Valley Indians had had the most difficult relations. The Mohawk victory in August1669 was also less than definite. The Iroquois now sought to take the war into the country of their neighbors, but an assault of four hundred Iroquois warriors recruited from the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, and Cayugas on a fort on the lower Hudson somewhere near Manhattan failed utterly.38 For this and other reasons, the work of peace progressed slowly. In late September, Lovelace wrote that, in spite of their recent victory, the Mohawks still wanted peace. Indeed, the governor held that the Mohawks offered terms of peace “of so much moderation, and Condesention as was more reasonable for the Conquered to sue for, then the Victorious to proffer.” A month later, Albany officials were holding negotiations with the Mahicans. By late December, Lovelace was optimistic of a treaty between the Mohawks and the Mahicans, and expected to have the Wappingers, Wiechquaesgecks, and other Indians east of the lower Hudson included in a general peace agreement.

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But he worried that festering animosities between Mohawks and Mahicans would hinder the negotiations. In April 1670, Pynchon reported that the Connecticut Valley Indians were desirous of peace with the Mohawks, but feared Iroquois deceit.39 The cessation of warfare over the next two years should at least in part be seen in light of developments in neighboring regions. The threat from Canada had now lifted from Iroquoia, and while the Susquehannocks were still a dangerous enemy, they were gradually weakened by disease and war. By 1672 the Susquehannocks could reportedly raise no more than three hundred warriors. In the Hudson Valley, a gradual cessation of hostilities set in. In January 1670, Lovelace expressed satisfaction that the Indians were busy beaver hunting, and he was optimistic of a speedy settlement. But the peace process took time, and while there were negotiations between the Mahicans and the Mohawks at Albany in December 1670, a formal treaty came only the following year. The Wiechquaesgecks indicated that they were still in a state of war with the Mohawks in October 1671.40

The Iroquois Ascendant The treaty of peace in November 1671 marked the end of the last major conflict fought by Indians still resident in the Hudson Valley in their own homeland. The Hudson Valley did not exist in isolation from the rest of Native America. No Native group could ignore the actions and attitudes of its neighbors, which at times could be just as important as those of the colonizers. The anti-Iroquois war of the 1660s and 1670s is a striking demonstration of the importance of inter-Indian affairs to Hudson Valley diplomacy. The common Iroquois threat united almost all Hudson Valley peoples in an extensive military alliance with peoples to their east, producing an unprecedented unity of purpose. As John Winthrop Jr. noted in July 1665, “the Indians are now in such a posture as hath not beene formerly knowne, all in a c¯obination fr¯o Hudsons River to Canada: and though the reason of it is apparent to be upon this warr wth the Mowhaukes,” he feared they might turn on the English. Although in hindsight it is clear that the Europeans were more dangerous than the Iroquois could ever be, this was not necessarily obvious to all Natives at the time.41 The ability of the Esopus Indians to join the war against the Iroquois suggests that they were not as thoroughly beaten by the Dutch as the records suggest. By late 1663 and early 1664, Dutch officials described the Esopus Indians as broken and scattered among their neighbors, but it is unclear how defeated they really were. The active phase of the Second Esopus War

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took place almost entirely between June and early October of 1663, during which time Dutch forces razed two Esopus forts (one of them abandoned) and killed at least twenty-eight Indian men, women, and children and took several captive, some of them Wappingers. Sewakenamo, Oratam, and other peacemakers described the Esopus Indians as a starving and suffering people, but Rensselaerswyck farmers still feared these Indians so much that they fled their farms in April 1664. Dispersing among neighbor peoples allowed the Esopus Indians to avoid the Dutch, who could then not attack them without risking war with their hosts. After the destruction of their second fort in October 1663, Esopus warriors avoided Dutch forces, which may indicate that they were defeated, but it could equally be that they had decided not to pursue the conflict any further, opting to prepare for war with the Mohawks. If so, they may have exaggerated their weakness to induce the Dutch to make peace. By December 1664, the Esopus Indians had reconsolidated enough to rebuild one of the forts destroyed by the Dutch the year before. The local Dutch sensed a plot against them, but the Esopus Indians were more likely making preparations for war against the Iroquois.42 The willingness of many Hudson Valley Indians to fight the Iroquois contradicts the assumption that these peoples had accepted foreign domination by the time of the English conquest. In 1664, New Netherland had a population of only nine thousand or so colonists. Iroquois population estimates at this time range from about eighty-six hundred to more than twenty thousand persons in 1670. The Iroquois could field thousands of warriors. During the Second Esopus War, the Dutch deployed slightly less than two hundred soldiers and volunteers. Even with Massapequa auxiliaries, the total number of enemies the Esopus Indians faced would have been no more than 250 men, while the Iroquois sent six hundred warriors in a single attack on a Mahican village in 1664. It is debatable whether the Valley Indians could not fight the Dutch, or whether they chose to concentrate on the Iroquois because they saw them as the greater threat. The Dutch had ready access to European weapons, but the Iroquois also had firepower enough. As late as 1660, a French observer held that the Iroquois might manage to destroy New France, and a year later Stuyvesant worried that they would turn on the Dutch after they had wiped out the French colony.43 As far as Indian-Indian relations are concerned, the great watershed mark was not in 1664, but somewhere in the mid-1670s. The end of the war between the Valley Indians and the Iroquois marked the final act of

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Iroquois ascendancy over the Valley peoples, but Iroquois preeminence could not be complete without radical changes in the larger regional landscape. These changes fell into place in the mid-1670s, and from the end of that decade the Valley Indians fell increasingly under the shadow of the Iroquois longhouse.

Ch a p te r 6

In the Shadow of the Longhouse

The speaker of the Esopus delegation was perhaps both embarrassed and relieved. At a meeting with the sachems of the lower Mohawk castle on May 28, 1756, the Esopus Indians described themselves as a poor people distressed by the ongoing war between Indians and English to their west and appealed to their Mohawk uncles for protection. The Mohawks had invited these nephews to seek shelter in their country about a month before, and it must have been a relief to the Esopus Indians that they were still welcome. Embarrassment came from their inexperience with the Iroquois. Somewhat uncomfortable with speaking at this conference, the Esopus emissaries felt they must ask the Mohawks to excuse their “Inexperience in public Conferences,” blaming their scattered way of life and the rum sold them by the English for ruining “the Memory of all anteint Customs & the Method of treating on public affairs.” The Mohawks replied with understanding, acknowledging “that the little Correspondence we have had together for a great Number of years, must naturally put you under some difficulties with regard to the usual Ceremonies on public Meetings.” The Mohawks could make allowances, and Sir William Johnson, who was present at this meeting, believed that the settlement of these Natives in Mohawk country would be beneficial to the interest of the English.1 From the late seventeenth century, the Hudson Valley Indians had in many ways been in the shadow of the Iroquois Longhouse. The Five Nations were 122

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the strongest Native power in the entire region, and the growing partnership between the English and the Iroquois, embodied in the forging of the Covenant Chain in the 1670s, meant that colonial officials often paid scant attention to Hudson Valley Indians, whom they saw as mere pawns in the service of the Anglo-Iroquois alliance. According to Johnson, the settlement of the Esopus Indians among the Mohawks “will strengthen our Indian Interest, & render a people before useless servicable to the common Cause.” The small importance colonial officials accorded these Natives was expressed in a gen­ eral lack of concern for the exact political affiliation of individuals and groups of people. The English commonly called all Hudson Valley Natives River Indians, but Johnson and others Englishmen also referred to the Esopus Indians as Mohikanders and Delawares.2 But there were limits both to Iroquois and to English supremacy. Both the Mohawks and the Esopus Indians made it clear that they had had little formal contact for many years, and these “before useless” Indians had obviously not always been at the beck and call of the English. Indeed, the general lack of concern that the English had for these Natives meant that the colonial government usually left them alone. Relations between Hudson Valley Indians and Iroquois were also more complex than domination and subordination, as the Esopus Indians sought the protection of their uncles in a dangerous time.

War in the East Enmity between the Mohawks and their former enemies, both in the Hudson Valley and in New England, continued to linger after the peace of 1671. John Pynchon reported that the Pocumtuck representatives at the conference had lacked proper authorization from their people, and many Pocumtucks still wanted revenge. The Pocumtucks had not sealed the treaty with presents, and they still held a captive the Mohawks wanted returned. Nor were the Mahicans and the Mohawks on friendly terms. A Jesuit missionary lamented that since the Mohawks no longer feared the Loups, they could freely go to Albany to trade for liquor, but the Mohawks themselves did not feel completely secure. In July 1672, Mohawk emissaries told Albany officials that the Mahicans and the New England Indians were again plotting against them, and they had attempted to enlist the French against the Mohawks. In February 1675, Mahican envoys expressed fear that the death of Jeremias van Rensselaer might lead the Mohawks to attack them, as he had helped negotiate the peace. On that occasion, they declared that as the English and the Dutch were now united, “we Mahikanders, the highland Indians, and the ‘western corner’ Indians are now one also.” The Mahicans and the ­Wappingers,

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as well as the Wiechquaesgeck and possibly also other peoples in or near the Highlands, were the last Hudson Valley peoples to make peace with the Mohawks, and they may have meant to renew their military alliance if the Mohawks attacked. The “western corner” referred to Westenhook or the Housatonic Valley and the Mahicans living there.3 In 1675 war erupted in New England to the east. Metacom’s War began as the Wampanoags went to war against the English in late June, and in September Pynchon warned the magistrates of Albany that the Indians of the Connecticut Valley had begun to attack the English. In mid-July, Kingston officials notified the Esopus Indians that the “Arregan Indians” had killed Europeans, and told them that their people must not come to the English town at night, nor bring firearms with them. They further asked for notification if these Indians came into their parts, which the Esopus Indians promised to give. The same month, Governor Andros demanded hostages from the Hackensacks and Tappans and had the Long Islanders disarmed, supposedly because they had paid tribute to Indians in New England. The Hackensacks and Tappans had been part of the anti-Iroquois alliance a few years before and thus had a history of cooperative relations with Indians in New England.4 The English authorities were quite aware of the old ties between Hudson Valley Indians and peoples to the east, and they sought to contain the interaction among these Natives. In October the colonial authorities expressed concern about the “Indyans disturbances to the Eastward” and moved to impound the canoes of the Natives living on Long Island and in the vicinity of Manhattan “to prevent any intercourse with the Indyans on the Maine and our Indians.” They further declared that no Natives would be allowed to leave the jurisdiction of New York. The same month, Andros accused Tackapousha and other western Long Island leaders of corresponding with the hostile Indians in New England. The sachems denied this charge, but the Long Islanders had long had ties to peoples to their east. Tackapousha had gone in person to visit Indians in New England in 1670. The following day, Governor Andros ordered the magistrates of Albany to forbid all sale of ammunition to Indians, except to the Iroquois, who had a history of hostility to the Natives at war with the English. The month before Andros had met with the Iroquois at Albany, and as he found them inclined to go to war against the Abenakis, he instructed the military commander at Albany to furnish them with ammunition for that purpose.5 By late 1675 some of the belligerents from New England had come into the Hudson Valley itself. In early December, a number of North Indians were at the Hoosick River in Mahican country, and Andros sent envoys to negotiate the release of any English captives in their hands. In early January 1676

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the governor learned that Metacom himself had come to Hoosick with four to five hundred warriors. Escaped captive Thomas Warner claimed that there were twenty-one hundred warriors at Hoosick, and that the Mahicans had supplied the enemies of the English with provisions. In early March, Andros sent a message ordering the North Indians to surrender their English prisoners and leave his jurisdiction, but around this time the Mohawk launched an attack on these people, and by April Andros reported that the Iroquois had driven the New England Indians back to the Connecticut River.6 The Hudson Valley Indians had only limited involvement in the conflict in New England. In late October 1675, colonists in Esopus country were apparently so afraid of their Indian neighbors that were ready to flee their homes, but Andros saw no danger there, and rebuked the magistrates at Kingston for their needless fears and ordered their people to stay put. Andros held an amicable meeting with the Esopus sachems on his way to Albany in the spring of 1676, but he was still concerned about the possibility that other Hudson Valley Indians might join the belligerents. In April the governor encouraged both the Wiechquaesgecks and the western Long Islanders to relocate to locations closer to the English settlements on Long Island or Manhattan, supposedly for their own protection but more likely to place them under greater supervision. No Hudson Valley Natives committed hostilities against the local Europeans during the war, but some of their warriors may have gone to New England. At a meeting at Albany in April 1677, agents from Massachusetts and Connecticut credited the Mahicans with not having fought the English in the war, but a year before Thomas Warner had claimed that some Mahicans had participated in the expedition that took him prisoner.7 Many Hudson Valley Indians sympathized with the cause of their eastern neighbors and some groups and individuals lent them varying degrees of support. Since the Mahicans were old allies of several New England peoples and these Indians were now in their country, there is good reason to credit English claims that the Mahicans sheltered and supported their enemies. Other Hudson Valley Indians also had old allies in New England and received a number of refugees. In July 1676, Connecticut officials claimed that a number of their enemies were planning to go toward the Hudson Valley until they reached Esopus, and from there proceed into Virginia. Virginia was an unlikely destination, but the refugees could count on their old Esopus allies, for in August a New Haven official wondered what should be done “about the reliques of the enemy, fled as I heare to Sepers [Esopus] Indians, and by them entertained, and into Albany or other parts vndr York.” The same month, a captured Indian revealed that a party of ninety Norwottucks

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and other Connecticut Valley warriors (including a namesake of Sacquans, the later Schaghticoke sachem) had gone to a place called Powquiag west of the Hudson, where a local leader encouraged them to fight the English. Powquiag was probably identical to Paquiage on Catskill Creek, or alternately Poughquag east of the river in historic Wappinger country.8 The Iroquois, on the other hand, supported the English, and there were signs that the struggle in New England might lead to renewed war with the Mahicans. Maria van Rensselaer’s fears of another war between these peoples were not unfounded, for in April 1676 Andros told Wiechquaesgeck ambassadors that when the Mohawks attacked Metacom’s forces north of Albany, the Mahicans fled, and the Mohawks took a Mahican prisoner, but released him on the governor’s command. The Iroquois saw an opportunity to settle scores with their old enemies. In 1677, when Iroquois warriors began to attack the Indians in New England, they sometimes targeted the Mahicans as well, abducting a number of their people. Mahican sachem Wattawit may have attempted covertly to seek aid from Indians on the lower Hudson against this threat, for it is odd that on July 25 he obtained a passport to go oystering on Long Island at a time when the Iroquois were actively harassing his people. Andros sought to prevent the Iroquois attacks, and no full-scale war erupted, but the Iroquois had managed to show their superior power.9

The Iroquois Triumphant At the same time as the English and the Indians moved toward war in New England, developments to the west led to the final destruction of Susquehannock power. As early as 1665 the Susquehannocks had begun to grow weary of their war with the Iroquois. In February of that year they asked Richard Nicolls to mediate in this ongoing conflict. In the fall of 1669 a Susquehannock ambassador opened negotiations with the Cayugas, but these Iroquois ultimately put this envoy to death. The peace concluded with the French and their allies in the mid-1660s and the peace made at Albany in 1671 meant that the Iroquois had fewer enemies to deal with. Indeed, in 1673 Iroquois leaders claimed the Susquehannocks were the only remaining foes of their people. The war raged on, and according to a Jesuit source from 1675 the Susquehannocks had suffered a devastating defeat at the hands of the Iroquois, probably sometime between 1673 and 1675. Following this disaster, they left their homeland on the Susquehanna River and sought refuge in Maryland and Virginia, where they became embroiled in the turmoil of Bacon’s Rebellion and were attacked by backcountry militiamen. Beleaguered and widely

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scattered, the Susquehannocks were no longer the great power they once had been.10 The defeat and dispersal of the Susquehannocks weakened the Hudson Valley Indians, who in the past had relied on this people to keep the Iroquois preoccupied in the west. Some Hudson Valley Indians still maintained contact with the Susquehannocks. In June 1675 a Wappinger delegation led by a sachem named Mawhoscan or Maverino came to Manhattan and told Andros that they were on a mission to make peace between the Susquehannocks and the Iroquois. Andros, who hoped to convince the Susquehannocks to settle within his province, gave the sachem a passport to see him safely through his journey to Virginia. The Nevesinks likewise maintained contact with the Susquehannocks. In April 1675 the Nevesink sachems made an appeal to Andros on behalf of seventeen Susquehannock captives held by the Mohawk. Following a complex set of negotiations and intrigues among the Iroquois and the provinces of New York, Maryland, and Virginia, most Susquehannocks settled in Iroquoia. In the 1690s a number of these refugees returned to the Susquehanna River and revived a Susquehannock polity at Conestoga, but as far as the Hudson Valley Indians were concerned, they were no longer a source of real or potential support. The dispersal of the oncepowerful Susquehannocks may have been beneficial to the Natives of the Delaware River, but to Hudson Valley Indians it merely served to strengthen the far more threatening Iroquois.11 With the defeat of the Susquehannocks and the New England Indians alike, the Hudson Valley Indians were bereft of allies and stood in a weakened position vis-à-vis the Five Nations. The North Indians who settled at Hoosick and became the Schaghticoke people were a welcome addition to the Valley Indians’ stock of friends, but they could not offset their loss of other allies. The new partnership between the English and the Iroquois, embodied in the Covenant Chain and its council fire at Albany, further worked to cement Iroquois preeminence. The English now recognized the Iroquois not only as the foremost Indian power in the neighborhood of New York but increasingly as the superiors of other Indian peoples in the province. English and Iroquois diplomats forged the Covenant Chain at a series of treaties at Albany in the mid-to-late 1670s, and over the following years and decades it became increasingly clear to Hudson Valley Indians that both the English and the Iroquois saw them at best as junior members in this alliance and frequently as mere pawns in a larger game played by these two greater powers.12 Starting in the 1670s, some Valley groups began to acknowledge the ­seniority of the Iroquois within the context of metaphoric kinship terminology. By the end of the seventeenth century, the Iroquois, at least, no longer saw

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the Valley Indians as their brothers and equals. The Esopus Indians, in fact, began to address the Mohawks as senior relatives even before the outbreak of Metacom’s War, possibly a result of their treaty of peace with the Iroquois in 1669. In response to a Mohawk message informing them that the governor of Canada accused Esopus Indians of killing Native allies of the French, Esopus leaders in April 1675 claimed ignorance, but added that when they last had difficulties with French allies, they had sent four strings of wampum to “their fathers the Maquaes,” and had then presumed that they had resolved this matter. The Esopus Indians both acknowledged the Mohawks as their fathers and accepted them as proper intermediaries with the French, with whom the Esopus Indians had no formal contact. That at least one Hudson Valley group acknowledged the Mohawks as fathers before they accepted the governor of New York as such suggests a Native origin for the concept of the governor-father. Apart from this episode, European records do not document fictive kinship relations between Mohawks and Esopus Indians until the latter half of the eighteenth century, when the Iroquois appeared as uncles of the Esopus Indians, an indication of their increased prestige and authority over the span of these decades.13 For the Mahicans and Schaghticokes, changes in kinship terminology postdate Metacom’s War. The Mahicans had begun to address the governor of New York as their father by 1677, a practice later followed by the Schaghticokes. At least by 1690, Iroquois diplomats had likewise begun to address these groups as children. By then, the Iroquois had probably acquired the status of uncles. In 1691, Seneca delegates referred to the Mahicans and Schaghticokes as cousins, and in Iroquois kinship terminology (as rendered by translators) cousin could refer to a sister’s son. From the first decades of the eighteenth century onward there is ample evidence that the Mahicans and Schaghticokes commonly referred to the Mohawks and other Iroquois as their uncles. Aupaumut explained that “part of the Six Nations are our Uncles, to wit, Mohawks, Onondagas, Cayogas, and Senecas. But the Oneidas, and Tuscaroras are our brothers.” Within the structure of the Iroquois League, the Oneidas and the Cayugas were younger brothers, as were the Tuscaroras after they became the sixth Iroquois nation in the early 1720s. According to Aupaumut, the Mahicans thus acknowledged only the most senior Iroquois nations (though apparently also the Cayugas) as their uncles and even suggested that the Oneidas were their “younger brethren.” In September 1757, however, an Oneida leader had addressed the chiefs of the Mahicans at Catskill and Schoharie as nephews. The Mahicans and the Iroquois did not necessarily always agree on the nature of their relationship.14

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By the last decade of the seventeenth century, then, these Hudson Valley Indians had two senior relatives in their immediate neighborhood: the Iroquois and the government of New York. The standing of these two powers was linked, as the governor only became a father after the creation of the Anglo-Iroquois Covenant Chain following Metacom’s War. The Valley Indians acknowledged their subordination to New York only after Iroquois preeminence in Native diplomatic relations was an established fact, and may even have sought a father to protect them from the Iroquois. The Mahicans first referred to Andros as their father in 1677, a year when Iroquois warriors committed several acts of violence against their people, and Andros did pressure the Iroquois to free Mahican captives. At least in later decades, the Iroquois described themselves as more senior relatives to the Mahicans and Schaghticokes than the governor. In Iroquois reckoning, uncles occupied a higher station of authority than fathers. At times, the Iroquois asserted their seniority over their nephews vis-à-vis the English. When Albany authorities in February 1690 wanted the Schaghticokes to move closer to Albany to protect the town against French and Indian raiders, an Iroquois leader objected that these Indians should stay where they were, adding that “they are our Childeren we will take good care yt they doe there duty,” a comment that suggests that the Iroquois uncles felt that oversight of the Schaghticokes primarily belonged to them. What the Schaghticokes thought about this claim went unrecorded, but those that sought refuge among the Mohawks in 1703 relied on the authority of their uncles to shield them from colonial officials. When Peter Schuyler sent a message urging the Indians to stay where they were, Mohawk leader Hendrick told him to stay out of this matter. Schuyler might represent their father, but with the backing of their uncles the Schagh­ ticokes could ignore his admonitions.15

Reluctant Auxiliaries Through the last quarter of the seventeenth century, many Hudson Valley Indians found themselves pressured to staff the military forces of the English and their Iroquois allies and fight in wars not of their own making. From the time of Metacom’s War, anti-French Iroquois leaders had sought a closer relationship with the English as a counterbalance to the French. The result was the creation of the Covenant Chain and a growing alliance between Iroquois Anglophiles and New York officials who were pursuing a policy of confrontation with Canada. Bolstered by English support, in the 1680s the ascendant Anglophile leadership of the Five Nations began to renew their wars against French-allied Indians in the west. The official friendship of the

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English and French crowns prevented Governor Dongan from assisting the Iroquois with English troops, but he attempted to send them military aid by proxy, calling on Hudson Valley groups to assist the Iroquois. In August 1686, Dongan told Tappan and Minisink leaders that he expected the assistance of their warriors if the French attacked the Iroquois, and the Iroquois also put pressure on the Valley Indians. When a French force invaded Seneca country in the summer of 1687, the Iroquois wanted Schaghticoke warriors to assist them, and since Dongan likewise expected them to help defend Iroquoia and New York, the Schaghticokes faced pressure from two sides. In November 1687, Dongan advised the Iroquois sachems to tell the Minisinks to give them assistance. Following the Revolution of 1688, England and France went to war, a welcome development for the Iroquois, who could now expect the English to join their ongoing conflict with the French, but problematic from the perspective of the Hudson Valley Indians.16 During their wars against the French and their allies in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, both the English and the Iroquois often presumed that the Mahicans, Schaghticokes, and other Hudson Valley Indians were a military resource at their disposal. English and Iroquois influence over these less powerful groups was often mutually reinforcing, in that governors and officials at Albany requested Iroquois leaders to tell Hudson Valley peoples to furnish troops, and Iroquois spokesmen similarly asked English officials to do the same, or complained to these men if Valley Indians withheld military aid. In May 1690 a Seneca diplomat told Albany officials that the Iroquois had come to Albany, “but wee see not our Children the Schackwock [Schaghticokes], neither the river Indians, who was expected should likewise have appeared.” Both the English and the Iroquois frequently treated these Hudson Valley Indians like pawns to be moved around the chessboard at will. On several occasions in the 1690s the Mahicans and Schaghticokes found themselves pressured to relocate to strategic locations where they would be more readily available as military manpower for the Anglo-Iroquois war.17 The Mahicans and the Schaghticokes were especially vulnerable to En­glish and Iroquois pressure, in part because they were the nearest neighbors to the Iroquois, but also because of their relationship to colonial officials at Albany, who were close partners of the Five Nations and took care of most of the daily management of the Covenant Chain. The Mahicans had had tight relations with the Europeans in the Albany area since the first Dutch traders arrived, and at meetings with colonial officials Mahican speakers were accustomed to stressing that they were the first to make a covenant with the newcomers. After the creation of the Covenant Chain in the mid-1670s, however, they increasingly found

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that English-Iroquois relations were foremost in the minds of their old friends. The Schaghticokes, too, had their council fire at Albany, and when their European brethren and their Iroquois uncles made common cause to pressure them to support their military projects, these two groups were in a vulnerable position.18 Forced to join a conflict not of their own making, the Mahicans and Schagh­ ticokes suffered demographic decline in the 1690s, due both to military losses and to migration to other areas. According to English estimates, there were 250 adult men among the River Indians in Albany County in 1689 and only ninety in 1698, at the end of King William’s War. In this case, the English probably had the Schaghticokes in mind. In 1702, the leaders of this group put their number at 110 fighting men, an increase since four years before, but a clear decline over the past decade. In 1703, the Schaghticokes who settled in Mohawk country blamed their declining fortunes on English military demands. By then a new imperial struggle was already looming, as England and France had both joined Queen Anne’s War (1701–13). The Iroquois had, after disastrous losses in the previous war, opted for a policy of neutrality, deciding in what is now known as the Grand Settlement of 1701 to stay out of future conflicts between England and France, but nevertheless furnished warriors for an invasion of Canada planned between 1709 and 1711. The Mahicans and Schaghticokes were likewise posed to participate in this project, which, however, never came to completion, saving them from further losses in English service.19 Other Hudson Valley groups were better situated to resist English and Iroquois impositions, due both to geographic distance and the decentralized structure of Indian-European relations. The Iroquois may have attempted to pressure other Valley peoples, but at least these people did not have to deal with demands from the Iroquois and the authorities at Albany alike. Living in a town bordering on the Canadian frontier, the people at Albany were eager to recruit warriors to protect them from the French, who often thought the merchants of Albany were the driving force behind Iroquois attacks, and therefore saw the capture of Albany as a strategic objective. The Mahicans and the Schaghticokes thus had to deal with local officials desperate for military aid, especially after a French-Indian force torched the smaller neighboring town of Schenectady in February 1690. When the magistrates felt threatened, they turned to their Iroquois partners, who might pressure the Mahicans and the Schaghticokes to send out their warriors. Additionally, because of their ties to Albany and its Anglo-Iroquois Covenant Chain, they had frequent meetings with colonial governors, officials concerned with implementing anti-French imperial policies. The Esopus Indians, by contrast,

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only had to deal with the authorities at Kingston, a place far less exposed to French incursions; there is little evidence that Ulster County officials were much interested in recruiting warriors for the imperial war effort. Other lower Valley groups tended to negotiate directly with the governor at Manhattan, but they were relatively far removed from the Iroquois, and were certainly less exposed to the displeasure of the Five Nations than were the Mahicans and the Schaghticokes.20 These peoples made far smaller contributions to the Anglo-Iroquois war effort, and some groups simply refused military impositions. Governor Dongan wanted the Tappans and Minisinks to assist the Iroquois, but there is no evidence that these groups actually complied. In 1692 the Iroquois complained that the Minisinks had ignored their call to arms. In April 1690, two Tappan leaders told Jacob Leisler that they had sent twelve men to join the war effort of the Mohawks and Senecas, and added that they planned to send more warriors later. The same month, Wessecanoe, speaking for the Kichtawancs, promised to send six warriors to Albany to fight the French. From western Long Island, a delegation of leaders that included Secatogue sachem Weamaus, Tackapousha’s brother Chippy, and Opasum, son of Tackapousha, told Leisler that they must hold further discussions before they could agree to English military requests. In September 1689, the authorities at Albany asked the magistrates of Kingston to help them persuade the Esopus Indians, Wappingers, and Indians on the Housatonic to send them scouts to warn against French incursions, but no evidence suggests that these groups complied with this request. The Wappingers and the Esopus Indians had little to do with the Anglo-Iroquois council fire burning at Albany, and the Housatonic Indians were farther removed still. In January 1687, Robert Livingston had invited a delegation of Indians from the Housatonic to have their people move to his land in the Hudson Valley (where they would be a potential source of military assistance), but these people told him they would stay where they were.21 New York authorities attempted to recruit Indians from all parts of the province to join the projected invasion of Canada during Queen Anne’s War, but few Native warriors agreed to enlist. The provincial government wanted the Minisinks, Wappingers, and Long Island Indians to send them auxiliary troops, and although twenty-one Highland Indians came to Albany in August 1711, as did twenty-six Shawnees, the Minisinks again remained aloof. The western Long Islanders outright refused to come, and it is unknown if the proposal of a Queens County official to have Long Island warriors organized as a militia in preparation for a possible French invasion of the island or of New York City came to fruition.22

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The Limits of Domination The limited extent to which many Hudson Valley groups complied with demands for military assistance indicates that although the Iroquois were doubtlessly the foremost Native power in this part of the Northeast, they could not always compel their weaker neighbors to obey their will, nor it is clear that they always sought to do so. In the early 1690s the western Iroquois were clearly applying pressure on the Minisinks. In February 1694, the Minisink sachems told Arent Schuyler that they were afraid that the Senecas had killed some of their hunters for “ye lucar [lucre] of the beavor or becaus ye Mennissink Indians have not been wth ye Sinneques as usiall to pay their Dutty,” suggesting that the Senecas had in the past collected tribute from this group, or at least that they expected them to renew their relationship regularly. Yet the Minisinks were in many ways independent of the Iroquois, and the same was true of many peoples in the Hudson Valley, who conducted their diplomacy independently of the Covenant Chain at Albany. There is no clear evidence that these peoples ever paid the Iroquois tribute.23 Only rarely did leaders from the lower Hudson make the Iroquois a subject of conversation at meetings with English officials. In April 1691, when the war was raging in the neighborhood of Albany, Tackapousha welcomed the new governor, Henry Sloughter, to New York without making any mention of the Five Nations, and the same was true of the Tappans who greeted Sloughter a few months later. Around this time, Mahican and Schaghticoke warriors were campaigning with colonial and Iroquois troops commanded by Peter Schuyler. A few weeks later, a delegation of Indians from the Highlands told the governor that they were glad to see him safely returned from his recent visit from Albany, and expressed satisfaction “that he hath spoake so well to the Mohaques and settled affaires soe well,” but this was the only reference they made to Iroquois affairs. These lower Valley groups were comfortably removed from the war near Albany, and the imperial struggle mainly affected them to the extent that it made local colonists anxious and inclined to listen to rumors of conspiracies involving external foes and local Indians, such as a report from August1689 that Wiechquaesgeck sachem Wessecanoe was involved in a plot hatched by the French and Edmund Andros to destroy the English around Manhattan.24 This is not to say that the Iroquois were unimportant, but they were not all-powerful, and neither were their English partners. After 1671, Hudson Valley Indians never directly challenged the Iroquois, no more than they directly challenged the English, at least not until the imperial war of the 1750s. In 1675 the Nevesink sachems were quite well informed about the

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fate of Susquehannock captives among the Mohawks, suggesting at least some level of contact. In August 1687, Iroquois leaders told Governor Dongan that a delegation of Indians from the mainland near Staten Island (around Kill van Kull) had recently been in Mohawk country, which may have referred to a renewal of the relationship between the Mohawks and the Hackensacks.25 No Hudson Valley group risked openly defying the authority of the En­­ glish or the Iroquois, but they could and did deploy more subtle resistance, and by evasion and delays often managed to avoid complying with English and Iroquois demands. In this respect, the Iroquois were not much different from the English, as the government of New York did not find it easy to control its supposed Indian subjects. The ability of Hudson Valley Indians to resist Iroquois control was not so much a sign of Iroquois weakness as of the limited ability of any external power to exact obedience from these peoples. As long as the Valley Indians paid lip-service to their acknowledged superiors, it was difficult for either the English or the Iroquois to use a great deal of force against them, especially in the case of military demands. There was no sense in provoking minor wars close to home in an effort to recruit auxiliaries to fight larger wars abroad. The relationship of the Hudson Valley Indians to the Iroquois was not always characterized by antagonism, as Iroquoia could be a place of refuge. Some of the Schaghticokes, after all, sought shelter among the Mohawks in 1703. In general, refugees augmented the security and military manpower of the Iroquois. The Iroquois had previously taken in the Susquehannocks, and within a decade after the arrival of the Schaghticokes they offered the Tuscaroras new homes in their country. In later years, Tutelos, Nanticokes, Conoys, and Mesquakies likewise found refuge in Iroquoia. Very little is known about the Schaghticokes among the Mohawks. In September 1703 a Schaghticoke spokesman told Governor Hunter that he hoped these people would eventually return home, and a decade later, in February 1713, the officer at Fort Hunter in Mohawk country reported that the Schaghticokes were returning to their old settlement. A year later, however, a Schaghticoke speaker related that “some of our families are Removed to ye maquas [Mohawk] Country for fear of ye Enemy,” and it is not clear in either case whether these were references to those that left in 1703 or later departures. In the 1750s, some Hudson Valley people again sought shelter with the Six Nations.26 The neighbors of the Iroquois sometimes saw them as a source of political and military support against the English. The Esopus Indians and the Minisinks solicited Iroquois assistance when they were faced with rumors of an English plot against them in 1714. Following the hanging of his relative Wequehela in New Jersey in 1727, Minisink sachem Manawkyhickon gave

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the Iroquois a war belt of black wampum, calling for war against the English. Some Iroquois were receptive, and reportedly forwarded the war belt to the Miamis. The execution of Wequehela was one of several factors that brought English colonists and Indians in Pennsylvania and New Jersey to the brink of war in 1727–28. Subsequent negotiations defused this crisis, but during the Seven Years’ War the Minisinks again found allies among the Senecas, some of whom supported their attacks on the English.27 In relations with Hudson Valley Indians, the Iroquois did not necessarily act as conquerors, at least not as far as territorial rights and landownership was concerned. Following the Mohawk-Mahican War in the 1620s, the Mahicans began to abandon some of their land west of the Hudson, but the Iroquois made no claim to have conquered these areas, and made no protest against Mahican land sales to Kiliaen van Rensselaer in 1630 and 1631. During negotiations over a proposed land purchase in October 1671, English officials asked a Wiechquaesgeck delegation how these Indians could give them a secure title if the Mohawks defeated them. The English assumed that a Mohawk victory would mean that this land would belong to the conquerors, but the Wiechquaesgecks held that “the Maques will not say, they have any pretence to their Land, though being at Warre, they would destroy their Persons & take away their Beavers & Goods.”28 Iroquois claims to territorial conquest only surfaced when European land buyers began to covet old Mahican lands. Beginning with the sale of the future site of Schenectady to Dutch colonists in 1661, the Mohawks began to treat parts of Mahican territory as their own. At a Mohawk sale of land at Saratoga in July 1683, Mahican envoys declared that they renounced all claims to this area, adding only that the Dutch purchasers might give them a present as an acknowledgment of their old rights. In 1685, Dutch colonist Barent Pietersen objected to a Mohawk sale of land west of Albany, as the sachems of Catskill had sold him this area in 1673. This claim the Mohawks “flatly deny and declare yt. it is there Land wonn by ye Sword,” but a Mahican woman claimed that this land belonged to her and another Mahican, regardless of any right of conquest.29 Among themselves, Hudson Valley Indians appear to have regulated territorial limits without great difficulty, but their borders with the Iroquois were not always so easily managed. In August 1734 a number of Hudson Valley Indians sold a six-thousand-acre tract of land lying west of the Catskill Mountains and stretching north to Schoharie Creek. The deed did not record the background of these grantors, but testimony gathered by Sir William Johnson in 1769 identified the sellers as Esopus Indians. Whether this was actually the case is uncertain, as Johnson attempted to use the controversy

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generated by this sale to support John Bradstreet’s case against the holders of the Hardenbergh Patent, which was founded on purchases of land from the Esopus Indians, and he thought this old quarrel proved these Natives could not alienate land west of the Catskill Mountains. One of the sellers, Sinhow, appears as a Mahican in deed to land around Catskill from 1718. Whatever the case, Mohawk leaders soon protested the 1734 sale. The boundary of the tract was close to the village of the Schoharie Mohawks, who used the area both as hunting grounds and agricultural land. In a protest sent to the government of New York, the chiefs of Schoharie declared that the land had been theirs since time immemorial, adding that “We do not Wonder of it for We know the River Indians are Thieves and will steal any bodys Land they can.” The Mohawks said they had sent for these people to explain their conduct, but conscious of their guilt, “they the River Indians Dare not look our Tribe in the face.” The Mohawks warned that if they did not receive redress, they would be “Obliged to do themselves Justice upon the River Indians” to prevent similar cases in the future. According to Johnson’s information, the Mohawks told these Hudson Valley Indians that if they ever sold land west of the Catskill Mountains again, “they would destroy them, or in their own Words hunt them up like Deer.”30 But in spite of such boundary disputes, the Iroquois recognized the right of the Valley Indians to possess and dispose of their own lands. Regardless of occasional assertions to the contrary, such as the claim made by Oneida delegates in 1769 that the Mahicans were conquered people without right to their own lands, the Six Nations did not deny the property rights of Hudson Valley peoples in general. The Iroquois approach to these peoples thus differed from their relations with Indians in Pennsylvania, whose lands the Iroquois at least from the 1730s claimed by right of conquest. During that decade, Pennsylvania and the Five Nations forged an agreement by which the latter became recognized as supervisors of the Delawares, Shawnees, and other people living within the province, an arrangement that enabled the Iroquois to dispose of, and the proprietors to acquire, the lands of these Native groups.31 New York authorities recognized the Iroquois as heads of other Indian peoples, but never made land purchases in the Hudson Valley part of this relationship. There was no reason why they would, as the government of New York, unlike the Pennsylvania proprietors, did not monopolize the purchase of Indian land, but allowed private individuals to make their own bargains, as long as they obtained official land patents. From the Iroquois perspective, part of the reason for facilitating colonial settlements in Pennsylvania was to divert the flow of land-hungry Europeans away from Iroquoia. The Iroquois did

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not necessarily want to promote such expansion in the Hudson Valley, which was close to their homeland. Indeed, the Schoharie Mohawks perceived the sale of land west of the Catskill Mountains in 1734 as a threat to their own territory. This problem resurfaced in 1766, when some Catskills sold land claimed by the Mohawks on the east side of Schoharie Creek. The Mohawks and the Mahicans did not reach a firm agreement regarding their territorial limits until 1768, when they made the Hudson River the boundary between their respective claims.32

The Covenant Chain in the Eighteenth Century As far as the general relations of Hudson Valley Indians to the Six Nations are concerned, surprisingly little information exists for the early decades of the eighteenth century. During the thirty-year peace period after the end of Queen Anne’s War in 1713, neither the Iroquois nor the English pressured the Valley peoples to furnish them with warriors, and the Iroquois may for the most part have left these peoples to their own devices. Presumably, Hudson Valley Indians periodically held meetings to renew their agreements with their uncles, but English records do not normally document such interIndian affairs, and some evidence shows that the level of formal diplomatic contact was at times quite low. At their meeting with the Esopus Indians meeting in May 1756, the Mohawks acknowledged that they had had little correspondence with their Esopus nephews for years. A month before, when Mohawk delegates went to invite the Esopus Indians to their country, they told William Johnson that “we are unacquainted with their language and strangers in that part of the Country,” and Johnson had to send an interpreter along. Few Mohawks could speak the Munsee language of the Esopus Indians, but there was still some social contact between the Iroquois and their neighbors. The Esopus Indians pointed out that the mother of one of their representatives was a Seneca, and asked the Iroquois to accept this man as one of their own. After years of little diplomatic contact, kinship connections could ease Esopus interaction with the Mohawks.33 In the early 1740s the Mahicans, Wappingers, and Schaghticokes became involved in an Iroquois effort to create a neutrality pact between Frenchand English-allied Indians. In January 1740, these three groups met on the Housatonic to confer about a message brought by the Schaghticokes that the Iroquois and the Kahnawakes (or Catholic Iroquois) living near Montreal had agreed to be neutral if war broke out between the imperial powers. The three Valley peoples agreed to send a message urging the Abenakis to join the neutrality pact. The Iroquois had probably requested them to do so, no

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doubt realizing that these peoples were old friends of the Abenakis, although the French-allied Kahnawakes also had close relations with the Abenakis. In 1735, Kahnawake emissaries had met with Massachusetts governor Jonathan Belcher at Deerfield, and the governor then urged them not to strike the English in future imperial wars. Abenaki observers from the mission community of St. Francis were present at this conference, as were the Housatonic Valley Mahicans (who had come for the ordination of their missionary John Sergeant) and a delegation of Schaghticokes (who had come for reasons of their own). In March 1741, Iroquois emissaries told officials at Albany that the Kahnawakes had listened to their call for future neutrality, and in September a delegation of “Scaahkook & River Indians” reported that they had included the English in a treaty of friendship with northern and eastern Native groups. The Abenakis had presumably responded favorably to their calls to neutrality.34 Incidents during King George’s War (1744–48) likewise show the persistence of contact with the Iroquois. In May 1744, when war had been declared between Britain and France, Moravian missionaries at the Mahican village of Shekomeko reported that the Mohawks had summoned the Wappingers and Mahicans to council. The subject of these deliberations may have had to do with the Iroquois effort to promote Native neutrality in imperial war, but all that is known about this conference is that Mahican leaders three years later remembered that the Mohawks had reminded them of “the old Agreement made by our Forefathers; which was that if any ting happened to the One, it happened to the other, & that we might live & dye together.” In June 1744, Kahnawake emissaries repeated their pledge of neutrality, and the Iroquois were again attempting to secure the neutrality of the Abenakis. King George’s War came at a time of severe stress in New York’s alliance with the Mohawks, and at least some Hudson Valley Indians felt the effects of this tension. In the spring of 1745 a delegation of Housatonic Mahicans came to Shekomeko to discuss an alarming message from the Mohawks calling them to prepare for war against the English. The Mohawks expected Mahican support if the Covenant Chain was broken, but a chief from the Housatonic Valley highlighted his loyalty to the English king and rhetorically asked his compatriots if a child should kill his father. The Covenant Chain ultimately held, but this episode shows that Hudson Valley Indians continued to respect the potential power of the Iroquois.35 The Iroquois occasionally appeared in the role of supervisors of their smaller neighbors in relations with Europeans, but they did not necessarily bring much energy to this task. In May 1740, an Indian man named Awannemeak seriously wounded a Pennsylvania colonist near Minisink,

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and Pennsylvania officials eventually determined that Awannemeak was an Esopus Indian. Consequently, a messenger from Pennsylvania secured the aid of Ulster County officials, who accompanied him to an Esopus sachem—a “Mohickon King”—from whom he demanded the extradition of Awannemeak. This sachem paid scant regard to Pennsylvanian demands, and would say no more than that he was sick and his women were busy tending their corn, so he would have to give them an answer at a later date. In August 1740, the Pennsylvanians complained to the Iroquois about this unsatisfactory “Conduct in a King who is one of the Tributaries of the Five Nations,” and wanted them to force the sachem to comply. Oneida leader Shickellamy promised to take this demand to heart, but no more was heard of the matter until July 1742, when Onondaga headman Canasatego informed Governor George Thomas that the Iroquois had severely reproved Awannemeak, which Canasatego considered punishment enough. The Iroquois did not necessarily go to great lengths to work as English enforcers.36 For many Hudson Valley peoples, the degree of European interference in their internal affairs was also relatively limited. Usually uninterested in the doings of the Valley Indians, the government of New York made no real attempt to transform or regulate their internal politics. In 1684, Governor Dongan told a Wiechquaesgeck delegation of the benefits of living “like Christians & they should have offices, & be Constables, Justices of the peace &c,” but neither he nor his successors took steps toward that end. In 1710, Governor Hunter presumed to have the right to appoint sachems over the Schaghticokes, but only to the extent of confirming candidates proposed by the Indians. When the Schaghticokes told him that they needed no new sachems but would like him to confirm their choice of two captains, he immediately complied. In 1700, Governor Bellomont wanted the ­Schaghticokes to depose the sachem Hawappe for his Francophile leanings, but the sachem continued in his office, attending a meeting at Albany the following year. In 1726, Governor William Burnet appointed a new sachem over the Schaghticokes on the death of one of their three chiefs, but he was perhaps merely ratifying the choice of the Indians, as Hunter had done. The Schaghticokes lived with a greater degree of English intrusion than other Valley groups. In the early eighteenth century the Esopus Indians lived mainly in the western parts of their territory, relatively far from the nearest European settlements. The infrequency with which they appear in English records shows that colonial officials for the most part left them alone. In 1746, Governor George Clinton wanted both the Esopus Indians and the Minisinks to send warriors for a projected invasion of Canada, but it is telling that local

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officials prior to that had forgotten to call these peoples to arms, and there is no record that they actually furnished any troops. The Wappingers enjoyed a similar degree of freedom from governmental impositions, as did most Mahicans living in the Hudson Valley.37 Colonial authorities did, of course, not scruple to interfere in the affairs of the Indians when it suited their purposes, but for the most part had no interest in doing so. That Indian settlements might become destinations for fugitives from colonial society suggests that freedom from official meddling was the normal state of affairs. In May 1717, Ulster County officials complained that the Minisinks offered shelter to runaway black slaves, some of whom intermarried with these Indians. Later the same month, two Englishwomen in Kings County petitioned for the recovery of two Indian slaves living under the protection of a sachem at a place called Pekkemeck within the province of New York. If they were determined to do so, colonial authorities could use their power to interfere in Native affairs. In June 1744, Dutchess County officials searched Shekomeko for weapons allegedly hidden by the Moravian missionaries there, and the disgruntled residents let the search proceed. But in the Hudson Valley itself, such direct governmental intrusion was the exception rather than the rule.38 The Mahicans living in the Housatonic Valley, on the other hand, came to live with a high level of interference from the government of Massachusetts as English colonists began to settle in that area in the early 1700s. Massachusetts presumed that English law and practice applied also to Stockbridge, the leading Mahican community in this area, which was formally incorporated as a township in 1739. From the perspective of New England, New York seemed lax in Indian relations. In 1762, a Stockbridge Mahican killed one of his compatriots at Kinderhook. Unusually, the victim’s relations eschewed revenge, “the Ancient and Constant Usage of the Indian Nations to this Day,” and wanted the killer tried by English law. Since the murder took place in Albany County, the killer must be tried in New York, but two local En­­­­­­glish officials warned Governor Francis Bernard that “that Province is reputed to be very careless in Matters of this Kind, among Indians,” and urged him to use his influence to see justice done, as the New Yorkers would not dare ignore the governor of Massachusetts.39

Autonomy Endures From the 1670s onward, Hudson Valley Indians increasingly had to accept the reality of some degree of foreign domination of their homeland, both by the English and the Iroquois. These partners tended to see the peoples of the

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Valley as their subordinates, often little more than a source of military manpower at their disposal. Later generations of Hudson Valley expatriates specifically linked the rise of the Iroquois to the emergence of European power, a view summarized by the Mahican explanation that “the white people had effected for the Mengwe [Iroquois] what no other nation could have done, and laid the foundation for the future greatness of their Iroquois friends.” Both in their historical traditions and in speeches made to English officials, Mahican spokesmen highlighted how their people (not the Five Nations) were the first to welcome the Europeans, a recollection of events that (while historically accurate enough) contained an implicit challenge to Iroquois seniority. But domination (real or desired) does not tell the full story. The relations of the Hudson Valley Indians to the Iroquois were not uniformly antagonistic, as Iroquoia might be a place of refuge, and even though they were stronger than their Native neighbors, the Iroquois did not always act as imperious conquerors.40 Iroquois leaders at times spoke of Hudson Valley Indians in condescending tones, but they might also express sympathy. In 1708, Iroquois envoys took offense at the suggestion of officials at Albany that some of their people might give their services as scouts for the English, even though they had come to Albany as part of a diplomatic delegation, and gave the sarcastic reply that “if they want Spies to send out some of the River Indians.” It was improper to expect Iroquois to be at the beck and call of the English, but perhaps not improper for Hudson Valley Indians. But when his people felt threatened by their colonial neighbors in 1745, Mohawk leader Hendrick Theyanoguin—in a reference to Kieft’s War a century before—understood “well now, what passed of old; two Towns of Indians were cut off near New York,” adding that “We the Mohawks are apprehensive we shall be served at last as our Brethren the River Indians, they get all their lands and we shall soon become as poor as they.” Hudson Valley Indians were here brothers and fellow sufferers. Of course, Hendrick’s father may have been a Mahican, but that in itself precludes easy generalizations about interactions among these peoples.41 In political terms, at least, the Valley Indians were far from cowed, and through evasion and delay made it impossible for their supposed superiors to place them under extensive control. Internally, Hudson Valley peoples remained in charge of their own affairs, an autonomy facilitated at least in part by the colonial government’s general lack of interest in the affairs of these Natives. The Iroquois, too, often remained aloof from Hudson Valley affairs, and while they might on occasion call the Valley Indians to their bidding, for the most part Iroquois interference was fairly limited.

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Neither the English nor the Iroquois ever came to control the Valley’s diplomatic system. The Valley Indians continued to maintain tight relations with one another and with peoples in neighboring areas, and these networks and connections still functioned independently of outside control, a sign of the enduring vitality of Native political and diplomatic life in the Hudson Valley. As in past decades, Indian-Indian relations continued to be an important aspect of Native life in this area.

Ch a p te r 7

Change and Continuity

Rumors had once again caused unrest, and the provincial authorities sought to stamp them out. On April 17, 1700, sachems from Massapequa, Rockaway, and Westchester County met with English officials in New York City. Alarming reports had spread among their people, and these sachems were accompanied by chiefs from Unquachog and Southold on eastern Long Island, who had also heard these reports. The sachems wanted assurances of the king’s continuing protection, but they professed not to believe in tales of an English plot against them. After assuring the chiefs that the stories were false, Lieutenant Governor John Nanfan ordered refreshments for the envoys and the meeting broke up.1 IndianIndian relations thus remained an important aspect of life in the Hudson Valley as the seventeenth century drew to a close. Rumors easily spread from one people to the next, evidence of functioning networks of exchange and channels of communication. In 1700, the western Long Islanders still had relations with peoples to their east, as well as with Indisans in Westchester County, probably the Wiechquaesgecks. Other records show interactions with Indians west of the Hudson. In 1679, Hackensack leader Tantaqua visited a Long Island chief. Four years earlier, the Rockaway sachem came to New York together with envoys from the Tappans and Hackensacks. As in previous decades, there was a close relationship between the Hackensacks and the Tappans, and the latter also had strong ties to the Minisinks. In 1681, 143

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Minisink sachem Rathquack explained that he always came to Manhattan together with the sachem of Tappan.2

Political Disintegration on the Lower Hudson By the first decades of the eighteenth century, however, most of the Native groups familiar from earlier years disappear from English records. The appearance of Indians from Westchester County at Manhattan in April1700 was perhaps the last time delegates from any part of the Hudson Valley south of the Wappingers came to meet the provincial authorities. It seems that at some point during the early 1700s, such groups as the Wiechquaesgecks and Tappans ceased to function as coherent peoples or political organizations. Recalling his stay in New York between 1678 and 1680, Charles Wolley described the Nevesinks as “a Tribe of very few,” which is the last known reference to this group. The spotty nature of the sources make it hard to say when the Nevesinks disappeared as a cohesive group, but total documentary silence must reflect the extinction of this and other political groups familiar from earlier years.3 Loss of land and population and emigration to other areas were the main factors accounting for the disappearance of these groups as functioning political organizations. Epidemic disease continued to spread death. There was a deadly smallpox outbreak in 1679–80, and another epidemic hit the Hudson Valley a few years later. In January 1684, Wiechquaesgeck envoys told Governor Dongan that they had not been able to come to him earlier “by reason of their sicknesse.” A year later, a Schaghticoke delegation cryptically reported that “All ye Indianes upon ye north river are dead & ye Indians yt live upon this River are but few in number.” One Schaghticoke sachem had recently died and Wamasachkoo lay on his deathbed. Ottawa traders at Kingston and Mahicans returning from Ottawa country may have brought smallpox to the Valley in 1690. Faced with demographic decline and pressure from land-hungry colonists, Indians on the lower Hudson sold large parts of their country, and without a land base it was difficult to sustain independent polities. Many Natives left their homelands. Indians from the New Jersey shore of the Hudson moved to the upper Delaware at this time and many people from east of the Hudson and western Long Island probably went in the same direction4 The disappearance of Native groups as recognizable polities does not mean that all members of these groups had left their homelands, but it makes them hard to see in colonial records. The political and social structures of these Indians remain poorly understood. It is not clear whether these people still

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had sachems and other traditional leaders, but in 1708 Indians in southern Westchester County still held “their great meetings of ‘pawawing,’ as they call it,” and scoffed at Reverend Muirson’s proselytizing. In 1720, Indians living near Rye received a belt of wampum sent by Natives residing just south of the Highlands. These Indians evidently still had some involvement in Native information and exchange networks. Indians were active in this area also in later decades. In 1744, Alexander Hamilton saw a group of about ten Natives oystering near Kingsbridge in the Bronx. Descendants of the Hackensacks also remained in parts of their country in the eighteenth century. Bergen County Indians sent a message to the government of New Jersey in March 1756, and the captain of the warriors who abducted colonist Margery West in February of that year identified himself as a Hackensack Indian.5 Developments on western Long Island show how Native populations might remain and leave only faint traces in surviving records. The western Long Islanders no longer sent diplomatic delegation to Manhattan, but their political organization survived for a while longer. The last reference to Tackapousha dates from 1697 and Suskaneman of Matinnecock disappears from Long Island records after 1700. But one of Tackapousha’s sons sold land ten years later, and Suskaneman’s son Surrukunga was a leader among the Matinnecocks at least until 1711, when both he and his father’s associate Werah participated in a land sale. Most sources from this area come from land sales, and by the first years of the 1700s western Long Island had passed into English hands. This tends to make the Indians invisible, but Native people continued to live in this territory. Missionary Azariah Horton traveled across Long Island in the early 1740s, and preached to crowds of dozens of Indians at Massapequa (or Fort Neck), Rockaway, and Merrick. There were still Indians at Rockaway in the 1750s and 1760s. With no communal land base it was difficult for the Natives to maintain political cohesion, but while the Massapequas and Rockaways may have disappeared as coherent groups soon after 1700, members of the Matinnecock people managed to maintain a collective identity that persists even today. The eighteenth-century history of these people is extremely poorly documented, but as late as 1762 individuals identified as the heirs of the seventeenth–century Matinnecock sachem Asharoken signed a quitclaim to land near Huntington.6

Upriver Continuity After the first decades of the eighteenth century, the Mahicans, Esopus Indians, Wappingers, and Schaghticokes were the only large Native political organizations left in the Hudson Valley itself, but these groups upheld much of

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the pattern of interaction from previous years. The Matinnecocks persisted on western Long Island, but it is not clear if they still had contact with the upriver Natives. In addition, the Catskills often functioned as a separate group, as did the Housatonic Mahicans to the east. Written records are an incomplete guide to Native political structures, but if other groups persisted unbeknownst to literate colonials, they also escaped the attention of later Indian generations. Nineteenth-century Munsees and Delawares remembered the Esopus Indians, Mahicans, Wappingers, and Schaghticokes, but no other Hudson Valley groups. Joseph Brant mentioned the “Sópussink, those living at Esopus” and the Mahkígan, and also described the Oghlindey (perhaps the Wappingers or Catskills) as a branch of the Mahicans. In any case, Native political and diplomatic life continued to function in the Hudson Valley, as these peoples maintained strong ties to one another and to neighboring Indians.7 Alongside these groups, the Minisinks persisted as a distinct people on the upper Delaware and continued to have close ties to Indians in the Hudson Valley. In the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century, Minisink people claimed (or at least sold) land deep into northern Orange County, southern Ulster County, and northern New Jersey, between the Delaware and the Hudson. Many migrants from the Hudson found their way to Minisink country, where they eventually abandoned their older identities and mixed with the host population. Historians commonly refer to the people resulting from this intermingling as Munsees, a term first recorded in 1727. In the eighteenth century, however, Minisink and Munsee appear as interchangeable terms in European records, and among Indians the Munsees continued to hold the same status as the Minisinks in systems of fictive kinship relations. In the 1770s, David Zeisberger noted that the Shawnees were the younger brothers of the “Monsy Nation,” recalling how the latter had invited them to settle in their country, when they were still called Minisinks. The corporate identity of the Minisinks thus lived on in their Munsee descendants, the ancestors of Munsee people alive today.8 In the first half of the eighteenth century, many Hudson Valley Indians had especially close relations with the Minisink town called Cochecton or Cashetunk north of Minisink on the upper Delaware River, near the border between the provinces of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. This town was a well-known location to both Indians and colonists, appearing on a number of contemporary maps. John Reading, John Harrison, and other surveyors and agents commissioned to determine the partition line between New York and New Jersey and explore the branches of the Delaware visited the settlement in 1719. According to Reading’s

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description, Cochecton lay on both sides of the Delaware, but a map from 1719 places it on the east side, as does a rough sketch by John Harrison. In 1743, James Lawrence made a visit to Cochecton while running the line between East and West New Jersey, but only recorded that his party had marked a point at “an old Indian Town Call’d Cashetunk.” At least in the 1740s, the Minisinks at Cochecton claimed a vast hinterland, stretching east toward the Hudson to a place called the Yager House or Great Hunting House.9 In addition to the relatively large and politically visible Esopus Indians, Mahicans, Schaghticokes, and Wappingers, a number of Indian people lived scattered elsewhere in the Hudson Valley in the eighteenth century, particularly in the highlands of Orange County, west of the Hudson. The European invasion came late to this area. In 1698 there were only 219 Europeans and Africans living in all of Orange County; the census of 1723 still counted no more than 1,244 residents. For a long time sheltered from the most disastrous effects of colonization, this region was a refuge for Indians seeking to escape the Europeans. In May 1744, David Brainerd found the highlands of Orange County near Goshen to be “a desolate and hideous country, above New-Jersey, where were very few settlements,” but the missionary still encountered a number of Natives in this area. In June 1719, John Reading passed an Indian settlement called Chechong a few miles from Goshen, on the Wallkill River (a tributary to the Hudson). Chechong was “an Indian plantation in good fence, and well improved, raise wheat and horse.” Further southeast, Reading found another Indian settlement on the Pompton (or Ramapo) River.10 These poorly known Indian settlements maintained ties to their neighbors elsewhere in the Hudson Valley. They certainly had relations with Minisink people; the residents of Cochecton were used to hunting in Orange County in the 1740s. These Indians also had some level of interaction with both the Wappingers and the Esopus Indians. Among the signatories to a land sale in this area in 1712 was a man called Cowenham. He was probably identical to the Wappinger named Cowenham, and another grantor named Speck may have been the same Speck who was affiliated with both the Wappingers and the Mahicans in the 1670s and 1680s. In 1785, aging Orange County resident Ebenezer Holly remembered that around 1718 an Indian called Rumbout complained to the governor of New York about an unfair purchase of land near Goshen; Rumbout had signed the 1712 deed. If Holly was off by one year, Rumbout’s mission fits well with the meeting between Governor Hunter and the “Nappaner and River Indians” in 1719. On this occasion, the Indians did complain of

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unjust land dealings, specifically those of John Evans, a past proprietor of land in Orange and Ulster counties. These Indians were probably Esopus people from Napanoch in Ulster County, and some Orange County Indians may have joined their mission to New York.11 Farther north, the Esopus Indians still remained in their own territory, but had withdrawn into the western parts of their country. By the early eighteenth century, most Esopus Indians lived west of “the blew hills” (the Shawangunk Ridge), and their main settlements lay on the East or Pepacton (Papakonk) branch of the Delaware, which stretched into the western parts of Ulster County. There were two main Esopus settlements on the Pepacton. Papakonk on the south bank appears to have been s home to Hendrick Hekan (Cacawalamin), who succeeded Sandor as Esopus chief sachem around 1746. Paghatakan lay farther east, north of the Pepacton. Their proximity to the main branch of the upper Delaware reinforced the strong ties between the Esopus Indians and their Minisink neighbors, especially those of Cochecton. In 1771, Peter Kockindal, who lived near Minisink, testified that he was well acquainted both with the Indians living at Cochecton and elsewhere on the Delaware and with Hendrick Hekan and other Esopus Indians, who came to him to trade. The exact nature of the relations between the Esopus Indians and the Minisinks at Cohecton is unclear. One English witness testified that he knew the Cochecton Indians well, but was “not much acquainted with the Papekungk Indians because they were Esopus Indians.” Land sales made in 1746 by both these groups made a clear distinction between the lands of the Esopus Indians and the “Cokichton or ye Monissink Indians.” Hendrick Hekan, however, was the leading signatory to both these sales, indicating that he was an influential man in both communities. Hekan resided at the Pepacton, but there were likely other Esopus Indians living at Cochecton.12 Various Native settlements were scattered throughout Esopus country. Esopus leader Monhaw owned land within the patent of Rochester in 1746. In the 1740s and 1750s, there were still Indians living in the neighborhood of Cadwallader Colden’s estate Coldengham, south of Newburgh in Ulster County and east of the Wallkill River. They were probably of Esopus affiliation and identical to the people otherwise called Wallkill Indians. Some Esopus Indian continued to live close to the old heartland of their territory near the Hudson. In 1729, the house of “George the Indian” lay near the southern bounds of Kingston. Archaeological excavations of a rock shelter in the Esopus drainage hint at continued Native use in the early and maybe even late eighteenth century.13

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Hosts and Refugees In the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, migrations of Native people created new complications in Indian intergroup relations. When they settled in Mahican country, the Schaghticokes brought with them grievances against their old enemies—both English and Indians—and drew some Hudson Valley Indians into these quarrels. New England officials worried that the relocation of their foes to the Hudson Valley would be a source of future danger, and the refugees did sometimes return with hostile intent. Andros supported Iroquois attacks on Metacom’s allies, but the Iroquois sometimes

Map 4.  Indian settlements on the upper Delaware

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targeted Christian Indian allies of the English, who were enemies of the refugees at Schaghticoke. In 1678, North Indian warriors joined Mohawk raids against these people, and a son of Mahican sachem Wattawit was captured by colonists in Connecticut, reportedly while hunting. In 1680, Uncas of the Mohegans and Pequot leader Robin Cassacinamon expressed dismay that “those Indians that belong to puckquiog or Fort albany that pretend friendship to them” had come into their area. These were presumably Schagh­ ticokes and Mahicans, and the Mohegans and Pequots distrusted them and wanted them not to come so far east. In late 1691, John Pynchon worried about the appearance of 150 “Albany Indians” near Deerfield and Hatfield, as there “are many of them that were our former enemy Indians which settled at Albany till now.” A number of Schaghticokes actually resettled in that area and spent the next few years in the Connecticut Valley, but their relations with the local English remained tense. Twice over the following five years Schaghticokes were accused of murder in Massachusetts, and while their leaders blamed “the Hartred and Mallice that the English of that Collony has against us,” it is not unlikely that individuals had decided to avenge old wrongs.14 The New England expatriates in the Hudson Valley also brought some local Indians into the orbit of the French and their allies. Many New England Indians settled in Canada after Metacom’s War, and these people had ties to kinfolk now residing in the Hudson Valley. Since other Hudson Valley Indians forged strong ties to these newcomers, it is not surprising that some of these people became involved in the connections now running from Canada to New York. In the aftermath of Metacom’s War, New York authorities were concerned that not only North Indians but also Hudson Valley people would resettle in Canada, and their fears were partially justified. In 1688, Schaghticoke hunters encountered a party of North Indians who had fled New England during Metacom’s War and were now living in Canada. Among these men was Wallamaqueet, a Pennacook who had lived for a while at Halfmoon in the Hudson Valley, as well as Quaetsietts, “a Wappenger of Hudson’s River.” Two Albany officials in Montreal on official business that year met Quaetsietts, whom they recognized from his time in the Hudson Valley. These Indians were all allies of the French and on a war expedition against the English of the Connecticut Valley.15 Some Hudson Valley Indians became involved in hostilities nurtured by Susquehannock refugees settled in Iroquoia. These exiles were eager for revenge against Indians who had joined the English of the Chesapeake colonies against them, and in the early 1680s Susquehannock warriors and their Iroquois hosts began to launch raids against these foes. Some Hudson Valley

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Indians participated in these attacks. In July 1682, when agents from Maryland and Virginia came to Albany to negotiate an end to the Iroquois raids, they also extracted a promise of an end to hostilities from representatives of the Mahicans, Catskills, and Esopus Indians. These Valley Indians may simply have joined Iroquois raids as auxiliaries, but considering the old ties between the Valley Indians and the Susquehannocks, it is possible that they had taken in some Susquehannock refugees, and were avenging the injuries done to their new compatriots.16 The relationship between the Catskill and those Esopus people settled among them sheds some light on relations between guest and host populations. Of the three Esopus delegates who met with Chesapeake agents in 1682, two, Mamaruchqua (the female chief ) and Culpuwaan, owned land at Catskill. These Esopus Indians joined their Catskill hosts in raids against enemies abroad, and also brought their own quarrels to their new settlement. The Esopus Indians were enemies of at least some French allies, and in July 1678 a Jesuit missionary in Mohawk country complained to the commander at Albany that a party of Mahigans Taraktons had captured two Algonquin allies of the French. The English commander found these prisoners in the hands of the Catskill Mahicans, but Atharhacton was a name for Esopus, and these raiders were likely Esopus Indians living at Catskill, who may have shared their prisoners with their hosts. This would serve both to console people who had lost relatives and induce Catskill warriors to join their raids. Further losses in such raids would spur Catskill people to call for revenge. The presence of expatriates could lead a host population to become involved in new conflicts, a dynamic that would explain the participation of Hudson Valley warriors in Susquehannock raids. The Esopus Indians may have had French-allied enemies also in later years. In March 1711, chief sachem Ankerop told Kingston officials that the Minisinks had sent him a warning of a possible attack by the French and some of their allies, but it is not entirely clear from this source whether the Esopus Indians or the Minisinks were the ones under threat.17 Migrations of Valley Indians to other regions also had political consequences for those who stayed behind, as expatriates created networks of communication between their homeland and distant locales. European sources show the presence of Hudson Valley Indians in the Great Lakes region and as far west as the Mississippi River by the 1680s. In 1687, when war between the French and the Iroquois seemed imminent, Governor Dongan urged Iroquois leaders to call home the Mahicans and North Indians among the Ottawas and other “far Indians,” lest the French pressure these expatriates to join the war. Some Mahicans did return from Ottawa country in 1690. At least in later

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years, the Mahicans had fictive kinship ties to several northwestern peoples. According to Aupaumut, the Miamis, Chippewas, Ottawas, and others were grandchildren of his people, while the Wyandots were their uncles, and it “was the business of our fathers to go around the Towns of these nations to renew the agreements between them—And tell them many things which they discover in among the White people in the east &c.” On another occasion Aupaumut indicated that the western Indians in general saw Delawares, Mahicans, and Munsees as their grandfathers. Both the Iroquois and the English could hope to benefit from these connections. In 1687, the Iroquois wanted Mahican aid in making peace with the western Indians, and in 1686 and 1700 Mahicans joined western trading expeditions sponsored by the government of New York.18 In the early 1690s, Shawnee migrants settled in Minisink country on the borders of the Valley. The Shawnee homeland lay in the upper Ohio Valley, but in the seventeenth century most Shawnees fled their country to avoid Iroquois attacks. In later years they were scattered throughout much of the eastern woodland. In 1692, the Minisinks and the Mahicans arranged to have a number of Shawnees settle in Minisink country. Minisink leader Matisit opened negotiations with the Shawnees while traveling west to the Illinois Valley, and he returned to Minisink accompanied by a number of Shawnees and a group of expatriate Mahicans. Governor Fletcher of New York saw this development as a chance to end the ongoing war between the Iroquois and the Shawnees. He also hoped the settlement of these people within his jurisdiction would increase the fur trade and the military strength of the province. The Minisinks felt threatened by the Senecas at this time, and the Shawnees represented an additional source of strength. In September, Mahican, Minisink, and Shawnee delegates met with Fletcher at Manhattan. To bring the remainder of the Shawnees in Illinois country to Minisink, a group of Albany traders went west with a party of Mahicans and Shawnees. Following the return of this expedition in 1694, Fletcher admitted the Shawnees into an alliance with New York at a meeting with Shawnee and Mahican delegates at Kingston. Other Shawnees settled in parts of Pennsylvania around the same time. The Shawnees continued to live on the upper Delaware River until the late 1720s. John Reading visited their settlements in 1715 and 1719. Following the general unrest among the Indians in Pennsylvania in 1727–28, these Shawnees resettled at Wyoming on the Susquehanna and areas farther west, but continued to have close relations with the Mahicans and other Hudson Valley Indians.19 Smaller groups of Shawnees also settled in parts of the Hudson Valley itself. According to later traditions, some of the Shawnees settled among

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and intermarried with the Mahicans, and in 1712 some Shawnees appeared among the Esopus Indians. According to Ulster County records, the Esopus sachems in early June of that year told the court at Kingston “that there is about six hundred Indians Called Shawonnos who Cannot live at peace in their own native Country,” and had therefore asked to live with their people, promising to “become Subjects under Ancrop the Chiefe Sachime of the Esopus Indians.” The sachems asked the justices for leave to receive these Shawnees in their country, but the local officials felt they must first consult the authorities at Manhattan, who replied that the Shawnees might settle under the authority of Ankerop, at least temporarily. But Ankerop and his colleagues had by then returned to Kingston, and they now explained that the notion that six hundred Shawnees were coming to their country was a mistake, for “it was but one Sachim & about thirty or forty souls,” and “that it are Indians that have Lived about minisinck above twelve years.” Since the provincial government was ready to consent to six hundred people settling in Esopus country, they presumably had no objections to this smaller number.20 Some of the Shawnees who came to the Hudson Valley appear to have come from the Carolinas, a region undergoing severe unrest in the early eighteenth century. Because of their widespread dispersal, the Shawnees came into contact with many Native peoples, and came to play an important role in creating and maintaining extensive Indian channels of communication. There was a sizable group of Shawnees in the Carolinas, and during the first decade of the eighteenth century these people had come into conflict with the English. In 1707, southern Shawnees who had come to Pennsylvania told of attacks by the Carolinians and their Catawba allies. The government of New York assumed that the Shawnees who came to Esopus country in 1712 were from the south, where English colonists in the Carolinas had now gone to war against the Tuscaroras. Since the Esopus sachems described these Shawnees as refugees from unrest, they probably came from that direction. The sachems said that their guests were the same Indians that had lived at Minisink for years, but that could simply mean that both these groups were of Shawnee affiliation. There was no war at Minisink at this time. The provincial government was wary of receiving potentially hostile southerners, and resolved that if the Shawnees who wanted to settle “under ye subjection of the Esopus Sachim have Left their Country because they would not be engaged in the Warr against the people of North Carolina, that then they may Settle there, under that Subjection,” but if they had fought the Carolinians and now wanted peace, New York would attempt to “dispose the people of Carolina to make peace with them and to Restore them to their antient Settlements again, and in the meane time they Continue where they are

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among the Esopus Indians beyond the Blew Hills.” The provincial government also opposed the settlement of Tuscaroras in Iroquoia, fearing that they would be a source of future trouble.21 In 1712 the Tuscarora War (1711–15) in the south led to disturbances in the Hudson Valley, and the Shawnees were involved in the unrest. The arrival of Native refugees from other areas was no mere matter of recipient populations absorbing the immigrants, for the new arrivals came to influence the policies of their hosts. The Shawnees had compatriots in the south, and they also had friendly relations with the Tuscaroras, with whom they had held a meeting in Pennsylvania in 1710. The Iroquois also supported the Tuscaroras, and in June 1712 there were rumors of impending war in the Hudson Valley. According to Dutchess County officials, the Catskills had sent the Wappingers a belt of wampum telling them to prepare for war, for in nine days “ye Sinnikas and Shawanas would fall upon ye Inhabitants along Hudsons River.” The same month, Albany officials reported that the Iroquois intended to join the Tuscaroras and further believed the local English “are Joined with those of Carolina to distroy them.” Some Hudson Valley Indians may have intended to join the Tuscaroras, as well, for in the same month Ulster County officials told the Esopus sachems that three strange Indians had been among the Wappingers calling them to arms, adding that they had heard that “that Some Indians go against north Carolina and desired them if any Indians did Intice any of them to go against any of the Queens Subjects,” they must notify the colonial authorities. If the Esopus Indians were about to receive Shawnees from the south, there were good reasons to worry that they might send warriors that way. Many Iroquois warriors went south to join the Tuscaroras, and it would not be surprising if Valley Indians joined their war parties. In August, 1713, New York authorities noted that the Tuscaroras were daily coming among the Iroquois, and that the Minisinks and Mahicans were inclined to go to fight the Indians in Carolina. Their intended target may have been the Catawba enemies of their younger brothers the Shawnees, some of whom had joined the English in the Tuscarora War.22

Intergroup Relations in the Early Eighteenth Century As they had done in previous years, the peoples of the mid-to-upper Hudson continued to have close ties to one another, as well as to Indians in neighboring areas, networks that during the first decades of the eighteenth century found expression in the spread of alarming rumors. In mid-July, 1714, the authorities at Albany sent word to Manhattan that they believed Mohawk warriors had gone out fighting against some undetermined enemy, “& that

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the Minisinck & Esopus Indians have sent to beg the assistance of the five Nations.” At the end of the month, a delegation of Hudson Valley Indians came to Governor Hunter to assure him of their continued friendship, as they had heard rumors of an English plot against them. This delegation likely represented the Esopus Indians (and possibly the Minisinks). In early August the magistrates of Ulster County held a meeting with the Esopus sachems to investigate a report “that the Christians did intend to make warr against the Indians,” but the alarm did not stop there. In September, Hunter cautioned Mahican and Schaghticoke leaders against false rumors, and these Indians admitted that “we have heard strange news of late which did not a little disturb us.” The Iroquois were likewise disturbed by rumors of an English conspiracy at this time, and the spread of these alarms may be linked to the ongoing Tuscarora War in the south, which had caused disturbances two years before.23 Disturbances in the 1720s shed further light on inter-Indian networks. In August 1722, Mahican and Schaghticoke delegates promised Governor Burnet not to let rumors lead them to undertake anything rash, indicating the spread of alarming reports. There is no clear evidence of unrest among their neighbors at this time, but a Dutchess County expense account from that month shows a rare disbursement of Indian presents, suggesting a meeting with the Wappingers. Ulster County records from December 1722 likewise show expenses for gifts, as well as pay to interpreter Ariantie Tappen. Signs of unrest in 1722 can be linked to the outbreak of war between the Abenakis and the English in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, especially since Mahican sachem Aupaumut (Ampamit) told Burnet that some of his hunters had been arrested in New England. The Schaghticokes had especially strong ties to the Abenakis. In 1724, their leaders admitted that some of their people had joined the Abenaki forces. Some Schaghticokes had been proselytes to Jesuit Father Rasles, who was killed when English forces destroyed the Abenaki village of Norridgewock that year. There were also signs of unrest west of the Valley. In 1723, officials at Minisink complained that Indians had robbed and threatened English people.24 The crisis in Pennsylvania and New Jersey in 1727–28 also concerned the Hudson Valley Indians, as it involved their friends and fictive kin. A group of Minisinks was involved in a brawl that led to the death of an Englishman in September,1727, and by April 1728 Minisink sachem Manawkyhickon was calling for war. In May, Shawnees and Pennsylvanians were involved in a skirmish, and the same month vigilantes murdered three Delawares. These Indian groups had close ties to Hudson Valley peoples, but the reaction of these Indians to the crisis is hard to determine. In June 1728, an Indian man

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committed an unspecified felony in Ulster County, but the Esopus sachems denied that he was one of their people. In October, Governor Montgomerie told the Mahicans and Schaghticokes not to let rumors disturb them or be “too Credulous as many of you have been lately,” but by then the crisis had begun to pass, as English and Indian leaders settled their difference at a series of conferences over the summer and fall. At the last of these meetings, a Delaware leader promised to let the renewal of friendship be “Known to the Mingoes [Iroquois], Mahickons, & Shawanese.” The Mahicans, at least, had an interest in this affair.25 Members of different peoples continued to associate on a personal and intimate level during the first half of the eighteenth century, strengthening and creating kinship connections and other ties among different groups. Records from the Moravian mission at the Mahican village of Shekomeko between 1740 and 1746 show the presence of several outside Indians. The Esopus Indian Pechtawáppeed, baptized as Thomas in 1742, was married to Esther, who was evidently a New England Indian (although since their son Thomas was listed as a Mahican in a burial record from 1748, this is not certain). At Shekomeko there were also a few Wappingers, at least one Munsee man, and a number of New England Indians. An Esopus woman baptized as Christianna in 1746 was the widow of a Mahican from the community of Wechquadnach.26

Hudson Valley Indians on the Move In the early-to-mid-eighteenth century, a growing number of Valley Indians began to migrate to areas farther west. Some Hudson Valley Indians were living in the Old Northwest by the 1680s, while many people from the lower Valley settled among the Minisinks on the upper Delaware. By 1715 Minisink people had furthermore begun to settled farther westward in the Susquehanna Valley. Many Delawares relocated to this area after the Walking Purchase in 1737, and the Susquehanna became home to Natives from Iroquoia, the Chesapeake, and other areas. Other Indians went farther west, to the Allegheny and the Ohio. The Ohio Valley was the old homeland of the Shawnees, and many of this people began to resettle on the Ohio in the 1720s, seeking to escape European pressures and Iroquois supervision. Other migrants soon followed, and by the mid-1720s multiethnic villages composed of Shawnees, Delawares, Senecas, and other groups had begun to spring up along the banks of the Allegheny and the Ohio.27 By the mid-eighteenth century some Esopus Indians lived on the upper Delaware. In 1750, Pennsylvania surveyors encountered two “Æsopus or

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Mohiccon Indians,” who identified themselves as Captains Allamouse and Clitches, near the Lackawaxen River, a tributary of the upper Delaware. Located between Minisink to the south and Cochecton to the north, this area lay within Minisink territory, but the captains said this land belonged to their chief, Tattenhick. The Esopus Indians and the Minisinks had a history of cooperative relations, and Esopus people may have been living at Cohecton, so it would not be surprising if the Minisinks welcomed them to their territory. Although the surveyors visited Tattenhick’s home, they left no description of this settlement, but a 1779 map of New York shows a wigwam and a burial ground near the confluence of the Lackawaxen and the Delaware, presumably the location of Tattenhick’s settlement.28 In the 1740s, Wappinger people began to appear in areas west of the Hudson, outside of their homeland on the river’s east side. Some of these Natives settled on the upper Delaware, and came to live at the town of Cochecton, which must then have become a mixed Minisink, Esopus, and Wappinger town. After a meeting between Orange County officials and Cochecton Indians in January 1746, Governor Clinton of New York ordered a belt of wampum sent to these Natives as a sign of friendship. In October 1758, Delaware leader Teedyuscung displayed this belt at the Treaty of Easton, declaring that the government of New York had given it to the Wappingers to represent their enduring alliance. The decorations on the belt at Easton included the figure 17♥♥45, and since the English began the year on March 25 until 1752, the earlier meeting with the Cochecton Indians fell under the year 1745. Since this belt had been sent to the Indians from Cochecton twelve years before, some Wappingers must have been residents of this town. Other Wappingers settled farther south, on the Pompton River in northern New Jersey and southern Orange County. For that reason, New Jersey and Pennsylvania authorities often referred to these Wappingers as Pomptons; they also went by the name Opings, after the Delaware term Oa¯pingk. Wappinger people had had relations with people in this area west of the Hudson earlier in the eighteenth century, and probably had kinship connections with them.29 The best-known destination for Mahican migrants lay not to the west but to the east, in the upper Housatonic Valley in Massachusetts, where Mahicans had been living since at least the mid-seventeenth century. Very little is known about the Housatonic Valley Mahicans until the 1720s, when Europeans accelerated their purchases of Housatonic lands. In 1721, a group of New York colonists bought land west of the Housatonic within the boundaries of Connecticut. In 1724, the headman Konkapot and other Mahicans sold a tract of land on the Housatonic to the General Court of Massachusetts. Konkapot was chief of Wnahktukook, one of the central Mahican settlements on the

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Housatonic. Neighboring Mahican communities included Skatekook (home to the chief Umpachnee), Wechquadnach, and Weataug. After the establishment of John Sergeant’s Congregationalist mission, in 1736 the Mahicans at Skatekook moved to Wnahktukook, which by a grant from the General Court became the township of Stockbridge. A number of Hudson Valley Mahicans subsequently moved to the Housatonic. By 1737, some former residents of Moesimus Island in the Hudson below Albany were living at Stockbridge. Aupaumut (Umpaumut) was chief of this island at that time, and there were still Mahicans living there in 1744. In May of that year, David Brainerd left his brief mission at the Mahican settlement Kaunaumeek at Kinderhook, since most of his flock had moved to the Housatonic. By 1749 the Mahican chief sachem resided at Stockbridge, and the central council fire had moved to the Housatonic. In 1751, the Moravian Mahican expatriates in Pennsylvania sent envoys to the Housatonic, and the chiefs there conferred the rank of captain on Abraham, the headman of Shekomeko, who was now living at Gnadenhütten.30 In the eighteenth century, the Housatonic Mahicans had especially close relations with the Wappingers. These ties show the persistence of earlier patterns of interaction between Housatonic Mahicans and people east of the lower Hudson. The late-seventeenth-century Wappinger named Speck had close ties to Housatonic Indians, and Wiechquaesgeck sachem Wessecanoe had cooperated with a delegation from this area in 1676. New York records indicate that Wappinger and Housatonic envoys attended meetings with Governors Hunter and Burnet in the 1710s and 1720s. In the spring of 1745— when the Mahicans feared war between the Mohawks and the English—the chief of Stockbridge convinced Abraham and other Shekomeko Mahicans to come with him and a delegation of Wappingers to the governor in Manhattan. The Mahicans went from Shekomeko to the Wappingers in the Highlands, where they stayed for several days while a man from Shekomeko went to notify Governor Clinton that they desired a meeting. There were also some Wappingers living among the Housatonic Mahicans. John van Gilder, who participated in a Mahican land sale in the Housatonic Valley in 1724, was identical to Tawanout alias John van Gilder, maternal uncle to Daniel Nimham. Van Gilder had for decades been affiliated with the Stockbridge Mahicans when, in 1758, he gave his lands at Fishkill in Dutchess County to his nephew Daniel. Almost switching places with this Wappinger, Noch Namos, a Mahican woman from the Housatonic Valley, was living at Fishkill in June 1756, when she sold her land in Sheffield Township, Massachusetts, to Van Gilder. Daniel himself was almost certainly son of the sachem Nimham. A document from 1765 identified Daniel as son of the man who had been

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sachem about forty years before, and in 1762 John Tabor Kempe identified Daniel’s father as “speaker” of the Wappingers, a term he may have taken from the record of a meeting in 1721, where Nimham was likewise called speaker of the “Wapenger and Waneyatayow [Westenhook] Indians.”31 Some Hudson Valley Indians also settled in the lower Housatonic Valley, where some of them had kin. In 1714, a man identified as Winham participated in a land sale in that area together with Pequannock sachem Chickens. The similarity with the name Nimham is striking, and Chickens did have ties to Indians in the Hudson Valley. In October 1720, Connecticut agents reported that Chickens had received a gift from Tapauranawk, a leader of a neighboring community, “for ye Death of sd Chickens sisters husband a great Sagamore over the Indians about Hudsons River.” This brother-in-law was not Nimham, who was alive the following year, but he may have been another Wappinger chief. Earlier that year, Tapauranawk had received two belts of wampum sent by Indians south of the Highlands east of the Hudson. He sent the belts to Chickens, who forwarded them to neighboring Paugusett communities. According to Tapauranawk, these belts came with a strange message from Indians to the south, who wanted these northerners to receive Indian captives for sale into slavery. This account contradicted a prior report that the belts came from Indians west of the Hudson who wanted to resettle in Connecticut, but some years later some Hudson Valley people did settle at Pachgatgoch, a Weantnock community founded in 1736 on the west side of the lower Housatonic. Records from the Moravian mission at Pachgatgoch in the 1740s and 1750s show that a few Mahicans and Wappingers lived among the people in this village, and a man named Job Mawhew, who was an associate of Daniel Nimham in the 1760s, was probably a relative of Gideon Mauheuw or Mayhew, the chief of this community. A man called Jobe Mayhew sold land in this area together with “Capten Mayhew” in 1746.32 Other Mahicans migrated west during the first half of the eighteenth century. In 1770, there were perhaps two hundred Mahicans living at Stockbridge, while George Croghan around the same time counted a hundred Mahican warriors living in towns on the east branch of the Susquehanna, suggesting a far larger population. Not all people identified as Mahicans were necessarily members of that people, as this term was sometimes used as a generic name for Hudson Valley Indians, but it is clear that many Mahicans settled to the west. The Mahicans still had close relations with the Shawnees, and a number of Mahicans from the Susquehanna or the “Shouwonoos Country” came to Stockbridge in the 1730s. In 1742, Moravian leader Count Zinzendorf noted Mahican settlements at Wyoming on the Susquehanna and found the sister of a woman he knew from Shekomeko

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living at Shamokin. Following the evacuation of the mission at Shekomeko to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and later to Gnadenhütten in 1746, Nanticokes and Shawnees from Wyoming persuaded many Shekomekoans to join their settlements in 1754. Other Mahicans went even farther west, joining Shawnees, Delawares, and others in the Ohio country. In 1771, Mohekin Abraham, a Mahican living in Ohio, said he had left the Hudson Valley forty years earlier. During a conference at Logs Town in Ohio in 1748, interpreter Conrad Weiser learned that the Mahicans in this area counted fifteen warriors, suggestive of a population of a few dozen. In 1750, Ohio Company agent Christopher Gist wrote that many of the Miamis in Ohio understood the Mahican language and vice versa. Mahican migration to Ohio steadily increased over the course of later decades.33 The problems stemming from proximity to Europeans help explain why so many Hudson Valley Indians chose emigration at this time. Having European neighbors still presented the same problems as it had in previous years, such as destruction of crops by livestock, a complaint raised by the Schaghticokes in 1728. Indians also continued to trade with the Europeans, who still violated expectations of generosity. In May 1745, Esopus chief sachem Sandor complained to Ulster County officials “that their Produce is too Cheap and the commodities which they want from the Christians too Dear and therefore they Desire that their produce may be Dearer and the Christians Commodity Cheaper,” but he only received the evasive reply that “the Price of Goods on Both Sides must be Regulated according as Parties on both Sides Can Agree.”34 Some degree of poverty and social misery characterized the lives of Hudson Valley Indians in the eighteenth century. As in the past, Indians often had to supplement their income doing wage labor for nearby colonists. In the 1740s, the Mahicans at Shekomeko went to the nearby town of Rhinebeck to earn money. In 1735, John Sergeant noted that both the Housatonic and the Hudson Valley Mahicans helped the Dutch in New York with their harvest, but claimed the Hudson Valley Mahicans drank up their wages. Stereotypes of drunken Indians are problematic, and all use of alcohol was not necessarily negative. The Esopus Indians on the Pepacton had orchards and made their own cider. Still, Native leaders often denounced alcohol. Sandor explained “that there are so many Taverns, which is a great reason of their Poverty,” and in 1722 Mahican sachem Aupaumut complained that rum sold by traders led his hunters to squander their earnings. Some Indians went into heavy debt, and colonial creditors sometimes seized their corn and possessions. In 1751, a Wappinger man living near Poughkeepsie told a visiting Moravian missionary that he feared imprisonment if he failed to pay a local merchant.35

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Land and Diplomacy More serious than poverty was loss of land, and by the early eighteenth century European pressure on Native landholdings had begun to reach critical proportions. Many Hudson Valley Indians had, of course, been contending with land-hungry colonists since the first years of colonization, but by the 1710s peoples that had been shielded by distance from this aspect of the European invasion were beginning to grow concerned. John Reading encountered resentful and suspicious Indians among the Shawnees and their neighbors while surveying on the upper Delaware River in 1715. When he returned in 1719 to draw the boundary between New Jersey and New York, he found that the Indians at Cochecton “obstructed our proceedings and were posessed with a notion that we were intended to survey their lands and take it from them.”36 The sudden influx of twenty-three hundred German immigrants in 1710 contributed to unrest among the Natives. This was a drastic population increase, as the colonial population of New York in 1703 consisted of less than twenty-five thousand persons, most living near the coasts. After a brief stay on Livingston Manor in Mahican country, most of the Germans settled at Schoharie Creek, to the alarm of the Mohawks who claimed this land. At least one Hudson Valley Indian befriended the Germans and accepted baptism from Minister Johan Haeger, who wrote a vocabulary of “the language of the Indians of Hudsons River,” but the German influx contributed to unrest among the Natives between 1712 and 1714. Although this tension seems related to the Tuscarora War, the Indians may have found it ominous that this conflict coincided with a sudden increase of Europeans in their neighborhood. In 1711, the Iroquois were ready to believe in an AngloFrench plot to steal their lands. In 1713, colonists north of Schenectady fled their farms for fear of the Indians.37 In the early 1720s, Wappinger resentment at European land dealings almost led to violence. In the summer of 1720, Catherina Brett enlisted the deputy surveyor-general of New York to survey part of a tract of land in Dutchess County directly north of the Highlands, for which she had inherited a deed from 1683 from her father, Francis Rumbout. The Wappingers inhabiting this land opposed the survey, and they forced the surveying party to leave under the threat of violence. Brett then obtained the help of Surveyor-General Cadwallader Colden, but resistance continued, and Colden needed the protection of the sheriff of Dutchess County before he could lay out the northern bounds of Brett’s patent. The Indians continued to hinder the rest of the survey and searched Brett’s house and threatened her life, but ultimately the Wappingers

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had little choice but to compromise, as armed resistance was unrealistic. According to Brett’s recollection, Wappinger sachem Nimham and two of his sons were opposed to a policy of confrontation, and following a meeting with Governor Burnet the Wappingers gave in. According to this agreement, Brett and her fellow patentees were to give the Indians a present to renew their friendship. A record from September 1721 suggests that the Housatonic Valley Mahicans also had representation at this meeting, which indicates that they had some involvement in this affair. In 1762, Daniel Nimham recalled that his father and Brett agreed that Nimham would keep a twelve-hundred-acre large tract of land reserved by the Wappingers when they made the initial sale of land to Rumbout, but Brett claimed that she had merely let Nimham and his sons stay on the land for friendship’s sake.38 Native people might use land sales as a way of coping with the ongoing European invasion, but there were limits to how far the Indians acted from their own free will. Gradual land alienation could work as a way of delaying the worst effects of foreign invasion, and Indians could use land sales as a way of directing the flow of colonial settlement away from their core territories to less desirable ground. But no strategy deterred attempts to acquire land through encroachments or fraud. Indian leaders often denounced colonists who obtained deeds from spurious owners, plied sellers with drink, or enlarged purchases by including more land in the written deeds than the Indians had actually agreed to sell, but complainants received little help from colonial officials. Abraham of Shekomeko was embroiled in chronic quarrels with the owners of the Little Nine Partners land patent in northern Dutchess County in the 1730s and 1740s. In 1724, Abraham and Governor Burnet agreed that the Mahicans would keep a reservation of one square mile around Shekomeko and receive payment for the rest, which they never did. In 1738, Governor William Cosby promised the Mahicans payment and safe possession of reserved lands, but while one patentee paid Abraham for part of his share in 1743, others said he had already received satisfaction. In the fall of that year, they divided up the land, including the reservation. Abraham’s people never received redress, and after the evacuation of the mission in 1746, the patentees seized their lands.39 Sometimes the leaders of different groups cooperated in selling land to Europeans, perhaps for strategic reasons. In 1730, Wappinger sachems Acgans and Nimham and other members of their people sold a large tract of land in northern Dutchess County to the holders of the Great Nine Partners Patent. Abraham of Shekomeko likewise participated in this sale, which could not be finalized until other Mahican claimants received satisfaction for the northern parts of this territory. The Native motivations behind this transaction are not

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clear, but the pressure on Indian lands may have been so great that the Natives decided to open some territory to preserve other lands. After all, these Indians had struggled to preserve their lands for some time.40 In the 1740s, the Esopus Indians and their Minisink neighbors at Cochecton appear to have cooperated in order to minimize the disruptive effects of the expansion of colonial settlements. Most information relating to Esopus and Cochecton land affairs during these years comes from the conflicting testimony of witnesses summoned by contending patentees between the late 1760s and early 1780s, but based on these various accounts, one may conjecture that Esopus leaders enlisted the aid of their Cochecton friends in an effort to turn European settlers away from their core area. In 1743, Johannes Hardenbergh sent a surveying party to take measurements of his land patent in Ulster County, based on a land sale from an Esopus Indian in 1707. Henry Worster and his party reached the neighborhood of the Esopus settlements on the Pepacton branch of the Delaware, but the Indians hindered the survey. At a treaty with Ulster County officials in August, Esopus chief sachem Sandor and his people agreed to let Hardenbergh survey the land southeast of the Pepacton, which was done during two surveys in 1743 and 1745. In 1746, both Esopus and Cochecton Indians made land sales to Hardenbergh and his associates. These transactions alienated almost the entire interior of Ulster County between the southeast bank of the Pepacton and the northern part of the main branch of Delaware. Hardenbergh appears to have attempted to claim the land as far as the West or Mohawk branch of the Delaware, and it is thus possible that the Esopus Indians decided to abandon their claims to lands southeast of the Pepacton to preserve their lands to the northwest. The territory granted by chief sachem Hendrick Hekan and other Esopus Indians in June 1746 extended as far south as the claims of the Cochecton Indians, but Hardenbergh obtained a deed from these people in August that granted him land from the claims of the Esopus Indians to the southern parts of Ulster County.41 Esopus and Cochecton leaders thus opened a huge tract of land to future European settlement, but given the determination of the European intruders, they had little choice but to compromise. The Esopus Indians, at least, could hope that the Europeans would now leave their lands northwest of the Pepacton alone. The same may have been true of the Minisinks living at Cookoze on the Mohawk branch, who were quite displeased to find one of Hardenbergh’s surveying parties in their neighborhood. Evidence of cooperation between Esopus and Cochecton leaders shows a larger strategy. Hekan played a leading role in both sales, and Esopus leader Monhaw and his brother Captain Kobis witnessed the second deed. In 1785, Peter Helm recalled “that

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there was an agreement at that time, between the Cushecton Indians and the Pawpacton Indians to sell the said Hardenburgh and Company all the Lands to the East of the Pawpacton Branch of Delaware River.” The Cochecton Indians may have been ready to resettle on the Susquehanna River, as some of their leaders sold their remaining lands on the upper Delaware less than a decade later. By the late 1750s, Wappingers and Minisinks who had formerly lived at Cochecton were living on the Susquehanna, although some Natives remained near their old town.42 These sales shed some light on borders with the Iroquois. The first deed specifically excluded land claimed by the Iroquois, but the boundary between Esopus and Iroquois country was unclear. From the late 1760s, supporters of Hardenbergh’s patent claimed that the sales from 1746 had included all land northwest to the Mohawk branch, based on the claim that this stream was also called the Fishkill, a name for the upper Delaware. The Fishkill was the northwestern boundary of the patent, and if it was the same as the Mohawk, the land between the Delaware branches fell within the patent. This claim led to resistance from Iroquois leaders, who claimed land between the two branches. They described the Pepacton as their boundary with the Esopus Indians. John Bradstreet, who held an Iroquois deed to part of this land, supported this claim. Several Esopus witnesses concurred in this interpretation in 1769, but the Esopus settlement Paghatakan would then lie in Iroquois territory. In 1771, English witnesses said that Hekan and other Esopus Indians had claimed all the land between these rivers, and Esopus Indians Jacobus Haken and Benjamin Shank now said that Bradstreet had pressured them to support his claims. Witnesses summoned in 1785 claimed to understand from past conversations with Esopus and Cochecton Indians that the Iroquois claim began at the Pepacton. It made sense for Esopus people to support the Iroquois interpretation, which excluded the Hardenbergh patentees, but since Bradstreet claimed land between the two branches, they might not have wanted this case resolved. Either outcome threatened their lands.43

The Coming Storm How many Hudson Valley Indians remained in their homeland by the mid-eighteenth century is unknown, but the remaining peoples certainly numbered hundreds of individuals. In 1765, the Wappingers led by Daniel Nimham numbered just 227 persons, but Nimham was by then living at Stockbridge, and this estimate may not have included Wappingers still living in the Hudson Valley. By 1745, some Wappingers had furthermore migrated

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to the upper Delaware. When Orange County officials met with a delegation of these people in late 1745, the Indians offered to send 150 of their people down to nearby English settlements “to assure the People of the County of their Fidelity.” Thomas De Kay estimated that he had seen 90–100 men with their families at a subsequent meeting at Goshen, indicating a population of a few hundred, not all of whom were necessarily Wappingers.44 Faced with mounting pressures from colonial neighbors, a steady stream of Schaghticokes was leaving their settlement for new homes among friends and relations in Canada. From the 1690s onward, the Schaghticokes grew steadily more destitute and indebted to abusive creditors, who sometimes seized their crops by force. As long as the English were at war with the French, or feared future conflict, they saw the Schaghticokes as a source of auxiliary troops and a buffer against French incursions; they realized that since many of their relatives had fled to Canada following Metacom’s War, settling in French territory remained an option to these Indians. Colonial officials often urged the Schaghticokes to persuade the émigrés to return, but during the peace period after 1713, the French threat decreased and with it the military value of the Schaghticokes. The sachems complained of the growing harshness of life at Schaghticoke, and identified encroachments on their lands and abusive creditors as reasons why their people left for Canada. Although colonial officials continued to decry this exodus, they took few practical steps to encourage Schaghticokes to stay. In 1728, Governor Montgomerie promised to reserve land for Schaghticokes returning from Canada, but the Indians skeptically replied that they had scarcely managed to hold on to the land they had. Governors continued to exhort the sachems to keep their people from departing, but Schaghticokes continued to leave, so that by 1754 there were only fifty to sixty people still left at their settlement.45 In spite of the havoc wrought by the European invasion, Hudson Valley Indians in the mid-eighteenth century still maintained much of their old political structure from previous decades. By the first decades of the 1700s, most Hudson Valley groups familiar from past decades had disappeared as functioning political organizations, but the Esopus Indians, Mahicans, Wappingers, and Schaghticokes remained, and continued to maintain networks and patterns of interaction recognizable from earlier years. Whether the Matinnecocks or other western Long Island Natives participated in these networks is unknown. The ability of Hudson Valley peoples to uphold customary intergroup relations shows how it was possible for small groups living close to colonial settlements to preserve their own political traditions and their connections to a larger Native world.

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Ties to neighboring Indians had always been a factor in Native politics and diplomacy, but by the mid-eighteenth century migrations to other regions had made such influences perhaps more important than ever before. As Hudson Valley migrants settled among other Indian groups, relations to these people came to influence their political decisions. The migrants, in turn, exerted influence on their people at home. Eventually, these considerations began to pull closely allied groups in opposite directions. As a decade of imperial and Indian-European war approached, all Native people remaining in the Hudson Valley had difficult choices to make. These Indians had close ties to many Indians who went to war against the English in Pennsylvania and areas farther west, especially now that so many of their people had migrated there. But the Hudson Valley Indians were vastly outnumbered by Europeans in their own country. They could not easily take up the hatchet in support of friends and relatives, and also had to keep an eye on the nearby Iroquois. Relations to both Indians and Europeans continued to shape the strategic considerations of the Valley Indians, but now these forces had come to pull in such different directions that all Hudson Valley peoples were split, with at least some members participating on opposite sides (and others staying neutral) in the struggle for control of North America.

Ch a p te r   8

War and Disunity

The English settlements at Hoosick had gone up in flames. Abenaki raiders from the missions of St. Francis and Becancourt had struck on August 28, 1754, but the Abenakis were old allies of the French, and the most notable aspect of this attack was that the nearby Schaghticokes returned with the attackers to Canada, defecting from their alliance with New York. Canada had long been a destination for Schaghticoke migrants, but now the remainder of this community departed en masse, in the main ending their history as a Hudson Valley people.1 The defection of the Schaghticoke to the French was a consequence of the steady migrations of their people during the earlier decades of the eighteenth century. A delegation of English-allied Loups had visited St. Francis and Becancourt in the summer of 1744. These people were undoubtedly Schagh­ ticokes, and they now wanted to settle among the Abenakis. Schaghticokes had been attracted to Catholic missions to the Abenakis for decades at that point. This is hardly surprising, because many Schaghticokes were of Abenaki descent. Ongoing migrations pulled the Schaghticokes closer to Indian allies of the French, but further away from old allies in the Hudson Valley. As the Schaghticokes courted the Abenakis, their old Mahican friends at Stockbridge were determined to strengthen their alliance with the English, whom they urged their Mohawk uncles to support during King George’s War. The Mahicans at Stockbridge and the Schaghticokes thus chose diverging paths. 167

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At the Albany Congress in June and July of 1754, “the river Indians would not Speack with or have anything to do with the Sactacooks,” and the governor had to meet with these groups separately, a sign that their old alliance was falling apart. During the Seven Years’ War, Mahican and Schaghticoke warriors came to fight on opposite sides.2 Migrations and movements of people were a central theme in the lives of Hudson Valley Indians during these decades. Most Hudson Valley Indians left their homeland at some point during, after, and between the military conflicts, and migrations played a large part in shaping the political choices of Native peoples. Whereas the Stockbridge Mahicans had become faithful allies of the English, their compatriots remaining in the Hudson Valley were less enthusiastic supporters of their colonial neighbors, and many Mahican expatriates in the Susquehanna and Ohio valleys became enemies of the English. When Hudson Valley Indians resettled in other areas, they took many of their political cues from local populations, so that the strategic, political, and diplomatic behavior of any one community of Natives was (to a certain extent) shaped by relations with its neighbors. Insofar as these expatriates maintained ties to their kin at home, they became conduits of a political feedback to their areas of origins. Developments abroad thereby influenced the behavior of people who never left their old homelands. Some Esopus Indians, for instance, appear to have left the Valley for the purpose of joining Indians fighting the English on the Susquehanna River. This dynamic was old, but it had by the mid-eighteenth century acquired unprecedented importance, due to prior migrations of Valley Indians to western areas. Some expatriates deliberately sought to attract their kin at home, so that emigration created a further population drain from the Valley. Migrations and internal divisions critically weakened the Native political system of the Hudson Valley during these decades. Old allies found each other fighting on opposite sides and divisions also arose within each individual people, weakening their internal cohesion. Religious differences created by conversions to Christianity exacerbated these difficulties. Internal divisions were nothing peculiar to Hudson Valley peoples during these years, as other groups were similarly divided, but the Natives remaining in the Valley were now small and weak peoples, and could ill afford disunity at this critical time in their history. In a wider Native American context these years saw a gradually emerging unity, as political and spiritual Nativist thought began to unite different peoples in resistance against the Europeans. Hudson Valley Indians who migrated west during these years swelled the Nativist ranks in the Susquehanna Valley and Ohio, but this did not help those who wished

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to stay in their old homeland, on whom such migrations had a detrimental effect.3

Decisions of War and Peace The outbreak of the Seven Years’ War in 1754 soon brought hostilities to the Hudson Valley and its neighborhood. The Abenaki raid on Hoosick in August 1754 was only the first gust of the storm, as Native warriors soon began to harass other parts of the Valley. By October 1755, Delawares, Shawnees, and other peoples living on the Ohio and Susquehanna rivers had allied with the French and taken up the hatchet against the English, launching attacks on Pennsylvania. By November, the war had come to Minisink on the upper Delaware. By early 1756, Indian raiders had begun to strike parts of Ulster and Orange counties. In June 1757, farmers in Ulster County had begun to flee their homes for fear of the Indians, and a year later the war came to northern New Jersey.4 Hudson Valley Indians had close relations with the Natives waging war against the English. Many Valley Indians lived on the Susquehanna and Ohio rivers, and had a long history of friendly contact with the Shawnees and Minisinks or Munsees, the latter of whom included many former residents of the Valley. The Munsees distinguished themselves by their determination to fight the English. During peace negotiations at Easton in November 1756, Delaware leader Teedyuscung claimed to be speaking for the Munsees on the Susquehanna, but Munsee war parties continued to go out against the Pennsylvania frontiers. Ahead of the Treaty of Easton in July and August 1757, George Croghan reported that “all the Sasquahannah Indians are dispos’d for Peace, except the Munseys or Minisink Indians.” At Easton, Teedyuscung confirmed the peace on behalf of the Munsees and nine other Indian groups, but Native raids continued. English observers agreed that the warriors who began to attack New Jersey in the summer of 1758, and continued to strike in New York, were mostly Munsees, who felt that the English had cheated them out of their Minisink lands. Negotiations opened with Munsee leaders by New Jersey governor Francis Bernard led to a conference at Burlington, New Jersey, in August 1758 and a treaty at Easton in October. Two conferences in the summer of 1759 concluded a formal treaty of peace between the English and the Ohio Indians, but in December Teedyuscung claimed that the Munsees were still opposed to peace. By 1761, an uneasy peace had descended, but the Munsees still held many English prisoners, some of whom they returned at the Treaty of Lancaster in August 1762.5

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Most Hudson Valley Indians, however, realized that they could ill afford to go to war openly against the English population that vastly outnumbered them in their own homeland, and they appear in the main to have sought to stay out of the conflict. Like the Indians on the Susquehanna and Ohio rivers, the Native people still living in the Hudson Valley had grievances enough against the English, and had repeatedly been the victims of unfair land dealings. But the Valley peoples lived in the midst of a growing foreign population, consisting in 1749 of more than seventy-three thousand colonists. New York officials were openly distrustful of the Valley Indians, and as early as November 1755 suspected them of supporting their enemies. The government considered having the Indians in Ulster and Orange counties disarmed, but feared it might drive them into the enemy camp. Instead, they ordered county officials to invite the Indians into the towns, allegedly so they would not be taken for enemies. Farther south, the Wappingers living on the Pompton River, together with the Indians at Crosswicks and Cranberry, confirmed their peaceful relations with New Jersey at the Treaty of Crosswicks in January 1756. Two months later, a small number of Indians living in Bergen County sent three belts of wampum to Governor Jonathan Belcher to request inclusion in this treaty. The delegates at Crosswicks agreed to stay within specific limits, as suggested by the colonial authorities, and stressed that they had rejected overtures from the belligerent Natives on the Susquehanna River.6 Additionally, Hudson Valley peoples had to consider the attitude of the Iroquois, particularly the Mohawks. As the government of New York began to suspect that some of the Valley Indians might aid their enemies, they began to call upon the Six Nations to control their dependents. In November 1755, Governor Sir Charles Hardy told Sir William Johnson that as there was reason to suspect “the River Indians may join the Enemy it is proper therefore the six Nations should send a Message to those living in the back parts of Orange and Ulster counties ordering them to assist us in repelling the Enemy.” However, neither the Esopus Indians nor other Natives living in this area joined the English war at this time, in spite of Johnson’s efforts to enlist both the Esopus Indians and the Minisinks in the summer of 1755. The Iroquois were in fact divided during the early stages of the war, but the Mohawks supported the English, even though the other nations had strong pro-French factions. The Valley Indians obviously realized the danger of displeasing their Mohawk neighbors at a time when the local Europeans treated them with open hostility.7 The Esopus Indians also had to be mindful of the Iroquois living at various settlements on the Susquehanna River, especially those of the town called

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Oquaga or Onoquaga lying near present-day Windsor in Broome County, New York. Originally an Oneida settlement, Oquaga was also home to a large number of Tuscaroras, as well as Mahicans, Shawnees, and other Indians. It was among the nearest Native neighbors to the main Esopus settlements. Indeed, the Oneidas at Oquaga claimed the Pepacton or East branch of the Delaware as their boundary with the Esopus Indians, and gave John Bradstreet a deed that came into conflict with Johannes Hardenbergh’s earlier purchases from Esopus leaders. A mission station had been established at Oquaga in 1748, and many of the Iroquois there were Christians. In the 1750s and 1760s, the Oquaga Iroquois stood out as steadfast allies of the English, and did their best to pressure neighboring Indians to support their allies. In February 1756, Oneida leader Thomas King stressed that he spoke not only for the Oneidas and Tuscaroras at Oquaga but also for Chugnut, another Susquehanna village, adding that “the Delaware-indians, who live upon the east branch of that river near the head of it, have given us the strongest assurances, that they will live and die with us, and in consequence of that will keep up the same friendship and alliance with the English, which now subsists between us and them.” The Natives on the East branch of the Delaware were the Esopus Indians living at Papakonk and Paghatakan, and the Oquagas made it clear to their leadership that keeping the peace with Oquaga Iroquois meant keeping the peace with the English.8

Embattled Refugees No matter how hard the Hudson Valley Indians struggled to keep out of the war, many of their English neighbors viewed them with distrust and hatred. As in other regions, the Seven Years’ War was a time when English colonists increasingly began to demonize Indians in racial terms, making scant distinction between friend and foe. In early March 1756, a group of Ulster County colonists murdered several Indians who had followed the invitation of the provincial government and moved closer to the colonial settlements. These were for the most part Esopus people, although two of them were reportedly Moravian Indians from Pachgatgoch in the Housatonic Valley, a settlement with a visible Hudson Valley element. Governor Hardy ordered the perpetrators apprehended, and he further instructed local officials to invite the rest of the “Settlement Indians” into the English towns. In the wake of these attacks, a delegation of Esopus leaders came to New York City to lay their grievances before the governor. The envoys needed “a proper Guard of white Men, to protect them from the Insults of the enraged Populace.” Hardy presented the delegates with a gift to assuage their losses, but treated them with suspicion,

Map 5.  Map of the Country of the VI. Nations [detail]. The Hudson and Susquehanna valleys in 1771. Courtesy of the New York State Library, Manuscripts and Special Collections.

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demanding to know if any of their people had joined the enemy. He further lectured them that rather than merely moving close to the colonial settlements, they should have followed his instructions to the letter and sought refuge inside the English towns. Because the Indians could no longer hunt in safety, Hardy suggested that they offer their services as military laborers operating English military transport boats. Several of the Indians accepted this offer, and their families were apparently later stationed at Fishkill in Dutchess County, while others sought refuge at Kingston. There were also attacks on Native noncombatants in New Jersey the same year, even though this colony had remained largely free from Indian raids.9 Given the unfriendly attitude of their European neighbors and the fact that many of their friends and relations were already at war with the ­English, it is not surprising that some Hudson Valley Indians joined the enemies of the English. According to Cadwallader Colden, a number of Indians in the neighborhood of his southern Ulster County estate (presumably Esopus ­people) left this area in the fall of 1755. After an attack on a group of colonists on the road between Rochester and Minisink in November 1756, one of the English claimed to have seen an acquaintance among the attackers. By that time, many Esopus Indians felt they had good reasons to join the war against the English, but other Valley Indians joined the belligerent Natives before the English attacks. Three local Indians were allegedly behind an attack near an English house on the Wallkill River in late February 1756, and the Indians that abducted Margery West from Minisink the same month included a man identified as a Hackensack Indian, as well as Henry Nimham, a Wappinger from Fishkill, whom West knew personally. At Tioga on the Susquehanna, West met another Wappinger acquaintance named Stephen, a man brought up on Staten Island, and a Wallkill Indian. Since West was personally acquainted with two of her captors, some of these people had obviously left the Hudson Valley only recently. Governor Hardy’s suspicions of the Valley Indians were thus not unfounded. That some of their own people had joined the war increased the pressure on those that desired to stay at peace, both from the English and the warring Indians.10 Faced with an increasingly dangerous situation in their own home areas, many Hudson Valley Indians chose to seek refuge among their Mohawk uncles. At a conference on March 23, 1756, Sir William Johnson acquainted Mohawk leaders with the recent attacks on several Esopus Indians by Ulster County colonists, and also that the magistrates of Kingston wanted to know what to do with the forty to fifty Indians that had recently sought refuge among them. The Mohawks decided to invite the Esopus Indians to settle in their country, and in early April Mohawk envoys invited the Esopus Indians to live at Tinononderoge, the Lower Mohawk Castle. The Esopus Indians

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accepted this invitation, and in late May Johnson and the Mohawks held meetings with Esopus envoys. The Esopus delegates explained that many of their people had enlisted in the English bateaux service, and that their families were still at Fishkill, but Johnson wrote officials of that area explaining the importance of having these Natives resettled in Mohawk country. In early July, 196 men, women, and children had arrived at the Lower Mohawk castle. Johnson—or his secretary Peter Wraxall—described these Natives as “Mohikander” Indians, but they were clearly Esopus people. A number of other Hudson Valley Natives also sought shelter among the Mohawks at this time. By May 1756, many River Indians, probably Mahicans from various locations in the Hudson Valley, had come to settle at the distinct Mohawk community of Schoharie south of Tinononderoge.11 Not all Valley Indians elected to go to Mohawk country at this time. In April 1756, Johnson wrote that the Esopus Indians numbered about one hundred warriors, suggestive of a combined population of several hundred people, but only around two hundred of them appear to have come to Tinononderoge. Johnson may, of course, have overestimated their population, but in December of the previous year James Alexander expressed the hope that Cadwallader Colden would be “Safe from those Neighbour Indians that frequent your house,” indicating that there were many Indians residing in southern Ulster County before the settlement of these Esopus people among the Mohawks. In September 1757, Johnson wrote that “About Schohere & Kats Kilns live a number of Mohikanders & River Indians,” meaning that while many Mahicans were by then with the Mohawks at Schoharie, there were still Catskills living in their own territory. The Wappingers chose to go east to the Housatonic River rather than north to Mohawk country, and sometime in 1756 Daniel Nimham led his followers to seek shelter among the Stockbridges.12 Settling in Mohawk country did not come without difficulty and danger. Dependent on Johnson for supplies, the Esopus and Mahican refugees could not well resist demands that they join campaigns against Canada. Some of the refugees were frustrated with their new situation. By early 1757, some of them had reportedly asked the Stockbridges to receive them in their settlement. The Valley Indians at Schoharie were furthermore disorderly and killed the cattle of nearby colonists. In September 1757 a group of Catskills and Mahicans from Schoharie injured an English military courier, and threatened to take Johnson’s scalp. The Mohawk leaders and the English officials who supported these relocations operated from motives not necessarily in the best interest of the Valley Indians. Johnson and Hardy had little concern for the Valley Indians, but wanted to augment the military manpower of their

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Mohawk allies and get these potentially hostile Indians out of the way. In the long term, they may have hoped to remove the Valley Indians to facilitate future European settlement. But both Johnson and the Mohawks also hoped to use the diplomatic connections of these Indians in their efforts to reestablish peace with the western belligerents. Mohawk sachem Canadagai told the Esopus Indians to inform their brethren the Delawares that they were now under Mohawk protection, and that rumors that the English held them captive were false. Johnson made sure to have some Hudson Valley Indians present at a meeting with Delawares and Shawnees from the Susquehanna in July 1756. A Delaware leader from Tioga expressed satisfaction at seeing them safe under English protection.13

Questions of Loyalty Unlike most Indians still living in the Valley, the Stockbridge Mahicans were eager to show their loyalty to the English by supporting their war, an approach that landed them on the opposite side of many of their old friends and allies. In July 1755, the Stockbridges invited both the Indians of Pachgatgoch and the Wappingers in the Highlands of the Hudson Valley to a council, where they urged them to enlist as English auxiliary troops. Since Stockbridge companies served in the English Canadian campaigns, they did not have to fight the Delawares, Shawnees, Munsees, or other of their old friends living in the west, but they did find themselves confronting the Schagh­ ticokes, perhaps the closest allies of the Mahicans over the ­previous seventy years. Stockbridge warriors joined Massachusetts troops in raids against Canada in 1756, as well as in the English assault on Ticonderoga in 1758. By then, Schaghticoke warriors were fighting alongside the French: Sir William Johnson believed that the English-speaking Indians encountered by colonial troops on the campaign to Lake George in 1757 were Schaghticokes. Also fighting the English were the Abenakis, among whom the Schaghticokes had sought refuge after the raid on Hoosick in 1754. The Abenakis and the Mahicans had a long history of friendship and alliance, but now they were fighting on opposite sides, and a few Stockbridges actually participated in Robert Rogers’s raid on St. Francis in the fall of 1759. St. Francis was also where a number of the Schaghticokes had resettled. According to later St. Francis traditions, one of the Stockbridges had warned the locals of the assault, but many of the inhabitants nevertheless perished, and bitterness arising from this and other acts of hostility explains why an Abenaki at St. Francis murdered a Stockbridge Mahican accompanying an English envoy to this settlement in 1760.14

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The Wappingers who had sought refuge at Stockbridge in 1756 likewise took part in the English war against Canada. Daniel Nimham and other Wappingers made much of their loyal service during their struggles to recover their lands in southern Dutchess County in the 1760s, claiming that during the Seven Years’ War Daniel Nimham “went in Capacity of Captain in defence of the British Crown, taking under his Command all the males of said Tribe that were then able and any way suited for said service.” Observing the preparations of the forces going to Oswego and Crown Point from Albany, William Alexander on June 18, 1756, noted that “we also daily expect another Company, Composed of Indians from the East Side of Hudsons River.” These Indians were probably the Wappingers, as the Stockbridge Mahicans had arrived at Albany a week earlier, and other auxiliaries from Pachgatgoch were stationed ten miles above Albany by June 10. Nimham’s supporters may have exaggerated his service to the crown, but he showed up in Johnson’s expense account as “Captn Daniel Nimham” in February 1757, which means that he was in British military service at that time. Daniel’s brother Aaron Nimham was one of several British-allied Indians captured by French forces near Ticonderoga in February 1758. He later escaped and brought military intelligence about the French position to the English forces.15 The Wappingers, however, fought on both sides in this war, as several people of Wappinger affiliation from the Hudson Valley appear as enemies of the English, and the Wappingers in New Jersey and Pennsylvania joined the Munsees and other Native belligerents as a collective. Indians from Fishkill in Dutchess County took part in hostilities on the western frontier of New York. The same was true of individual Esopus Indians, but the western Wappingers appear to have joined the war as a functioning and coherent political organization. After the Treaty of Crosswicks in January 1756, New Jersey counted the Wappingers on the Pompton River among its friends, and took care to inform them when the province declared war on the hostile Delawares in June. These Wappingers, however, eventually joined the war against the English. Exactly when they entered the conflict is unknown, but since a number of Wappingers at least in the mid-1740s lived at the Minisink town of Cochecton, they may have gone to war against Pennsylvania and New York when the Munsees did. In June 1758, New Jersey governor Bernard sent a message to the Munsees and Wappingers, informing them of suspicions that they were behind recent attacks in New Jersey, and inviting them to a conference at Burlington to present any complaints they might have against his province. Egohohoun, a prominent Munsee sachem, sent a messenger to represent him at Burlington, but no Wappingers attended this

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treaty ­conference. At the following conference at Easton, however, both these groups had large delegations, the Wappingers attending with forty-seven men, women, and children and the Munsees with thirty-five.16 At the Treaty of Easton in October 1758, the Wappingers were in close cooperation with the Munsees, and made joint decisions with them over the issue of rights to land in northern New Jersey. Since the Natives cited fraudulent land purchases as a principal reason for going to war, New Jersey authorities decided to extinguish all Indian land claims in the province in return for payment. At the second Treaty of Crosswicks in February 1758, colonial officials obtained a quitclaim from the Delawares in southern New Jersey, but Munsee and Wappinger claims to land in the north were still outstanding. Although the Wappingers had only recently made their appearance in northern New Jersey, neither Indians nor colonists questioned their claims to lands there. The Munsees accepted the rights of the Wappingers to land in their old territory, which is suggestive of the close relationship between these peoples at this time. According to the deed of the final quitclaim, the Iroquois had “permitted their Nephews the said Minisink or Munsie and the said Oping or Pompton Indians to Settle on their Lands on the branches of the Susquehanah and elsewhere, to which they have for their better convenience removed.” Some of the Wappingers thus lived with the Munsees on the Susquehanna at this time. When Governor Bernard at a private conference raised the question of a quitclaim, Egohohoun and Wappinger leader Auquawaton consulted each other and asked Bernard for an offer for their land rights. Both the Munsees and Wappingers accepted the final offer of one thousand Spanish dollars and executed the deed. One attendee at Easton raised a claim to land in the Hudson Valley, as Bernard informed the government of New York that an Indian man called Isaac Muckleberry had an outstanding claim to land at Schunemunck in Orange County.17 Little is known about relations between the Hudson Valley Wappingers and their western kin. Although Auquawaton was the most active Wappinger leader at Easton and appears on the quitclaim as “chief of the Opings or Pomptons,” the senior Wappinger sachem in the west was a man named Nimham, who due to poor health let Auquawaton handle the negotiations. Egohohoun and Auquawaton signed the New Jersey deed on October 23, but when Nimham signed the document two days later, he appeared as “Nimham the Eldest and principal Chief of the Wappengers or Opings.” Nimham was obviously an older relative of Daniel Nimham, who was about thirty-two-years old in 1758. He may have been a paternal uncle or an older brother of Daniel, which suggests the latter became leader of the Wappingers

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in the Hudson Valley simply because the senior members of the lineage had migrated to the west.18

Religious Divisions Beyond an eastern and western orientation, because of which some Wappinger populations took some of their cues from the Stockbridges and the Munsees, respectively, the evident split in the Wappinger people may have been symptomatic of a division between traditionalists and Christian accommodationists. Daniel Nimham and his western relative may have had different ideas about how to deal with colonial society. In 1744, Moravian ­missionaries described Old Nimham as a sorcerer hostile to Christianity, which may mean that he (like other sachems before him) was both a religious and a political leader to his people. In 1762, however, his son Daniel was a Christian, and had lived at the Congregationalist mission at Stockbridge for years. In the 1760s, Daniel Nimham and his associates, and most Hudson Valley Wappingers that appear in English records, used European or Christian first names, while none of those that signed the quitclaim at Easton did. Four of eight named Pomptons at Crosswicks used European first names, but most Wappingers that later appear in Pennsylvania records went by Native names alone. Daniel understood and could speak English, and he often signed English documents with the sign И, a reversed version of the initial of his surname. Stephen Cowenham used the mark S or S:K, while Jacobus Nimham signed with a C for “Cobus.” Together with their war record and their Christian faith, these details suggest that some Hudson Valley Wappingers were more ready than their western kin to adopt certain European cultural traits. These Wappingers also relied heavily on English legal channels and partnerships with Dutchess County colonists in their efforts to recover their lands in the 1760s.19 The Nimham that appeared at Easton may have been the man elected sachem of the Wappingers affiliated with Cochecton in late 1745, which means that Old Nimham had recently died, perhaps resulting in strife among his successors and the departure of other traditionalists to the upper Delaware Valley, where the Minisinks had already shown themselves averse to European spirituality. Only the Wolf and Turkey clans were represented in the 1745 election, which may mean that the probable third Wappinger clan, the Turtles, supported another claimant to the sachemship, presumably a leader still living in the Hudson Valley. It is, however, far from clear whether this Nimham left the Hudson Valley for good in the 1740s, as he in 1761 possessed a certificate from a meeting with Governor Hardy dating from 1756.20

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Conversions to Christianity had long since begun to weaken the internal cohesion of the Mahicans. The Housatonic Valley Mahicans, who began to convert to Congregationalist Christianity from the mid-1730s, and their compatriots at Shekomeko, who opted for Moravianism a few years later, were seeking new sources of spiritual power and practical skills (such as literacy) in an effort to strengthen their society, but many Mahicans deplored this course of action. Hudson Valley Mahicans were displeased that their Housatonic kin had accepted a missionary without consulting the rest of their people, and in January 1735 summoned a council on the Housatonic to discuss this issue. Ahead of this meeting, which was attended by up to two hundred delegates, including Mahican chief sachem Corlair (Metoxon), rumors circulated that the Hudson Valley Mahicans planned to poison the Housatonic chiefs, suggesting considerable tension. When some of their people later fell ill, the Housatonic Mahicans suspected foul play. In 1743, Corlair expressed some interest in Moravian teachings, and even invited a missionary from Shekomeko to come to his people near Freehold. But he soon changed his mind, and by November the Moravians described him as a sorcerer opposed to their proselytizing.21 Since religious ceremonies served to strengthen and renew social ties, conversions threatened the social fabric. If converts no longer honored their obligations to hold and participate in such events, the bonds that tied Mahican society together might unravel. Holding feasts and sacrifices for friends and neighbors was a reciprocal duty, and the withdrawal of a single household from the ritual cycle caused disruption. Zeisberger explained that when the head of a family was converted, “he gets into difficulty because his friends will not give him peace until he has designated some one to take his place in the arrangements for sacrificial feast.” Conversions might further tear families apart. Not only was Corlair cousin of Isaac, one of the first converts at Shekomeko, but Gottlieb Büttner claimed that the lives of his own sons were not safe around this sorcerer, a hint at religious discord in the family. The Mthoksin family that later lived at Stockbridge was related to Corlair. The Indians on western Long Island also faced religious divisions at this time. Azariah Horton found the Indians at Rockaway receptive to his preaching, but lamented the indifference of those at nearby Fort Neck. Closely affiliated in the past, these Natives divided over the question of religion.22 That all Mahican converts did not embrace the same brand of Christianity created additional divisions. Rivalries between Moravian and Congregationalist missionaries often translated into divisions among their proselytes. In the weeks ahead of the departure of many Shekomekoans for Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in May 1746, Stockbridge leaders worked to persuade the Moravian

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kin to join their settlement, but most would not join the Congregationalists. Moravian pacifism further meant that the Shekomekoans would not heed the call of the Stockbridges to help them defend their Massachusetts allies against French incursions during King George’s War. Stockbridge leaders wanted to prove their loyalty to the English, but most Moravian converts would take no part in the war. Although this religious tension did not produce a clear breach, and the Moravian Mahicans maintained some contact with Stockbridge after they moved to Pennsylvania, the departure of these people, together with the persistence of religious traditionalism among Mahicans in the Hudson Valley, in the long run meant a split of the Mahican polity.23 Mahican conversions furthermore had implications for diplomatic relations with other Native groups, as old friends and allies of the Mahicans opposed European spirituality. Since religious festivals also served a diplomatic function, conversions to Christianity carried the potential of disrupting ties among different Native groups. In a message sent to the Shawnees in June 1741, the Stockbridges sought to make a common adherence to Christianity a bond between them, urging their younger brother to open his eyes and see the light of the true God. Although their respective ancestors had used to send messages to one another, “these things which they spake in darkness were nothing.” Apparently, their shared ancestral traditions were insignificant next to the religion of the Europeans, a premise the Shawnees would not accept. The Shawnees responded that Europeans had one way of honoring God and Indians another, and while their older brother “shall always find me here if he has any message to send . . . Christianity need not be the bond of union between us.” Some Minisinks were equally dismissive of foreign religion. When David Brainerd attempted to preach at a Minisink settlement in May 1744, the resident sachem turned his back on him and refused to listen.24 Many Wappingers were initially quite hostile to Mahican Christianity, at least the Moravian variety. Missionary Joseph Shaw found at least some individuals willing to listen when he visited the Highlands in 1743, but when Wappinger emissaries stayed at Shekomeko en route to Mohawk country in May 1744, the missionaries heard that they ridiculed the converts. Gottlieb Büttner reported that the sorcerer Nimham spoke out against the Moravians and forbade his people to attend their meetings. By October of the same year, Nimham had begun to invite Shekomeko residents to settle among his people, offering refuge and land to all Indians who were dissatisfied with the Moravian activities at the settlement. In April 1745, when the chief of ­Stockbridge invited the Shekomekoans to come with him to Manhattan via the Highlands, he held that the Wappingers would not be able to ­understand the

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Shekomekoans, who used expressions unfamiliar to these people. Since the Wappingers and the Shekomekoans were hardly strangers to one another, this chief presumably meant that the Moravian Mahicans made use of religious language alien to the Wappingers, but he assured Abraham and his people that he understood them and would explain their words to the Wappingers. Abraham, however, made it clear that he had little interest in going to the Wappingers, as his people had no business in the Highlands. He only came along to defend his land before the governor. Cornelius, one of Abraham’s companions, later described his discomfort when the chiefs in the Highlands pressured him to give thanks at mealtime according to old Indian custom (“nach altem Indianisse Brauch”), which went against his conscience. Interactions between Christians and traditionalists thus involved some level of tension. When Abraham returned to Shekomeko from Manhattan, he blamed the Wappingers for his lack of success in defending his lands, as he claimed that their emissaries had been drunk almost the whole week they were there and therefore unfit to meet with the governor.25 That some Wappingers became attracted to Christianity must have heightened tension and disunity. It must have displeased Wappinger traditionalists that Abraham and his associate Johannes took the opportunity to preach while they were in the Highlands in 1745, especially since a number of people were reportedly duly impressed by their words. Old Nimham would have been dismayed that two of his daughter’s sons had taken an interest in Christianity by 1751 and hoped to accompany a family of Indian converts set to leave their home in Dutchess County for the Moravian mission at Gnadenhütten, Pennsylvania. Adolph, the father of this family, was a Wappinger, while his wife Tabea was a Mahican. The Wappinger population was small, and religiously motivated emigration undermined the collective strength of this people. Many Wappingers sought refuge at Stockbridge during the Seven Years’ War, and eventually came to accept Congregationalist Christianity, but those living at Cochecton and other areas to the west cast their lot with the Minisinks, who for the time being would have nothing to do with European religion.26 Disagreement over how to deal with Europeans and their culture created a dangerous situation for Moravian Hudson Valley Indians living in Pennsylvania, as many belligerent Natives came to treat them as traitors. Nanticokes and Shawnees living at Wyoming had in 1754 persuaded a number of Mahicans and Delawares from the mission of Gnadenhütten to resettle at Wyoming. Those who chose to stay faced the hostility of English colonists and the contempt of Nativist warriors once war broke out in 1755. Native warriors attacked and burned the settlement at Gnadenhütten in late 1755, and

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the converts sought refuge at the Moravian community of Bethlehem. Even the Christian Indians who had left the missions and settled on the Susquehanna River felt threatened, and as peace approached in 1758 a number of these people sought admission to the new mission settlement called Nain near Bethlehem. Not all non-Christian Indians were hostile to the converts, and Paxinosa, chief of the Shawnees at Wyoming, kept his people out of the war and offered the Christians protection. But European religion, while a source of spiritual power to some, had proven itself to be a divisive force.27

Hudson Valley Indians and the War in the West Not just the Moravian Indians but all Hudson Valley people living on the Susquehanna River and areas farther west faced a difficult and confusing situation during the war, with their various Native neighbors pulling in different directions. Although some joined the war against the English, others did not. A number of Mahicans had been living with the Delawares at the settlement of Tioga on the north branch of the Susquehanna at least since 1745. In February 1756, Oneida diplomat John Shickellamy reported that the Delawares at Tioga and elsewhere hoped the Mahicans would join them against the English, which some of them apparently did. An English captive brought to Tioga in March found that Delaware, Mahican, and Munsee warriors held about twenty Europeans captive in this settlement. As Mar­ gery West’s testimony suggests, Tioga was also home to Wappingers, Esopus Indians, and other Hudson Valley Natives. In June of the same year, the Indians at Tioga responded to a message from Pennsylvania in the name of the “Delawares, Memksies and Mohickons,” and signified their desire to reestablish peace. At Wyoming, on the other hand, many people would not join the war. The Mahicans there followed Shawnee chief Paxinosa, who defied the Delawares and refused to attack the English. Wyoming was where several of the Moravian Mahicans had resettled shortly before the war, and a Mahican chief named Abraham came with Paxinosa to the Treaty of Easton in August 1757. These two men cooperated with Teedyuscung in sending a message of peace to the Ohio Indians later the same year.28 The Mahicans and other Hudson Valley Indians on the Ohio probably for the most part joined their neighbors in becoming allies of the French. At Tioga, Cornelius (the man who said he had grown up on Staten Island) told Margery West that he had been at Edward Braddock’s defeat in the Ohio campaign in July 1755, which means that he may have joined the French alliance before the Delawares had gone to war against the English. An Indian woman from the Wallkill further told West that her husband had gone to join

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the French, probably referring to the forces in Ohio. At a meeting with Abraham, Paxinosa, and a Nanticoke leader in April 1757, Johnson demanded to know what the Mahicans and Shawnees had done to bring their respective compatriots living near Fort Duquesne back into friendship with the English. In 1759, George Croghan encountered several Mahicans living with the Shawnees and Wyandots in Ohio country, and Mahican delegates were present when Croghan formally made peace with the Ohio Delawares and Shawnees at Fort Pitt in April 1760.29 Much like the Mahicans and Esopus Indians still living in their old homelands, the Hudson Valley Indians on the Susquehanna had to consider the attitudes of the Iroquois, particularly the Oneidas of Oquaga. By early 1756 the Iroquois had begun to encourage all the Shawnees and Mahicans friendly to the English cause to remove toward Oquaga, and a number of Mahicans were living at the town by May 1757. Mahican delegates were present at meetings between Sir William Johnson and the Oquagas in January and February 1756, and the Oneidas were also applying pressure on the people at Tioga. Following instructions from the Oneidas, a Delaware leader from Tioga met with Johnson in July 1756. The people of that settlement now declared that they would make peace with the English and join the war against the French. The Oneidas at Oquaga made sure to stress the favor they had done the English. In May 1757, Oneida leader Adam told Johnson that “The Delawares & Mohikanders are an Instance what Perseverance & prudent Mannagement can do, the other day they were murdering the English, Belts were sent to them to desist, Once, twice & thrice. At length they returned to their right Mind & sorry for their past Behaviour.”30

Wartime Migrations During and immediately after the war, many Hudson Valley Indians living on the Susquehanna relocated to new settlements, forging new relationships with neighboring peoples and attempting to strengthen their own communities by attracting migrants. In the spring of 1756, the Nanticokes living at the settlement called Otsiningo on the Chenango River, a tributary to the Susquehanna, invited the Mahicans on the Susquehanna to settle among them. In April 1757, a delegation of Mahicans who had moved to Otsiningo showed Johnson a belt received from the Nanticokes, who encouraged the Mahicans to call their dispersed people to settle at this town. Johnson believed the Mahicans at Otsiningo would soon be a flourishing community, and would attract many of their scattered people. By August 1761, a number of the Wappingers on the Susquehanna had also relocated to Otsiningo.

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At a meeting with Lieutenant Governor James Hamilton of Pennsylvania that month, a Conoy leader said that “the Chief of the Mohickons & Opies [Wappingers]” were now living at Otsiningo (or Chenango). Hamilton might send for the Wappingers there if he had anything to tell them.31 Different groups of Valley Indians disagreed on where to resettle, and some competition over the migrants developed. Although many Hudson Valley Indians went to Otsiningo, others opted to settle with Teedyuscung’s Delawares at Wyoming. At the Treaty of Easton in 1758, Teedyuscung had asked the government of New Jersey to take the Wappingers under its protection. By June 1759 both Wappingers and Mahicans were considering relocation to Wyoming. Teedyuscung said that two Mahican messengers from the Susquehanna had come with him from Wyoming, bringing a string of wampum on behalf of the Mahicans and Wappingers, who would put themselves under Teedyuscung’s direction in promoting the work of peace. In April 1761, two Wappinger envoys came with Teedyuscung to Philadelphia, and the Delaware leader told Hamilton that the Wappingers intended to settle with him at Wyoming. In October, Wappinger sachem Nimham attended a conference together with Teedyuscung and Mahican leader Good Tomach, and Teedyuscung now said that the two other chiefs were determined to live at Wyoming. Nimham felt the need to stress that “I am Chief of the Opies, and have a Commission for it, and if any other Indian pretends to be Chief, you must not regard it, for they have no Commission for it.” Nimham ­probably did not have his kinsman Daniel in mind, as the latter was never styled sachem until 1765. He was more likely referring to the men described as leaders of the Mahicans and Wappingers at Otsiningo. Nimham showed Hamilton certificates from past meetings with Governors Clinton and Hardy, as well as the belt marked 17♥♥45, first given by Clinton to the Indians at Cochecton and later displayed by Teedyuscung at Easton. Hamilton accepted Nimham as the only true chief of the Wappingers, and was satisfied that the Wappingers and Mahicans would settle at Wyoming, where Teedyuscung had persuaded the Pennsylvania government to construct a settlement of log houses and had plans for a flourishing community.32 At the same time, a number of Native people from the Hudson Valley itself were departing for new homes on the Susquehanna. Both the Valley Indians in the west and Sir William Johnson were encouraging these Indians to leave. Johnson felt that while the dispersed Hudson Valley Indians were troublesome and dangerous in the neighborhood of English colonists, they would be valuable allies on the Susquehanna. In addition to Mahicans and Wappingers, Otsiningo was home to at least one Esopus Indian, who had settled there around 1755, and the Mahicans there sought to attract more of

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their people. In the spring of 1757, these Mahicans sent the belt of invitation given them by the Nanticokes out among their scattered compatriots. By September 1757 this belt seems to have reached the Hudson Valley. At a meeting with Johnson and the Oneidas that month, an Indian delegation, who described themselves as “dispersed & unsettled People” with “no Land to plant or fixt Habitations to dwell in,” hoped for assistance in finding a place to live. These people may have been a mixture of Mahicans and Munsee-speaking people from coastal New York, as their spokesman said his followers were “sprung from those Indians who antiently lived near the Sea shoar.” They had received both the belt from Otsiningo and invitations from the Oquagas, and where they decided to resettle is unknown. There were still Mahicans living at Schoharie in 1764, and these people would have had to consider the attitude of their Mohawk hosts, who may have been loath to see them leave. In June 1769 there was a small Mahican village of five houses near Unadilla, about twenty-five miles from Oquaga, but a number of Mahicans had settled at or near Oquaga by May 1757, so these may have been earlier arrivals. Whatever the case, emigration weakened what remained of Native society in the Hudson Valley.33

Hudson Valley Indians Come Home Although many of their people had left, some Indians began to return to the Hudson Valley as hostilities wound down. In August 1760, about a hundred Indian men, women, and children, some of them Delawares and Tuscaroras, and the rest described as former inhabitants of the western frontier of New York, contacted an Englishman at Napanoch in Ulster County, and requested a meeting with county officials. These Indians wanted to renew former treaties of peace, and at least some of them desired permission to settle in Ulster County. These people were probably Esopus Indians who had joined the war against the English several years earlier and now wanted to return home. The provincial government instructed county officials that if they found these Natives disposed to be friendly, they were “to admit them to reside in Such part of the County, as they shall think will give least umbrage to the Inhabitants.”34 The Esopus Indians who had sought refuge with the Mohawks were back in their homeland by the fall of 1763. In October of that year, Johannes Hardenbergh (the younger) wrote Johnson from Kingston that “there is a considerable number of Indians residing amongst us who goes by the name of the Esopus Indians who some years ago was invited by deputies sent by the Mohawk Nation to come & make their place of inheritance among them,”

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and most of these Natives had returned to their homeland over the summer of 1763. The Esopus Indians now insisted on “having the ancient covenant renewed which was made by their ancestors & Gov. Nichols,” and since Hardenbergh believed they were both honest and loyal to the English, he felt it best to heed their requests, but wanted funding for the conference. This meeting (if it took place) was the last recorded renewal of the Nicolls Treaty during the English period. Johnson had wanted these people to settle permanently in Mohawk country, but the Esopus Indians merely wanted temporary refuge in a time of crisis, and now returned to their old settlements.35 Some of the Wappingers who had been fighting against the English in the west likewise came back to the Valley around that time. In September 1763, Wappinger leader Hendrick Wamash came to Johnson to make a complaint against the land patents of Catherina Brett and other Dutchess County colonists. Wamash was probably identical to Henry Quamash, who attended the treaty of Easton in 1758 and subsequently lay ill in the care of the Moravians at Bethlehem until October 1760. He seems to have been living at Wyoming in July 1761. Johnson referred Wamash and his party to Lieutenant Governor Cadwallader Colden, who reported that Margery West had identified one of Wamash’s followers as a member of the war party that abducted her in 1756. Johnson agreed that this might be the case, but considered it irrelevant if the people who captured West had since made peace with the English.36 Following the Treaty of Easton in 1758, an uneasy peace had come to the Hudson Valley, and by late 1761 the Valley Indians who had taken up the hatchet against the English had come to terms with their former enemies. The English were still wary of the Indians, and in August and September of 1761 Natives living on the border of Orange and Ulster counties were making threats against the local Europeans. In early September two Native leaders identified as Delaware sachems approached Ulster County officials about a new treaty of peace. Since these people wanted to deal directly with county authorities, they were probably local Indians who had left their home areas before or during the war. In November, they met the magistrates of Ulster County at Kingston. Michtauk, one of their leaders, appears to have been a former resident of Cochecton. On other occasions, he acted as leader of Munsees and Mahicans from the Susquehanna River, but a record from 1777 indicates that he also had ties to the Esopus Indians. These Natives may thus in part have been Esopus people, although their oblique recollection that “Many years agoe there was a Treaty made between the Governor of New York, & or Ancestors, and we was settled at Minising” resembles a Shawnee tradition of the coming to Minisink more than anything else. The English made the repatriation of captives a condition for peace, but the Indians said

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they had agreed to bring them all to the Easton treaty conference. This conference was already over. At Easton, a Munsee leader had merely promised to surrender the captives as soon as possible, a promise partially fulfilled at the Treaty of Lancaster in August 1762.37

Divisions and Another War A new great Indian war began with Pontiac’s rising at Fort Detroit in May 1763, but even before this conflict erupted, some of the Wappingers and Mahicans in the west were facing an increasingly volatile situation, due to the activities of Connecticut-based land speculators in the area around Cochecton and Wyoming. At the root of this crisis was a deed obtained by speculators from various Iroquois leaders during the Albany Congress in 1754. The Six Nations repudiated this transaction, but the Connecticut people used the deed to claim the upper Delaware Valley and the Susquehanna under the charter boundaries of Connecticut, defying Pennsylvania authorities. In 1760, the Connecticut-based Susquehannah Company sponsored a settlement at Cochecton, which the Indians at Wyoming saw as a threat to their territory. Lieutenant Governor Hamilton agreed with Teedyuscung that these interlopers had no right to make settlements at Cochecton, but he took no effective action to curtail their activities.38 Due to the crisis brought on by the encroachments of the New Englanders, the Wappingers and Mahicans at Wyoming came to be in the direct line of fire when fresh hostilities broke out in Pennsylvania. In April 1761, when Teedyuscung told Hamilton that some of the Wappingers were planning to come to Wyoming, he added that the progress of the Connecticut trespassers had given them reason to pause, especially since the Connecticut people planned to make settlements at Wyoming. This threat explains why some Wappingers chose to live at Otsiningo, rather than follow their sachem Nimham to Wyoming. In November 1762, Teedyuscung reported that the New Englanders were becoming increasingly aggressive, and the Ohio Delawares had invited the Delawares, Wappingers, and Mahicans at Wyoming to come and live at Allegheny. Hamilton, who realized that if the Indians left the Connecticut settlers would move in, assured Teedyuscung that he would protect him in possession of his land. The Iroquois, Johnson, and the Pennsylvania government all denounced the New Englanders, but seemed incapable of effective action. When the imperial government began to stir in early 1763, it was too late. In mid-April, the settlement at Wyoming went up in flames, and Teedyuscung perished in the fire. Many Indians suspected arson. This event, rather than the rising at Detroit the following month, signaled the

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beginning of the new war in Pennsylvania, and some Wappingers and Mahicans experienced it firsthand. Following the destruction of their settlement, the Indians left Wyoming, and the Connecticut settlers moved in unopposed. Teedyuscung’s son Captain Bull took his followers to the west branch of the Susquehanna, and the Valley Indians at Wyoming may have gone in the same direction. The Wappingers in Pennsylvania do not reappear in later records, and presumably joined other Native groups. Warriors led by Captain Bull returned to Wyoming and destroyed the English settlements there in the fall of 1763.39 English greed for Indian land was at the heart of the crisis, but the conflict at Cochecton and Wyoming also exposed a set of poorly understood divisions among formerly closely allied Indians. In addition to the Iroquois deed from 1754, the speculators had made three purchases from Indians on the Delaware. Two of these deeds, dating from 1755, were evidently executed by Indians from Cochecton. Michtauk was listed among the grantors. Land sales were common enough, but in the early 1760s some of the Natives still living near Cochecton lent their support to the intruders. Peter Kockindal, who was well acquainted with the Cochecton Indians, confirmed that these people had made the earlier sales to the New Englanders, adding that by April 1761 they had sent a black belt to Wyoming threatening the Indians there to offer no opposition to the Connecticut people. The Cochecton Munsees now stood in apparent enmity to the Indians at Wyoming, who included Nimham and his Wappingers, former residents of Cochecton. Thomas Penn wondered that “any Indians settled near Cachetang would patronize the Connecticut Settlement,” but the answer may lie in the controversial character of Teedyuscung, who had many enemies, and at least in the late 1750s had tense relations with the Munsees. Whatever the case, the Hudson Valley Indians at Wyoming were now opponents of some of their closest traditional allies, an example of how old ties of friendship were strained during these turbulent years.40 As was the case during the Seven Years’ War, the Valley Indians in Ohio country and on the Susquehanna had difficult choices to make. Those living on the Ohio generally joined the uprising started by the Great Lakes Indians, with whom they had close relations. Many Mahicans lived together with their uncles the Wyandots on the Sandusky and Muskingum rivers. An English colonist captured by Wyandot warriors in May 1763 reported that both his Wyandot host and Mohickon John treated him well. This Mahican man— an acquaintance of both John Heckewelder and Sir William Johnson—was the headman of Mohickon John’s Town on the Muskingum. Farther east, Mohickon John’s compatriots among the Moravian Indians in Pennsylvania

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were exposed to the racial hatred of white colonists. Thomas Penn had the converts placed under protective custody in barracks in Philadelphia for over a year. The Moravian Indians subsequently resettled at Wyalusing on the Susquehanna, which had been deserted during the war.41 In Susquehanna country, the Munsees on the Cayuga branch of the Susquehanna (the Chemung River) again stood out as enemies of the English. These Munsees initially had the support of the western Senecas, but most of these people made a separate peace in April 1764. English and Iroquois war parties sent out by Johnson torched the Munsee towns on the Chemung, and many of the inhabitants sought refuge in Seneca country; their leaders finally made peace with the English in May 1765. By then, Henry Bouquet’s expedition to Ohio in November 1764 had forced the belligerents there to lay down their arms. Other Munsees stayed out of the conflict or lent support to the English. As during the previous conflict, political disagreements led some people to relocate to new settlements, and Otsiningo again became a destination for Munsee and Mahican people disinclined to join the war. Some of the Wyalusing Munsees sought refuge among the Moravian brethren in Philadelphia, as Moravian missionaries had previously been active in this town. Many of the Munsees at Wyalusing were adherents of Nativist revivalism, but were heavily inspired by Moravian and Quaker Christianity; their spokesman John Papunan was a pacifist. The Oquagas were again among the foremost English allies on the Susquehanna, and no doubt put pressure on Otsiningo and other neighboring settlements. In February 1764, Johnson told the Mahicans at Otsiningo to “make the Example of your Uncles the Oghquagoes &c the Rule of your Conduct.”42 In the Hudson Valley itself, the impact of the war was muted, which may in itself be a sign of weakening ties within and among different Native groups. The war was no doubt a source of concern to Indians in the Valley, involving as it did many of their compatriots living on the Susquehanna. The Munsees included many people originally from the Hudson Valley. Many other Natives, both Mahicans and Munsee speakers, had migrated west in recent years. In November 1763, a delegation from Stockbridge expressed concern that “Many of the Mohicander Indians are gone from these parts Some years ago to live along the Susquahana & its Branches, wh. gives their freinds here much concern least they may be brought in to do what is wrong.” The Stockbridges wanted Johnson to send a message to call these people home, “Coleus Nimham in particular & whoever like to come with him.” The Mahican chief sachem and his councilors evidently did not believe that their influence equaled that of Johnson. In 1735 the Hudson Valley Mahicans had called their Housatonic kin to task for accepting a missionary without their

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approval, as it “is a custom among the Indians not to proceed in any affair of importance till they have the consent of the several Clans belonging to the Nation.” In 1751, when the central council fire had moved to Stockbridge, the appointment of Abraham to the rank of captain had been a concern to the missionaries at Bethlehem, who feared the influence of the Stockbridges. A decade later the heads of the Mahican nation sought a powerful English official as a go-between to their expatriate kin.43 Some Valley Indians did join the war and the conflict again made local Europeans nervous and distrustful of Indians. Stockbridge warriors again turned out to fight for their English allies, and a number of Mahicans still living at Schoharie and Catskill likewise enlisted on the English side. They joined the forces of the Oneidas, not the Stockbridges, a possible sign of weakening Mahican cohesion. Even a few Schaghticokes offered their services in May 1764. These Indians may have made their way to New York from the Saint Lawrence River, or had otherwise remained in the Valley after the bulk of their people had left for Canada a decade earlier. Whatever the case, they were still not happy with the Stockbridges, and made a point of contrasting “the ill behavior of some of the Stockbridge Indians” with their own zeal for the English cause.44 The Hudson Valley did not become a theater of conflict during Pontiac’s War, but by then there were clear signs that the situation of the Indians who remained in their old homeland was growing increasingly precarious. Alarms continued to frighten the English population, who were still suspicious of all Indians. The appearance of two strange Indian women near Tappan in August 1763 was a source of worry to Orange County colonists, as it seemed extraordinary that Indian people had appeared in that area, a sign that few Native people had returned to Orange County after the end of the previous war. More Indians would leave the Valley over the following years, and this population drain continued to weaken those that stayed behind, an especially dangerous development as the local Europeans increased the pressure on the remaining peoples of the Hudson Valley. Just as ominously, the widening breach between Britain and her colonies meant that neither Indians nor Europeans would enjoy peace for long.45

Ch a p te r   9

Disaster and Dispersal

The Revolutionary War was over, but residual violence lingered. In September 1784, the British commander at Fort Niagara investigated the unprovoked killing of three citizens of the newly minted state of New York near Lake Erie. The attackers were a group of Indians identified as “Mohiccons or Delawares,” and many Mahicans and other Hudson Valley Indians had fought in the Revolution as members of the British-Indian alliance. According to a report by a U.S. officer published in August 1783, 250 Mahicans were among those who had fought with the British and “stained their tomahawks with the blood of Americans.” But the Mahicans at Stockbridge had again come out in support of their immediate Euro-American neighbors in Massachusetts, and in July of that year George Washington had issued a certificate recognizing that “during the whole of the late War, the aforesaid Muhhekunnuk Tribe of Indians have remained firmly attached to us and have fought and bled by our side.”1 The divisions that had characterized relations among the Hudson Valley Indians during the previous decade of war thus persisted into the Revolutionary era, and so did emigrations of Valley peoples to other areas and regions. The Indians responsible for the murders in 1784—assumed to be “some straggling fellows”—were expatriates who had left their Hudson Valley homeland behind. When they received Washington’s certificate in 1783, the Stockbridge Mahicans were also on the move. The general declared that 191

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since “our Brothers the Muhhekunnuk Tribe of Indians have signified to us their intention of removing their present settlement near Stockbridge to the Oneida Country,” all Indians and Europeans should treat them as friends and subjects of the United States of America. The faithful allies of the United States had ultimately found it impossible to live close to the Euro-Americans who were now citizens of the new republic.2 In spite of continuing divisions among the Natives of the Valley, it was ultimately the unrelenting pressure of the European population, as well as the crucible of the Revolutionary War, that brought the long history of the Indian Hudson Valley to a close. Political and strategic disagreements during the long years of war were no doubt problematic, but the Valley Indians had weathered crises before. Were it not for new levels of hostility and land hunger on the part of their European neighbors, they might have managed to repair their weakened political and diplomatic arrangements. The Esopus Indians had gone quietly back to their Ulster County homeland after the end of the Seven Years’ War, and many Wappingers, too, sought to return home. This latter group had seen their remaining Hudson Valley lands seized by New York grandees, and, over the following two decades, the Wappingers struggled unsuccessfully to regain their lost lands. By the early 1770s the Esopus Indians constituted the only readily recognizable Native political organization in the Valley, and, though clearly weakened, this group still showed signs of vitality until the catastrophe of the American Revolution.

Postwar Land Struggles As relations between Britain and her American colonies began to deteriorate in the 1760s, the most pressing issue preoccupying Hudson Valley Natives was the struggle to retain or recover their lands. A decade of conflict had distracted Indians and colonists from land affairs, but with the coming of peace this contentious issue once again rose to the fore. In late 1762, Johnson was investigating the claims of the Schaghticokes to land claimed by the town of Albany. Johnson felt that Albany’s mistreatment of the Schaghticokes had driven them to defect to Canada, but he may have been more concerned with assisting John Bradstreet’s rival land dealings. The same was true of his relations with the Esopus Indians. In April 1769, Johnson told Bradstreet that he had “at different times had occasion to look over Sundry old papers in the hands of the Esopus Inds,” and he thought these documents might assist Bradstreet in defending his land patent against the claims of the Hardenbergh patentees. Apparently, the Esopus Indians had brought these papers to Johnson in the fall of 1767, and another Esopus delegation had come to

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see Johnson about land matters in late 1768. These Indians hoped to fend off Hardenbergh’s claims to their remaining lands, but Johnson showed little interest in this case until Bradstreet began his proceedings against Hardenbergh in 1769.3 Mahican people were pursuing several land claims during these years. In early 1762, Massachusetts authorities created nine new townships in the western part of the colony, ignoring the claims of the Stockbridges, who were also having problems with the Van Rensselaer family’s encroachments on their lands in the disputed boundary zone between Massachusetts and eastern New York. The Stockbridges appealed to Johnson for help, but never received any real assistance from the man charged with protecting Indian rights. The same was true of the Shekomeko Mahicans, who had never received redress for the lands they lost to the Little Nine Partners patentees in the 1740s. The Mahicans had almost completely abandoned Shekomeko by the 1750s, but in September 1763 the sons of Abraham pressed Johnson about their late father’s claims. Characteristically, Johnson merely promised to look into the matter. Mahicans still residing in their old Hudson Valley homeland also had grievances to air. In April 1768, Kaysoakamake, an old sachem of the Hudson Valley Mahicans, reminded Sir William’s son-in-law and deputy Guy Johnson of the old covenant between the Mahicans and the English, and complained that his people had received nothing for lands taken by the Van ­Rensselaer family. Guy Johnson promised to investigate, but he does not seem to have exerted himself on behalf of these claimants. Neither Kaysoakamake nor Abraham’s sons cooperated with the Stockbridges in pursuit of their claims. Although localism was nothing new, this may be seen as another sign of the weakened authority of the Mahican central council fire.4 The most notable land dispute of the 1760s, however, concerned the claims of the Wappingers, who for the remainder of the decade would struggle to recover the land they called Wikapy in the Highlands of southern Dutchess County. After the end of the imperial war, the Wappingers led by Daniel Nimham sought to return to this area, but found that the inheritors of the land patent of Adolph Philipse dating from 1697 had seized their lands. Philipse had purchased the Indian deed of Lambert Dortlandt and Jean Seabrant dated July 15, 1691, but this purchase included only 15,000 acres, whereas Philipse’s patent encompassed fully 205,000 acres, laying claim to 190,000 acres of land that had not been purchased from the Wappingers. According to the Wappinger version of events, Philipse knew well that he had no right to claim these lands, but extended his patent by subterfuge, surveying lands far exceeding the bounds of his purchase. The Wappingers claimed that Philipse in his lifetime never attempted to take possession of this land. When

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some of his tenants proceeded to set up farms in the disputed area, the Wappingers threatened them to get them to leave. The tenants then approached Philipse, who told them to make their own bargains with the Wappinger owners if they wished to live there. Some of these people accordingly took leases from the Indians. In the absence of the Wappingers, however, the heirs of Philipse had begun to bring ejectment suits against European farmers in Wickapy that did not hold leases from the English landlords for the land.5 To combat the great landlords who had invaded their lands, Daniel Nimham and the Wappingers formed an alliance with discontented English squatters and tenants, and many people took out leases under the Wappingers. In November 1764, Nimham and several of his associates appointed Samuel Monroe, a former tenant of Philipse, to be the guardian of their people’s land affairs. Eventually both sides petitioned the provincial authorities for redress. The provincial executive council held a hearing attended by both the Wappingers and the heirs of Philipse in March 1765. At this meeting one of the patentees produced a deed dated August 13, 1702, purporting to show that several Wappinger leaders had conveyed the land in dispute to Adolph Philipse. According to the record of the council, One Pound Poctone, a man of about eighty years, acknowledged that he had known the grantors named in the deed. An anonymous English champion of the Wappinger case admitted that this was the case, but added that the old man claimed never to have heard of this conveyance. How much fraud was involved in the original transaction is difficult to determine. The grantors named in the deed from 1702 included both “Hingham” and “Cowenhahum,” in all likelihood the fathers of Daniel Nimham and his associate Stephen Cowenham, respectively. Other Wappingers mentioned in the deed also had participated in the 1691 conveyance. But the mere existence of a deed does not prove the absence of fraud. The grantors may have thought they were only signing a confirmatory deed to the purchase made by Dortlandt and Seabrant, or perhaps Philipse made a minor purchase in 1702, but then tricked the Wappingers by enlarging its bounds. Whatever the case, the Indians felt deceived, but the council (consisting of men who were great landholders) ruled against them.6 Confronted with an unsympathetic provincial government, the Wappingers and their supporters took their case to the imperial authorities, who failed to take decisive action. In the meantime, anti-rent riots spread through large parts of New York, as tenants in Westchester and Albany counties rebelled against their landlords. Governor Sir Henry Moore was inclined to blame the Wappingers for these disturbances. The Wappingers first approached Sir William Johnson, hoping that the imperial government would live up to its recent promises in the Proclamation of 1763 to protect Native lands, but

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Johnson had no interest in this case, as he simply considered the Wappingers too insignificant a people to merit his intervention. Faced with Johnson’s rejection, Daniel Nimham and three Stockbridge Mahicans went to London in the summer of 1766. They ultimately obtained an audience with King George. Lord Shelburne subsequently instructed the provincial government of New York to reopen the case and told Johnson to make sure the Natives received just treatment. But these instructions merely serve to highlight the futility of appealing to the authorities in London, who sent the matter back to officials who were predisposed to rule against the Wappingers in any case. A new hearing finally took place in March 1767, but the council again found against the Natives.7 Daniel Nimham and other Wappingers continued to struggle unsuccessfully against European landholders. Nimham again attempted to procure assistance from Johnson, but met with a cool reception, and his kinsman Hendrick Wamash fared no better. Wamash was fighting the claims of landlords to the area around the Fishkill River, to the north of the lands seized by the heirs of Philipse in Wickapy. Johnson described Wamash and his followers both as Wappingers and as Fishkill Indians, and they may have been people who had remained in this part of Dutchess County after the removal of the majority of their people to Stockbridge. Since Wamash himself had attended the Easton treaty conference in 1758, and at least one of his followers had fought the English in the west, he may have represented Wappingers less willing than Nimham to adapt to the English ways. According to Cadwallader Colden, Wamash was a grandson of Old Nimham, but Daniel identified Hendrick Quamaus as the son of Quamaus, his father’s cousin. These two men were therefore related, but while Daniel in 1762 claimed that Wamash had transferred his land rights to him, Wamash in the main waged his battles independently of Daniel. Wamash first came to Johnson for help in September 1763, and he and other Fishkill Wappingers were back at Johnson Hall in August and September of 1769, again to complain about unfair land dealings. Johnson’s disbursement of a small sum to a “Party of Fish Kill Inds. come about a Land Dispute” in August 1772 shows that they were still struggling for their lands on the eve of the American Revolution.8

Further Migrations In addition to continuing loss of land and the failure of the struggle to prevent it, there were other clear signs that living in the neighborhood of the Europeans was becoming more difficult than ever before. As many historians have pointed out, the conquest of Canada led many English officials and

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colonists to see Indian people as somewhat of an irrelevancy. With the French threat gone, the English believed they no longer needed to placate or negotiate with Indians and could simply impose their will without fear of retaliation. In 1762, the Stockbridges complained that since the end of the war the English had not only refused them customary assistance and hospitality but had taken their land. Now that the French were defeated, “the English think they shall need us no more they are not willing to do us Justice.” Just as ominously, racialized hatred led to several instances of gratuitous murders of Natives in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania in the postwar period. Several Mahicans were among the victims murdered by two Pennsylvanians in one of the ugliest of these killings. This must have given Hudson Valley Indians reason to consider the dangers of living close to a hostile European population.9 Not surprisingly, many Valley Indians continued to leave their old homeland and migrate to the west, but some of these emigrants continued to value ties to old friends and neighbors. They utilized these connections in their search for safer homes. There were still Catskill Mahicans living in the Hudson Valley in 1769, when Richard Smith met a Mahican named Hans living at Catskill, but at least some of the Catskills were preparing to depart. In February 1770, Johnson met with “68 Esopus & Katskill Indns. come to advise wth. me about removg. from where they now live.” As in the past, there were obviously still close relations ties between the Esopus Indians and the Catskills. They continued to cooperate as they went into exile. These Indians may have gone to the Susquehanna River, but many people there were removing to Ohio country, where the Shawnees were calling their Mahican, Munsee, and Nanticoke friends to join them at the Scioto River. In early May 1771, George Croghan (stationed at Fort Pitt) noted the arrival of “Thirty four Canoes of Muncy & Mohickan Indians,” who said they intended to resettle at the Beaver River. A few days later another party of twenty-nine canoes—“all Muncys & Mohickans”—celebrated their arrival with a drunken feast. Migration was a difficult venture, and it is hardly surprising that members of former Hudson Valley peoples continued to cooperate as they left their homes behind. In 1771, the Moravian Indians likewise abandoned the Susquehanna. They resettled at the new missions of Friedensstadt on the Beaver River and Gnadenhütten and Schönbrunn on the Muskingum in the Ohio Valley. Some Wappingers probably also went west at this time. Daniel Nimham and some of his people traveled to Oquaga in August 1772. Nimham himself later returned to Stockbridge, but other members of his people may have found it better to seek their fortunes in areas farther away from the main European settlements.10

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At the end of the English period, there were still a not insignificant number of Indians living in the Hudson Valley, but by the outbreak of the American Revolution the Esopus Indians constituted the only visible Native political organization left in the area. This was a drastic change from only two decades earlier, when the Esopus, Wappinger, Mahican, and Schaghticoke peoples had all been integral parts of the Valley’s political landscape. How many Indians still lived in the Valley at this time is unclear. Daniel Nimham’s Wappingers consisted of about 227 persons in 1765, but they were for the most part living at Stockbridge. In 1756, Johnson believed the Esopus Indians could muster about one hundred warriors, and even if he inflated this figure, this people still numbered a few hundred individuals at that time. Disease had continued to take its toll: there was, for example, an outbreak of smallpox at Stockbridge in the winter of 1761–62. In October 1773, Johnson gave a cursory account of the Native population of the Valley, noting Esopus Indians, Wappingers of Dutchess County, as well as a few Schaghticokes. Additionally, Johnson mentioned the “Papagonk &ca in Ulster County,” but these were merely the Esopus Indians living on the Pepacton branch of the Delaware. Johnson painted a picture of a scattered and wandering population, and thought these peoples might total three hundred warriors. If his estimate was at all accurate, there may have been slightly more than a thousand Hudson Valley Indians living in the entire area at that time, and for these holdouts the outbreak of the Revolutionary War soon presented new challenges.11

The Pursuit of Neutrality Like many other Native peoples, the Esopus Indians pursued a policy of neutrality during the early stages of the Revolutionary War. Most Indians initially regarded the war as a family quarrel between Britain and its colonies, and felt it was no business of theirs. Avoiding involvement in European wars had been the normal policy of Esopus leaders for generations, at least if one judges by the apparent lack of success of colonial officials in enlisting Esopus warriors as auxiliary forces in imperial wars. In July 1776, a colonel of the Ulster County militia told the Revolutionary authorities at New York “that there are a number of Indians in some parts of the county of Ulster, to whom it would be good policy to distribute a small supply of gunpowder.” The provincial convention accordingly sent an amount of ammunition to the Indians, a measure probably intended to secure their continued neutrality, as the Revolutionaries at the same time decided to give ammunition to the Oneidas and Tuscaroras at Oquaga, who had recently given them fresh assurances of neutrality.12

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By early autumn of 1776, British-allied Natives began to put some level of pressure on the Esopus Indians to join their side, but Esopus leaders opted for continued neutrality. By September a number of Ulster County colonists were growing wary of the Indians. The few European families living at or near the Pepacton branch of Delaware feared an immediate rupture with the Indians. Sir John Johnson (the late Sir William’s son) “had sent to the Indians that they must take up arms one side or the other,” and they had reportedly sent emissaries to meet with him at Oswego. An Indian man named John Shelling or Rinepee had brought a message to an Esopus sachem called King Philip—apparently identical to Philip Houghlaling, mentioned in 1771— saying that the Europeans must leave or the Indians would attack them. The same week, colonists at Papakonk received a similar warning from an old Indian woman. By early October the Europeans at Papakonk and Paghatakan had begun to flee their homes. Ulster County officials, however, sought to renew their old friendship with the Esopus Indians, and the Revolutionary convention at Kingston (the state capital from 1777) promised to fund a treaty. A preserved expense account shows that a conference with the Esopus Indians took place on November 13, 1776; this was the last renewal of the Nicolls Treaty. In choosing neutrality, the Esopus Indians acted in much the same way as other Natives early in the Revolutionary War. U.S. commissioners had recently met with delegates from the Iroquois, Delawares, Shawnees, and Munsees on the Ohio, who likewise confirmed their commitment to neutrality.13 When it came to the decision to stay out of the war, the Esopus Indians also considered their relations to the Iroquois, and particularly those of Oquaga, who were determined to be neutral; they desired friendship with the rebels, but would not take part in the war. The main body of the Six Nations in Iroquoia was divided. The Mohawks, Onondagas, Senecas, and Cayugas inclined toward the British, while the Oneidas and Tuscaroras favored the patriots, but Iroquois neutrality in the main held until the summer of 1777. In a message to New York authorities in September 1776, the leaders of Oquaga promised to warn all their Indian friends to stay neutral, or risk their wrath. This threatening gesture was meant for the Indians at Otsiningo. These people had recently received a summons to meet the British at Oswego, but the Esopus Indians must also have found it wise to heed the Oquagas, which may be part of the reason why they renewed the Nicolls Treaty less than two months later.14 Developments in late 1776 and early 1777 shook the commitment of the Oquagas to neutrality, but for the time being both they and the Esopus Indians reaffirmed their intentions to stay out of the war. The chiefs of

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Oquaga were Oneidas and Tuscaroras, and thus belonged to the most pro-­ Revolutionary Iroquois nations. By February 1777, however, they were growing disturbed by settlers encroaching on their land. They also resented the threatening behavior of Revolutionary soldiers in their neighborhood. The Revolutionary authorities assured the Oquagas of their continued friendship and promised to remove any Europeans encroaching on their lands, but the Oquagas, like the Esopus Indians, had also begun to come under British pressure. Joseph Brant made a visit to Oquaga in December 1776, and some of the Oquagas went with him to Niagara. Oquaga leaders claimed that their people had gone to the British post only to trade, but they were still troubled by encroachments on their lands. Esopus leaders were in close cooperation with the Oquagas at this time. In mid-April 1777, Esopus sachems Philip and Hambeck sent a joint message with Oquaga leaders Adam and Jacob “in behalf of the Esopus and Anquaga Indians,” reiterating their desire for friendship with the authorities at Kingston. Earlier the same month, the committee of safety at Rochester had held a meeting with Esopus delegates, but the record of this conference is lost.15

The Patriots at Stockbridge While the Esopus Indians strove for neutrality, the Mahicans and Wappingers at Stockbridge joined the Revolutionary side from the outset. Living within patriot Massachusetts and heavily reliant on colonial economic and political structures, the Stockbridges had little choice but to espouse the cause of their European neighbors. The imperial government had at any rate proven an unreliable ally in the past, incapable of protecting their lands. Stockbridge warriors were present at the siege of Boston in April 1775. Before that, some of them had enlisted as minutemen. The Stockbridges remained firm allies of the Revolutionaries for the remainder of the conflict. In September 1775, a Stockbridge envoy expressed the hope that the United Colonies would help the Stockbridges recover their land. The heirs of Adolph Philipse were loyalists, and had their lands confiscated by the rebel government of New York in 1779. This must at best have been a cold comfort to the Wappingers, as the Revolutionaries sold their old lands at public auction. A total of twenty Stockbridge warriors lost their lives to the patriot cause, including Daniel Nimham and his son Abraham, who fell at the battle of Kingsbridge in late August 1778.16 In addition to supplying auxiliary troops, the Stockbridges sought to use their diplomatic connections to other Native peoples to the advantage of their allies. In May 1775, Abraham Nimham advised the Catholic Iroquois

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at Kahnawake near Montreal to stay neutral in the quarrel among the Europeans. At the Treaty of Pittsburgh in October and November of 1776, Stockbridge envoys made it clear to the Shawnees and Delawares that the king has failed as a father and protector of their lands. They desired the Ohio Indians to join them in humbling the British. Delaware leader White Eyes replied that he did not blame the Mahicans for joining the war, “as they live among our white Brothers of the United States,” and noted that “all who are called Wapanockhies have done the same, as they are the same Flesh & Blood.” The Ohio Indians, however, would stay neutral, and White Eyes invited the Stockbridges to live with them. For the time being, neutrality still seemed like the better option, but the pressures of the war soon made this position impossible to sustain.17

Forced to Take Sides By the summer of 1777 the war had come to the immediate neighborhood of the Esopus Indians. By early June, Joseph Brant had returned to Oquaga, which he made a rallying point for loyalists and British-allied Indians. By that time, neutrality as an option was rapidly disappearing. Most of the Iroquois accepted the British hatchet at Fort Oswego in July, while the Oneidas joined the Revolutionaries, precipitating an Iroquois civil war. Most Oquaga warriors had joined Walter Butler’s forces at Fort Stanwix by September 1777, to the distress of the chiefs of the settlement, who found their offers of continued friendship rejected by patriot authorities. By early 1778,Oquaga had become a staging ground for Indian and loyalist attacks on New York’s frontiers. In September, patriot Governor George Clinton called for the town’s destruction. George Washington complied, and Revolutionary forces razed Oquaga and the nearby Indian village at Unadilla in October, finding both settlements deserted.18 By the fall of 1778 at least some of the Esopus Indians had abandoned neutrality and joined the war on the British side. The Esopus Indians could not withstand the demands and pressures of their Native neighbors now allied with the British, and patriot troops hunting for Indians and loyalists would at any rate not leave them in peace. In early September 1778, an Ulster County militia officer received a letter from an unnamed loyalist, written at the behest of Captains Ben Shanks and John Renhope. Renhope was in all likelihood the same man as John Rinepee, the bearer of a message to Esopus sachem Philip two years earlier, while Shanks—remembered in later Ulster County traditions as an implacable enemy of the patriots—was almost certainly identical to Benjamin Shank, mentioned in 1771. The ­Esopus captains

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complained about the brutal behavior of the patriot rangers during their expeditions to the Pepacton branch. According to these men, “Your Old Friends the Esopus Indians had allwase ment to Screen Your part of the Country as much as Possible in the Present Unhapy Contest as they had no Particular spite at you,” but if “your Rangers Come out any more to hurt the Women & Children they will Revenge it Dredfuly on your Women & Children & will spare none tho they never ment to hurt them.” If the Revolutionaries killed captives, the Indians would burn alive all the patriots they captured.19 All Esopus Indians had not necessarily joined the British alliance at this time. Since two war leaders were behind this message, it is possible that the Esopus sachems, like their counterparts at Oquaga, were still in favor of peace, but found it hard to keep their warriors at home. Following the destruction of Oquaga and Unadilla, however, and the relocation of the inhabitants of those settlements to Niagara, the Esopus Indians in general probably found it impossible to stay neutral, as Indian and loyalist raiders intensified their strikes on New York’s frontier. Esopus and Mahican warriors were actively raiding the frontiers of New York by the spring of 1779. In May 1779, George Clinton complained to Washington that Indian and loyalist war parties kept Ulster County patriots in a constant state of alarm. These raiders included “those who are called Esopus Indians and other stragglers,” as well as loyalists, and they operated from strongholds on the upper Delaware. The Revolutionary War had thus become the first time since the 1660s that people explicitly identified as Esopus Indians went to war against Europeans in their old homeland. For more than a century, Esopus leaders had carefully renewed the Nicolls Treaty and kept the peace with the Dutch and English in Ulster County, but now the pressures from both Indian and European neighbors had undermined this old policy. Some Mahicans had probably joined the Esopus warriors. Fiftyfour Mahican refugees at Niagara relocated to Carleton Island in November 1779. Mahicans from Oquaga, and possibly also nearby Unadilla, had moved from Niagara to Buffalo Creek by May 1780. In January 1778, Revolutionary officers sent out orders to intercept a Mahican man carrying a message from Niagara to British-held New York City. The Mahicans were again split, as Mahican people living on the Susquehanna followed a course quite different from that of their central council fire at Stockbridge, a testament both to the persistence of localism and to the power of local circumstances to influence Native policy decisions.20 Following the massive patriot military operations during the expedition led by John Sullivan against the Iroquois between May and October of 1779,

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most of these Valley Indians withdrew to Niagara or other areas far from the Hudson Valley. Clinton wanted to attack the strongholds of the raiders on the Delaware, but while Washington approved of his plan, nothing appears to have come of the project. Instead, Sullivan’s invasion of Iroquoia, during which Clinton commanded a force operating on the Susquehanna River, became the focus of patriot military operations. A patriot regiment making its way from Wawarsing in southern Ulster County to the Susquehanna recorded the presence of Native warriors near Wawarsing and Rochester. Following the destruction of the Iroquois towns by Sullivan’s forces, many Esopus Indians and Mahicans joined other refugees at Niagara. A war party that set out from Niagara under the command of Joseph Brant in July 1780 included eight Mahicans and five Esopus Indians. Philip Hough, listed as chief of a party of fourteen “Delawares” who had set out from Niagara against the Hudson Valley in January 1781, was probably identical to Philip Houghlaling.21 Many other former residents of the Hudson Valley also joined the British alliance. Most Munsees probably lived in Ohio country by the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, but there were still Munsee settlements on the Chemung, Susquehanna, and Allegheny rivers. Many of these people supported the British. The Munsee warriors who captured Jasper Parrish in July 1778 first brought him to the Munsee settlement at Cookoze on the Mohawk branch of the Delaware and then proceeded to the Chemung. Indians from both the Chemung and Cookoze visited Fort Niagara in late 1778. A year later, however, the detachments from the Sullivan expedition and a parallel campaign from Pittsburgh attacked and destroyed the Munsee towns on the Chemung and the Allegheny. Most of the survivors moved to Cattaraugus and Buffalo creeks in western New York and later to Ontario.22 In Ohio country, the Mahicans and Munsees joined the war on the British side. In 1771, the Munsees and Mahicans joined with the Delawares in denouncing European encroachments west of the mountains, warning colonial authorities of dire consequences if they did not restrain their people. Mohickon John and other Mahicans had firsthand knowledge of Shawnee efforts to organize a league between northern and southern Indians to resist the land cession at the Treaty of Fort Stanwix in 1768. When war erupted between the Shawnees and Virginia in 1774, at least one Mahican was involved in the first clashes. By the summer of 1777 Mahican and Munsee warriors had begun to attack European settlements. David Zeisberger was increasingly worried that the Munsees would pull the neutral Delawares into the war, although it was ultimately the indiscriminate Indian hating of backcountry colonists and poorly managed patriot diplomacy that led the majority of the Delawares to join the British alliance in 1781.23

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The Moravian Indians who had settled on the Muskingum in 1771 found themselves the target of harassment from suspicious traditionalists before the war, and their plight grew worse after the outbreak of hostilities. ­Non-Christian Mahicans and Munsees actively tried to convince their respective compatriots to settle with them. In August 1781, British-allied Delawares and Wyandots forced the Moravians to relocate to the upper Sandusky River. In March 1782, a massacre by Pennsylvania militiamen of more than ninety Christian Indians who had briefly returned to the Muskingum led to the dissolution of the missions. A number of Moravian Indians eventually congregated at New Gnadenhütten in Michigan, but a significant group of Mahicans decided to start new lives among the non-Christian Mahicans on the Maumee River, where they received land from the Miamis.24

Postrevolutionary Exile Hudson Valley expatriates and other Indians in the west would sustain a vibrant Native diplomatic, military, and political life for many decades to come, but in the Hudson Valley the Indian diplomatic and political system was virtually dead by the end of the Revolutionary War. Hudson Valley Indians were part of the northwestern resistance movement that continued to fight the new expansionistic republic until the mid-1790s. When Hendrick Aupaumut went west as a U.S. government negotiator to these Indians, he sought the aid of his cousin Captain Aaron, who lived among the Munsees and Mahicans on the Grand River. Among the confederates near the Maumee River Aupaumut found other Munsees and Mahicans, including “one of the Chiefs of Muhheaconnuck [Mahicans] Named Pohquonhewas—who had been with these Nations ever since he was a boy—he is well acquainted with all these nations—in their Customs & dispositions.” Back on the Hudson, however, Native American diplomacy was a thing of the past, having finally died in the fires of the Revolution.25 At the coming of peace, the vast majority of Native people had left the Valley, joining the exodus of other Native allies of the British. Sixty-five Esopus men, women, and children led by Philip Houghlaling (listed as “Philip Hoff ” in the British record) had joined thirty-five Mahicans from Oquaga, Delawares or Munsees from the Chemung, and other Natives in moving from Niagara to Buffalo Creek by May 1781. People of Munsee and Mahican descent later resettled among the Iroquois at the Six Nations Reserve at the Grand River in Canada. In the early twentieth century, Josiah Montour (born 1872), a member of this community, recalled that his grandmother had borne the nickname Sho’p’si, as her ancestors had been from Esopus.26

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There were other disasters as well. The Revolutionary War coincided almost perfectly with a great smallpox pandemic that hit virtually the entire North American continent between 1775 and 1782. Although there is no direct evidence of smallpox among Hudson Valley Indians at this time, an outbreak of epidemic disease led the Onondagas to extinguish their council fire in January 1777. Smallpox claimed the lives of many Euro-Americans in New York City and other locations in New York, as well as in the Wyoming Valley in Pennsylvania. Smallpox often marched with the armies, and given the widespread movements of troops, raiding parties, and refugees during the war, the contagion had every opportunity to spread.27 The survivors who wanted to stay or return home found the new political and cultural climate inhospitable. A small number of Oquagas attempted to return to the Susquehanna River after the war, but found that the local whites were embittered by racial hatred and would not tolerate their presence. According to a nineteenth-century tradition, Benjamin Shanks (the Esopus captain) made a brief appearance on the upper Delaware in 1784, only to be assaulted by local whites near Cochecton. Even the Stockbridge patriots found it impossible to continue to live in the immediate neighborhood of large European populations determined to appropriate their lands. By 1784 they had resettled in Oneida country. A number of Esopus Indians may have gone in the same direction. The Esopus Indians had in the past had close relations to the Oneidas at Oquaga, and according to an early twentiethcentury Oneida informant, there were some individuals of Esopus ancestry living at the Oneida reservation at Green Bay, Wisconsin, in the early nineteenth century. The Stockbridges had also migrated to Wisconsin by 1830. In the early 1820s, Charles Trowbridge’s Delaware informants believed that while the Esopus Indians in general had become absorbed by the Delaware nation, there were still a few members of that people living near Oswego, in the old territory of the Iroquois.28

Those Who Stayed Behind Small numbers of Indian people continued to reside in the Valley after the Revolutionary War, living as unobtrusively as they could amid the EuroAmerican majority. According to Ulster County tradition, the last Esopus Indian living in the area near Kingston died around 1830. Although the fictional notion of the “vanishing Indian” may underlie stories of sole Indian survivors living out a few melancholy years in their old homelands, other evidence indicate that isolated pockets of Natives chose to stay. Rosanna Simpson Farley, who died at an advanced age in 1929 (reportedly 107 years

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old), remembered that some Indians still lived in southern Ulster County when she was a child, until the growth of Euro-American settlement apparently forced them to migrate to the Onondaga Reservation in northern New York. There were reportedly still some descendants of the Wappingers living near the town of Kent in Putnam County as late as 1811. Some Natives also continued to live on Staten Island, where they were gradually absorbed by local European and African populations.29 In at least two areas, Native occupancy was not inconsequential and has left an enduring legacy. Indians continued to reside in the remote and sheltered Ramapo Mountains region in southern New York and northern New Jersey, where they intermarried with Euro- and African Americans. Due to racial prejudice, the local Euro-American population no longer considered these people Indians, and disparagingly referred to them as Jackson Whites. The descendants of the Indians of the Ramapos had other ideas, and in 1978 they organized themselves as the Ramapough Mountain Indians. They have received recognition from the state of New Jersey as an Indian tribe. A similar development took place on Long Island, where the Matinnecocks continued to live in parts of their territory on the northwestern part of the island. Apparently going completely unnoticed by the central government of New York, these people maintained their identity both as Indians and ­Matinnecocks, even if they no longer had any functioning political organization. As in the case of the Ramapough Indians, intermarriage with African Americans led the local white population to see them as coloreds, but the Matinnecocks continued to lay claim to a separate ethnic identity, even if they had lost their own language and the bulk of their Native traditions. In the 1950s, Ann Harding Murdock, who claimed descent from Tackapousha, initiated a cultural revitalization movement among the Matinnecocks, which continued during the following decades. The picture is therefore not wholly melancholy. The Montauketts, Shinnecocks, and other eastern Long Island peoples have likewise enjoyed a resurgence in recent years. In 2010, the Shinnecocks received federal recognition as an Indian tribe.30 But in the Hudson Valley there were no visible signs left of a functioning Indian political life. The new regime, at any rate, had no inclination of tolerating autonomous Native groups living among its citizens, particularly former British allies. Sachems no longer appear in Hudson Valley sources, nor do treaty renewals or circulating belts of wampum. The United States forced the former British allies among the Iroquois to cede vast tracts of land to the republic, but the new republican rulers had little patience with any Indian claims to sovereignty, and the Oneidas ultimately fared little better. Most Oneidas eventually left New York for Canada and Wisconsin; only a

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few families remained at the small Oneida reservation. Under these conditions, there was no room for the Esopus Indians or other Valley peoples, even if they had sought to reestablish their old polities in the republican world. The old order, for all its faults, had had at least some room for Indian peoples; while authoritarian, it could be ethnically inclusive. The republic, on the other hand, demanded a uniform citizenry of common goals and aspirations. Indians could fit within this new vision only by departing for new homes in the west or becoming white republican citizens; they could not remain on its margins as autonomous peoples. Even if the Esopus Indians had remained in the neighborhood of their old homeland, it is unlikely that the Nicolls Treaty would have survived much longer.31

Thirty Years of Disaster The Revolutionary War was the culmination of three traumatic decades of turmoil for all Hudson Valley Indians, both at home and in expatriate communities abroad. The Valley Indians experienced three Indian-European wars between 1754 and 1783. Many Hudson Valley Natives had no desire to become involved in these wars, but the wars would not leave them alone, as they faced pressure from English officials and Iroquois leaders and hostility from European neighbors. Just as important, many of their old friends and relatives were actively engaged in the wars, which made it hard for Valley peoples to stay out of the fighting, though some Valley Indians probably welcomed the opportunity to settle old scores. Native political and diplomatic relations and decisions had always been contingent on a variety of circumstances. Central among these factors were relations to neighboring Indian peoples. It may therefore be fruitless to attempt to discern political and military courses of action peculiar to any one ethnic or political group. Mahicans expatriates in the Susquehanna Valley were part of a different political landscape than their kinfolk to the east, and their strategic choices reflected these differences. There was nothing new about this political reality, but by the 1750s migrations of Hudson Valley peoples to new areas had made such differences more important than ever before. The migrants came into contact with new sets of peoples, and their relations with these groups affected their political behavior. Since these expatriates (at least in many cases) maintained ties to relatives still at home, developments abroad reverberated in their old homelands, and the war in Pennsylvania in the 1750s led some Valley Indians to depart and join the anti-English cause, which worried those who desired continued peace.

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The complex dynamics of warfare, migration, and inter-Indian politics weakened the cohesion of the Valley’s old Native diplomatic system. The Hudson Valley Indians had a long history of tight relations with one another, but by the late 1740s and early 1750s there were signs that former allies were drifting apart. The Mahicans and Schaghticokes had been so closely allied that it is sometimes difficult to distinguish them clearly from one another, but migrations to neighboring areas created a rift between them. The Mahicans who went east to the Housatonic Valley came to forge a new relationship to the English of Massachusetts, while the Schaghticokes were moving increasingly closer to the Abenakis and their French allies, a consequence of the steady departure of Schaghticoke people to Canada. Ultimately, Mahican and Schaghticoke warriors fought on opposite sides in the imperial war. The same was true of the Wappingers, who had also had close relations with the Schaghticokes. All Hudson Valley peoples that took up arms for the English had some friends, relatives, and fictive kin fighting on the opposite side. The long years of conflict also had the effect of weakening Native groups internally. The Mahicans, Wappingers, and Esopus Indians were all split, with some individuals fighting on both sides of the wars, while others sought neutrality. Although the internal dynamics of Native political organizations remain poorly documented, it is hard to imagine that this situation did not result in factionalism and severe political divisions. The Mahican chief sachem and central council at Stockbridge now clearly had little influence over the western Mahicans, and even those in the Hudson Valley do not seem to have looked to Stockbridge for leadership. The senior sachem of the Wappingers now resided in the west, and his followers allied with their old Munsee friends, while most Wappingers in the Valley joined the Mahicans at Stockbridge. The case of the Esopus Indians is less clear, but they, too, were split. Internal divisions abounded, which can hardly have worked to the advantage of the Valley Indians at one of the most critical times in their history. Conversions to Christianity exacerbated these divisions. There was a clear division between the Stockbridge Mahicans and their Hudson Valley compatriots from the time of the council called to discuss the issue of religion in 1735. Although Hendrick Aupaumut in 1803 portrayed the council as quite harmonious, he added that while many Mahicans settled at the Housatonic to hear the gospel, there were still many who “by the influence of some wicked Dutch people, and by the means of ardent spirits, would not listen to the voice of the preacher, and finally, all such diminished very fast, some are gone to live among other nations and the rest buried under the earth.” Their desolate villages were now possessed by the white people. Only the Stockbridges

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remained. As the Revolution approached, Hudson Valley ­Mahicans still adhered to age-old spiritual concepts, such as the power of dreams. In 1768, Keewahal, the leader of a delegation of Hudson Valley Mahicans, told Guy Johnson that they had come to see him on account of “a dream concerning my Father Sir William Johnson, which gave me uneasiness.” Similar divisions may have arisen among the Wappingers. Rituals played an important role in renewing social and political ties, and beyond this practical function the cessation of rituals displeased potentially vengeful spirit beings. When converts refused to hold sacrifices, they became a threat. Non-Christian Indians further held that conversions undermined their political system. In 1770, the Moravian missionaries felt obliged to give a public assurance of the commitment of the Christians to provide wampum for the use of chiefs. The missionaries highlighted religious affiliation above national ties and sometimes hindered non-Christian chiefs who claimed authority among the converts. And Moravian pacifism was highly problematic in times of war.32 The years of war were also a time of continued migrations, as many Indian people relocated to new homes, and at the end of the period there were only small groups of Native families and individuals left in the Valley. The Seven Years’ War led many individuals to leave the Valley to join the belligerent Indians in the west, while others sought refuge among the Iroquois. Migration to the Susquehanna Valley continued after the war, and this population drain obviously sapped the strength of the people that stayed behind. Some Valley people, such as the main group of Esopus Indians, returned home in the 1760s, but since many of their people had departed, as had Valley Mahicans and other traditional allies, they were clearly in a weakened position vis-à-vis the numerous English population. The postwar period saw a new English rush for Indian land. The Wappingers finally lost the remainder of their territory in the Valley, and their kin at Wyoming were driven out from their sanctuary by land-hungry Connecticut settlers. The Mahicans at Stockbridge saw a direct link between the end of the war and the unwillingness of colonial officials to help them protect their lands. In that respect, their experiences were similar to those of many other Native peoples, as the conquest of Canada immediately led to an invasion of Indian country by colonial settlers and squatters who now expected that Native lands were theirs for the taking.33 On the eve of the American Revolution, the Valley’s Native political landscape was radically different from only a few decades before, but elements of old patterns of interaction remained. The Esopus Indians still remained in parts of their country. Since their sachems took care to renew the old Nicolls Treaty, they had no intention of leaving. The struggles of the ­Wappingers

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to recover their homeland show that they, too, were reluctant to resign ­themselves to a fate of exile. The Esopus Indians maintained relations to their neighbors at Catskill, the Iroquois and Mahicans at Oquaga, and probably also to the Stockbridges and those Mahicans and Wappingers remaining in the Valley, as well as to different Susquehanna Valley groups. The persistence of the small Esopus people into the 1780s is suggestive of the remarkable vitality and tenaciousness of their political organization. That some former Hudson Valley Indians continued to cooperate as they resettled in the Ohio Valley and other areas in the west strongly suggests that while old patterns of intergroup relations may have been weakened, they were still not dead and forgotten. Unfortunately, these remaining Valley Indians were again overtaken by events beyond their control. Their determination to remain neutral in the Revolutionary War could not withstand the pressures from the Native and European belligerents. Ultimately, it was not internal stresses or weaknesses that brought the diplomatic landscape of the Hudson Valley Indians and their neighbors to an end; rather, their old world perished in a cataclysm not of their own making.

Conclusion

The demise of a visible Native political life in the Hudson Valley by the early 1780s should not obscure the fact that the Indian societies in this area had been remarkably tenacious. The Hudson Valley Indians, like other eastern peoples, had stood in the direct path of European expansion since the early seventeenth century. Given the odds stacked against them, it is remarkable that such groups as the Wappingers, the Esopus Indians, and the Mahicans managed to maintain a strong presence in their homeland for as long as they did. By the 1650s Adriaen van der Donck had been ready to write the obituary of these Hudson Valley Indians, expressing his desire to leave a testimonial of the Natives of New Netherland, “so that when the Christians shall have multiplied there, and the Indians melted away, we may not suffer the regret that their manners and customs have likewise passed from memory.” Van der Donck’s words may seem regrettably apt from the perspective of the early twenty-first century, but not from 1655, when Indian warriors descended on New Amsterdam, nor from a century later, when Ulster County colonists were so afraid of their Native neighbors that they were ready to flee their farms.1 Part of the reason for the persistence of a visible Native presence in the Hudson Valley for almost two centuries after sustained European contact may be found in the strong ties that linked the various Native peoples in the area to one another. These ties created a diplomatic network capable of ­ensuring 210

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­ verwhelmingly peaceful and cooperative relations among its participants. o There are only a few known instances of hostilities among Hudson Valley Indians through the period of European colonization, and this relative tranquility was likely a continuation of conditions in the area from precontact times. The archaeological record shows no sign of fortifications of Native settlements in the Hudson Valley prior to European contact, and the same was true of the Minisink country on the upper Delaware. Apparently, these Natives did not fear enemy attacks enough to build forts or palisaded settlements.2 Many of the structures that made up the diplomatic network of the Hudson Valley had parallels in other parts of Native America. The function of religious ceremonies in bringing people of different groups together was found also among the Indians of the southern plains, as well as among the Quapaws of the Arkansas Valley in present-day Arkansas, among many others. The Delawares played an important role as mediators and peacemakers both as nineteenth-century exiles in the west and when they were still living in the east. The Delawares held that their role as peacemakers was the original reason why they had come to occupy the status of symbolic women in inter-Indian relations, as the “woman shall not go to war, but endeavor to keep peace with all.” Mediation, however, was a common feature of diplomacy also in the Hudson Valley, where there is no evidence that the Delawares were called to fill that role. Native people in other areas also placed great value on mediators.3 The ways in which Hudson Valley Indians sought to deal with the European newcomers in many ways bear semblance to the responses of Native Americans in other areas. The Indians wanted to deal with the Europeans in much the same way as they dealt with other Indian groups. The Hudson Valley was home to multiple independent political organizations, and it was reasonable to expect the newcomers to find their place as one group among many. Native peoples in other regions approached the Europeans with different expectations, but these expectations always sprang from local social and cultural practices. Thus the Iroquois may initially have expected the Dutch and the French to become part of their vision of the great peace because that was how they approached many other peoples. The Powhatans, who had a quite hierarchical political system headed by a great chief of chiefs, expected the English of Virginiato become tributaries or vassals to their werowance or chief of chiefs. The Iroquois, the Powhatans, and the Hudson Valley Indians all found their expectations thwarted by the newcomers, but the Quapaws, who lived far from the main European population centers, were in many ways successful at pressuring the French to conform to their way of doing things.4

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The Valley Indians, of course, were ultimately unable to incorporate the Europeans into their own system of intergroup relations, but they never completely accepted the claims of the newcomers to superiority over the Valley’s Native inhabitants. At the end of the Dutch period the Indians could still lay claim to formal equality with the Europeans, but during the early English decades they increasingly came to accept their dependence on the provincial government of New York. At the same time, they maintained that ordinary English men and women shared their status as children of their common father the governor and that relations between Natives and newcomers were founded on a covenant that had been freely entered into. As long as there were meetings between Indian leaders and colonial officials, the former continued to appeal to the mutual obligations they believed lay (or should lie) at the heart of their relationship to the Europeans. The Natives had to accept the reality that many foreign political and cultural assumptions would apply in their relationship with the Europeans, but they did not necessarily embrace these practices, and on some points they remained unwilling to make concessions, regardless of the level of pressure applied by the Europeans. During the first decades of English rule, the Natives found themselves forced to accept that European notions would apply in land conveyance cases. In this way, the Indians became entangled in the judicial system of the newcomers, and only by working through this machinery did they have a chance of receiving redress in land disputes. When it came to the difficult question of how to deal with episodes of intercultural violence, however, the Natives were never really willing to give in, even after a century of colonization. Very significantly, the Europeans never came to control, dominate, or really understand the Valley’s indigenous diplomatic networks. For the most part, both the Dutch and the English remained uninvolved in Native intergroup relations. Neither colonial power developed a systematic or centralized approach to relations with Hudson Valley Indians. The central governments of both New Netherland and New York were content to let lower-level officials manage much of their own diplomatic arrangements with little interference or supervision from Manhattan. The colonial government maintained a series of bilateral relationships with many Indian groups; it did not head a single, unified alliance. The various Hudson Valley groups maintained their own networks of interaction quite independently of the Europeans, who never really showed much interest in such inter-Indian affairs. The relationships that various Indian groups maintained to one another continued to be of critical importance, shaping the political, strategic, and diplomatic considerations of Native leaders and their followers. Since the

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Europeans constituted such a conspicuous presence in colonial America— and they produced the written sources—it is easy to privilege interpretations that explain developments among Indians as being the result of European activities. The Europeans were not the only ones that mattered, Indian groups always had to consider their relations to other Native peoples, both friends and enemies. When Indian-Indian relations become part of the equation, one is left with a far more complicated picture than a relatively straightforward confrontation between Natives and Europeans. The Europeans were not the only great power the Valley Indians confronted, as both the Iroquois and the Susquehannocks were capable of applying considerable pressure on Hudson Valley peoples. Nor was the strategic picture always as simple as relatively weak peoples struggling to preserve their freedom of action against domineering great powers, for the Susquehannocks for a time represented a possible counterforce to Mohawk (and perhaps also Dutch) power. In later decades, the Five Nations made it a standing policy to play the English and the French against one another to preserve their own independence (as did a number of other Indian peoples), but the Valley Indians could play this game also in relation to Native great powers.5 During the late seventeenth century, the Valley Indians fell under the domination not only of the Europeans but also of the Iroquois, and English and Iroquois power in relation to Valley peoples was mutually reinforcing, but also contingent on local circumstances, in that some groups had very little to do with the Anglo-Iroquois Covenant Chain and its council fire at Albany. The Mahicans, and later the Schaghticokes, had close relations with the local magistrates at Albany, and since these officials took care of much of New York’s relations with the Iroquois, these two groups were especially exposed to combined Anglo-Iroquois pressure. Their neighbors the Wappingers and the Esopus Indians had no established relationship to Albany, and the Valley peoples farther south appear to have been completely outside of the Covenant Chain alliance structure, which meant that these groups could more easily resist English and Iroquois demands for auxiliary troops to fight in New York and in Onondaga’s wars against the French and their Native allies. There were furthermore definite limits both to English and Iroquois control over the Native peoples of the Hudson Valley. For the most part, the colonial government of New York was relatively uninterested in meddling in the internal affairs of Hudson Valley peoples, and much the same was true of the Five Nations. Groups living close to the center of European population concentration near Manhattan had to accept a high level of European

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interference early on, but more remote peoples, such as the Esopus Indians, managed their own affairs quite independently of the Europeans. Both the English and the Iroquois could, of course, apply pressure on the Valley Indians when it suited their own purposes, but most of the time they had no desire to do so. From the perspective of the Valley Indians, both the English and the Five Nations at times appeared as domineering great powers, but one should not overstate the parallels between the Europeans and the Iroquois. After all, unlike the Dutch and the English, the Iroquois were not a colonial power. They did not send settlers to crowd the Valley Indians out of their territories, nor did they covet their lands, although they did claim parts of Mahican territory by right of conquest. In Pennsylvania, the Iroquois were accomplices of the English in facilitating colonial expansion, but in the Hudson Valley this was not the case. Although Iroquois and Valley Indians might contest each other’s boundaries, the Five Nations did not deny the land rights of Valley groups in general. Having the Iroquois as neighbors might even work to the advantage of the Valley Indians, at least to the extent that the Iroquois opened the doors of the longhouse to Native refugees. The Valley’s diplomatic and political system was never static and underwent great changes during the era of European colonization. Foreign invasion and demographic collapse necessarily entailed a certain degree of ­political upheaval. The most striking change during the first century of European contact was the disappearance of most of the Valley’s political organizations by the first decades of the 1700s, but the Esopus Indians, Wappingers, Mahicans, and Schaghticokes persisted and maintained many of the patterns of interaction recognizable from previous decades. These peoples continued to be active participants in widespread diplomatic networks, and the same was probably true of many other so-called settlement Indians living in various parts of eastern America in the eighteenth century. Whether the same can be said of the Matinnecocks on western Long Island remains unclear, but these people did at the very least retain a sense of collective identity.6 Migrations were also a feature of Hudson Valley life, with refugees from neighboring regions moving into the region and Valley populations relocating to new areas within their collective homeland. Migrants and host populations forged new social and political bonds that contributed to shaping the political behavior of both parties, leading events in neighboring regions to reverberate in the Hudson Valley. The close relations among the Shawnees, Mahicans, and Esopus Indians, for instance, seem to have caused disturbances in the Valley during the second decade of the eighteenth century, as did relations between the Schaghticokes and the Abenakis. Starting in the

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seventeenth century, but increasingly so in the eighteenth, many Valley Indians left their homeland to escape the pressures of European colonization. These expatriates entered new alliances with peoples in the regions where they settled, in turn influencing those of their people that stayed at home. Migrations reoriented Native people’s political compass. By the outbreak of the great imperial war in 1754, there were signs of growing fractures in the Valley Native political landscape. Conversions to Christianity had already caused some level of friction in Mahican relations to formerly closely allied groups, and there were clear signs of divisions within the Mahican polity, as most Hudson Valley Mahicans showed no interest in the foreign religion, unlike the chief sachem and other leaders at Stockbridge. Perhaps more seriously, contacts with peoples in other regions led Valley Indians to choose quite different paths, to the extent that all Indian groups in the Valley had some members fighting on different sides in the wars of the 1750s and 1760s. The two decades between 1754 and 1775 saw a dramatic weakening of the Native societies in the Hudson Valley. The political divisions that led people to fight on opposite sides in the wars likely weakened the internal cohesion of the Native groups, and the apparent escalation of emigration to neighboring areas was both a result and a cause of such enervation. The declining strength of the Valley Indians could not have come at a worse time, for during the postwar period the English population of the Valley intensified its pressure against the remaining lands of the Indians, and, as the Wappingers found out, small and relatively powerless peoples could not count on the imperial government’s justice. As a result, the Esopus Indians were the only politically visible group left in the Valley at the outbreak of the Revolutionary War in 1775. This upheaval dealt a deadly blow to the customary Native political and diplomatic landscape of the Hudson Valley, for all the tenacity this system of interaction for so long had maintained. But some Native people remained, and since the Matinnecocks on western Long Island have in recent years cultivated ties not only to neighboring Indians on other parts of Long Island but also the Ramapough Indians and determined defenders of Native traditions in other parts of the United States, the story of Native diplomacy in the Hudson Valley is, in a sense, still not over.7

N otes

Preface

1.  Deposition of David Ninham, Aug. 2, 1762, quoted in Smith, General History, 175–176. 2.  Hearing on the Claim of Daniel Nimham and other Wappingers, Mar. 6, 1765, CM, 26:5–6; Quitclaim to Land in Berkshire County, Jan. 12, 1763, Indian Deeds, ed. Wright, 184 –187. E.M. Ruttenber cites a very similar deposition by the former Wappinger sachem Nimham dated 1730, which means that it is possible that English officials recycled some of the phrases in the deposition from 1762. Ruttenber, History of the Indian Tribes, 51. 3.  Salisbury, “Indians’ Old World,” 435–458; Shackelford, “Frontier in PreColumbian Illinois,” 186 –206. 4.  For Munsee and Mahican territories: Grumet, Historic Contact,164, 211; Goddard, “Ethnohistorical Implications of Early Delaware Linguistic Material,” 89–102; Dunn, Mohicans and their Land, 45–62. In accordance with common scholarly practice, the terms “Indian,” “Native,” and “Native American” are used interchangeably in this book. 5.  Important past works on the Hudson Valley Indians include Ruttenber, History of the Indian Tribes; Trelease, Indian Affairs; Otto, Dutch-Munsee Encounter; Merwick, The Shame and the Sorrow; Grumet, The Munsee Indian. 6.  A technique pioneered by Robert Grumet has been helpful in overcoming some of the evidentiary difficulties. Grumet has focused much of his research on tracing the movement of people throughout the area between the Hudson and Delaware Valleys, and has especially relied on tracking the progress of named persons. Colonial writers often ignored people’s group affiliation, but they frequently recorded personal names, particularly on deeds of land. By analyzing documents recording named Indian individuals, Grumet has been able to trace the movements of particular persons throughout the large parts of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Tracing individuals is a useful way of investigating the contacts members of different peoples had with one another. Information provided by Grumet has been of direct assistance to this book by revealing connections among different Native groups. I have at also at times relied heavily on his methodological framework. Grumet, “’We are Not So Great Fools’ ”; Grumet, “Nimhams,” 80–99. Introduction

1.  Kinietz, Delaware Culture Chronology, 15–17, 120 (quotes 1–3 on 120); Trowbridge, “Account of some of the Traditions,” 471 (quote 4); Kraft, Lenape, 119–20. 217

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  2.  Kraft, “Late Woodland Settlement Patterns,” 102–15; Kraft, Historic Minisink Settlements; Diamond, “Terminal Late Woodland/Contact Period,” 149–62; Lavin, “Mohican/Algonquian Settlement Patterns,” 19–28; Ceci, Effect, 47–80; Journal of Director Stuyvesant’s Visit to the Esopus, May 28–June 28, 1658, Correspondence, 1654 –1658, ed. Gehring, 187–88; Danckaerts, Journal, 246 –48.   3.  Juet, “Third Voyage of Master Henry Hudson,” 1610, NNN, 16 –28 (quote on 24); Emanuel van Meteren, “On Hudson’s Voyage,” 1610, NNN, 7; Campisi, “Hudson Valley Indians through Dutch Eyes,” 168–69; Gehring and Starna, “Dutch and Indians in the Hudson Valley,” 8.   4.  Hart, Prehistory, 17–38. Campisi, “Hudson Valley Indians through Dutch Eyes,” 169–71. For maps: NYCD, 1:10–12.   5.  In NNN: Johan de Laet, “New World,” 36 –66; Nicolas van Wassenaer, “ ‘Historich Verhael,’ ” 67–89. Van der Donck, Description, 93.   6.  De Laet, “New World,” NNN, 57; Van Wassenaer, “ ‘Historich Verhael,’ ” NNN, 72; Van der Donck, Description, 19; Goddard, “Ethnohistorical Implications,” 89–102; Dunn, Mohicans and Their Land, 45–62; Ruttenber, History of the Indian Tribes, 4 –9; Bolton, Indian Paths, 38–41; Brasser, “Coastal New York Indians,” 151–57; Brasser, Riding on the Frontier’s Crest, 15–27.   7.  Murphy, trans., “Broad Advice,” 254.   8.  CMVL: Treaty of Peace with several River Indians, Apr. 6, 1644, 216 –17; Articles of Peace with the River Indians, Aug. 30, 1645, 279–80.   9.  Fried, Notion of Tribe, 9–10, 99–102; Strong, “Thirteen Tribes,” 39–73; Meeting with Long Island Indians, May 24, 1645, CMVL, 265–66; Indian Deed to Lant at Oyster Bay, Sept. 17, 1683, OBTR, 1:676 (quote 1); Governor Dongan’s Patent to Tackapousha, June 24, 1687, ALG, 4:74; Council Meeting, Apr. 2, 1691, CM, 6:10–11 (quote 2). 10.  Deed to Land in Dutchess, Aug. 8, 1683, Letters Patent, NYSA, 5:72–75; Testimony of Adam, May 11, 1653, Records of New Plymouth, ed. Pulsifer, 10:44 –45. 11.  Snow, Archaeology of New England, 31–34, 42, 96 –98; Grumet, Munsee Indians, 14 –16; Taylor, “Captain Hendrick Aupaumut,” 431–57; Aupaumut, “Extracts from an Indian History,” 99–102 (quote on 102): Aupaumut in Jones, Stockbridge, 14 –23; Becker, “Lenape and Other ‘Delawarean’ Peoples,” 16 –25; Journal of the Esopus War, July 4, 1663–Jan. 3, 1664, NYCD, 13:329–331. For discussions of maize cultivation, see Diamond, “Terminal Late Woodland/Contact Period,” 146 –48; Diamond, “Guido Site,” 357–92; Ceci, Effect, 1–4, 48–80; 93–134, 187–88, 250–53; Bragdon, Native People of Southern New England, 1500–1650, 81–91; Silver, “Comments on Maize Cultivation,” 117–30. 12.  Snow, Archaeology of New England, 42, 96 –98; Snow and Lanphear, “European Contact and Indian Depopulation,” 15–33; Snow and Starna, “Sixteenth-Century Depopulation,” 142–49; Van der Donck, Description, 69; Gehring and Grumet, “Observations of the Indians,” 104 –20; Denton, Brief Description, 6 –7 (quote); Lindeström, Per Lindeströms Resa, 112; Budd, Good Order, 32–33. 13.  Snow and Lanphear, “European Contact and Indian Depopulation,” 22–24. Information Relative to Taking up Land in New Netherland by Secretary van Tienhoven, Mar. 4, 1650, NYCD, 1:366. In NYCD, 13: Vice-Director Jean de La Montagne to Director Petrus Stuyvesant, Sept. 29, 1659, 115–16; Ensign Smith to Stuyvesant, Sept. 29, 1659, 114 –15; Sergeant Andries Laurens to Stuyvesant, Oct. 3, 1659, 119; Smith to Stuyvesant, Oct. 20, 1659, 122–23.

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14.  Wolley, Two Years’ Journal, 65; Deposition of Appolonia Welch, Apr. 19, 1693, DHNY, 2:226; Council Meeting, May 23, 1695, CM, 7:136 –37; Samuel Clowes to Secretary Clarke, Aug. 18, 1711, CP, 56:48. For Muirson: Hawkins, Historical Notices, 281 (quote); Bolton, History of the County of Westchester, 2:56. 15.  De Laet, “New World,” NNN, 53; Van Wassenaer, “ ‘Historich Verhael,’ ” NNN, 77; Lindeström, Per Lindeströms Resa, 145; Van der Donck, Description, 100, 105–6; Penn to Free Society of Traders, 1683, Narratives, ed. Myers, 234 –35; Zeisberger, History, 92–96, 99; Aupaumut in Jones, Stockbridge, 20–21 (quote); Kinietz, Delaware Culture Chronology, 122. 16.  Leacock, “Ethnohistorical Investigation,” 17–29. In NNN: De Laet, “New World,” 50; Van Wassenaer, “ ‘Historich Verhael,’ ” 69; David de Vries, “Korte Historiael,” NNN, 232–33. Van der Donck, Description, 105. In NYCD, 13: Conference with Mahican Chiefs, May 24, 1660, 168–69; Conference with Chiefs of the Hackensacks and the Haverstraws, June 3, 1660, 171–72; Proposals of the Hackensacks, July 20, 1663, 280. 17.  Meeting with the Esopus Indians, Apr. 27, 1677, AP, 2:57–59; Aupaumut in Jones, Stockbridge, 23; Fenton, Great Law and the Longhouse, 198; Hatley, Dividing Paths, 10–11. 18.  Siminoff, Crossing the Sound, 9, 16 –21, 72–83; Bragdon, Native People of Southern New England, 1500—1650, 140–56; Indian Deed for Land at Oyster Bay, March 17, 1659, OBTR, 1:347–48; Williams, A Key, 132; Denton, Brief Description, 11–12. 19.  Fenton, “Leadership in the Northeastern Woodlands,” 25; Van der Donck, Description, 100, 105; Zeisberger, History, 98, 100–102; Kinietz, Delaware Culture, 123; Aupaumut in Jones, Stockbridge, 21–22. In OBTR, 1: Deed to Land at Oyster Bay, Sept. 17, 1683, 676 –77; Authorization to Suskaneman, Samous, and Quarapin, Mar. 6, 1685, 283–84; Declaration of the Massepeague Indians, Feb. 10, 1694, 520–21; Frazier, Mohicans of Stockbridge, 112. 20.  Deed for Staten Island, July 10, 1657, NYCD, 14:393 (quote 1); Danckaerts, Journal, 268 (quote 2); “Journal of New Netherland, 1647,” NNN, 283; Onderdonk, Annals, 15; Proposals of the Chief of the Marsepinghs, Sept. 20, 1663, NYCD, 13:295–96; Bragdon, Native People of Southern New England, 1500–1650, 148–49; Journal of the Esopus War, July 4, 1663–Jan. 3, 1664, NYCD, 13:325, 344. For Penhawis and Keschaechqueereren: Grumet, Munsee Indians, 19–22. 21.  Lease of Land of the Catskill, Jan. 14, 1650, NYCD, 13:26; Further Answer of the Mahicans, Catskills, and Esopus Indians, July 20, 1682, LIR, 67–68; Gehring and Grumet, “Observations of the Indians,” 11; Message to the Esopus Indians, Apr. 21, 1675, KP, 2:532. 22.  Deed to Land at Catskill, July 19, 1682, ERA, 2:161–62; Deed to Land in Albany County, Feb. 5, 1718, ALG, 6:184; Deed to Land in Albany County, Oct. 10, 1732, ALG, 11:49; Agreement between Werah and Suskaneman and their Relatives, Oct. 29, 1683, OBTR, 1:267; Zeisberger, History, 80–82; Heckewelder, History, 152–58. Memorandum by Abraham, Oct. 16, 1743, MOA, box 113, folder 5, item 4;  Deed to Land in Dutchess and Albany Counties, 1714 [?], Governor’s Warrants of Surveys and Other Miscellaneous Documents, 1st ser., NYSA (quote). 23.  In Land Papers, ed. Gehring: Deed to Land in New Jersey, July 12, 1630, 1; Deed to Land on the Hudson, Aug. 6, 1630, 2–3; Deed to Land on Long Island, June 16, 1636, 5. Deed from Esopus Indians, Dec. 28, 1678, ALG, 1:158; License to Henry Cuyler, May 6, 1687, CP, 35:85; Deed from Machaneek, an Indian,

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Mar. 27, 1685, ERA, 2:269–70; Council Meeting, Nov. 27, 1684, NJA, 13:137–38; Wolley, Two Years’ Journal, 65 (quote); Indian Deed to Land in Bergen County, July 15, 1679, Liber A:328–29, NJD; Indian Deed to Land on the Raritan River, May 4,  1681, Liber 1:193,  NJD; Deed, Oct. 16, 1684, Liber A:263, NJD. 24.  Winslow, Good Newes, 57; Bragdon, Native People of Southern New England, 1500–1650, 143–46; Deed to Land west of the Hudson, Sept. 10, 1684, Letters Patent, 5:82–84 (quote 1–2 on 82), NYSA; Report of John Tabor Kempe to Governor Robert Monckton and Council, 1762, John Tabor Kempe Papers, box 10, folder 9, NYHS (quotes 3–5). 25.  Dunn, Mohicans and Their Land, 163–84, 209; Aupaumut, “Extracts from an Indian History,” 100 (quote); Aupaumut in Jones, Stockbridge, 19–21; Van Wassenaer, “ ‘Historich Verhael,’ ” NNN, 86; Account of the Territories, July 20, 1634, VRBM, 306; Deed to Kiliaen van Rensselaer, Aug. 6, 1630, Land Papers, ed. Gehring, 2–3. For Aepjen: Articles of Peace with the River Indians, CMVL, Aug. 30, 1645, 279–80. For Wattawit and Schodack: Deed to Land at Schotack, Oct. 4, 1663, ERA, 1:334 –35. For Aupaumut I: Conference with Mahican Chiefs, May 24, 1660, NYCD, 13:168– 69; Treaty of Peace with the Esopus Indians, July 15, 1660, NYCD, 13:179–81. For Aupaumut II: Deed to Land in Albany County, Feb. 5, 1718, ALG, 6:184; Hopkins, Historical Memoirs, 71. 26.  Ruttenber, History of the Indian Tribes, 95–96; Trelease, Indian Affairs, 7. For references to Catskills by Native leaders, see in NYCD, 13: Propositions of the Mohawk Sachems, Oct. 19, 1659, 122; Report of the Indians Sent to Negotiate with Those of the Esopus, July 5 [?], 1663, 273–74. For meetings with Europeans: Propositions of the Chiefs of the Catskills and the Mahicans, April 21, 1660, NYCD, 13:162; Proposal of Philemon Lloyd and Henry Coursey to the Mahicans, Esopus Indians, and Catskill Indians, July 19, 1682, LIR, 65–66. For peace with Mohawks, see in NYCD, 13: Francis Lovelace to Henry Pawling, July 25, 1669, 427; Lovelace to Albany Magistrates, July 26, 1669, 427; Lovelace to John Winthrop, Dec. 29, 1669, 439–40; Council Minutes, Dec.1, 1670, 458. For Mahak Niminaw: Declaration of Certain Catskill Indians, October [?], 1659, NYCD, 13:119–21; Deed to Land at Schotack, Oct. 4, 1663, ERA, 1:334 –35; Depositions of Several Mahicans, May 14, 1664, ERA, 1:353. For Kessienwey: Smith to Stuyvesant, April 24, 1660, NYCD, 13:164; Conference with Mahican Chiefs, May 24, 1660, NYCD, 13:168–69; Deed to Land at Klaverrack, June 5, 1662, ERA, 1:302. 27.  Dunn, Mohican World, 35–53; Wojciechowski, Ethnohistory, 11–16; Deed from Westenhook Indians, Oct. 1, 1679, ERA, 2:63–64; Deed from Westenhook Indians, Feb. 4, 1685, ERA, 2:259–61; Council Meeting, Apr. 27, 1676, CP, 25:103. For Stratford and Housatonic: Taylor, History of Great Barrington, 10. 28.  Dunn, Mohican World, 125–53; Wheeler, 21, 37; De Forest, History, 399–402; Hopkins, Historical Memoirs, 67; Entries Nov. 3–6, 1743, Gottlieb Büttner, Shekomeko Journal, Aug. 10–Dec. 31, 1743, MOA, box 111, folder 2, item 7; Committee Report on Sharon and Salisbury Indians, Oct. 1742, Indians, ser. 1, I:244, CTA (quote 1 on 244a); Appleton, Gospel Ministers, vi (quote 2); Conference Proceedings between Governor Belcher and the Housatonic Indians, Aug. 7, 1736, MAC, 29:328 (quote 3). 29.  Treaty of Peace Renewed, March 6, 1660, NYCD, 13:147–49; Meeting with Wickerscreek Indians, March 29, 1676, CP, 25:92 (quote). For Esopus families: Meeting with the Esopus Indians, Apr. 27, 1677, AP, 2: 57–59. Only two of these family representatives were identified as sachems, but one appeared in a list of sachems some

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months later: Deed to Lewis Dubois and Others, May 26, 1677, NYCD, 13:506 –7. For later Esopus sachems: Meeting of the Court of Justices of Ulster County and the Esopus Indians, August 5–6, 1714, 101BC. 30.  Bragdon, Native People of Southern New England, 1500–1650, 140–41; Winslow, Good Newes, 56 (quote). For Hackensacks and Pennececk, in NYCD: Propositions of the Indians Living in the Neighborhood of Manhattan, July 19, 1649, 13:25; Council Meeting, Oct. 25, 1655, 13:48; Council to Capt. Adrian Post, Oct. 16, 1655, 13:45–46; Council Minutes, Oct. 18, 1655, 13:46; Indian Deed for Staten Island, July 10, 1657, 14:393. 31.  Strong, “Thirteen Tribes,” 39–69; De Vries, “Korte Historiael,” NNN, 230. In CMVL: Meeting with Long Island Indians, Apr. 15, 1644, 217; Meeting with Long Island Indians, May 24, 1645, 265–66; Articles of Peace with the River Indians, Aug. 30, 1645, 279–80. Confirmation of  Land Purchase by Long Island Sachems, July 4, 1657, HTR, 1:45–46; Meeting with Long Island Sachems, Mar. 9, 1675, CP, 24:71. 32.  Fried, Early History of Kingston, 3–25; Carte Figurative, 1614, NYCD, 1:10; De Laet, “New World,” NNN, 46; Ruttenber, History of the Indian Tribes, 93–95; Trelease, Indian Affairs, 7; Propositions of the Mohawk Sachems, Nov. 19, 1655, ERA, 1:237; Instructions to Adrian Post, Oct. 18, 1655, NYCD, 13: 46 –47 (quote 1); Propositions made to the Mahicans, Esopus Indians, and Catskills, July 19, 1682, Proceedings of the Council of Maryland, ed. Hand Browne, 17:210–12 (quote 2 on 210); Proposal of Philemon Lloyd and Henry Coursey to the Mahicans, Esopus Indians, and Catskill Indians, July 19, 1682, LIR, 65–66 (quote 3 on 655). 33.  For Pachamis and Tankitekes: Trelease, Indian Affairs, 8. 34.  Grumet, “ ‘We are Not So Great Fools,’ ” 23–28; Merwick, Shame and the Sorrow, 49–55; Council Meeting, Sept. 15, 1639, CMVL, 60; Murphy, trans., “Broad Advice,” 53–54; De Vries, “Korte Historiael,” NNN, 209. 35.  Rink, Holland on the Hudson, 24 –49; Dunn, Mohicans and Their Land, 41–44; 63–84. In NNN: Van Wassenaer, “ ‘Historich Verhael,’ ” 67–68, 82–85, 88–89; De Laet, “New World,” 46; Jonas Michaëlius to Adrianus Smoutius, August 11, 1628, 122–33. Heckewelder, History, Manners, and Customs, xxxv–xxxvi, 59–61; Secretary Isaack de Rasiere to the WIC, Sept. 23, 1626, HLD, 172–251; Account of the Territories, July 20, 1634, VRBM, 306. 36.  For first appearance of Aepjen and Tackapousha: Articles of Peace between the Dutch and the River Indians, Aug. 30, 1645, NYCD, 13:18. For Aepjen in 1660s: Proceedings at Fort Orange with the Mohawks and the Mahicans, Nov. 1663, NYCD, 13:310. John Pynchon to John Winthrop Jr., Jan. 25, 1667, Pynchon Papers, 1:71–73. For Wattawit: Deed to Land at Schotack, Oct. 4, 1664, ERA, 1:335; Deed from Indians to Jacob Lokermans, May 26, 1686, ERA, 2:303–4. For Oratam: Treaty of Peace with Oratamin of Hackensack on Behalf of Himself and Others, Apr. 22, 1643, CMVL, 192; Memorandum, Oct. 21, 1667, ROD, 3:13. For Sewakenamo: Meeting with the Esopus Indians, October 15–18, 1658, NYCD, 13:93–96; Entry, Jan. 19, 1681, on p. 8 of Treaty between Richard Nicolls and the Esopus Indians, Oct. 7, 1665, 101BC. For last mentions of Tackapousha: Council Meeting, May 23, 1695, CM, 7:136 –37 (quote); Deed to Land at Fort Neck, June 5, 1697, OBTR, 2:287. 37.  Kraft, Lenape, 133–35; Aupaumut in Jones, Stockbridge, 21 (quote 1). For Corruspin, see in NYCD, 13: Treaty of Peace Renewed, Mar. 6, 1660, 147–49; Conference with Several Chiefs, May 18, 1660, 166 –67; Conference with Chiefs of the Hackensacks and the Haverstraws, June 3, 1660, 171–72; Deed to Land in Bergen

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County, Apr. 13, 1671, Liber F-2:370–71, NJD (quote 2). Budd, Good Order, 30–32. In NYCD, 13 see: For Hans, Proposals of Hackensack and Staten Island Chiefs, Feb. 23, 1664, 361; By order of Lovelace to Albany Magistrates, Aug. 13, 1669, 428. For Tackapousha, Propositions made by the Indians of Long Island, Nov. 27, 1655, 58; Conference with Long Island Indians, Jan. 7, 1664, NYCD, 14:540. For Tackapousha’s ancestry: Grumet, Munsee Indians, 20–22. 38.  For Calcop I and II: Meeting with the Esopus Indians, October 15–18, 1658, NYCD, 13:93–96; Renewal entry, Apr. 11, 1670, on p. 6 of Treaty between Richard Nicolls and the Esopus Indians, Oct. 7, 1665, 101BC. For Ankerop I–III: Proceedings of the Commissioners Appointed to Regulate Affairs at the Esopus, Sept. 17–29, 1669, NYCD, 13:430–38; Meeting of the Court of Session, Sept. 7, 1709, 101BC; Meeting with Esopus Sachems, March 20, 1711, 101BC; Deed to Land in Ulster and Albany Counties, June 6, 1746, ALG, 40:126. For Nimham: Grumet, “Nimhams,” 80–99. For Cowenham; Deed to Adolph Philipse, Aug. 13, 1702, reproduced in Pelletreau, History of Putnam County, 18; Petition of Daniel Nimham and other Wappingers, Mar. 1, 1765, ALG, 18:127; Appointment of Guardianship from the Indians to Samuel Monroe, Nov. 17, 1764, John Tabor Kempe Papers, box 10, folder 9, NYHS. For name practices and taboos: Weslager, “Delaware Indian Name Giving,” 135–45; Denton, 10; Council Minutes, April 7–13, 1670, NYCD, 13:452–54; Lindeström, Per Lindeströms Resa, 115, 171; Williams, A Key, 194. For Iroquois practices: Fenton, “Leadership in the Northeastern Woodlands,” 24; Richter, Ordeal, 42–43. For patronymics: Indian Deed, July 12, 1689, Huntington Town Records, ed. Street, 2:33–36; Indian Deed to Land in Westchester, Feb. 1, 1696, quoted in Bolton, History of the County of Westchester, 1:246 –47. Chapter 1

  1.  De Vries, NNN, 212; 226 –29; Murphy, trans., “Broad Advice,” 254 –57.   2.  In CMVL: Order by the Director and Council, Feb. 25, 1643, 185; Order by the Director and Council, Feb. 25, 1643, 185–86; Council Meeting, Feb. 27, 1643, 186 –88. Letter of Administration on the Estate of Willem Cornelis Coster, Aug. 7, 1643, Register of the Provincial Secretary, 1639–1642, trans. Van Laer and ed. Scott and Stryker-Rodda, 153–54; “Journal of New Netherland, 1647,” NNN, 275–80; Ordinance, July 4, 1641, Laws and Ordinances of New Netherland, ed. O’Callaghan, 28–29.   3.  This discussion owes much to Robert Grumet’s work: Grumet, “ ‘We Are Not So Great Fools,’ ” 109–229. For Sesekemu: Propositions of the Indians Living in the Neighborhood of Manhattan, July 19, 1649, NYCD, 13:25; Deed for Land in Westchester, July 14, 1649, Land Papers, ed. Gehring, 62–63; Articles of Peace between the Dutch and the River Indians, Aug. 30, 1645, NYCD, 13:18; Deed to Wouter van Twiller for Two Islands in Hellegat, July 16, 1637, Land Papers, ed. Gehring, 7; Deed to the WIC for Land in Brooklyn, Long Island, Sept. 10, 1645, Land Papers, ed. Gehring, 16; Deed to New Utrecht and Nayack, Long Island, Nov. 22, 1652, Correspondence, 1647–1653, ed. Gehring, 186 –87. For Pathung: Deed to Westchester Land, Apr. 29, 1666, ALG, 1:10; Bolton, History of the County of Westchester, 1:175–76, 293–95; Deed to Land in Westchester County, Nov. 20, 1683, Minutes of the Town Board of Rye 1:153, NYSA; Authorization to Suskaneman,

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Samous, and Quarapin, Mar. 6, 1685, OBTR, 1:283–84; Deed to Land at Fort Neck, June 2, 1694, OBTR, 2:140–41. For Wessecanoe: Treaty of Peace with the Esopus Indians, July 15, 1660, NYCD, 13:179–81; Council Minutes, Apr. 5, 1690, DHNY, 2:133. For Memshe: Grumet, “ ‘We Are Not So Great Fools,’ ” 125, 159; Renewal Entry, Apr. 11, 1670, on p. 6 of Treaty between Richard Nicolls and the Esopus Indians, Oct. 7, 1665, 101BC; Proposals of the Minissinks, March 6, 1664, NYCD,13:361–62; Wolley, 6; Deed to Arent Schuyler, June. 6, 1695, Liber E:306 –7,  NJD.   4.  For Capt. Jan Bachter and Onekeek: ERA: Contract of Sale for Land near Magdalena Island, Jan. 3, 1683, 3:549; Deed from Catskill and Mahican Indians, July 8, 1678, 2:19–20; Deed from Catskill Indians, June 13, 1684, 2:221–23; Deed from Indians, May 26, 1686, 2:303–4. For Onekeek as brother of Mahak Niminaw: Confirmatory Deed, Aug. 22, 1704, ROD, 15:377. For boundaries in Dutchess: Smith, “Highland King Nimhammaw,” 45.   5.  Grumet, “ ‘We Are Not So Great Fools,’ ” 29–55; Grumet, “Nimhams,” 80–99; Appointment of Guardianship from the Indians to Samuel Monroe, Nov. 17, 1764, John Tabor Kempe Papers, box 10, folder 9, NYHS (quote); McDermott, “Colonial Land Grants,” 1–19; Deed to Land to Land in Westchester County, Apr. 12, 1682, Letters Patent, 5:57–59, NYSA; Pass to Emmen, a Wickers Creek Sachem, June 6, 1676, AP, 1:379.   6.  Otto, 121–22; Treaty of Peace with Oratam of Hackensack on Behalf of Himself and Others, Apr. 22, 1643, CMVL, 192; De Vries, NNN, 231–32.   7.  Gutiérrez, When Jesus Came, 20–21, 50–55; Peterson, “The People in Between,” 88; Davis, “Founding of Tensaw,” 81–98; De Vries, NNN, 231 (quotes); Van Wassenaer, NNN, 70.   8.  Tooker, “Clans and Moieties,” 357–59. For Mahicans: Aupaumut in Jones, 22; Snow, Archaeology of New England, 88–89. For Munsees and Delawares: Kraft, Lenape, xv–xvi; Weslager, Delaware Indians, 65; Trowbridge, “Account of some of the Traditions,” 480–81. Hinderaker, “ ‘Four Indian Kings,’ ” 487–526. For marks and symbols: Dunn, Mohicans and Their Land, 224 –60; Deed to Land in Albany County, Feb. 5, 1718, ALG, 6:184; Deed to Land in Albany County, Jan. 28, 1732, ALG, 11:89; Lenik, “Native American Rock Art,” 181–83.   9.  Meeting of a Committee of the Council, Jan. 17, 1746, CM, 21:71 (quote). Robert Grumet first suggested that these Indians were Wappingers. Grumet, “Nimhams,” 86 –87. 10.  Tooker, “Clans and Moieties,” 358–61; Campisi, “Hudson Valley Indians through Dutch Eyes,” 171–72. 11.  Van der Donck, 100, 60. For polygyny: Rasiere to Samuel Bloomaert, 1628 (?), NNN, 108–9. For Haverstraw sachem: Report Made by Pieter van Couwenhoven, Mar. 23, 1664, NYCD, 13:363–64. For Premaker’s brother: William Beeckman to Stuyvesant, June 17, 1660, DPD, 203–4. For Premaker’s death: Ensign Dirck Smith to Stuyvesant, May 30, 1660, NYCD, 13:170–71. 12.  For Penhawis, see in Land Papers, ed. Gehring: Deed for Land on Long Island, June 16, 1636, 5; Deed for Land on Long Island, June 16, 1636, 5–6; Deed for Land on Long Island, July 16, 1636, 6; Deed to Wouter van Twiller for Nut Island, June 16, 1637, 6. Council Meeting, May 13, 1640, CMVL, 75–77. For Mechowodt: Deed Land on Long Island, Jan. 15, 1639, 9. Articles of Peace with the River Indians,

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Aug. 30, 1645, CMVL, 279–80; Articles of Agreement betwixt the Government of ye New Netherlands And Tackpausha, March 12, 1656, HTR, 1:43–45; Treaty of Peace Renewed, March 6, 1660, NYCD, 13: 147–49. For Monnguamy: Council Meeting, Mar.13, 1677, AP, 2:33; Meeting with Tackpousha and other Indians, Mar. 28, 1677, AP, 2:52. Robert Grumet accounts for Tackapousha’s family connections: Grumet, “Suscaneman,” 125–26. 13.  Grumet identifies Chepous as Chippy: Grumet, “Suscaneman,” 121–22. For Chippy, see in OBTR, 1: Deed for Land at Oyster Bay, March 17, 1659, 347–48; Agreement between Werah and Suskaneman and their Relatives, Oct. 29, 1683, 1:267; Deed to Land at Oyster Bay, Apr. 22, 1690, 357–59; Declaration of the Massepeague Indians, Feb. 10, 1694, 520–21. For Chippy at Secatogue, see in Huntington Town Records, ed. Street, 2: Indian Deed, July 12, 1689, 33–36; Indian Deed, Nov. 5, 1689, 41–43 (quote 1 on 41); Indian Deed, Mar. 7, 1691, 90–92; Indian Deed, May 4, 1698, 2:218–21; Indian Deed, Apr. 14, 1702, 2:275–78; Indian Deed, Oct. 27, 1705, 2:285–88. For Chippy deceased: Deed to Land at Fort Neck, Aug. 20, 1696, OBTR, 2:281–82 (quote). 14.  Depositions of Montaukett Leaders, June 22, 1666, Records of the Town of Smithtown, ed. Pelletreau, 16 –17 (quote 1 on 17); for Quashawam as daughter of Wyandance: Strong, Montaukett, 20. 15.  In NNN: De Laet, 49; Rasiere to Bloomaert, 1628 (?), 109; De Vries, 229–30. Aupaumut in Jones, Stockbridge, 21; Zeisberger, History, 93. 16.  For Sauwenaroque and his brother, see in NYCD, 13: Council Minutes, July 26, 1663, 282; Proposals of Indian Chiefs, Mar. 25, 1664, 364 –65. For Tantaqua: Danckaerts, Journal of a Voyage, 149–53; Deed to Land at Hackensack, July 20, 1668, Liber 1:42–43, NJD; Deed to Land in Bergen County, Feb. 28, 1671, Liber 1:121–22, NJD; Grumet, “ ‘We Are Not So Great Fools,’ ” 133. 17.  Weslager, Delaware Indians, 64 –65; Trowbridge, “Account of some of the Traditions,” 480; Richter, Ordeal, 20–21. For sons of Esopus sachems: Renewal entries, 1671–81, on pp. 6 –9 of Treaty between Richard Nicolls and the Esopus Indians, 101BC. For Sachemoes: Deed to Land west of the Hudson, Jan. 13, 1662, ERA, 1:298–99; Fort Orange Court Meeting, Nov. 23, 1663, NYCD, 13: 309–10. For Tantaqua’s nephew: Danckaerts, Journal of a Voyage, 151–52. For Bywackus: Renewal entry, Jan. 27, 1671, on p. 5 of Treaty between Richard Nicolls and the Esopus Indians, 101BC. 18.  For Susquehannocks: Rasiere to the WIC, Sept. 23, 1626, HLD, 172–251. For Tackapousha and Miantenomie: Articles of Peace with the River Indians, Aug. 30, 1645, CMVL, 279–80; Propositions made by the Indians of Long Island, Nov. 27, 1655, CMG, 144 –46; Gardiner, “Leift Lion Gardener,” 26 –27; “Journal of New Netherland, 1647,” NNN, 276; Meeting of the General Court, Aug. 26, 1639, Public Records, ed. Trumbull, 1:32. For Hans, in NJD: Deed to Land West of the Hudson, May 19, 1671, Liber 1:115–16; Deed to Land in Bergen County, Apr. 13, 1671, Liber F-2:370–71; Deed to Land in Bergen County, Apr. 9, 1679, Liber 1:210 (129)209 (130). Robert Grumet points out this possible relationship between Hans and Sewakenamo: Grumet, “ ‘We Are Not so Great Fools,’ ” 117–18. For Calcop: Council Meeting, Jan. 27, 1673, Minutes of the Executive Council, ed. Paltsits, 1:155–57; Special Court of Oyer and Terminer, Feb. 14, 1673, ARSCM, 1:326 –28; John Pynchon to John Winthrop Jr., Feb. 10, 1673, Pynchon Papers, 1:113–14.

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19.  Barsh, “Nature and Spirit of North American Political Systems,” 181–98; Jeremias van Rensselaer to Oloff van Cortlandt, Aug. 27, 1663, Correspondence of Jeremias van Rensselaer, ed. Van Laer, 327; Conference with Mahican Chiefs, May 24, 1660, NYCD, 13: 168–69; Treaty of Peace Renewed, March 6, 1660, NYCD, 13:147– 49; Proceedings at Fort Orange with the Mohawks and the Mahicans, Nov. 1663, NYCD, 13:310. 20.  Aupaumut, “Journal,” 2–3 (quote on 2); Journal Entry, Oct. 16, 1772, Zeisberger, Moravian Mission Diaries, 114; Heckewelder, History, Manners, and Customs, xlii, 50–53; Trowbridge, “Account of some of the Traditions,” 471. 21.  Aupaumut, “Journal,” 3 (quote); Hopkins, Historical Memoirs, 100; Meeting with the Stockbridge Indians, Nov. 10–11, 1763, JP, 10:930–32; Heckewelder, History, Manners, and Customs, 53. 22.  Message from the Indians at Paumittunnawseu to the River Indians, Feb. 1748, LPC, 4:12 (quotes 1–2); Meeting with the Stockbridge Indians, Nov. 10–11, 1763, JP, 10:931 (quote 3). 23.  Proposals by the Chiefs of the Mahicans, Feb. 14, 1675, LIR, 37–38; Memorandum of a Meeting between the Wawyachtenokse Indians and Robert Livingston, Jan. 24, 1687, LIR, 108–9; Hopkins, Historical Memoirs, 87–88 (quote on 88); Day, “Western Abenaki,” 159. 24.  Hopkins, Historical Memoirs, 63; Edwards, Observations on the Language, 9–10; Aupaumut in Jones, Stockbridge, 10, 23; Zeisberger, History, 115; Account of Meeting with Indians, 1661, ROD, 3:37 (quote); Fenton, “Leadership in the Northeastern Woodlands,” 21, 24. 25.  Barsh, “Nature and Spirit,” 187–90; Heckewelder, History, Manners, and Customs, 251–55 (quote on 254); Zeisberger, History, 132–33, 138; David Brainerd, “Difficulties Attending the Christianizing of the Indians,” June 20, 1746, in Edwards, Memoirs, 344 –45; Kinietz, Delaware Culture, 86 –89; Dean, “Lenape Funeral Customs,” 68. 26.  De Vries, NNN, 224 (quote 1); Skinner, “Lenapé Indians of Staten Island,” 51; Van der Donck, Description of New Netherland, 90 (quote 2). For worried officials: Thomas Chambers and Other Militia Officers of Wiltwyck to Stuyvesant, Jan. 15, 1663, NYCD, 13:235–36; Warrant to the Constable or Chief Overseers at Huntington, Dec. 13, 1675, GEADB, 113. For 1644 attack: “Journal of New Netherland, 1647,” NNN, 284; Trelease, Indian Affairs, 80. Wolley, Two Years’ Journal, 45 (quote 3). For Delaware Valley: Examination of Indians, Oct. 6, 1670, Minutes of the Executive Council, ed. Paltsits, 2:499–504. 27.  Wassenaer, NNN, 68; Denton, Brief Description of New-York, 8–9; Wolley, Two Years’ Journal, 45. “Journal of New Netherland, 1647,” NNN, 271; Danckaerts, Journal, 126, 267–68; Lindeström, Per Lindeströms Resa, 150–51; Bragdon, Native Peoples of Southern New England, 1500–1650, 226 –30. 28.  Articles of Peace with the Esopus Indians, May 15, 1664, NYCD, 13:375. For references to “God”: Propositions of the River Indians, July 18, 1701, NYCD, 4:902– 4; Answer of the River Indians, July 20, 1702, NYCD, 4:990–92. For Sun and Moon: Answer of the River Indians, June 15, 1717, NYCD, 5:489; Answer of the River Indians, Aug. 31, 1722, NYCD, 5:662–64. For dancing: Conference with Indian Chiefs at Newcastle, May 13, 1675, Delaware Papers (English Period), ed. Gehring, 71–72. 29.  Meeting of a Committee of the Council, Jan. 17, 1746, CM, 21:71 (quote 1). For Native renewal dance: Zeisberger, History, 121. For condolence ceremony: Proposals

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by the Chiefs of the Mahicans, Feb. 14, 1675, LIR, 37–38; Meeting with River Indians, March 15, 1756, CM, 25:112–13. For sweeping: Council Minutes, Apr. 2, 1691, CM, 6:10–11 (quote 2); Meeting with River Indians, July 31, 1714, CM, 11:261–62 (quote 3); Speck, Celestial Bear, 49–55. 30.  Van Wassenaer, NNN, 68–69; Van der Donck, Description of New Netherland, 90–91; Denton, Brief Description of New-York, 8–9; William Penn to the Free Society of Traders, 1683, Narratives of Early Pennsylvania, ed. Myers, 234 (quote 1); Zeisberger, History, 136 –37; Hopkins, Historical Memoirs, 24 –26, 33–36; 48–49 (quote 2 on 33; quote 3 on 35). 31.  Witthoft, Green Corn Ceremonialism, 1–20, 81–85; Van Wassenaer, NNN, 69; Hopkins, Historical Memoirs, 69; Sgt. Andries Laurens to Stuyvesant, Aug. 8, 1658, NYCD, 13:88; Miller, “Old Religion among the Delawares,” 113–34; Kraft, “Archaeological Evidence for a Possible Masking Complex,” 1–11; Kraft, “Late Woodland Pottery,” 101–40; Kraft, Lenape, 165–76; Diamond, “Terminal Late Woodland/Contact Period,” 185–86; Van der Donck et al., “Representation of New Netherland,” NNN, 302; Lenik, “Native American Rock Art,” 180–81, 183– 85; Speck, Celestial Bear. For Staten Island and Mahican territory: Skinner, “Lenapé Indians of Staten Island,” 21. For a general discussion of renewal: Carpenter, Renewed, 1–14. 32.  Snyderman, “Functions of Wampum,” 469–94; Foster, “Another Look at the Function of Wampum,” 99–114; Hamell, “Wampum,” 41–51; Miller and Hamell, “Mythical Realities,” 63–87. 33.  Mauss, Gift, 60–62; White, Middle Ground, 36. Rasiere to the WIC, Sept. 23, 1626, HLD, 172–251; Van der Donck, Description of New Netherland, 104 –5; Council Meeting, Aug. 22, 1647, CMVL, 428–31; Statement Regarding the Fears of the People at Esopus, August [?], 1659, NYCD, 13:104 –5. 34.  Snyderman, “Functions of Wampum,” 472–75; Miller and Hamell, “Mythical Realities,” 314 –20; White, Middle Ground, 94 –99; Richter, Ordeal, 48–49; Miller, “Gifts as Treaties,” 357–83; Meeting with the sachems of Massapequa, Rockaway, Secatogue, and Mericoke, May 10, 1668, ROD, 3:39–40 (quote on 39). For Shewenorocketts as Sauwenaroque: Grumet, Munsee Indians, 130, 299. 35.  Passport for Sachem Tackpousha, Aug. 22, 1670, GENL, 366; Meeting with Indian Delegates, Aug. 27, 1678, AP, 2:474. For sticks: De Vries, NNN, 231; Van der Donck, Description of New Netherland, 104; Articles of Peace with the Esopus Indians, May 15, 1664, NYCD, 13: 375–77; Treaty between Richard Nicolls and the Esopus Indians, Oct. 7, 1665, p. 3, 101BC. For Dongan and Minisinks: Council Meeting, Apr. 9, 1684, CM, 5:65. For Esopus and Mohawks: Meeting with the Mohawks, January 22, 1661, NYCD, 13:191. 36.  Mauss, Gift, 13–14; White, Middle Ground, 98–99; Van Wassenaer, NNN, 70; Van der Donck, Description of New Netherland, 78; Lindeström, Per Lindeströms Resa, 160–62; William Penn to Free Society of Traders, 1683, Narratives, ed. Myers, 234; Perrot, “Memoir,” 132–35; Denton, Brief Description of New-York, 10–11. 37.  Clastres, Society against the State, 36 –45; Sahlins, Stone Age Economics, 206 –10; Van Wassenaer, NNN, 77; Van der Donck, Description of New Netherland, 76; Johannes Megapolensis, “Short Account of the Mohawk Indians,” Aug. 26, 1644, NNN, 179; Perrot, “Memoir,” 145, 291; Penn to the Free Society of Traders, 1683, Narratives, ed. Myers, 234 (quote); Rasiere to Bloomaert, 1628 (?), NNN, 109; Danckaerts, Journal, 153. Aupaumut in Jones, Stockbridge, 20–21, Zeisberger, History, 93–95.

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38.  For marriages: Heckewelder, 158–62; Van Wassenaer, NNN, 69–70; Rasiere to Bloomaert, 1628 (?), NNN, 106; De Vries, NNN, 218; Van der Donck, Description of New Netherland, 85; Wolley, Two Years’ Journal, 59–60; Zeisberger, History, 16. For feasts and ceremonies: Hopkins, Historical Memoirs, 25; Zeisberger, History, 76, 80, 136 –39. For grave goods and offerings: Van der Donck, Description of New Netherland, 89; Denton, Brief Description, 9; Wolley, Two Years’ Journal, 60; Edwards, Memoirs, 178 (quote). For archaeological record: Smith, “Archaeology of Coastal New York,” 107; Eisenberg, “Hendrickson Site,” 21–53; Kraft, “Late Woodland Settlement Patterns,” 113–15; Diamond, “Terminal Late Woodland/ Contact Period,” 181–85. 39.  Penn to the Free Society of Traders, 1683, Narratives, ed. Myers, 234. Chapter 2

  1.  Examination of Suckquans, Sasquehaan, and Nichnemeno, Apr. 7, 1700, Calendar of State Papers, ed. Sainsbury, 18:186 –87 (quote on 187); Nanfan to Bellomont, Mar. 25, 1700, NYCD, 4:663.   2.  Heckewelder, History, Manners, and Customs, 71–72; Van der Donck, Description of New Netherland, 3–4; Information Given by Mercy, 1691 [?], CP, 37:146.   3.  Special Court Session, Jan. 16, 1672, KP, 2:474 –75; Aupaumut in Jones, Stockbridge, 20, 22 (quote 2 on 22).   4.  Journal of the Esopus War, July 4, 1663–Jan. 3, 1664, NYCD, 13:340; Gehring and Grumet, “Observations of the Indians,” 108; Zeisberger, History, 100; Aupaumut in Jones, Stockbridge, 21 (quote); Meeting with the Esopus Sachems, June 2, 1712, Minutes Common Pleas/Sessions Court/Justices of the Peace Meetings, 1711/12–1720, 101BC; Sir William Johnson to John Bradstreet, May 17, 1769, JP, 6:760–62; Certificate from Governor Burnet to the Wappinger and Westenhoek Indians, Sept. 7, 1721, CP, 63:143.   5.  Gehring and Grumet, “Observations of the Indians,” 180; Heckewelder, History, Manners, and Customs, 107–8; Aupaumut in Jones, Stockbridge, 23; Quinney, “Speech,” 315 (quote).   6.  Propositions of the River Indians, July 18, 1701, NYCD, 4:902–4; Meeting with Esopus Sachems, March 20, 1711, 101BC (quote)   7.  Axtell, Invasion Within, 302–27; Perrot, “Memoir,” 136 –38; Van Wassenaer, NNN, 81; Van der Donck, Description of New Netherland,102–3. For Swanendael: “David de Vries’s Notes,” Narratives, ed. Myers, 16 –17. For prisoner exchanges: Resolution Not to Pay Ransom to the Indians, Oct. 13, 1655, CMG, 97; Minutes of the Release of Fourteen Hostages, Oct. 18, 1655, CMG, 102–3; Gehring and Grumet, “Observations of the Indians,” 108, 111. For Iroquois practices: Richter, Ordeal, 32–38; Bradley, Evolution of the Onondaga Iroquois, 37, 54.   8.  De Vries, NNN, 215–16; Perrot, “Memoir,” 139–41; JR, 28:47–49; Extraordinary Court Session, June 6, 1683, ARSCM, 3:363; Report of Governor Johan Printz, 1644, Narratives, ed. Myers, 95–116; Zeisberger, Moravian Mission Diaries, 380; Heckewelder, History, Manners, and Customs, 175–76; Commissioners for Indian Affairs to John Nanfan and Council, July 5, 1700, NYCD, 4:690.   9.  Proposals Made by the Esopus Indians, Sept. 4, 1659, NYCD, 13: 106 –7; Extraordinary Court Session, July 24, 1682, ARSCM, 3:274 –77. 10.  Van Wassenaer, NNN, 86; Van der Donck, Description of New Netherland,102; JR, 28:47–49; Aupaumut, “History of the Muhheakkunnuk Indians,” 42–45 (quote

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on 45); Rushforth, “ ‘A Little Flesh We Offer You,’ ” 777–808; Daniel Claus to Sir William Johnson, June 10, 1761, JP, 3:402–4 Conference with Abenaki Delegates, Mar. 27–30, 1762, JP, 10:409–15. 11.  Penn to Free Society of Traders, Narratives, ed. Myers, 236 (quote); Zeisberger, History, 90–91; Kinietz, Delaware Culture, 125–26; Zeisberger, Moravian Mission Diaries, 380; Denton, Brief Description of New-York, 11–12; Bragdon, Native People of Southern New England, 1500–1650, 145; Gehring and Grumet, “Observations of the Indians,” 113–14. 12.  Declaration of Sachem Tackpousha and other Indians, March 22, 1667, OBTR, 1:677–78; Deposition of David Ninham, Aug. 2, 1762, Smith, General History, 175–76; Meeting with the Esopus Indians, Apr. 27, 1677, AP, 2:57–59; Deed to Land in Ulster and Albany Counties, June 6, 1746, ALG, 40:126; Lenik, “Native American Rock Art,” 178–83; Snow, Archaeology of New England, 2–5; Becker, “Boundary between the Lenape and the Munsee,” 37–60; Argument about the Boundaries of Evans’ and Other Patents, c. 1765, LPC, 9:193–98. 13.  In LPC, 7: Deposition of Evert Terwilliger, Aug. 27, 1765, 52–53; Deposition of Hendricus Dubois, Aug. 27, 1765, 54 –55. Deed to Land in Ulster County, July 27, 1709, ALG, 4:181; Deed to Land west of the Hudson, Apr. 30, 1685, Letters Patent, 5:108–10, NYSA; Deed to Land in Orange and Ulster Counties, Oct. 8, 1712, Recorded Indian Deeds and Treaties, 2:144 –46,  NYSA. 14.  In Records of the Town of Southampton, 1: Depositions of Richard Howell and Joseph Rainer, Sept. 15, 1667, 157; Deposition of Pocatone, Oct. 16, 1667, 159 (quote); Depositions of Aquabacack and Impeagwam, Oct. 17, 1667, 159–60. Winslow, Good Newes, 57. 15.  De Vries, NNN, 230; Examination of Suckquans, Sasquehaan, and Nichnemeno, Apr. 7, 1700, Calendar of State Papers, ed. Sainsbury, 18:186 –87; Meeting with Shawnees and River Indians, Sept. 17, 1692, CM, 6:130–31 (quote); Wallace, “Political Organization and Land Tenure,” 301–21; Bishop, “Territoriality among Northeastern Algonquians,” 37–63; White, Middle Ground, 103–4. 16.  In Letters Patent, 5, NYSA: Deed to Land west of the Hudson, July 13, 1683, 70–71; Deed to Land west of the Hudson, Sept. 10, 1684, 82–84 (quote on 84); Deed to Land west of the Hudson, Apr. 30, 1685, 108–10. Argument about the Boundaries of Evans’ and Other Patents, in Orange and Ulster Counties, N.Y., c. 1765, LPC, 9:194 –95; Ordinance of the Director and Council, July 12, 1663, Laws and Ordinances, ed. O’Callaghan, 444 –45; Danckaerts, Journal, 331; De Vries, NNN, 206; Journal of the Esopus War, July 4, 1663–Jan. 3, 1664, NYCD, 13:333–34. 17.  Deed to Land in Bergen County, Apr. 13, 1671, Liber F-2:370–71, NJD; Deed to Land west of the Hudson, Sept. 10, 1684, Letters Patent, 5:82–84, NYSA; Deed to Land in Westchester County, Oct. 4, 1681, ROD, 6:229–31; Penn to Free Society of Traders, Narratives, ed. Myers, 234; Weslager, Delaware Indians, 162–63. 18.  “Journal of New Netherland, 1647,” NNN, 278–80; Letter of Administration on the Estate of Willem Cornelis Coster, Aug. 7, 1643, Register of the Provincial Secretary, 1642–1646, trans. Van Laer and ed. Scott and Stryker-Rodda, 153–54; De Vries, NNN, 232–34. 19.  In CMVL: Treaty of Peace with several River Indians, Apr. 6, 1644, 216 –17; Meeting with Long Island Indians, Apr. 15, 1644, 217; Articles of Peace with the

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River Indians, Aug. 30, 1645, 279–80. Journal of Director Stuyvesant’s Visit to Esopus, May 28–June 28, 1658, NYCD, 13: 81–87. 20.  Proposals of the Chiefs of the Kichtawanghs, Wappings, Wiechquaeskecks, and Others, March 25, 1664, NYCD, 13: 364 –65; Meeting with Indians, Jan. 7, 1676, CP, 25:65; Council Meeting, June 4, 1698, CM, 8 (1):45 (quote). 21.  For cooperation between east and west bank Indians: Conference with the Chiefs of Several Nations, May 18, 1660, NYCD, 13:166 –67; Proposal of Seweckenamo, July 8, 1664, NYCD, 13:386 –87. For Tappans, Hackensacks, and Haverstraws: Propositions of  Indian Chiefs, July 19, 1649, CMVL, 607–9; Deposition of Apolonia Welch, Apr. 19, 1693, DHNY, 2:226; Deed to Land in Bergen County, Apr. 13, 1671, Liber F-2:370–71, NJD. For Nayack and Staten Island Indians: Deed for Nayack, Dec. 1, 1652, Correspondence, 1647–1653, ed. Gehring, 187; in NYCD: Treaty of Peace Renewed, March 6, 1660, 13:147–49; Conference with Indian Chiefs, May 18, 1660, 13:166 –67; Articles of Peace with the Esopus Indians, May 15, 1664, 13:375– 77; Deed for Staten Island, July 10, 1657, 14:393; By order of Lovelace to Albany Magistrates, Aug. 13, 1669, 13:428. Danckaerts, Journal, 123–27; Deed to Land near Hell Gate, Aug. 1, 1664, ROD, 2:74 –76; Deed to Elizabethtown, Oct. 28, 1665, Liber 1:1–2, NJD. See also Grumet, “ ‘We Are Not So Great Fools,’ ” 44 –45, 53–55. 22.  Grumet, “ ‘We Are Not So Great Fools,’ ” 32–40; Council Meeting, July 16, 1640, CMVL, 87; De Vries, NNN, 208–11; Council Meeting, July 4, 1641, CMVL, 115–16; “Journal of New Netherland, 1647,” NNN, 277–78.Otto, 116 –17; De Laet, NNN, 44, 58; Rasiere to Bloomaert, 1628 (?), NNN, 104; “David de Vries’s Notes,” Narratives, ed. Myers, 18–19, 24. In NYCD, 13: Journal of Director Stuyvesant’s Visit to the Esopus, May 28–June 28, 1658, 81–87; Sgt. Andries Laurens to Stuyvesant, Aug. 4, 1659, 100; Statement Regarding the Fears of the People at Esopus, Aug. [?], 1659, 104 –5; Roeloff Swartwout to Stuyvesant, Sept. 5, 1662, 228–29; Stuyvesant to the Directors, July 21, 1661, 204 –6; Stuyvesant to Ensign Niessen and the Magistrates of Wiltwyck, March 26, 1664, 365–36. Beeckman to Stuyvesant, Nov. 5, 1663, DPD, 337. In KP, 2: Court Session, Jan. 3, 1672, 471–72; Special Court Session, Jan. 16, 1672, 474 –75. Meeting with Esopus Sachems, Dec. 14, 1672, 489. Meeting with Neversink Sachems, April 20, 1675, AP, 1:131–33; Andros to Edmund Cantwell, Apr. 23, 1675, GEADB; Matthias Nicolls to Thomas Chambers and George Hall, Apr. 25, 1675, GEADB, 36 –37. 23.  Otto, 116 –17; Campisi, 169–71; De Laet, NNN, 44, 58; Rasiere to Bloomaert, 1628 (?), NNN, 104; “David de Vries’s Notes,” Narratives, ed. Myers, 18–19, 24. In NYCD, 13: Journal of Director Stuyvesant’s Visit to the Esopus, May 28–June 28, 1658, 81–87; Sgt. Andries Laurens to Stuyvesant, Aug. 4, 1659, 100; Statement Regarding the Fears of the People at Esopus, Aug. [?], 1659, 104 –5; Roeloff Swartwout to Stuyvesant, Sept. 5, 1662, 228–29; Stuyvesant to the Directors, July 21, 1661, 204 –6; Stuyvesant to Ensign Niessen and the Magistrates of Wiltwyck, March 26, 1664, 365–36. Beeckman to Stuyvesant, Sept. 20, 1659, DPD, 154. In KP, 2: Court Session, Jan. 3, 1672, 471–72; Special Court Session, Jan. 16, 1672, 474 –75. Meeting with Esopus Sachems, Dec. 14, 1672, 489. Meeting with Neversink Sachems, April 20, 1675, AP, 1:131–33; Andros to Edmund Cantwell, Apr. 23, 1675, GEADB; Matthias Nicolls to Thomas Chambers and George Hall, Apr. 25, 1675, GEADB, 36 –37. 24.  De Vries, NNN, 225; Report of the Board of Accounts on New Netherland, Dec. 15, 1644, NYCD, 1: 149–55; “Journal of New Netherland, 1647,” NNN, 277;

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Dunn, Mohicans and Their Land, 112; Johannes Megapolensis, “Short Account of the Mohawk Indians,” Aug. 26, 1644, NNN, 168–80; JR, 26:35, 38:196 –99, 41:43–44, 108–13; Murphy (trans.), “Broad Advice,” 256; Winthrop, Journal, 427–28; JR, 26:35, 38:197–99, 41:43, 113.Brasser, Riding on the Frontier’s Crest, 15–19, 20–22; Brasser, “Mahican,” 204 –5; Stuyvesant to the Council, Sept. 24, 1655, DPD, 40–41; Deed to Land in Harlem, July 14, 1649, quoted Bolton, “Indians of Washington Heights,” 99–100 (quote 1 on 100); Aupaumut in Jones, Stockbridge, 16 (quotes 2–3); Quinney, “Speech,” 316 –18. 25.  Brasser, Riding on the Frontier’s Crest, 15–19, 20–22; Brasser, “Mahican,” 204 –5; Stuyvesant to the Council, Sept. 24, 1655, DPD, 40–41; Deed to Land in Harlem, July 14, 1649, quoted Bolton, “Indians of Washington Heights,” 99–100 (quote 1 on 100); Aupaumut in Jones, Stockbridge, 16 (quotes 2–3); Quinney, “Speech,” 316 –18. 26.  De Vries, NNN, 230–32. In CMVL: Order of the Director and Council, March 25, 1643, 189; Treaty of Peace with Oratamin of Hackensacks, Apr. 22, 1643, 192; Kinietz, 125–26; Rasiere to Bloomaert, 1628 (?), NNN, 108. Clastres, Society against the State, 29–30, 37. 27.  CMVL: Treaty of Peace with Oratamin of Hackensack, Apr. 22, 1643, 192; Articles of Peace with the River Indians, Aug. 30, 1645, 279–80.De Vries, NNN, 230–34. In CMVL: Order of the Director and Council, March 25, 1643, 189; Treaty of Peace with several River Indians, Apr. 6, 1644, 216 –17; Treaty of Peace with Oratamin of Hackensack, Apr. 22, 1643, 192; Meeting with Long Island Indians, Apr. 15, 1644, 217; Articles of Peace with the River Indians, Aug. 30, 1645, 279–80. Van der Donck, Description, 39. 28.  De Vries, NNN, 230–34. In CMVL: Order of the Director and Council, March 25, 1643, 189; Treaty of Peace with several River Indians, Apr. 6, 1644, 216 –17; Treaty of Peace with Oratamin of Hackensack, Apr. 22, 1643, 192; Meeting with Long Island Indians, Apr. 15, 1644, 217; Articles of Peace with the River Indians, Aug. 30, 1645, 279–80. Van der Donck, Description, 39. In NYCD, 13: Meeting with the Mohawks, Aug. 13, 1658, 88–89; Extraordinary Session by both Courts and Fort Orange, May [?] 1664, 379–80; Journal of Jan Dareth and Jacob Lockerman, May 19–28, 1664, 380–82. White, Middle Ground, 31–40. 29.  In NYCD, 13: Meeting with the Mohawks, Aug. 13, 1658, 88–89; Extraordinary Session by both Courts and Fort Orange, May [?] 1664, 379–80; Journal of Jan Dareth and Jacob Lockerman, May 19–28, 1664, 380–82. White, Middle Ground, 31–40. NYCD, 13: Report of the State of Feelings among the Catskills and the Esopus, Aug. 27, 1661, 207; Roeloff Swartwout to Stuyvesant, Sept. 5, 1662, 228–29; Instructions for Secretary Cornelis van Ruyven, July 30, 1663, 284 –86; Minutes of the Council of War, Aug. 3, 1663, 287. In ERA, 2: Deed for Land at Catskill, July 19, 1682, 161–62; Deed from an Esopus Indian, July 26, 1684, 225–26. Deed to Land in Rhinebeck, July 28, 1686 quoted in Smith, General History, 387. 30.  NYCD, 13: Report of the State of Feelings among the Catskills and the Esopus, Aug. 27, 1661, 207; Roeloff Swartwout to Stuyvesant, Sept. 5, 1662, 228–29; Instructions for Secretary Cornelis van Ruyven, July 30, 1663, 284 –86; Minutes of the Council of War, Aug. 3, 1663, 287. In ERA, 2: Deed for Land at Catskill, July 19, 1682, 161–62; Deed from an Esopus Indian, July 26, 1684, 225–26. Deed to Land in Rhinebeck, July 28, 1686 quoted in Smith, General History, 387. 31.  For Tapuas: Mortgage from Tapuas, May 16, 1683, ERA, 2:182–83. For Speck: Ordinary Court Session, July 2, 1678, ARSCM, 2:335–36; Deed from Westenhoek

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Indians, Oct. 1, 1679, ERA, 2:63–64; Deed to Arnout Cornelissen Viele, June 15, 1680, ERA, 2:84 –85; Quitclaim from Massany, May 5, 1683, ERA, 3:556; License to Henry Cuyler, May 6, 1687, CP, 35:85. 32.  Goddard, “Ethnohistorical Implications,” 91–94; Hawk, “Revitalization of the Matinnecock Indian Tribe,” 17–20; Smith, “Archaeology of Coastal New York,” 119–20; Solecki and Grumet, “Fort Massapeag,” 18–28; Salwen, “Indians of Southern New England,” 175. For Robin: Court of Magistrates at New Haven, May 26, 1656, Records of the Colony or Jurisdiction of New Haven, ed. Hoadly, 161. 33.  For religious ceremony: Warrant to the Constable or Chief Overseers at Huntington, Dec. 13, 1675, GEADB, 113. For witnesses: Confirmation of Land Purchase by Long Island Sachems, July 4, 1657, HTR, 1:45–46; Deed to Land on Long Island, May 11, 1658, HTR, 1:46 –48; Deed for Land at Oyster Bay, March 17, 1659, OBTR,1:347–48. For Wyandance siding with English claimants: Affirmation of Johan Ketcham, Thomas Brush, and Thomas Powell, Oct. 7, 1665, Minutes of the Executive Council, ed. Paltsits, 2:413–14. For go-betweens: Meeting with Long Island Indians, May 24, 1645, CMVL, 265–66; Propositions made by the Indians of Long Island, Nov. 27, 1655, CMG, 144 –46. For meetings with New York government: AP: Minutes of a Meeting with Sachems from Long Island, Apr. 17, 1676, 1:354 –55; Meeting with the Southampton Indian Sachems, Sept. 15, 1676, 1:435; Meeting with Long Island Indians, Nov. 5, 1677, 2:154 –56. 34.  For Pequots: Siminoff, Crossing the Sound, 67–68; Gardiner, “Leift Lion Gardener,” 22. For Ninegret; Meeting of the Commissioners of the United Colonies, Apr. 1653, Records of New Plymouth, ed. Pulsifer, 10:9–11. For Cassacinamon: McBride, “Legacy of Robin Cassacinamon,” 74 –91; Treaty between Richard Nicolls and the Esopus Indians, Oct. 7, 1665, p. 5, 101BC; Richard Nicolls to John Winthrop Jr., Oct. 8, 1665, WFP, reel 8. For Pequot in 1677: Meeting with Long Island Indians, March 13, 1677, AP, 2:33. For Narragansett woman: Deed to Land at Matinecock, Feb. 19, 1684, OBTR, 1:313–14; Philhower, “Indians of the Morris County Area,” 250; Lenik, Indians in the Ramapos, 43–45; Grumet, “Taphow,” 23–28. 35.  Council Meeting, Apr. 27, 1676, CP, 25:103; Council Minutes, Sept. 8, 1676, CM, 3(2):117. Public Records, ed. Trumbull: Council of Connecticut to Andros, Mar. 19, 1676, 2:419–20; Andros to the Council, July 5, 1676, 2:461; Council to Andros, July 8, 1676, 2:461–62; Council to Andros, Aug. 19, 1676, 2:469–70; Andros to Governor Leete and Council, Aug. 31, 1676, 2:477–78; Council to Andros, Aug. 31, 1676, 2:478; Meeting of the Council, Mar. 19, 1677, 2:491; Commission to John Pynchon and James Richards, Apr. 10, 1677, 2:492–93; John Pynchon and James Richards to Andros, Apr. 1677, 2:494. Council Meeting, March 12, 1677, CM, 3(2):134 –35 (quote). See also, Council Minutes, Sept. 8, 1676, CM, 3(2):117. 36.  Council Meeting, Apr. 27, 1676, CP, 25:103; Instructions to Thomas Delavall, May 30, 1676, CP, 25:121; Council Meeting, May 30, 1676, CM, 3 (2): 101 (quote). 37.  Council Meeting, Aug. 20, 1678, CP, 28:186. LIR: Propositions of the North Indians Come from Canada, Jul 1, 1685, 77–78; Answer to the Propositions of the North Indians, July 2, 1685, 78–79; Propositions by the River Indians living at Schaghticoke, Aug. 4, 1685, 82. NYCD, 4: Bellomont to the Lords of Trade, Sept. 21, 1698, 380; Peter Schuyler and Robert Livingston to Bellomont, Sept. 22, 1699, 4:596 –97; Bellomont to Lords of Trade, June 22, 1700, 677; Bellomont to Lords of Trade,  Oct. 17, 1700, 4:712–26; Meeting with the River Indians, Aug. 31, 1700, 4:743–45;

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Bellomont to Lords of Trade, Jan. 19, 1701, 4:834; John Schuyler to Bellomont, Jan. 7, 1701, 4:835–36; Propositions of the River Indians, July 18, 1701, 4:902–4; Propositions by Lord Cornbury to the River Indians, July 17, 1702, 4:983–85; Propositions by the River Indians, Aug. 13, 1702, 4:996; Cornbury’s Answer to the River Indians, Aug. 15, 1702, 4:996 –98. 38.  Grumet, Historic Contact, 96 –104; Indian Deed to Land on Deerfield River, Aug. 6, 1735, Indian Deeds, ed. Wright,120–22; Indian Deed to Land in Massachusetts, Aug. 23, 1710, Ayer MS 3026, Newberry Library, Chicago; Extraordinary Court Session, July 24, 1682, ARSCM, 3:274 –77. In LIR: Answer of the Schaghticokes, July 7, 1703, 189–90 (quote 1 on 189); Propositions made by the River Indians living at Schaghticoke, Dec. 21, 1685, 95–96 (quote 2). Curtin, “Ancient Mohicans,” 10. 39.  Propositions made by the River Indians living at Schaghticoke, Dec. 21, 1685, LIR, 95–96; Meeting of Governor Hunter with two Schaghticoke Sachems, Aug. 20, 1710, NYCD, 5:228 (quote 1). Indian Lease to Land in Albany County, June 29, 1734, Nicholas Bayard Papers, 1640–1800, AC575/1619, box 4, Special Collections and University Archives, Rutgers University Libraries (quote 2); Deed to Land in Albany County, June 24, 1734, ALG, 11:100. For Wauweyaheck: Meeting with the Schaghticokes, Sept. 13, 1726, NYCD, 5:798–99. For Wenpack: At a Conference Held at Deerfield, Aug. 27–Sept. 1, 1735, 1. For the Schaghticoke Wapanoos: Indian Deed to Land in Albany County, Oct. 10, 1732, ALG, 11. For Wappinger contemporary: Indian Deed to Land in Dutchess County, Oct. 13, 1730, Eighteenth Century Documents, ed. McDermott, 110–13; Report of John Tabor Kempe to Governor Robert Monckton and Council, 1762, John Tabor Kempe Papers, box 10, folder 9, NYHS. 40.  In LIR: Propositions made to the Schaghticoke Indians, July 6, 1703, 188–89; Propositions of the Schaghticoke Indians, Sept. 24, 1703, 191. In NYCD, 4: Meeting with the River Indians, Aug. 31, 1700, 743–45 (quote 1 on 743; quote 2 on 744); Propositions of the River Indians, July 18, 1701, 902–4 (quotes 3–4 on 903); Answer of the River Indians to Lord Cornbury, July 20, 1702, 990–92. For Sacquans and Norwottucks: Examination of Menowniett, Aug. 1676, Public Records, ed. Trumbull, 2:471–72. Chapter 3

  1.  Articles of Peace with the Esopus Indians, May 15, 1664, NYCD, 13:375–77; Trelease, Indian Affairs, 173; Otto, Dutch-Munsee Encounter, 153–55.   2.  Dennis, Cultivating a Landscape; Gleach, Powhatan’s World; DuVal, Native Ground.   3.  “Report by Giovanni da Verrazzano,” Henry Hudson, ed. Asher, 200E–228E; Kraft, “Indians of the Lower Hudson Valley,” 193–200; Otto, Dutch-Munsee Encounter, 34 –36, 44 –47; Ceci, Effect, 136 –58. Van der Donck, Description, 3–4, 100; Heckewelder, History, Manners, and Customs, 71–75; Axtell, Invasion Within, 7–19; Trigger, “Early Native North American Responses,” 1195–1215; Miller and Hamell, “Mythical Realities,” 63–87; Williams, A Key, 118; Juet, NNN, 16 –28; De Laet, NNN, 48–49; Heckewelder, History, Manners, and Customs, 71–75; Zeisberger, History, 27–28; Quinney, “Speech,” 317–18; Restall, Seven Myths, 108–20.   4.  Trelease, Indian Affairs, 29–36, 49–54; Otto, Dutch-Munsee Encounter, 61; De Laet, NNN, 45–50, 53–54; Van Wassenaer, NNN, 67, 73, 78–81, 84 –86, 89; Hart,

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Prehistory, 19–23; 27–31, 33–38, 80–84; Examination of Bastiaen Jansen Krol, June 30, 1634, VRBM, 302–4; Feister, “Linguistic Communication,” 25–38; Goddard, “Ethnohistorical Implications,” 89–91; Jonas Michaëlius to Adrianus Smoutius, Aug. 11, 1628, NNN, 122–33; Murphy (trans.), “Broad Advice,” 253; De Vries, NNN, 231; Instructions for Director Willem Verhulst, Jan. 1625, HLD, 36 –79; Merwick, Shame and Sorrow, 36 –45; Francis, “Beads That Did Not Buy Manhattan Island,” 53–69.   5.  Van der Donck, Description, 75; Megapolensis, “Short Account,” Aug. 26, 1644, NNN, 174; Gehring and Grumet, “Observations of the Indians,” 113–14; De Vries, NNN, 231. For sex ratio: Rink, Holland on the Hudson, 14 –19.   6.  Midtrød, “Flemish Bastard,” 83–108.   7.  Merwick, Shame and Sorrow, 77–86; Deed for Land on Long Island, Jan. 15, 1639, Land Papers, ed. Gehring, 9; Council Meeting, Apr. 19, 1640, CMVL, 71; Council Meeting, May 13, 1640, CMVL, 75–77.   8.  De Vries, NNN, 209, 230–31; Murphy (trans.), “Broad Advice,” 144 –45; Treaty between the Government of New-Jersey and the Indians, 5; Speeches of the Scahghticokes and River Indians, July 8, 1754, NYCD, 6:880–82; Meeting with Shawnees and River Indians, Sept. 17, 1692, CM, 6:130–31 (quote).   9.  Dennis, Cultivating a Landscape, 167–71; Council Meeting, Sept. 15, 1639, CMVL, 60. 10.  Council Meeting, Aug. 22, 1647, CMVL, 428–31; Rasiere to the WIC, Sept. 23, 1626, HLD, 172–251; Propositions of the Senecas, July 25, 1660, FOCM, 515–17; Van der Donck, Description, 104 –5; White, Middle Ground, 94 –141; Propositions of the Mohawks, Sept. 6, 1659, NYCD, 13:108–9. For traders and gifts: Notice Served to Cornelis Tenuisz van Westbroeck, Volckert Hansz, and Cornelis Vos, Minutes of the Court of Rensselaerswyck, trans. Van Laer, 70–71; Court Session, July 20, 1655, FOCM, 201–2; Petition of the Inhabitants of Albany, July 5, 1681, ARSCM, 3:143–44; Answer to the Senecas, July 26, 1660, FOCM, 518; Conference with Tapousagh, Sept. 2, 1660, NYCD, 14: 480; Otto, Dutch-Munsee Encounter, 89–93. In NNN: Van Wassenaer, 68; De Laet, 57, 87; Jonas Michaëlius to Adrianus Smoutius, Aug. 11, 1628, 127; De Vries, 225. Van der Donck, Description, 90–91, 106 –8, 126 –27; Williams, A Key, 121; Denton, Brief Description, 8–9 (quote). 11.  In NNN: Van Wassenaer, 68; De Laet, 57, 87; Jonas Michaëlius to Adrianus Smoutius, Aug. 11, 1628, 127; De Vries, 225. Van der Donck, Description, 90–91, 106 –8, 126 –27; Williams, A Key, 121; Denton, Brief Description, 8–9 (quote). 12.  Starna, “Indian-Dutch Frontiers,” 25; Rothschild, Colonial Encounters, 215– 20. For WIC policy: Rink, Holland on the Hudson, 95–107, 117–38, 152–53. For individual transactions: “Journal of New Netherland, 1647,” NNN, 274 –75; Court Session, June 30, 1654, FOCM, 141. For food trade: Juet, 16 –28; Rasiere to the WIC, Sept. 23, 1626, HLD, 172–251; Ordinance, Sept. 22, 1639, CMVL, 61; Ordinance, May 9, 1640, CMVL, 73–74; Ordinance, Nov. 8, 1649, Laws and Writs, ed. Gehring, 22–23; Court Session, Dec. 7, 1655, FOCM, 211. For wampum: Rasiere to the WIC, Sept. 23, 1626, HLD, 223–28; Danckaerts, Journal, 264 –65; Ceci, Effect, 189–210; Ceci, “First Fiscal Crisis,” 839–47; Smith, “Archaeology of Coastal New York,” 119– 20; Solecki and Grumet, “Fort Massapeag,” 27; Diamond, “Marbletown and Nachte Jan,” 67–70. For other goods: Court Session, Oct. 6, 1656, FOCM, 252; Wolley, Two Years’ Journal, 62–63; Court Meeting, Aug. 27, 1654, Records of New Amsterdam, ed. Fernow, 2:225.

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13.  De Laet, NNN, 57; Special Instructions for Cryn Frederciksz, Apr. 22, 1625, HLD, 140. For domestics: Report of the Board of Accounts on New Netherland, Dec. 15, 1644, NYCD, 1: 149–55. For workers: De Vries, NNN, 211, Ordinance, Sept. 28, 1648, Laws and Writs, ed. Gehring, 19–20; Lease for a Tobacco Plantation on the Hudson, July 7, 1639, Register of the Provincial Secretary, 1639–1642, trans. Van Laer and ed. Scott and Stryker-Rodda, 174 –76; Statement Regarding the Fears of the People at Esopus, Aug. [?], 1659, NYCD, 13:104 –5. For messengers: Council Meeting, Feb. 8, 1648, CMVL, 480–81; William Beeckman to Stuyvesant, Sept. 20, 1659, DPD, 154. For Natives in colonial homes: Court Session, May 5, 1654, FOCM, 122–23; Ordinance, May 29, 1656, Laws and Ordinances, ed. O’Callaghan, 228. For Indian women: Van Wassenaer, NNN, 86; Court Session, Sept. 12, 1654, FOCM, 154; Extraordinary Court Session, Aug. 13, 1660, FOCM, 523–24. For colonial women: Court Session, Nov. 1, 1640, CMVL, 94 –95; Court Session, June 8, 1655, FOCM, 194; Answer of Claes Claesen, Aug. 1662, Register of Salomon Lachaire, trans. O’Callaghan and ed. Scott and Stryker-Rodda, 206 –7. For female interpreters: In NYCD, 13: Proposals to the Sachems of the River and Staten Island Indians, July 10, 1663, 276 –77; Proposals of the Hackensacks, July 20, 1663, 280; Council Minutes, Aug. 30, 1663, 294; Proposals of the Chiefs of Hackensack and Staten Island, Dec. 29, 1663, 321–22; Council Minutes, Apr. 26, 1664, 371–72. In ERA: Deed from Mahicans, July 18, 1683, 2:190–92; Quitclaim from Massany, May 5, 1683, 3:556. Meeting with Esopus Sachems, Mar. 20, 1711, in Minutes/Court of Common Pleas/Court of Sessions, Mar. 5, 1705/06 –Feb. 5, 1711/12, 101BC. For Dutch female traders, see also Venema, Beverwijck, 186 –91.Council Meeting, July 16, 1640, CMVL, 87; Declaration of Harmen van den Bogaert and Others, June 17, 1647, Register of the Provincial Secretary, 1642–1646, trans. Van Laer and ed. Scott and Stryker-Rodda, 409–10; Report of the Board of Accounts, Dec. 15, 1644, NYCD, 1: 149–55. 14.  Council Meeting, July 16, 1640, CMVL, 87; Declaration of Harmen van den Bogaert and Others, June 17, 1647, Register of the Provincial Secretary, 1642–1646, trans. Van Laer and ed. Scott and Stryker-Rodda, 409–10; Report of the Board of Accounts, Dec. 15, 1644, NYCD, 1: 149–55. 15.  Special Instructions for Cryn Frederciksz, Apr. 22, 1625, HLD, 140; Ordinance, Sept. 28, 1648, Laws and Writs, ed. Gehring, 19–20; Proposals Made by the Esopus Indians, Sept. 4, 1659, NYCD, 13:106 –7. For smiths: Stuyvesant’s Opinion on the Foregoing Propositions, Nov. 10, 1655, CMG, 132–35; Propositions of the Mohawk sachems, Feb. 25, 1690, DHNY, 2:164 –67; Intelligence from Onondaga, Feb. 16, 1695, NYCD, 4:123. For Mohawk delegation: Propositions of the Mohawks, Sept. 6, 1659, NYCD, 13:108–9; Final Answer to the Mohawks, Sept. 24, 1659, NYCD, 112–14. Heckewelder, History, Manners, and Customs, 156; Zeisberger, History, 123–24; Thomas Chambers and Others to the Council, May 18, 1658, Correspondence, 1654 –1658, ed. Gehring, 171–72; Statement Regarding the Fears of the People at Esopus, Aug. [?], 1659, 104 –5; Proposals Made by the Esopus Indians, Sept. 4, 1659, 106 –7; Danckaerts, Journal, 264 –65; Loskiel, History of the Mission, 2:37; Wheeler, To Live upon Hope, 88–89. 16.  Ordinance, May 9, 1640, CMVL, 73–74; Report of the Board of Accounts, Dec. 15, 1644, NYCD, 1:150; “Journal of New Netherland, 1647,” NNN, 273. For Esopus: Correspondence 1654 –1658, ed. Gehring: Journal of Director Stuyvesant’s Visit to The Esopus, May 28–June 28, 1658, 187–97; Meeting with the Esopus 

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Indians, October 15, 1658, 202–6. In NYCD, 13: Proposals Made by the Esopus Indians, Sept. 4, 1659, 106 –7; Roeloff Swartwout to Stuyvesant, Aug. 16, 1662, 227–28; Report of the State of Feelings among the Catskills and the Esopus,  Aug. 27, 1661, 207. 17.  Van Wassenaer, NNN, 86; Court Session, June 1639, CMVL, 52; Sentence Pronounced on Cornelis Melyn, July 25, 1647, CMVL, 419–22. 18.  FOCM: Court Session, June 30, 1654, 141; Court Session, May 19, 1654, 127–28; Court Session, Feb. 3, 1653, 90–91. Correspondence, 1654 –1658, ed. Gehring: Thomas Chamber to Stuyvesant, May 1, 1658, 171–72; Directors to Stuyvesant and Council, May 20, 1658, 173–74; Journal of Stuyvesant’s Visit to the Esopus, May 28–June 28, 1658, 187–97. De Vries, NNN, 215; Meeting with the Esopus Indians, October 15–18, 1658, NYCD, 13:93–96; Mancall, Deadly Medicine, 79–82; Ordinance, June 18, 1643, CMVL, 196; Ordinance, Nov. 21, 1645, Laws and Ordinances, ed. O’Callaghan, 52. In Laws and Writs, ed. Gehring: Ordinance, July 1, 1647, 9; Ordinance, May 13, 1648, 14 –16; Renewal and Amendment of Several Ordinances, Oct. 26, 1656, 71–74. 19.  De Vries, NNN, 208–9, 213–14; Petition for Leave to Attack the Indians, Feb. 25, 1643, NYCD, 1: 193–94; Lovelace to William Tom, Sept. 26, 1671, Minutes of the Executive Council, ed. Paltsits, 2:595–97; Instructions for Willem Verhulst, Apr. 22, 1625, HLD, 82–129. In CMVL: Council Meeting, Feb. 27, 1643, 187–88; Meeting between the Director and Council and the Twelve Men, Nov [?] 1641, 124 –25; Council Meeting, July 4, 1641, 115–16; Council Meeting, Feb. 27, 1643, 186 –88. “Journal of New Netherland, 1647,” NNN, 274 –75. 20.  “Journal of New Netherland, 1647,” NNN, 274; Gardiner, 25 (quote); De Vries, NNN, 215–16; Council Meeting, Feb. 27, 1643, CMVL, 186 –88; Journal of Director Stuyvesant’s Visit to the Esopus, May 28–June 28, 1658, Correspondence, 1654 –1658, ed. Gehring, 187–97. 21.  See also Smolenski, “Death of Sawataeny,” 104 –28. 22.  Trelease, Indian Affairs, 85–111, 138–74; Otto, Dutch-Munsee Encounter, 106 –13; John Hopwell, Map of the Rumbout Patent, 1689, NYHS. 23.  Merwick, Shame and Sorrow, 125–32. For 1643 war: Trelease, Indian Affairs, 60–84; De Vries, NNN, 228–30; “Journal of New Netherland, 1647,” NNN, 277–78; Petition for Leave to Attack the Indians, Feb. 25, 1643, NYCD, 1:193–94. In CMVL: Order by the Director and Council, Feb. 25, 1643, 185; Order by the Director and Council, Feb. 25, 1643, 185–86; Order of the Director and Council, Mar. 25, 1643, 189. For Peach War: Council of New Netherland to Stuyvesant, Sept. 16, 1655, DPD, 35–36. In CMG: Remonstrance to the States General, Nov. [?], 1655, 120–23; Stuyvesant’s Opinion on the Foregoing Propositions, Nov. 10, 1655, 132–35; Response of La Montagne to the Foregoing Propositions, Nov. 10, 1655, 139–41; Advice on Stuyvesant’s Proposal by Cornelis van Tienhoven, Nov. 29, 1655, 141–44. In NYCD, 13: Ensign Smith to Stuyvesant, Sept. 29, 1659, 114 –15; Declaration Made by the Inhabitants and Soldiers at the Esopus, Sept. 29, 1659, 117; Declaration of Certain Catskill Indians, October [?], 1659, 119–21. 24.  Merwick, Shame and Sorrow, 151–79; Report of the Board of Accounts, Dec. 15, 1644, NYCD, 1:149–55; Council Meeting, Aug. 22, 1647, CMVL, 428–31; Journal of Director Stuyvesant’s Visit to the Esopus, May 28–June 28, 1658, Correspondence,

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1654 –1658, ed. Gehring, 187–97; Representation of the Directors, Feb. 13, 1652, Correspondence, 1647–1653, ed. Gehring, 131–33. 25.  In CMVL: Articles of Peace with the River Indians, Aug. 30, 1645, 279–80; Council Meeting, Mar. 11, 1649, 585–86; Propositions of the Indian Chiefs around Manhattan, July 19, 1649, 607–9. WIC Directors to Stuyvesant, Feb. 16, 1650, Correspondence, 1647–1653, ed. Gehring, 85; Thomas Chambers and Others to the Council, May 18, 1658, Correspondence 1654 –1658, ed. Gehring, 171–72. 26.  Merwick, Shame and Sorrow, 228–232. In Correspondence, 1647–1653, ed. Gehring: Representation of the Directors of the Amsterdam Chamber, Feb. 13, 1652, 131–33; WIC Directors to Stuyvesant, Apr. 4, 1652, 144; Directors to the Inhabitants of Hempstead and Gravesend, Apr. 4, 1652, 160–62; Affidavit of Wilhelmus Grasmeer, Feb. 14, 1652, 129–30. 27.  Cronon, Changes in the Land, 55–81; Trelease, Indian Affairs, 62–64, 91–92. NYCD: Council Meeting, May 25, 1660, 14:474; Deed for Staten Island, July 10, 1657, NYCD, 14:393. Several Testimonies & writings relating to ye Purchase of Staten Island, 1672 (?), Melyn, “Papers,” 123–27 (quote on 124). For other confirmatory payments: Stuyvesant to the Council, June 17, 1652, NYCD, 14:183; Deed to Land at Wiecquaeskeck, July 26, 1655, Register of the Provincial Secretary, 1648–1660, trans. Van Laer and ed. Scott and Stryker-Rodda, 413–15. 28.  Merwick, Shame and Sorrow, 202–15; Resolution to Investigate Indian Troubles at Hempstead, Aug. 22, 1647, CMVL, 427–28; Directors to Stuyvesant, Feb. 16, 1650, NYCD, 13: 26; Directors to Stuyvesant, Mar. 21, 1651, NYCD, 13:27–28; Ordinance, July 1, 1652, Laws and Writs of Appeal, ed. Gehring, 29–31; Stuyvesant to the Council, June 17, 1652, NYCD, 14:183. 29.  Trelease, Indian Affairs, 138–40; Council to Stuyvesant, Sept. 16, 1655, DPD, 35–36; Lindeström, Per Lindeströms Resa, 185–86. In CMG: Instructions to Adriaen Post, Oct. 18, 1655, 103–4; Remonstrance to the States General, Nov. [?], 1655, 120–23; Propositions Concerning the Recent Indian War, Nov. 10, 1655, 130–32; Stuyvesant’s Opinion on the Propositions, Nov. 10, 1655, 132–35; Response of La Montagne to the Propositions, Nov. 10, 1655, 139–41; Advice on Stuyvesant’s Proposal by Cornelis van Tienhoven, Nov. 29, 1655, 141–44. Court Session, Feb. 1, 1656, Minutes of the Court of Fort Orange and Beverwyck, trans. Van Laer, 1:249. 30.  For a similar argument, see Gleach, Powhatan’s World, 148–58; Advice on Stuyvesant’s Proposal by Cornelis van Tienhoven, Nov. 29, 1655, CMG, 141–44. 31.  In CMG: Ransom Demands from the Indians, Oct. 13, 1655, 95–96; Message from the Indians, Oct. 13, 1655, 96; Resolution Not to Pay Ransom, Oct. 13, 1655, 97; Minutes of the Release of Fourteen Hostages, Oct. 18, 1655, 102–3; Instructions to Adriaen Post, Oct. 18, 1655, 103–4; Message of the Indians, Oct. 21, 1655, 112; Reply of the Indians, Oct. 26, 1655, 119; Remonstrance to the States General, Nov. [?], 1655, 120–23; Stuyvesant’s Opinion on the Propositions, Nov. 10, 1655, 132–35. In NYCD, 13: Directors to Stuyvesant and the Council, Mar. 13, 1656, 63–64; Directors to Stuyvesant, Sept. 15, 1657, 73–74. 32.  CMG: Stuyvesant’s Opinion on the Propositions, Nov. 10, 1655, 132; Order Prohibiting Contact with the Indians on the West Side of the Hudson, Oct. 18, 1655, 101–2; Instructions to Adriaen Post, Oct. 18, 1655, 103–4; Petition of the Burgomasters of New Amsterdam, Mar. 3, 1656, 256; Response to the Petition, Mar. 3, 1656, 257; Proposals of the Director, Mar.3, 1656, 254 –56. Report of the Board of Accounts

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on New Netherland, Dec. 15, 1644, NYCD, 1:149–55; “Journal of New Netherland, 1647,” NNN, 234. Laws and Ordinances, ed. O’Callaghan: Ordinance, Jan. 18, 1656, 206 –8; Ordinance, May 29, 1656, 228; Ordinance, July 1, 1656, 234 –35. 33.  NYCD, 13: Directors to Stuyvesant and the Council, Feb. 13, 1659, 98; Agreement Made by the Settlers of Esopus, May 31, 1658, 81; Stuyvesant’s Propositions to the Council and Burgomasters of New Amsterdam, Feb. 9, 1660, 135–38; Proposals by the Esopus Indians, Sept. 4, 1659, 106 –7; Treaty of Peace Renewed, Mar. 6, 1660, 147–49; Articles of Peace with the Esopus Indians, May 15, 1664, 375–77. Ordinance, Feb. 9, 1660, Laws and Ordinances, ed. O’Callaghan, 368–70. KP: Ordinance, Oct. 18, 1664, 1:165; Court Session, Dec. 2, 1664, 1:184; Court Session, Aug. 15, 1665, 1:246. 34.  In CMG: Instructions to Capt. Adriaen Post, Oct. 18, 1655, 103–4; Stuyvesant’s Opinion on the Foregoing Propositions, Nov. 10, 1655, 132–35; Proposals of the Director, Mar. 3, 1656, 254 –56. Directors to Stuyvesant, Dec. 22, 1657, NYCD, 13:75–76. 35.  Merwick, Shame and Sorrow, 49–55; Rasiere to the W IC, Sept. 23, 1626, HLD, 172–251; De Vries, NNN, 229–31; Van der Donck, Description, 39; Articles of Peace with the River Indians, Aug. 30, 1645, CMVL, 279–80. 36.  Trelease, Indian Affairs, 147–72. Correspondence, 1654 –1658, ed. Gehring: Thomas Chambers and Others to the Council, May 18, 1658, 171–72; Journal of Stuyvesant’s Visit to the Esopus, May 28–June 28, 1658, 187–97; Meeting with the Esopus Indians, Oct. 15, 1658, 202–6; Stoll to Stuyvesant, Oct. 29, 1658, 210–12. NYCD, 13: Meeting with the Esopus Indians, Aug. 17, 1659, 102–3; Proposals by the Esopus Indians, Sept. 4, 1659, 106 –7; Treaty of Peace with the Esopus Indians, July 15, 1660, 179–81; Petition of the Overseers of the New Village, Apr. 7, 1663, 242–43; Council Minutes, May 10, 1663, 243; Magistrates of Wiltwyck to Stuyvesant, June 10, 1663, 245; Report of the Magistrates at Wiltwyck, June 20, 1663, 256 –57. 37.  NYCD, 13: Stuyvesant’s Propositions to the Council and Burgomasters, Feb. 9, 1660, 135–38; Cornelis van Ruyven’s Answer, Feb. 12, 1660, 139–42; Resolution to Declare War against the Esopus Indians, Feb. 12, 1660, 142; Treaty of Peace Renewed, Mar. 6, 1660, 147–49; Proclamation of War against the Esopus Indians, Mar. 25, 1660, 152; Directors to Stuyvesant, Sept. 20, 1660, 187–88; Stuyvesant and Council to the Directors, Dec. 9, 1660, 190; Circular to the People on Staten Island, June 15, 1663, 248; Meeting with Indian Sachems, June 27, 1663, 261–62; Meeting with Indian Sachems, July 10, 1663, 276 –77; Council Minutes, July 26, 1663, 282; Information Furnished by Oratamy, Aug. 30, 1663, 294; Proposals of the Chiefs of Hackensack and Staten Island, Dec. 29, 1663, 321–22. 38.  Instructions for Director Willem Verhulst and Council, Jan., 1625, HLD, 36–79; “Journal of New Netherland, 1647,” 276. In NYCD, 13: Jean de La Montagne to Dirk Smith, Oct. 21, 1659, 123; Smith to Stuyvesant, Nov. 1, 1659, 126 –27; Smith to La Montagne, Nov. 13, 1659, 127; Stuyvesant to Cornelis van Ruyven, Mar.18, 1660, 151–52; Message from the Esopus Indians, Mar. 15, 1660, 150–51; Conference with Chiefs of Several Nations, May 18, 1660, 166 –67; Conference with Mahican Chiefs, May 24, 1660, 168–69; Stuyvesant to Smith, May 25, 1660, 169–70; Smith to Stuyvesant, May 30, 1660, 170–71; Conference with Chiefs of the Hackensacks and the Haverstraws, June 3, 1660, 171–72; Commission for Claes de Ruyter, June 3, 1660, 172–73; Instructions for De Ruyter, June 3, 1660, 173; Smith to Stuyvesant and the Council, June 12, 1660, 174; Treaty of Peace with the Esopus

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Indians, July 15, 1660, 179–81; Journal of Stuyvesant’s Visit to the Esopus, July 7–31, 1660, 181–84; Johan de Decker to Stuyvesant, June 29, 260–61; La Montagne to Stuyvesant, June 29, 1663, 264 –65; Council Minutes, July 26, 1663, 282; Instructions for Lt. Couwenhoven et al., Nov. 21, 1663, 304 –6; Conference with Indian Sachems, Dec. 28, 1663, 320–21; Proposals of the Chiefs of Hackensack and Staten Island, Dec. 29, 1663, 321–22; Stuyvesant to Cregier, Dec. 29, 1663, 323; Proposals of Oratamy and Others, Feb. 23, 1664, 361; Stuyvesant to the Directors, Apr. 26, 1664, 372–73; Articles of Peace with the Esopus Indians, May 15, 1664, 375–77. 39.  Instructions for Director Willem Verhulst, Jan., 1625, HLD, 36 –79; Directors to Stuyvesant, Aug. 6, 1652, Correspondence, 1647–1653, ed. Gehring, 182–84. In Records of New Plymouth, ed. Pulsifer, 10: Meeting of the Commissioners of the United Colonies, Apr. 1653, 12–26; Relation of Ronessock, May 14, 1653, 44; Testimony of Adam, May 11, 1653, 44 –45; Deposition of William Allford, May 9, 1653, 50. Resolution to Investigate Indian Troubles at Hempstead, Aug. 22, 1647, CMVL, 427–28. NYCD: Propositions by the Long Island Indians, Nov. 27, 1655, 13:58; Stuyvesant to the Directors, Oct. [?], 1659, 13:123–26; Treaty of Peace Renewed, Mar. 6, 1660, 13:147–49; Treaty of Peace with the Esopus Indians, July 15, 1660, 13:179–81; Conference with Tapousagh, Sept. 2, 1660, 14: 480; Proposals of the Minissinks, Aug. 15, 1663, 13:289–90. 40.  NYCD, 13: Treaty of Peace with the Esopus Indians, July 15, 1660, 179–81; Articles of Peace with the Esopus Indians, May 15, 1664, 375–77; Stuyvesant to Martin Cregier, July 30, 1663, 384; Cregier to Stuyvesant, Aug. 3, 1663, 286; Proposals of the Chief of the Marsepinghs, Sept. 20, 1663, 295–96. Articles of Agreement betwixt the Government of ye New Netherlands and Tackpausha, Mar.12, 1656, HTR, 1:43–45. 41.  Otto, Dutch-Munsee Encounter, 138, 154 –55; Wolley, Two Year’s Journal, 62–63; Council Meeting, Sept. 13, 1694, CM, 7:93; Council Meeting, Sept. 29, 1694, CM, 7:97; Diamond, “Terminal Late Woodland/Contact Period,” 176 –81; Lenik, “New Evidence on the Contact Period,” 103–20. Chapter 4

  1.  LIR: Propositions made to the Schaghticokes, July 6, 1703, 188–89; Answer of the Schaghticokes, July 7, 1703, 189 –90 (quotes on 189); Propositions of the Schaghticokes, Sept. 24, 1703, 191. Council Meeting, July 16, 1703, CM, 9:289.   2.  Seed, Ceremonies of Possession, 16 –40; Pulsipher, Subjects unto the Same King, 2–3; Merwick, Shame and Sorrow, 83–85. Williams, Correspondence, vol. 2: Roger Williams to the General Court, Oct. 5, 1654, 410 (quote 1); Williams to the General Court, Nov. 15, 1655, 445 (quote 2).   3.  Treaty between Richard Nicolls and the Esopus Indians, Oct. 7, 1665, 101BC; Philip Carteret to Oratam of Hackensack, May 26, 1666, NJA, 1:55–56 (quote). For English status recognition of Native leaders: Kupperman, Indians and English, 77–109.   4.  Deposition of John Worth, Mar. 23, 1741, A Bill in the Chancery, 111–12 (quote 1 on 112). In DPD: William Beeckman to Stuyvesant, Oct. 26, 1661, 242–44; Beeckman to Stuyvesant, Feb. 1, 1663, 316 –17; Beeckman to Cornelis van Ruyven, June 23, 1663, 322–23; Beeckman to Stuyvesant, June 24, 1663, 323. In NYCD, 13: Magistrates of Orange to Stuyvesant, January 29, 1661, 191–92; Proposals made by

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both Courts at Fort Orange, May [?] 1664, 380. Meeting of the General Court, Mar. 11, 1663, Public Records, ed. Trumbull, 1:398; JR, 48:77–81; Order of the Court of Easthampton, Mar. 2, 1664, Easthampton, Records, 1:201.   5.  In NYCD, 13: Report Made by Pieter van Couwenhoven, March 23, 1664, 363–64; Information of English Intrigues among the Esopus Indians, Aug. 27, 1664, 392; Instructions for Marten Cregier and Govert Lockermans, Dec. 6, 1663, 311–12; Journal of a Voyage to Nevesinck, Dec. 6 –11, 1663, 314 –16; Agreement Made by the Nevesincks, Dec. 12, 1663, 316; Proposals of the Chiefs of Hackensack and Staten Island, Dec. 29, 1663, 321–22; Council Minutes, Feb. 16, 1664, 358; Proposals of the Chiefs of the Kichtawanghs, Wappings, Wiechquaeskecks, and Others, Mar. 25, 1664, 364 –65. Deed to Land at Nevesink, Mar. 25, 1664, Liber 1:247 (72)–246 (73), NJD; Deed to Land near Nevesink, Apr. 7, 1665, ROD, 3:3–4; Deed to Land near Nevesink, June 5, 1665, ROD, 3:5–6; Grumet, “ ‘We Are Not So Great Fools,’ ” 206–8.   6.  Grumet, “ ‘We Are Not So Great Fools,’ ” 207–11; Ritchie, Duke’s Province, 78–80; Deed to Elizabethtown, Oct. 28, 1665, Liber 1:1–2, NJD; Deposition of Robert Treat, May 13, 1688, A Bill in the Chancery, 118; John Pynchon to John Winthrop Jr., Jan. 3, 1667, Pynchon Papers, 1:69–70. In NYCD, 13: Lovelace to Unknown, Feb. 16, 1670, 441–42; Council Minutes, April 7–13, 1670, 452–54; Deed for Staten Island to Governor Lovelace, April 22, 1670, 455–57. Edmund Andros to Thomas Baker of Easthampton, Oct. 27, 1675, GEADB, 87–88; Skinner, “Lenapé Indians of Staten Island,” 37.   7.  Resolution to Investigate Indian Troubles at Hempstead, Aug. 22, 1647, CMVL, 427–28; General Town Meeting at Hempstead, Nov. 18, 1659, HTR, 1:87; Onderdonk, Annals, 43. In NYCD, 14: John James to Stuyvesant, Jan. 30, 1658, 411; Stuyvesant to the Magistrates of Hempstead, Apr. 3, 1660, 460; Stuyvesant to the Magistrates of Hempstead, May 13, 1660, 474; Council Minutes, May 25, 1660, 474; Conference with Long Island Indians, Jan. 7, 1664, 540; Nicolls to the Magistrates of Hempstead, June 16, 1666, GENL, 131; Nicolls to the Constable and Overseers of Hempstead, Sept. 21, 1666, GENL, 138; General Court of Assizes, Oct. 1, 1666, Records of the Court of Assizes, ed. Christoph and Christoph, 42; Agreement between the Inhabitants of Hempstead and the Matinnecock Indians, Oct. 19, 1666, Minutes of the Executive Council, ed. Paltsits, 2:569–70. For demands for representative government: Ritchie, Duke’s Province, 31–37.   8.  Several Testimonies & writings relating to ye Purchase of Staten Island, 1672 (?), Melyn, “Papers,” 123–27; Council Minutes, Apr. 7–13, 1670, NYCD, 13:452–54.   9.  Conference with the Indians at Easton, Oct. 18, 1758, Smith, History of the Colony, 470; Indian Quitclaim to Northern New Jersey, Oct. 23, 1758, Liber I-2:89– 92, NJD; Deed to Lewis Dubois and Others for Land in Ulster County (New Paltz), May 26, 1677, NYCD, 13:506 –7; Contract of Sale between Certain Mahicans and Robert Livingston, July 11, 1683, ERA, 2:189–90; Several Testimonies & writings relating to ye Purchase of Staten Island, 1672 (?), Melyn, “Papers,” 123–27; Opinion of Stuyvesant in the Case against Melyn and Kuyter, July 18, 1647, CMVL, 405–11; Sentence Pronounced on Cornelis Melyn, July 25, 1647, CMVL, 419–22. 10.  Dunn, Mohicans and Their Land, 163–84; Ceci, Effect, 255–56, Otto, DutchMunsee Encounter, 96 –98; Grumet, “Selling of Lenapehoking,” 1–6; Meeting with the Esopus Indians, Apr. 27, 1677, AP, 2: 57–59. For land freely given: Council Minutes, Aug. 5, 1675, CM, 3(2):47; Deed from the Indians to Arnout Cornelissen Viele,

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June 15, 1680, ERA, 2:84 –85; Petition of Pemamant and Mangowack, Indians of Recowack, March 2, 1682, ALG, 2:3. 11.  Order for a Hearing at the Assizes about Matinecock Lands and Hempstead, Sept. 25, 1671, Minutes of the Executive Council, ed. Paltsits, 2:580–81. 12.  Nicolls to the Constable and Overseers of Hempstead, Sept. 21, 1666, GENL, 138. In Records of the Court of Assizes, ed. Christoph and Christoph: General Court of Assizes, Oct. 1, 1666, 42; Court of Assizes, Oct. 5, 1671, 120–21; Court of Assizes, Oct. 4, 1682, 290. Resolutions of the Court of Sessions, Dec. 10, 1679, CP, 28:164. 13.  Meeting with Tackapousha, May 14, 1670, ROD, 3:40 (quote). In AP: Minutes of a Meeting Examining Indian Claims to Land Adjoining Hempstead, Oct. 21, 1675, 1:235–38; Meeting with Long Island Indians, Nov. 5, 1677, 2:154 –56. Council Meeting, Aug. 5, 1675, CM, 3(2):47; Meeting with Long Island Sachems, Nov. 5, 1675, CP, 25:17. 14.  Council Meeting, June 24, 1687, CP, 35:72. In OBTR, 1: Grant of Land at Hempstead Harbor to Runasuck and other Indians, June 27, 1687, 519; Indenture by Suskaneman, Feb. 4, 1696, 529–30. In ALG,: Petition of Tashnisk on Behalf of Himself and Other Indians Concerned, Apr. 15, 1686, 2:169; Petition of Cragamawor, Pelhim, and Henhook, Aug. 2, 1699, 2:274; Petition of Sackawawaggra, Aug. 4, 1705, 4:58; Patent, June 24, 1687, 4:174; Report, Apr. 8, 1702, 4:174. Meeting, Dec. 6, 1694, CM 7:109. 15.  General Town Meeting at Hempstead, April 25, 1671, HTR, 1:276. 16.  Meeting between the Mahicans and Other River Indians by Maj. John Pynchon and James Richards, Apr. 24, 1677, LIR, 39–40 (quote 1 on 39); Answer of the River Indians to Governor Fletcher, July 6, 1693, NYCD, 4:46 –47; Answer of the Schaghticoke Indians, July 7, 1703, LIR, 189–90; Answer of the River Indians to Governor Hunter, June 15, 1717, NYCD, 5:489. 17.  Jennings, Ambiguous Iroquois Empire, 148–49. 18.  Ibid., 196 –203; Message to the Shawnees who have come to Pennsylvania and their Answer, Aug. 14, 1692, CP, 38:165; Meeting with Shawnees and Mahicans, Aug. 28, 1694, CP, 39:188; Little Minisinck Indians, Oct. 10, 1698, Box 1, folder 4, Photostats of Council Minutes, NYSA; Brief of the Claim on the Part of the Province of New-Jersey, 38; Treaty between the Government of New-Jersey and the Indians; Message from Governor Bernard to the Minisink and Pompton Indians, June 25, 1758, NJA, 9:125–26. 19.  CM, 11: Meeting with River Indians, July 31, 1714, 261–62 (quote on 261); Meeting with Nappaner and River Indians, June 9, 1719, 607–9; Governor’s Answer to the Indians, June 10, 1719, CM, 610–13. 20.  White, Middle Ground, 84 –90; Galloway, “ ‘Chief Who Is Your Father,’ ” 254 –73. For children and parents: Van Wassenaer, NNN, 69; Rasiere to Bloomaert, 1628 (?), NNN, 109; Zeisberger, History, 16. For fatherhood and protection: Propositions by the Schaghticoke Indians, June 15, 1693, NYCD, 4:38; Answer of the River Indians, July 6, 1693, NYCD, 4:46 –47; Council Minutes, Oct. 1, 1694, CM, 7:99–100 (quote 1). 21.  NYCD: Answer of the River Indians to Governor Fletcher, July 6, 1693, 4:46 –47; Message send by Several of the Schaghticoke Indians, June 30, 1699, 4:575–76; Meeting with the River Indians, Aug. 31, 1700, 4:743–45; Meeting with the Mahicans and Schaghticokes, Sept. 27, 1714, 5:387–89; Answer of the River Indians, June 15,  1717, 5:489; Speech of Governor Clinton to the River Indians, July 27, 1748, 

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6:445–46. CM: Council Minutes, Apr. 2, 1691, 6:10–11 (quote); Meeting with Indian Sachems, Apr. 17, 1700, 8:149. Aupaumut in Jones, Stockbridge, 20. For Andros in 1688: Sir Edmund Andros and the Five Nations, Sept. 18–21, 1688, NYCD, 3:559. 22.  Pulsipher, Subjects unto the Same King, 28–35. Meeting with the sachems of Massapequa, Rockaway, Secatogue, and Mericoke, May 10, 1668, ROD, 3:39–40 (quote 1 on 39). In NYCD: Governor Fletcher’s Speech to the River Indians, July 4, 1693, 4:46; Propositions of the River Indians, July 18, 1701, 4:902–4 (quote 2 on 902); Meeting with the River Indians, Aug. 31, 1700, 4:743–45; Answer of the River Indians to Lord Cornbury, July 20, 1702, 4:990–92; Answer of the River Indians to Governor Hunter, June 15, 1717, 5:489; Propositions of Governor William Burnet to the River Indians, Aug. 30, 1722, 5:661–64; Speech of Governor Clinton to the River Indians, July 27, 1748, 6:445–46. For Esopus Indians: Meeting with the Esopus Sachems, June 2, 1712, Minutes Common Pleas/Sessions Court/Justices of the Peace Meetings, 1711/12–1720, 101BC. 23.  In NYCD: Meeting with the River Indians, Aug. 31, 1700, 4:743–45; Propositions of the River Indians, July 18, 1701, 4:902–4; Meeting with the Mahicans, Aug. 25, 1720, 5:562–63; Answer of the River Indians to Governor Burnet, Aug. 31, 1722, 5:662–64; Speech of Governor Clinton to the River Indians, July 27, 1748, 6:445–46; Speeches of the Scahghticokes and River Indians, July 8, 1754, 6:880–82 (quote on 881). Meeting with Mahicans, May 9, 1768, JP, 12:497–500. 24.  Governor Hunter to the Earl of Dartmouth [?], Mar. 14, 1713, Calendar of State Papers, ed. Sainsbury, 27:157–59 (quote 1 on 159); Lewis Morris to the Council of Trade and Plantations, Oct. 4, 1733, ibid., 40:203. 25.  Murray, Indian Giving, 53–68, 126 –35. For Andros: Meeting with Tackapousha, Mar. 28, 1677, AP, 2:52; Instructions for Capt. John Collier, Sept. 23, 1676, GEADB, 130–31. For Indians not expecting gifts: Minutes of a Meeting with Sachems from Western Long Island, Apr. 17, 1676, CP, 25:99; Council Minutes, July 28, 1684, CM, 5:93–94. 26.  In Minutes of the Executive Council, ed. Paltsits: Lovelace to Capt. Carr, Aug. 24, 1670, 2:496 –97; Examination of Indians about Depredations at Delaware, Oct. 6, 1670, 2:499–504; William Tom and Peter Alrichs to Lovelace, Mar. 9, 1670, 2:507–8; Governor Carteret of New Jersey to Lovelace, Sept. 20, 1671, 2:593; Resolution of Lovelace and Council, Sept. 25, 1671, 2:594 –95; Lovelace to William Tom, Sept. 26, 1671, 2:595–97; Lovelace to Capt. John Carr, Sept. 28, 1671, 2:597–98; Lovelace to Philip Carteret, Oct. 20, 1671, 2:598–99; Tom to Lovelace, Oct. 25, 1671, 2:599–601; Magistrates of Delaware to Lovelace, Oct. 25, 1671, 2:602–3; Meeting between the Governors of New York and New Jersey, Nov. 7, 1671, 1:106 –9; Lovelace to Tom, Dec. 22, 1671, 2:611. In GEADB: Andros to Capt. Edmund Cantwell, March 27, 1675, 33; Andros to Edmund Cantwell, Apr. 23, 1675, 36; Matthias Nicolls to Thomas Chambers and George Hall, Apr. 25, 1675, 36 –37. Minutes of a Meeting with Neversink Sachems, April 20, 1675, AP, 1:131–33. 27.  For Esopus Indians, see in 101BC: Treaty between Richard Nicolls and the Esopus Indians, Oct. 7, 1665, 1–2; Meeting of the Court of Session, Sept. 7, 1709 in Minutes/Court of Common Pleas/Court of Sessions, March 5, 1705/06 –Feb. 5, 1711/12 (quote); Meeting of the Court of Justice of the Peace, June 22, 1728. For Mahican woman: Extraordinary Court Session, May 16, 1678, ARSCM, 2:324 –25. For Schaghticokes: Extraordinary Court Session, July 24, 1682, ARSCM, 3:274 –77.

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For Rockaway Indian: Summons for Witnesses to Appear before the Court at Jamaica, Aug. 28, 1677, AP, 2:90. 28.  Special Court of Oyer and Terminer at New York, Apr. 29, 1679, AP, 3:88– 90. In NYCD, 4: Bellomont to the Lords of Trade, September 14, 1698, NYCD, 4:364; Propositions made by the River Indians to Lord Cornbury, July 28, 1702, 4:994; Lord Cornbury’s Answer to the River Indians, Aug. 15, 1702, 4:996 –98 (quote 1 on 997); Cornbury to the Lords of Trade, Oct. 1, 1702, 1001; Meeting of Governor Hunter with two Schaghticoke Sachems, Aug. 20, 1710, NYCD, 5:228. Perrot, “Memoir,” 206 –7; Meeting with the Five Nations, July 20–27, 1698, Iroquois Indians, ed. Jennings, vol. 5. 29.  White, Middle Ground, 78–82; Council with the Indians at Conestoga, May 26 –27, 1728, CRP, 3:310–14 (quote 2 on 314). 30.  Meeting with Nappaner and River Indians, June 9, 1719, CM, 11:607–9 (quotes 1–2); The Governor’s Answer to the Indians, June 10, 1719, CM, 11:610–13 (quote 3); Meeting with Mahicans, Shawnees, and Nanticokes, Apr. 21, 1757, NYCD, 7:249–51 (quote 4 on 250). 31.  Jennings’s Ambiguous Iroquois Empire. 32.  White, Middle Ground, 142–85. 33.  For Mahicans: Propositions of the Chiefs of the Catskills and the Mahicans, April 21, 1660, NYCD, 13:162; For lower Valley groups: Propositions of the Indian Chiefs, July 19, 1649, CMVL, 607–9; Conference with the Chiefs of Several Nations, May 18, 1660, NYCD, 13:166 –67; For Esopus Indians: Roeloff Swartwout to Stuyvesant, Sept. 5, 1662, NYCD, 13:228–29; Court Session, Oct. 15/25, 1667, KP 1:363; Scott and Baker, “Renewals of Governor Nicoll’s Treaty,” 251–72. 34.  For Mahicans: Proposals by Chiefs of the Mahicans, Feb. 14, 1675, LIR, 37–38. For Schaghticokes: Propositions by Lord Cornbury to the River Indians, July 17, 1702, NYCD, 4:983–85; Propositions to the Schaghticokes, July 6, 1703, LIR, 188–89. For lower Valley groups: Council Meeting, Feb. 22, 1679, CP, 28:59; Council Minutes, Apr. 5, 1690, DHNY, 2:133. For Long Islanders: Meeting with Long Island Indians, Nov. 5, 1677, AP, 2:154 –56; Meeting with Long Island Sachems, Apr. 2, 1678, CP, 27:54; Meeting with Indian Sachems, Apr. 17, 1700, CM, 8:149. For Hackensacks: Philip Carteret to Captains Post and Cornelius, May 26, 1666, NJA, 1:56; Meeting with Hackensack and Tappan Indians, May 13, 1676, CP, 25:110. For Wappingers: Certificate from Governor Burnet to the Wappinger and Westenhoek Indians, Sept. 7, 1721, CP, 63:143; Meeting of the Board of Supervisors, Aug. 9, 1722, Supervisors of Dutchess, Book of the Supervisors, 52; Supervisors of Dutchess, County Accounts, 1743, Third Book of the Supervisors (quote). Created in 1683, Dutchess was governed from Ulster until 1714: MacCraken, Old Dutchess Forever! 55. 35.  In NYCD: Report of the Board of Accounts on New Netherland, Dec. 15, 1644, 1:149–55; Stuyvesant to the Magistrates of Fort Orange, July 12, 1663,13:277–78; Johannes de La Montagne and Jeremias van Rensselaer to Stuyvesant, July 28, 1663, 13:283; Proceedings at Fort Orange with the Mohawks and the Mahicans, Nov. 1663, 13:310; Complaints against Capt. Broadhead, Feb. 1667, 13:410; Jeremias van Rensselaer to Oloff Stevensen van Cortlandt, Aug. 27, 1663, Correspondence of Jeremias van Rensselaer, ed. Van Laer, 327. Documents relating to the activities of Albany officials during the Revolution of 1688 may be found in DHNY, 2:18–273. See also Lovejoy, Glorious Revolution, 312–18. Meeting of the Albany Convention, Sept. 17, 1689, DHNY, 2:53.

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36.  In NYCD: Earl of Bellomont to the Lords of Trade, Sept. 21, 1698, 4:380; Bellomont to Lords of Trade, Jan. 19, 1701, 4:834; John Schuyler to Bellomont, Jan. 7, 1701, 4:835–36; Propositions of the River Indians, July 18, 1701, 4:902–4. O’Toole, White Savage, 89–90; Declaration of the Esopus Indians, May 1769, JP, 6:738–39 (quote on 739). 37.  Brief State of the Controversy Subsisting between Daniel Nimham and the Heirs and Legal Representatives of Adolph Philipse, Oct. 30, 1765, ALG, 18:128; Report to the Governor and Council, March 6, 1765, quoted in Pelletreau, History of Putnam County, 71–73; Report of the Indians Sent to Negotiate with Those of the Esopus, July 5 [?], 1663, NYCD, 13: 273–74; Journal of the Esopus War, July 4,  1663–Jan. 3, 1664, ibid., 328; Jeremias van Rensselaer to Oloff van Cortlandt, Aug. 27, 1663, Correspondence of Jeremias van Rensselaer, ed. Van Laer, 327; Merwick, 61–76; Jacobs, New Netherland, 112–26. NYCD, 14: Resolution to Oppose Slechtenhorst’s Encroachments, Aug. 23, 1648, 93; Council Resolution, Sept. 4, 1648, 93–94; Protest by Brant van Slechtenhorst against Stuyvesant, Oct. 30, 1648, 95–99. 38.  NYCD: Council Minutes, July 24, 1662, 224; Meeting between the Mohawks and the English Agents, Aug. 1, 1662, 224 –26; Roeloff Swartwout to Stuyvesant, Aug. 16, 1662, 227–28; Council to the Fort Orange Authorities, Sept. 21, 1663, 296 –97; Fort Orange Court Minutes, Sept. 26 –27, 297–98; Stuyvesant to Couwenhoven, Oct. 21, 1663, 302; La Montagne and Van Rensselaer to Stuyvesant, Nov. 24,  1663, 307–8; John Pynchon to the Fort Orange Authorities, July 28, 308–9; La Montagne and Van Rensselaer to Stuyvesant, Jan. 8, 1664, 355; Stuyvesant to the Courts of Orange and Rensselaerswyck, Jan. 21, 1664, 256; Proposals of the Mohawks, May 17, 1664, 378; Extraordinary Session, May [?] 1664, 379–80; Proposals made by both Courts at Fort Orange, May [?] 1664, 380; Journal of Jan Dareth and Jacob Lockerman, May 19–28, 1664, 380–82; Stuyvesant to the Directors, Aug. 4, 1664, 390. Records of New Plymouth, ed. Pulsifer, 10: Commissioners of the United Colonies to Stuyvesant, Sept. 7. 1659, 220–21; Stuyvesant to the Commissioners, Oct. 27, 1659, 443–44; Commissioners to Stuyvesant, Nov. 12, 1659, 445–46; Meeting of the Commissioners, Sept. 1662, 282. In LIR, see Meeting with Mohawk Chiefs, July 18–19, 1666, 29–30; Proposal of the Ambassadors of Hartford and Springfield, Aug. 16, 1666, 33; Peace between the Mohawks and Mahicans, Sept. 10, 1666, 34 –35. 39.  Fort Orange Court Minutes, Sept. 26 –27, 1663, NYCD, 13:297–98; John Pynchon to John Winthrop Jr., Jan. 25, 1667, Pynchon Papers, 1:71–73. In LIR: Peace between the Mohawks and Mahicans, Sept. 10, 1666, 34 –35; Proposal Made by the Chiefs of the Mohawks, July 21, 1672, 35–36; Proposals by the Chiefs of the Mahicans, Feb. 14, 1675, 37–38. 40.  NYCD, 13:Conference between with Chiefs of Several Nations, May 18, 1660, 166 –67; Proposals to the Sachems of Hackensack and Staten Island, June 27, 1663, 261–62; Proposals Made to the Sachems of the River and Staten Island Indians, July 10, 1663, 276 –77. 41.  Conference between Esopus Indians and Justices of the Peace, Sept. 7, 1741, JP, 1:15–16 (quote on 16). Chapter 5

  1.  Jeremias van Rensselaer to Johan van Wely and Jan Baptist van Renssselaer, Nov. 15, 1671, Correspondence of Jeremias van Rensselaer, ed. Van Laer, 448–49; John

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Pynchon to John Winthrop Jr., Dec. 11, 1671, Pynchon Papers, 1:102–3 (quote on 102).   2.  Directors to Stuyvesant, April 15, 1650, NYCD, 13: 27; Roger Williams to John Winthrop Jr., Oct. 25, 1649, Williams, Correspondence, 1:299; Meeting of the Commissioners, Sept. 1643, Records of New Plymouth, ed. Pulsifer, 9:11; Meeting of the Commissioners, Sept. 1646, ibid., 68   3.  Otto, 120; De Vries, NNN, 230–34. In CMVL: Order of the Director and Council, March 25, 1643, 189; Meeting with Long Island Indians, Apr. 15, 1644, 217; Meeting with Long Island Indians, May 24, 1645, 265–66. Gardiner, 25–27; Propositions made by the Indians of Long Island, Nov. 27, 1655, CMG, 144 –46. Oberg, “ ‘We Are All the Sachems,’ ” 478–99.   4.  Oberg, Dominion and Civility, 129–33; Records of New Plymouth, ed. Pulsifer, 10: Message of the Council of Massachusetts to the Sachems of the Narragansetts, Apr. 18, 1653, 4 –6; Answer of the Sachems of the Narragansetts, Apr. 1653, 6 –11; Meeting of the Commissioners, Apr. 1653, 9–11; Meeting of the Commissioners, Apr. 1653, 11–12; Stuyvesant to the Commissioners, May 26, 1653, 64; Meeting of the Commissioners, Apr. 1653, 22–24; Commissioners to Stuyvesant, May 2, 1653, 27–28.   5.  Meeting of the General Court, Aug. 23, 1654, Records of the Colony or Jurisdiction of New Haven, ed. Hoadley, 117–18 (quote 1 on 118). Records of New Plymouth, ed. Pulsifer, 10: Commissioners of the Richard Waite and John Barrell, Sept. 12, 1653, 88–90; Message from Ninegret, Sept. 16, 1653, 96; Report of the Commissioners,  Sept. 20, 1653, 96 –101; Meeting of the Commissioners, Sept. 12, 1654, 114 –15; Narrative of Simon Willard, Sept. 16, 1655, 145–48; Commissioners to Willard, Sept. 19, 1655, 148–49; Meeting of the Commissioners, Sept. 19, 1655, 149–50 (quote 2 on 150). Stuyvesant’s Opinion on the Foregoing Propositions, Nov. 10, 1655, CMG, 132–35.   6.  John Winthrop Jr. to John Richards, Nov. 3, 1658, WFP, reel 6 (quote 1); John Pynchon to Commissioners, Sept. 1659, Records of New Plymouth, ed. Pulsifer, 10:221–22 (quote 2).   7.  Propositions by the Long Island Indians, Nov. 27, 1655, CMG, 144 –46; Conference with Tapousagh, Sept. 2, 1660, NYCD, 14:480; Meeting of the Commissioners, Sept. 1660, Records of New Plymouth, ed. Pulsifer, 10:248–49; Council Minutes, July 20, 1663, NYCD, 13:280.   8.  Zeisberger, History, 33–35; Heckewelder, History, Manners and Customs, 47–56; Snow, “Migrations in Prehistory,” 59–79; Brumbach, “Algonquian and Iroquoian Ceramics”; Curtin, “Ancient Mohicans,” 6 –11.   9.  Van Wassenaer, NNN, 84; De Laet, NNN, 47; Account of the Territories, July 20, 1634, VRBM, 306; Trigger, “Mohawk-Mahican War,” 276 –86; Jennings, Ambiguous Iroquois Empire, 49–50; Richther, Ordeal, 55–56; Champlain, Works, 5:215E–216E; Starna and Brandãno, “From the Mohawk-Mahican War to the Beaver Wars,” 725–50; Calloway, Western Abenakis, 7. 10.  In NNN: Van Wassenaer, 89; Megapolensis, “Short Account,” Aug. 26, 1644, 172; “Journal of New Netherland, 1647,” 274. Account of the Territories, July 20, 1634, VRBM, 306; Dunn, Mohicans and Their Land, 99–112; Boyce, “Glimpse of Iroquois Culture History,” 290 (quote). 11.  Boyce, “Glimpse of Iroquois Culture History,” 290; Norton, Journal, 83–84; Jeremias van Rensselaer to Oloff van Cortlandt, Aug. 27, 1663, Correspondence of Jeremias van Rensselaer, ed. Van Laer, 327; Merritt, “Metaphor, Meaning, and

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Misunderstanding,” 60–87. In JP: Agreement between Mohawk and Stockbridge Indians, Sept. 30, 1768, 12:603–4; Speech of Deputies from the Six Nations, Dec. 1769 [?], 7:323–24 (quote on 323). 12.  JR, 26:35, 41:77, 109–14, 44:121; Propositions of the Mohawk Sachems, Nov. 19, 1655, ERA, 1:237. 13.  JR, 36:101 (quotes); Stuyvesant to the Council, Sept. 24, 1655, DPD, 40–41; Meeting of the Inhabitants of Rensselaerswyck, Sept. 21, 1650, Minutes of the Court of Rensselaerswyck, ed. Van Laer, 127–28; Meeting of the Court of Rensselaerswyck, Sept. 23, 1650, ibid., 128–29. 14.  Kent, Susquehanna’s Indians, 14 –35; Custer, “Late Woodland Cultures,” 116 –42; Lindeström, Per Lindeströms Resa, 135; Holm, Kort Beskrifning, 180–81. In Narratives, ed. Myers: Relation of Captain Thomas Yong, 1634, 37–49; Report of Governor Johan Printz, 1644, 101–4; Report of Governor Johan Rising, 1655, 159– 60. Schutt, Peoples of the River Valleys, 52–56. 15.  William Beeckman to Stuyvesant, Dec. 23, 1662, DPD, 313–14; Propositions of the Mohawk Sachems, Nov. 19, 1655, ERA, 1:237; Propositions of the Chiefs around Manhattan, July 19, 1649, CMVL, 607–9; Meeting with the Esopus Indians, Oct. 15–18, 1658, NYCD, 13:93–96; Proposals by the Esopus Indians, Sept. 4, 1659, NYCD, 13:106 –7; Kraft, Minisink Site, 88–89; Deed for Staten Island, July 10, 1657, NYCD, 14:393; Council Minutes, April 7–13, 1670, NYCD, 13:452–54; Deed for Staten Island, Apr. 22, 1670, NYCD, 13:455–57; Deed to John Archer, Mar. 4, 1670, Minutes of the Executive Council, ed. Paltsits, 1:212–14; Deed to Land West of the Hudson, May 19, 1671, Liber 1:115–16,  NJD. 16.  Kent, Susquehanna’s Indians, 17–18, 38–39; Jennings, “Susquehannock,” 362–65; JR, 45:202–6; Champlain, Works, 3:53E–55E. NYCD, 13: Meeting with the Esopus Indians, Oct. 15–18, 1658, 93–96; Jacob Jansen Stoll to Stuyvesant, Oct. 29, 1658, 96 –97; Proposals by Esopus sachems, Sept. 4, 1659, 106. 17.  Jennings, Ambiguous Iroquois Empire, 105–11; Brandão, “Your fyre,” 103–16; Directors to Stuyvesant and Council, Dec. 19, 1656, NYCD, 14: 371–75; Propositions of the Senecas, July 25, 1660, FOCM, 515–17. 18.  Beeckman to Stuyvesant, Sept. 20, 1659, DPD, 154; John Pynchon to the Commissioners of the United Colonies, Sept. 1659, Records of New Plymouth, ed. Pulsifer, 10:221–22; JR, 46:83–86; Propositions of the Senecas, July 25, 1660, FOCM, 515–17. 19.  In NYCD, 13: Dirck Smith to Stuyvesant, Oct. 20, 1659, 122–23; Treaty of Peace Renewed, 147–49; Conference with Chiefs of Several Nations, May 18, 1660, 166 –67. Beeckman to Stuyvesant, Apr. 28, 1660, DPD, 195. 20.  Deed for Land at Catskill, July 19, 1682, ERA, 2:161–62; Further Answer of the Mahicans, Catskills, and Esopus Indians, July 20, 1682, LIR, 67–68. In NYCD, 13: Declaration of Certain Catskill Indians, October [?], 119–21; Final Answer to the Mohawks, Sept. 24, 1659, NYCD, 13:112–14; John Pynchon to the Commissioners, Sept. 1659, Records of New Plymouth, ed. Pulsifer, 10:221–22. 21.  In NYCD, 13: La Montagne to Smith, Oct. 21, 123; Smith to Stuyvesant, Nov. 1, 1659, 126 –27; Smith to La Montagne, Nov. 13, 1659, 127. Stuyvesant to Van Rensselaer, Nov. 5, 1659, Correspondence of Jeremias van Rensselaer, ed. Van Laer, 186. 22.  Jennings, Ambiguous Iroquois Empire, 124. In NYCD, 13: Smith to Stuyvesant, April 24, 1660, 164; Instruction for Claes de Ruyter, May 5, 1660, 165–66; Smith to

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Stuyvesant, May 12, 1660, 166. In DPD: Letters from Beeckman to Stuyvesant, 1660: May 13, 200; May 25, 201; June 17, 203–4; June 30, 204. 23.  Jennings, Ambiguous Iroquois Empire, 124 –25; Journal of Stuyvesant’s Visit to the Esopus, July 7–31, 1660, NYCD, 13:181–84; Propositions of the Senecas, July 25, 1660, FOCM, 515–17. 24.  In NYCD, 13: Roeloff Swartwout to Stuyvesant, Sept. 5, 1662, 228–29; Journal of the Esopus War, July 4, 1663–Jan. 3, 1664, 324 –26, 333–38, 348–49, 350–53; Instructions for Cornelis van Ruyven, July 30, 1663, 284 –86; Council of War, Aug. 3, 1663, 287; Instructions for Pieter van Couwenhoven, Aug. 9, 1663, 288; Stuyvesant to Cregier, Aug. 14, 1663, 289; Stuyvesant to Couwenhoven, Oct. 21, 1663, 302; Stuyvesant to Cregier, Nov. 7, 1663, 302; Christian Niessen to Stuyvesant, Jan. 4, 1664, 354; Proposals of Several Chiefs, Mar. 25, 1664, 364 –65; Meeting with River and Staten Island Indians, July 10, 1663, 276 –77; Proposals of the Hackensacks, July 20, 1663, 280; Proposals of the Minisinks, Aug. 15, 1663, 289–90; Information Furnished by Oratamy, Aug. 30, 1663, 294; Proposals of the Minisinks, Mar. 6, 1664, 361–62. In DPD: Beeckman to Stuyvesant, Sept. 1, 1663, 334; Beeckman to Stuyvesant, Nov. 5, 1663, 337. 25.  NYCD, 13: Meeting with the Mohawks, Jan.22, 1661, 191; Magistrates of Orange to Stuyvesant, Jan. 29, 1661, 191–92; Instructions for Johan de Decker, June 19, 1663, 255–56; De Decker to Stuyvesant, June 29, 1663, 260–61; Report of the Indians Sent to Negotiate with Those of the Esopus, July 5 [?], 1663, 273–74; Stuyvesant to the Magistrates of Fort Orange, July 12, 1663, 277–78; La Montagne and Jeremias van Rensselaer to Stuyvesant, July 28, 1663, 283; Journal of the Esopus War, July 4, 1663–Jan. 3, 1664, 327–28. For Smits Jan: Extraordinary Court Session, Dec. 25, 1653, FOCM, 78; JR, 50:181; Perrot, 1:157–59, 199. 26.  In NYCD, 13: Magistrates of Orange to Stuyvesant, January 29, 1661, 191– 92; Journal of the Esopus War, July 4, 1663–Jan. 3, 1664, 337. In DPD: Letters from Beeckman to Stuyvesant: May 31, 1661, 233–34; July 10, 1661, 235–36; Oct. 26, 1661, 242–44; Feb. 20, 1662, 263–64; Nov. 24, 1662, 312; Dec. 23, 1662, 313–14; June 24, 1663, 323; Sept. 1, 1663, 334; Andries Hudde to Stuyvesant, May 29, 1663, 320–21. JR, 48:77–81. 27.  Calloway, Western Abenakis, 70–73. In NYCD, 13: Magistrates of Orange to Stuyvesant, January 29, 1661, 191–92; Council Minutes, July 24, 1662, 224; Meeting between the Mohawks and English Agents, Aug. 1, 1662, 224 –26; A True Relation of the Maques Coming to Penobscott Fort, Aug. 5, 1662, 226 –27; The Council to Fort Orange Authorities, Sept. 21, 1663, 296 –97; Fort Orange Court Minutes, Sept. 26 –27, 1663, 297–98; La Montagne and Van Rensselaer to Stuyvesant, Jan. 8, 1664, 355; Stuyvesant to the Courts of Orange and Rensselaerswyck, Jan. 21, 1664, 256; Proposals of the Mohawks, May 17, 1664, 378; Journal of Jan Dareth and Jacob Lockerman, May 19–28, 1664, 380–82; Fort Orange Court Minutes, July 12, 1664, 389. Van Rensselaer to Oloff van Cortlandt, July 17, 1664, Correspondence of Jeremias van Rensselaer, ed. Van Laer, 356; Pynchon to Winthrop, July 25, 1664, Pynchon Papers, 1:50–51. 28.  Journal of the Esopus War, July 4, 1663–Jan. 3, 1664, NYCD, 13:334, 337, 339. 29.  In NYCD, 13: Journal of the Esopus War, July 4, 1663–Jan. 3, 1664, 3:345– 46; Extraordinary Session, May [?] 1664, 379–80; Proposals made by both Courts at Fort Orange, May [?] 1664, 380; Journal of Jan Dareth and Jacob Lockerman,

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May 19–28, 1664, 380–82. Jeremias van Rensselaer to Jan Baptist van Rensselaer, July 26, 1664, Correspondence of Jeremias van Rensselaer, ed. Van Laer, 358. 30.  JR, 49:137–39; Articles between George Cartwright and the Iroquois, Sept. 24 –25, 1664, NYCD, 3:67–68 (quotes on 68). 31.  Winthrop to Williams Feb. 6, 1665, Williams, Correspondence, 2:531; John Pynchon to Winthrop, Mar. 2, 1665, Pynchon Papers, 1:54; Richard Nicolls to Winthrop, Oct. 8, 1665, WFP, reel 8; Meeting with Mohawk Chiefs, July 18–19, 1666, LIR, 29–31 (quote on 30). 32.  Richard Nicolls to Winthrop, Oct. 8, 1665, WFP, reel 8 (quote 1); Meeting with the sachems of Massapequa, Rockaway, Secatogue, and Mericoke, May 10, 1668, ROD, 3:39–40 (quote 2 on 39). 33.  Jennings, Ambiguous Iroquois Empire, 131–32. In DHNY, 1: Of the War and the Treaties of Peace of the French with the Iroquois, 64 –67; A Relation of the Governor of Cannada, 71–74. In NYCD, 3: Ratification of the Preceding Treaty by the Mohawks and Oneidas, July 12, 1666, 126 –27; Courelles to D’Hinse, July 2, 1666, 127. In LIR: Meeting with Mohawk Chiefs, July 18–19, 1666, 29–31; Meeting between envoys from Canada and the Mohawks, Aug. 3–5, 1666, 31–32; JR, 50:37–38, 138–45, 180–83, 191–95, 210–11; Perrot, 1:200–201; Pynchon to Richard Bellingham, July 11, 1666, Pynchon Papers, 1:58–59. 34.  Richard Nicolls to John Winthrop, Aug. 20, 1666, WFP, reel 8. In LIR: Proposal of the Ambassadors of Hartford and Springfield. Aug. 16, 1666, 33; Answer of the Chief of the Mohawks, Aug. 17, 1666, 33–34; Peace between the Mohawks and Mahicans, Sept. 10, 1666, 34 –35. Pynchon to Winthrop, Jan. 25, 1667, Pynchon Papers, 1:71–73 (quote on 72); Pynchon to Winthrop, Jan. 12, 1667, Pynchon Papers, 1:70–71. 35.  Nicolls to Winthrop, Jan. 25, 1665, WFP, reel 7; Nicolls to Winthrop, Feb. 23, 1665, “Trumbull Papers,” 64 (quotes). Pynchon Papers, 1: Pynchon to Winthrop, Mar. 2, 1665, 53–54; Pynchon to Winthrop, July 20, 1671, 93–95. JR, 49:139. 36.  JR, 51:179, 189, 203, 238–49, 52:121. WFP, reel 9: Nicolls to Winthrop, July 20, 1667; John Halle to Winthrop, 1669 (quote 1); John Baker to Winthrop, May 20, 1668 (quote 2). 37.  Francis Lovelace to Winthrop, Feb. 26, 1669, WFP, reel 9 (quotes). In NYCD, 13: Lovelace to the Magistrates at Esopus, Feb. 24, 1669, 423; Lovelace to Albany Magistrates, July 26, 1669, 427; By order of Lovelace to Albany Magistrates, Aug. 13, 1669 [New Style: Aug. 23], 428. JR, 53:135–14; Gookin, Historical Collections, 26 –27; Lovelace to John Winthrop Jr., Sept. 22, 1669, WFP, reel 9. 38.  Lovelace to Henry Pawling, July 25, 1669, NYCD, 13:427 (quote 1); Lovelace to Albany Magistrates, July 26, 1669, ibid. (quote 2). JR, 53:154 –58, 243 (quote 3). 39.  NYCD, 13: Lovelace to Albany Magistrates, July 26, 1669, 427; Lovelace to Albany Magistrates, Oct. 13, 1669, 439; Mathias Nicolls to Albany Magistrates, Oct. 29, 1669, 439; Lovelace to Winthrop, Dec. 29, 1669, 439–40. Lovelace to Winthrop, Sept. 22, 1669, WFP, reel 9 (quote); Pynchon to Winthrop, Apr. 10, 1670, Pynchon Papers, 1:84 –85. 40.  Kent, Susquehanna’s Indians, 45; JR, 56:55–57; Lovelace to Albany Magistrates, Jan. 24, 1670, NYCD, 13:440; Instructions for Thomas Delavall and Dudley Lovelace, Apr. 11, 1670, GENL, 328; Council Minutes, Oct. 30, 1671, NYCD, 13:460; Van

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Rensselaer to Johan van Wely and Jan Baptist van Rensselaer, Nov. 15, 1671, Correspondence of Jeremias van Rensselaer, ed. Van Laer, 448–49; Pynchon to Winthrop, Dec. 11, 1671, Pynchon Papers, 1:102–3. 41.  Winthrop to Nicolls, July 11, 1665, WFP, reel 8. 42.  In NYCD, 13: Journal of the Esopus War, July 4, 1663–Jan. 3, 1664, 323–54; Conference with the Chiefs of Hackensack and Staten Island, Dec. 28, 1663, 320– 21; Proposals of the Chiefs of Hackensack and Staten Island, Dec. 29, 1663, 321–22; Stuyvesant to Cregier, Dec. 29, 1663, 323; Proposals of Oratam and the Chiefs of Staten Island, Feb. 23, 1664, 361; Stuyvesant to the Directors, April 26, 1664, 372–73. Van Rensselaer to Anna van Rensselaer, Apr. 24, 1664, Correspondence of Jeremias van Rensselaer, ed. Van Laer, 349. KP, 1: Court of Wiltwyck to Nicolls, Dec. 1, 1664, 181; Burgher and War Council, Jan. 28, 1665, 202; Session of the Court and the Burgher Council of War, July 7, 1665, 241–42. 43.  In NYCD, 13: Journal of the Esopus War, July 4, 1663–Jan. 3, 1664, 328; Stuyvesant to the Directors, July 21, 1661, 204 –6; Richter, Ordeal, 64, 114; Brandão, “Your fyre,”153–58. Chapter 6

  1.  Meeting between Mohawks and River Indians, May 28, 1756, JP, 9:463–67 (quotes 1–2 on 464; quote 3 on 464 –65).   2.  William Johnson to William Shirley, Apr. 22, 1756, JP, 9:437–40 (quote on 440); Johnson to John Bradstreet, May 17, 1769, JP, 6:760–62; “Claims of Col. John Bradstreet to Lands in America,” 167.   3.  Pynchon to Winthrop Jr., Dec. 14, 1671, Pynchon Papers, 1:104 –5; Pynchon to Winthrop Jr., Jan. 6, 1672, Pynchon Papers, 1:105–7; JR, 57:78–81. LIR: Proposal of Mohawk Chiefs, July 21, 1672, 35–36; Proposals by the Chiefs of the Mahicans, Feb. 14, 1675, 37–38 (quote on 37).   4.  Pynchon to the Albany Authorities, Sept. 8, 1675, Pynchon Papers, 1:150–51; Meeting with the Esopus Indians, July 15, 1675, KP, 2:534; Meeting with Hackensack and Tappan Indians, July 23, 1675, AP, 1:195–96.   5.  General Court of Assizes, Oct. 6 –13, 1675, Minutes of the Common Council, 1:2–3 (quotes on 2); Minutes of a Meeting with Long Island Indians, Oct. 23, 1675, AP, 1:238; Passport for Sachem Tackpousha and Forty of his People, Aug. 22, 1670, GENL, 366; Council Meeting, Oct. 24, 1675, CM, 3(2):66; Extraordinary Court Session, Sept. 4, 1675, ARSCM, 2:16 –17; Andros to Brockholes, Oct. 17, 1675, GEADB, 79–80; Andros to the Governor of Maryland, Oct. 21, 1675, GEADB, 84.   6.  Pulsipher, Subjects unto the Same King, 130–32; Extraordinary Court Session, Dec. 6, 1675, ARSCM, 2:48–49; Andros to Deputy Governor William Leet of Connecticut, Jan. 6, 1676, Public Records, ed. Trumbull, 2:397; Andros to the Council of Connecticut, Jan. 20, 1676, ibid., 2:404; Statement of Thomas Warner, Feb. 25, 1676, AP, 1:330–31; Orders to Gerrit Tenuise, March 4, 1676, AP, 1:337; Account by Sir Edmund Andros of His Administration from October 1674 to November 1677, AP, 2:485–89; Andros to Willis and Pitkin, Apr. 10, 1676, Public Records, ed. Trumbull, 2:436.   7.  Council Meeting, Oct. 24, 1675, CM, 3(2):69–70; Meeting between the Mahicans and Other River Indians by John Pynchon and James Richards, Apr. 24,

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1677, LIR, 39–40. In AP, 1: Statement of Thomas Warner, Feb. 25, 1676, 330–31; Meeting with Wickerscreek Sachems, Apr. 14, 1676, 352–53; Meeting with Long Island Sachems, Apr. 17, 1676, 354 –55.   8.  Hubbard, Present State of New England, 110; Order by Governor Andros, Mar. 27, 1676, GEADB, 139. In Public Records, ed. Trumbull, 2: Council of Connecticut to Andros, July 20, 1676, 2:466 –67; William Jones to Governor William Leete, Aug. 19, 1676, 470–71 (quote on 470); Examination of Menowniett, Aug. 1676, 471–72. In NYCD, 3: For Paquiage: Grumet, Munsee Indians, 145. For Poughquag: Beauchamp, Aboriginal Place-Names, 56.   9.  Jennings, Invasion of America, 314 –26; Maria van Rensselaer to Jan van Wely and Jan Baptist van Rensselaer, Nov. 1675 [?], Correspondence of Maria van Rensselaer, ed. Van Laer, 13–16. In AP: Minutes of a Meeting with Wickers Creek Sachems, Apr. 14, 1676, 1:352–53; Andros to the Authorities at Albany, July 12, 1677, 2: 72–73; Propositions by the Oneidas, Dec. 20, 1677, 2:182–83; Response of Capt. Salisbury and the Albany Magistrates to the Oneidas, Dec. 21, 1677, 2:184. In NYCD, 13: Council Meeting, June 6, 1677, 507–8; Council Meeting, June 11, 1677, 508; Council Meeting, July 16, 1677, 510. Pass to Two Mahicans, July 25, 1677, GEADB, 166. 10.  Nicolls to Winthrop, Feb. 23, 1665, “Trumbull Papers,” 64; Journal of Count de Frontenac’s Voyage to Lake Ontario in 1673, NYCD, 9:110; JR, 54:75; 59:251; 60:173; Jennings, “Glory, Death, and Transfiguration,” 29–35; Kent, Susquehanna’s Indians, 46 –53. 11.  Grumet, Munsee Indians, 135; Passport to Maverino, June 28, 1675, GEADB, 47. In AP, 1: Visit of a Party of Wappingers, June 28, 1675, 178; Meeting with Neversink Sachems, April 20, 1675, 131–33. Jennings, “Glory, Death, and Transfiguration,” 36 –50, Kent, Susquehanna’s Indians, 53–60; Zimmerman, “European Trade Relations,” 57–68; Becker, “Cultural Diversity,” 90–101. 12.  Jennings, Ambiguous Iroquois Empire, 145–71; Richter, Ordeal, 134 –38. 13.  Message to the Esopus Indians, Apr. 21, 1675, KP, 2:532. 14.  Answer of the magistrates, Feb. 26, 1690, DHNY, 2:167–69; Proposals of the Albany Authorities to the Five Nations, May 3, 1690, NYCD, 3:713; Propositions of the Senecas to the Mahicans that came last year from Ottawa, Sept. 2, 1691, NYCD, 3:808–9 (quotes 1–2 on 809); Zeisberger, History, 34 –35; Conference Between the Great and General Court of the Masachusetts Bay and the Delegates of the Six Nations of Iroquoize with the Mohegans and Scattacook Indians, Aug. 22-Sept. 13, MAC, 29:132–46 Answer from the River Indians to a Message from the Five Nations, Aug., 1747, LPC, 3:415–17; Speech of Stockbridge Indians to the Mohawks, 1747 [?], JP, 1:125–26; Aupaumut in Jones, Stockbridge, 18 (quotes 3–4); Meetings with Oneidas and River Indians, Sept. 15, 1757, JP, 9:833; Meeting with Oneidas and River Indians, Sept. 16, 1757, JP, 9:837; Tooker, “League of the Iroquois,” 428. 15.  Propositions of the Mohawk sachems, Feb. 25, 1690, DHNY, 2:164 –67; Answer of the magistrates, Feb. 26, 1690, DHNY, 167–70 (quote 2 on 170); Propositions made to the Schaghticoke Indians, July 6, 1703, LIR, 188–89; Meeting between the Mahicans and Other River Indians by John Pynchon and James Richards, Apr. 24, 1677, LIR, 39–40; Council Meeting, June 6, 1677, NYCD, 13:507–8; Council Meeting, July 16, 1677, NYCD, 13:510; Propositions by the Oneidas, Dec. 20, 1677, AP, 2:182–83. 16.  Richter, Ordeal, 133–61; Conference with Minisink and Tappan Indians, Aug. 7, 1686, CM, 5:163. The extent of fire damage to this document makes

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this reading somewhat uncertain. Governor Dongan’s Propositions to the Schaghticoke Indians, 1687, LIR, 130; Instructions for Arnout Cornelise and Akus Cornelis, Nov. 24, 1687, LIR, 140–43. 17.  Proposals of the Albany Authorities to the Five Nations, May 3, 1690, NYCD, 3:712–14 (quote on 713); Propositions of the Mohawk sachems, Feb. 25, 1690, DHNY, 2:164 –67; Answer of the magistrates, Feb. 26, 1690, DHNY, 2:167–70; Civil and Military Officers at Albany to the Commander-in-Chief, Dec. 30, 1691, NYCD, 3:814 –16; Conference with the River Indians, Dec. 4, 1696, NYCD, 4:248. 18.  Richter, “Cultural Brokers,” 40–67. 19.  Comparative Population of Albany and of the Indians in 1689 and 1698, Apr. 19, 1698, NYCD, 4:337; Answer of the River Indians to Lord Cornbury, July 20, 1702, NYCD, 4:990–92; Answer of the Schaghticoke Indians, July 7, 1703, LIR, 189–90; Brandão and Starna, “Treaties of 1701,” 209–44. In NYCD, 5: Propositions by the Mahicans, Aug. 10, 1711, 266 –67; Propositions of the Schaghticokes, Aug. 17, 1711, 265–66; Proposals of the Sachems of the Five Nations, Aug. 24, 1711, 269–70. 20.  NYCD, 9: Propositions Submitted by Mr Talon to Messrs de Tracy and de Courcelles, Sept. 1, 1666, 52–53; Extracts of the Memoir Addressed by Mr Duchesneau, Nov. 10, 1679, 137; Memoir Respecting Canada, Jan. 1690, 445–46; Plan of an Expedition against Boston and Manatte, Jan. 20, 1697, 660. Journal of events after the attack on Schenectady, Feb. 11–13, 1690, DHNY, 2:157–59. 21.  In DHNY, 2: Council Minutes, Apr. 5, 1690, 237; Council Minutes, Apr. 19, 1690, 237; Council Minutes, Mar. 26, 1690, 236; Meeting of the Albany Convention, Sept. 17, 1689, 93; Meeting of the Convention, Sept. 23, 1689, 97. For Iroquois complaint against Minisinks: Peter Schuyler to the Council, Sept. 16, 1692, LIR, 168. For Housatonic Indians: Memorandum of a Meeting between the Wawyachtenokse Indians and Robert Livingston, Jan. 24, 1687, LIR, 108–9. 22.  CP: Orders to Colonels Rutzen and De Meyer, May 19, 1709, 53:73; Order to the Sheriff of Suffolk, June 21, 1709, 53:100; Memorandum, June 23, 1711, 55:42; Commission to Garret Viele, June 27, 1711, 55:54; Governor Hunter to the Commissioners of Indian Affairs, July 4, 1711, 55:83; Samuel Clowes to Secretary Clarke, Aug. 18, 1711, 56:48. In NYCD, 5: Propositions by the Mahicans, Aug. 10, 1711, 267; Proposals of the Sachems of the Five Nations, Aug. 24, 1711, 269–70. 23.  Meeting with the Indians, May 10, 1693, CRP, 1:372–73; Journal of Capt. Arent Schuyler’s Visit to Minisink Country, Feb. 3–10, 1694, NYCD, 4:98–99 (quote on 98); Jennings, Ambiguous Iroquois Empire, 200–203. 24.  Council Minutes, Apr. 2, 1691, CM, 6:10–11; Council Meeting, June 3, 1691, CP, 37:153; Major Peter Schuyler’s Journal of his Expedition to Canada, June 21–Aug. 9, 1691, NYCD, 3:800–805; Council Minutes, July 7, 1691, CM, 6:33 (quote); Affidavits Concerning the Agreement of Andros with the Indians, Aug. 14, 1689, NYCD, 3:659. 25.  Andros to Cantwell, Apr. 30, 1675, GEADB, 37–38; Answer of the Five Nations to Governor Dongan, Aug. 6, 1687, NYCD, 3:444. 26.  In LIR: Answer of the Schaghticoke Indians, July 7, 189–90; Propositions of the Schahgticoke Indians, Sept. 24, 1703, 191; Charles Huddy to Col. Ingoldsby, Feb. 27, 1713. J. Lynch, “Iroquois Confederacy,” 90–97; Vest, “Odyssey among the

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Iroquois,” 124 –55; Hunter, “Refugee Fox Settlements,” 11–20; Propositions of the Schaghticoke Indians, Apr. 20, 1714, CP, 59:44 (quote). 27.  Grumet, “King of New Jersey,” 223–30; Council Meeting, Apr. 28, 1728, CRP, 3:295–98. 28.  Land Papers, ed. Gehring: Deed for Land on the Hudson, Aug. 6, 1630, 2–3; Deed for Land on the Hudson, 1631, 4. Account of the Territories, July 20, 1634, VRBM, 306; Dunn, Mohicans and Their Land, 99–112. Council Minutes, Oct. 30, 1671, NYCD, 13:460 (quote). 29.  ERA: Deed to Schenectady, July 27, 1661, 1:373; Deed from Mohawk Sachems, July 26, 1683, 2:195–97; Deed from Mohawks, May 8, 1685, 2:276 –77 (quote on 277). 30.  In ALG: Deed to Land in Albany County, Feb. 5, 1718, 6:184; Deed to Land in Albany County, Aug. 7, 1734, 11:104; Petition of the Chiefs of the Schoharie Mohawks, 1734 [?], 11:106 (quotes 1–3). Johnson to John Bradstreet, May 17, 1769, JP, 6:760–62 (quote 4 on 761). 31.  Jennings, “Delaware Indians in the Covenant Chain,” 156 –57, 171–95. 32.  Richter, Ordeal, 271–76. JP: John Wetherhead to Johnson, Dec. 18, 1769, 7:303–4; Congress at Fort Stanwix, Sept. 15–Oct. 30, 1768, 12:618; Agreement between Mohawk and Stockbridge Indians, Sept. 30, 1768, 12:603–4. 33.  Meeting of the Mohawks at Fort Johnson, Mar. 26, 1756, NYCD, 7:96 (quote); Instructions for Jacobus Clement, Apr. 8, 1756, ibid. 34.  Hopkins, Historical Memoirs, 87–88; At a Conference Held at Deerfield, Aug. 27–Sept. 1, 1735; Wraxall, Abridgement, 220–21, 223 (quote), 233. 35.  In MOA: Entry, May 21, 1744, Gottlieb Büttner, Shekomeko Journal, May 12–June 23, 1744, box 112, folder 19, item 4; Entries Apr. 23–29, 1745, Shekomeko Diary, Dec. 1739–July 1746, box 111, folder 1. Answer from the River Indians to a Message from the Five Nations, Aug., 1747, LPC, 3:415–17 (quote on 415); William Shirley to the Lords of Trade, Aug. 10, 1744, Shirley, Correspondence,1:138–39; Shannon, Iroquois Diplomacy, 115–24; Frazier, Mohicans of Stockbridge, 73–75. 36.  In CRP, 4: Council Meeting, May 19, 1740, 413; Council Meeting, May 20, 1740, 420–21; Council with the Indians at Philadelphia, Aug. 6, 1740, 446 –47 (quotes on 447); Treaty with the Six Nations at Philadelphia, July 2–12, 1742, 573–74. 37.  Council Meeting, Jan. 28, 1684, CM, 5:43 (quote). In NYCD: Propositions by Governor Hunter to the River Indians and Schaghticokes, Aug. 17, 1710, 5:222–23; Meeting with Schaghticoke Sachems, Aug. 20, 1710, 228; Meeting with the River Indians, Aug. 31, 1700, 4:743–45; Propositions of the River Indians, July 18, 1701, 4:903; Meeting with the Schaghticokes, Sept. 13, 1726, 5:798–99. Council Meeting, Aug. 4, 1746, CM, 21:180; Colden, History, 182. 38.  Petition of Jacob Rutsen and the Justices of Ulster County, May 10, 1717, CP, 60:163; Petition of Anna Grevenraede and Martha Simmons, May 16, 1717, CP, 60:165; Council Minutes, Aug. 4, 1746, CM, 21:180; Council Minutes, July 5, 1744, CM, 19:262. William M. Beauchamp located Pekkemeck in Kings County, but apparently only because the petitioners lived in that area, which does not mean that the sachem who hosted the fugitives did. Beauchamp, Aboriginal Place-Names, 100. 39.  Frazier, Mohicans of Stockbridge, 82–93; Joseph Dwight and Timothy Woodbridge to Francis Bernard, Apr. 20, 1762, MAC, 33:201 (quotes); Bernard to Cadwallader Colden, May 1, 1762, LPC, 6:157–58.

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40.  Heckewelder, History, Manners, and Customs, xxvii–xxxvi, 55–61 (quote on 61); Speeches of the Scahghticokes and River Indians, July 8, 1754, NYCD, 6:880–82. 41.  Wraxall, Abridgement, 60 (quote 1); Conference with the Sachems of the Six Nations, Oct. 8–9, 1745, NYCD, 6:292–96 (quotes 2–3); Hinderaker, Two Hendricks, 159. Chapter 7

  1.  Meeting with Indian Sachems, Apr. 17, 1700, CM, 8:149.   2.  CM: Conference with Minisinks and Tappans, Aug. 7, 1686, 5:163; Council Meeting, Apr. 2, 1691, 6:10–11. AP: Meeting with Sachems from Rockaway, Hackensack, and Tappan, Sept. 18, 1675, 1:202–3; Meeting with Minisinks, Sept. 12, 1681, 3:539–41. Danckaerts, Journal, 152–53.   3.  Wolley, Two Years’ Journal, 65.   4.  Danckaerts, Journal, 129, 235, 277; Council Minutes, Jan. 28, 1684, CM, 5:43 (quote 1); Propositions made by the River Indians living at Schaghticoke, Dec. 21, 1685, LIR, 95–96 (quote 2). In NYCD: Answer of the Five Nations to Governor Sloughter, June 2, 1691, 3:777–78; Propositions of the Senecas, Sept. 2, 1691, 3:808– 9; Narrative of the Most Remarkable Occurrences in Canada, Nov. 1689–Nov. 1690, 9:490. Grumet, “ ‘We Are Not So Great Fools,’ ” 131–71; Grumet, “Suscaneman,” 122.   5.  Hawkins, Historical Notices, 281 (quote); Joseph Bishop and Samuel Couch to the General Assembly, Oct. 1720, Indians, series 1, I:92a-b, CTA; Hamilton, Gentleman’s Progress, 172; Council Meeting, Mar. 16, 1756, NJA, 17:4 –5; Deposition of Margery West, Sept. 25, 1756, LPC, 5:94 –97; Grumet, “Suscaneman,” 131-32.   6.  Deed to Land at Massapequa, Apr. 20, 1707, OBTR, 3:255–57; Extract from Indian Deed, 1711, OBTR, 5:690–91; Hawk, “Revitalization of the Matinnecock Indian Tribe,” 41–87; Horton, “Journal,” 195–220; Callender and Vaux, “Extracts from the Diary,” 443; Drinker, Extracts from the Journal, 26; Indian Deed, Feb. 2, 1762, Huntington Town Records, ed. Street, 2:450–51; Grumet, “Suscaneman,” 131–32.   7.  Hawk, “Revitalization of the Matinnecock Indian Tribe,” 41–43; Boyce, “Glimpse of Iroquois Culture,” 191.   8.  Kraft, “Late Woodland Settlement Patterns,”102; Grumet, “Minisink Settlements,” 184 –99; Council Meeting, Sept. 27, 1727, CRP, 3:285–87; George Croghan’s Conference with the Indians, Mar.29–May 21, 1757, JP, 9:728; Witthoft and Hunter, “Seventeenth-Century Origins of the Shawnee,” 51 (quote); Journal Entry, Oct. 16, 1772, Zeisberger, Moravian Mission Diaries, 114; Indian Deed to Land in Orange and Ulster Counties, June 11, 1703, Indian Land Deeds, 1639–1787, Ayer MS 404, folder 11, Newberry Library, Chicago; Indian Deed to Arent Schuyler, June. 6, 1695, Liber E:306 –7, NJD.   9.  Reading, “Journal,” 10:2 (1915), 104 –6; Survey-field book of surveyor John Harrison, June 28–July 8, 1719, Stevens Family Papers, box 40, folder 2, NJHS; Thomas Bartow, Map of the Fishkill or the Northern Branch of Delaware, 1719, Special Collections and University Archives, Rutgers University Libraries; Tripartite Indenture, July 5, 1719, NJA, 4:394 –99; Surveyor Journal of James Lawrence when running the Division Line between East and West Jersey, September and October 1743, Manuscript Group 210, NJHS (quote); Joseph Sauthier, Map of New York,

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1779, DHNY, 1; Indian Deed to Land in Ulster and Orange Counties, Aug. 2, 1746, ALG, 40:126. 10.  Lenik, Indians in the Ramapos, 45–51; Number of Inhabitants of the Counties of New York, 1698, NYCD, 4:420; Census of New York Province, 1723, NYCD, 5:702; Edwards, Memoirs, 145 (quote 1); Reading, “Journal,” 10:2 (1915), 109–10 (quote on 2 on 109). 11.  Meeting of a Committee of the Council, Jan. 17, 1746, CM, 21:71; Argument about the Boundaries of Evans’ and Other Patents, c. 1765, LPC, 9:193–98; Deed to Adolph Philipse, Aug. 13, 1702, reproduced in Pelletreau, History of Putnam County, 18; Deed to Land in Orange and Ulster Counties, Oct. 8, 1712, Recorded Indian Treaties and Deeds, 2:144 –46, NYSA; Affidavit of Ebenezer Holly, May 30, 1785, Proceedings to Determine the Boundaries, 17; Meeting with Nappaner and River Indians, June 9, 1719, CM, 11:607–9. 12.  Meeting with the Esopus Sachems, June 2, 1712, Minutes Common Pleas/ Sessions Court/Justices of the Peace Meetings, 1711/12–1720, 101BC (quote 1); “Claims of Col. John Bradstreet to Lands in America,” 153–81; Sauthier, Map of New York, DHNY, 1. In ALG: Deed to Land in Ulster and Albany Counties, June 6, 1746, 40:126; Deed to Land in Ulster and Orange Counties, Aug. 2, 1746, 40:126 (quote 3); Affidavit of William Cuddebeck, Jan. 21, 1771, 28:72; Affidavit of Peter Kockindal, Jan. 21, 1771, 28:72; Affidavit of Johannes Decker, Dec. 15, 1771, 40:152 (quote 2). Robert Grumet’s research alerted me to Hekan’s role in both sales: Grumet, Munsee Indians, 221. Grumet further suggests that Ankerop II was identical to Hendrick Hekan, but according to the information cited above, Ankerop was listed as Esopus chief sachem from 1709, while Sandor is recorded to have held this position in 1743 and 1745. Hekan appears as chief sachem in 1746. The fact that various witnesses often contradicted each other means that the location of these Esopus settlements is to some extent based on conjecture. 13.  Deed to Land in Ulster and Albany Counties, June 6, 1746, 40:126; Sauthier, Map of New York, DHNY, 1. In LPC: Cadwallader Colden to Peter Collinson, Nov. 13, 1742, 2:278; Deposition of Margery West, Sept. 25, 1756, 5:94 –97. Report of the Road Commissioners of Ulster County, Mar. 20, 1729, Road Commissioners, Records, 2:126; Diamond, “Marbletown and Nachte Jan,” 67–84. 14.  Pulsipher, Subjects unto the Same King, 134 –59; Court Session, Aug. 4, 1683, ARSCM, 3:369–71; Anthony Brockholes to William Leete, Apr. 16, 1678, AP, 2:292–93; Salisbury to Brockholes, July 11, 1678, AP, 2:433–34. Complaint of Uncas, Cassinamon, and others, May 13, 1680, Indians, series 1, I:39a, CTA (quote 1).  In Pynchon Papers, 1: Pynchon to Simon Bradstreet, Dec. 2, 1691, 236 –38 (quote 2 on 237); Pynchon to Bradstreet, Jan. 5, 1692, 239–40; Meeting between Samuel Partridge and Indians Come from Albany, Jan. 18, 1692, 243–45; Pynchon to Isaac Addington, May 20, 1692, 253–57; Pynchon to Addington, June 28, 1693, 269–71; Pynchon to Sir William Phips, July 12, 1693, 273–75; Pynchon to Phips, July 29, 1693, 276 –79. Propositions by the Schaghticoke Indians, Jan. 14, 1697, CP, 41:25 (quote 4). Spady, “As if in a Great Darkness,” 183–97. 15.  Meeting between Albany Officials and the Governor, Aug. 20, 1678, AP, 2:477–78. in NYCD, 3: Examination of Magsigpen, Sept. 15, 1688, 561–62 (quote on 562); Examination of Jon Roise, Sept. 25, 1688, 563; Examination of Dirck Wessell, Sept. 25, 1688, 564.

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16.  Jennings, “Glory, Death, and Transfiguration,” 44 –45. In LIR: Proposal of Philemon Lloyd and Henry Coursey to the Mahicans, Esopus Indians, and Catskill Indians, July 19, 1682, 65–66; Answer of the Mahicans, Catskill Indians, and Esopus Indians, July 19, 1682, 66; Further Answer of the Mahicans, Catskills, and Esopus Indians, July 20, 1682, 67–68. 17.  Further Answer of the Mahicans, Catskills, and Esopus Indians, July 20, 1682, LIR, 67–68. ERA, 2: Deed for Land at Catskill, July 19, 1682, 161–62; Indians Deed to Land at Catskill, July 26, 1684, 225–26. AP, 2: Father Bruyas to Salisbury, July 13, 1678, 439; Salisbury to Brockholes, July 15, 1678, 441–42. Brockholes to Salisbury, July 28, 1678, NYCD, 13:527–28; Meeting with Esopus Sachems, March 20, 1711, 101BC. For Atharacton: Revs. Megapolensis and Drisius to the Classis of Amsterdam, Aug. 5, 1657, NNN, 398. 18.  Le Clercq, First Establishment of the Faith, 2:157–61; Mohawk Discourse at Schenectady, Sept. 7, 1687, LIR, 136 –37. NYCD: Information furnished by Nanning Harmentse and Others, Sept. 7, 1687, 3:436 –37; Governor Dongan’s Propositions to the Five Nations, Aug. 5, 1687, 3:438–41; Answer of the Five Nations to Governor Dongan, Aug. 6, 1687, 3:441–44; Peter Schuyler to Dongan, Sept. 7, 1687, 3:482; Propositions of the Senecas to the Mahicans that came last year from Ottawa, Sept. 2, 1691, 3:808–9; Col. Romer’s Account of his Visit to Onondaga, Oct. 5, 1700, NYCD, 4:800. Aupaumut, Journal, 2–3 (quote on 3); Aupaumut, “Sketch of the Western Indians,” 58–59; Brasser, Riding on the Frontier’s Crest, 22–25. 19.  Witthoft and Hunter, “Seventeenth-Century Origins,” 42–57; Hanna, Wilderness Trail, 135–42. In CP: Message to the Shawnees who have come to Pennsylvania and their Answer, Aug. 14, 1692, 38:165; Petition of Arent Schuyler, Aug. 14, 1692, 38:166; Meeting with Shawnees and Mahicans, Aug. 28, 1694, 39:188. In CM: Council Meeting, Aug. 18, 1692, 6:116; Council Meeting, Aug. 19, 1692, 6: 117; Council Meeting, Aug. 22, 1692, 6:118; Meeting with Shawnees and River Indians, Sept. 17, 1692, 6:130–31. Meeting with Shawnees and River Indians, Sept. 17, 1692, Photostats of Council Minutes, Box 1, folder 2, NYSA. In NYCD, 4: Peter Schuyler’s Answer to the Five Nations, Feb. 6, 1694, 490; Journal of Capt. Arent Schuyler’s Visit to Minisink Country, Feb. 3–10, 1694, 98–99. For Reading in 1715: Reading “Journal,” 10:1 (1915), 35–46. For 1719: Reading, “Journal,” 10:2 (1915), 90–110. Jennings, Ambiguous Iroquois Empire, 306 –7. 20.  Heckewelder, History, Manners, and Customs, 86. In Minutes Common Pleas/ Sessions Court/Justices of the Peace Meetings, 1711/12–1720, 101BC: Meeting with the Esopus Sachems, June 2, 1712 (quote 1–2); Meeting with the Esopus Sachems, June 30, 1712 (quote 4 –5). Council Meeting, July 3, 1712, CM, 11:115–16. 21.  Dowd, Spirited Resistance, 24; Calloway, Shawnees, 7–14; Pearson, “Savannah and Shawnee,” 183–93. For Tuscarora War: Gallay, Indian Slave Trade, 210–11, 265–66. In CRP, 2: Council Meeting, July 22, 1707, 402–6; Council Meeting, June 16, 1710, 533–34. Council Meeting, July 3, 1712, CM, 11:115–116 (quote on 116); Fenton, Great Law and the Longhouse, 382–86. 22.  Council Meeting, June 10, 1712, Photostats of Council Minutes, box 2, folder 6 (quote 1), NYSA; Council Meeting, June 24, 1712, Journals of the Legislative Council, 340 (quote 2); Meeting with the Esopus Sachems, June 30, 1712, Minutes Common Pleas/Sessions Court/Justices of the Peace Meetings, 1711/12–1720, 101BC (quote 3); Council Meeting, Aug. 3, 1713, Photostats of Council Minutes,

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box 2, folder 6, NYSA; Richter, Ordeal, 237–41; Gallay, Indian Slave Trade, 267–68, 283–86. Wraxall, Abridgement of Indian Affairs, 92–93. 23.  Council Meeting, July 16, 1714, Journals of the Legislative Council, 367 (quote 1); Meeting with River Indians, July 31, 1714, CM, 11:261–62; Meeting of the Court of Justices of Ulster County and the Esopus Indians, Aug. 5–6, 1714, 101BC (quote 2); Meeting with the Mahicans and Schaghticokes, Sept. 27, 1714, NYCD, 5:387–89 (quote 3 on 389); Wraxall, Abridgement of Indian Affairs, 98–99. 24.  Answer of the River Indians to Governor Burnet, Aug. 31, 1722, NYCD, 5:662–64; Meeting of the Supervisors, Aug. 9, 1722, Supervisors of Dutchess County, Book of the Supervisors, 52; Meeting of Supervisors, Dec. 17, 1722, Supervisors of Ulster County, Minutes; Calloway, Western Abenakis, 114 –31; Propositions of Governor Burnet to the Sachems of Schaghticoke, Sept. 19, 1724, NYCD, 5:721–723; JR, 67:241; Council Meeting, May 9, 1723, CM, 14:152b-152c. 25.  Meeting with River Indians, Oct. 5, 1728, NYCD, 5:868–70 (quote 1 on 869); Meeting of the Court of Justices of the Peace, June 22, 1728, 101BC. In CRP, 3: Council Meeting, Sept. 27, 1727, 285–87; Council Meeting, May 10, 1728, 302–3; Council Meeting, May 15, 1728, 303–7; Council with the Indians at Conestoga, May 26 –27, 1728, 3:10–14; Council Meeting, June 3, 1728, 315; Treaty with the Delawares, June 4 –5, 1728, 316 –26; Council Meeting, Sept. 1, 1728, 329–31; Meeting with the Indians, Oct. 10–11, 1728, 335 (quote 2). Grumet, “King of New Jersey,” 228–29. 26.  Names and Personal Notices of Christian Indians Buried at Bethlehem, Memorials of the Moravian Church, ed. Reichel, 146, 150, 153, 154; List of Baptized Indians, MOA, 319.1, folder 1. 27.  Folts, “Westward Migration of the Munsee Indians,” 31–47; Council Meeting, Sept. 27, 1727, CRP, 3:285–87; Treaty with the Delawares at Philadelphia, June 4 –5, 1728, CRP, 3:316 –26; McConnell, Country Between, 5–45. 28.  Council Meeting, Dec. 10, 1750, CRP, 5:489–90; Sauthier, Map of New York, DHNY, 1. 29.  Ruttenber, History of the Indian Tribes, 84 –85. This account of the 1746 belt follows Robert Grumet. See Grumet, “ ‘We Are Not So Great Fools,’ ” 96; Grumet, “Nimhams,” 86 –87. Deed to Land in Ulster and Orange, Aug. 2, 1746, ALG, 40:126; Richard Peters to William Johnson, Sept. 30, 1762, JP, 10:537–41; Meeting of a Committee of the Council, Jan. 17, 1746, CM, 21:71; Council Proceedings, Jan. 17, 1746, NYCD, 6:649; Conference with the Indians at Easton, Oct. 21, 1758 in Smith, History of the Colony, 476 –77; Trowbridge, “Account of some of the Traditions,” 471; Treaty between the Government of New-Jersey and the Indians, 3, 7. 30.  Dunn, Mohican World, 125–53, 214 –25; Frazier, Mohicans of Stockbridge, 39–56; De Forest, History of the Indians of Connecticut, 399; Deed to Land on the Housatonic River, Apr. 25, 1724, Indian Deeds, ed. Wright, 116 –18; Deed to Land at Pittsfield, 1737, ibid., 136 –37; Hamilton, Gentleman’s Progress, 60; Hopkins, Historical Memoirs, 71; Edwards, Memoirs, 95–144; Loskiel, History of the Mission, 2:1,115, 135, 140. Stockbridge was formally incorporated as a township in 1739: Jones, Stockbridge, 57. 31.  Certificate from Governor Burnet to the Wappinger and Westenhoek Indians, Sept. 7, 1721, CP, 63:143 (quote); Entries Apr. 23–29 and May 8 and 22, 1745, Shekomeko Diary, Dec. 1739–July 1746, MOA, box 111, folder 1; Vote of the General Assembly, May 9, 1745, General Assembly, Votes, 38. For Van Gilder: Deed to Land on the Housatonic River, Apr. 25, 1724, Indian Deeds, ed. Wright, 116 –18; Report of John

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Tabor Kempe to Governor Robert Monckton and Council, 1762, John Tabor Kempe Papers, box 10, folder 9; Conference Proceedings Held at Sheffield and Westfield, Mar. 25, 1736, MAC, 29:309–17 (here on 310); Deed to Land in Sheffield and Egremont, June 1, 1756, Indian Deeds, ed. Wright, 155–57; Hardy to Board of Trade, Dec. 22, 1756, NYCD, 7:206–8. Brief State of the Controversy, Oct. 30, 1765, ALG, 18:128 32.  Deed to Land in Fairfield, May 7, 1714, quoted in Wojciechowski, Ethnohistory, 196; Council Meeting, Sept. 15, 1720, Public Records, ed. Trumbull, 6:203–4; Joseph Bishop and Samuel Couch to the General Assembly, Oct. 1720, Indians, series 1, I:92, CTA (quote 1 on 92b); Appendices 1 and 3, Gideon’s People, ed. Dally-Starna and Starna, vol. 2; Wojciechowski, Ethnohistory, 67, 81–95, 253 (quote 2); Dally-Starna and Starna, “Picturing Pachgatgoch,” 1–22; Appointment of Guardianship from the Indians to Samuel Monroe, Nov. 17, 1764, John Tabor Kempe Papers, box 10,  folder 9, NYHS. 33.  Frazier, 176; Private Journal of George Croghan, from Fort Pitt to Illinois Country, box 204, folder 6, George Croghan Papers in Cadwalader Family Collection, 1630– 1900, HSP; Hopkins, Historical Memoir, 46 –47, 71 (quote), 86 –87; Zinzendorf ’s Narrative of a Journey from Bethlehem to Shamokin, 1742, Memorials of the Moravian Church, ed. Reichel, 1:70–71, 86; Loskiel, History of the Mission, 2:149–52; Mohekin Abraham to Sir William Johnson, Sept. 16, 1771, JP, 8:256 –57; Journal of Conrad Weiser, Aug. 11– Sept. 29, 1748, CRP, 5:351; Gist, Journals, 49; Merritt, At the Crossroads, 155 –59. 34.  Meeting between with the River Indians, Oct. 5, 1728, NYCD, 5:868–70; Meeting with Esopus Indians, May 7, 1745, Minutes of the Court of General Sessions, 1737–1750, 101BC (quotes). 35.  David Bruce, Shecomeko Journal, 1746, HSP; Loskiel, History of the Mission, 2:129–30; Hopkins, Historical Memoir, 43–43. For orchards: Affidavit of Peter Kockindal, Jan. 21, 1771, ALG, 28:72; Affidavit of William Cuddebeck, Jan. 21, 1771, ALG, 28:72. Meeting with Esopus Indians, May 7, 1745, Minutes of the Court of General Sessions, 1737–1750, 101BC (quote); Answer of the River Indians to Governor Burnet, Aug. 31, 1722, NYCD, 5:662–64; Joachim Heinrich Sensemann’s Journal, Feb.-June, 1751, Gideon’s People, ed. Dally-Starna and Starna, 1:163–64; Mancall, Deadly Medicine, 93–100. 36.  Reading, “Journal,” 10:2, 105 (quote). 37.  Otterness, Becoming German, 78–80, 97–136; Nammack, Fraud, Politics, 12–21. In NYCD: Report of the Board of Trade Respecting the Palatines, Aug. 30, 1709, 5: 87–88; Governor Hunter to the Lords of Trade, July 24, 1710, 5:166 –67; Hunter to Lords of Trade, Nov. 14, 1710, 5:177–80; Hunter to Lords of Trade, June 23, 1712, 5:339–42. Meeting with the Mohawk sachems, July 2, 1710, LIR, 215–16. Wraxall, Abridgement of Indian Affairs, 75, 78, 82–83. John Frederick Haeger to the SPG, Aug. 15, 1711, Ecclesiastical Records, ed. Corwin, 1886; Haeger to the SPG, July 12, 1712, ibid., 1962; Council Meeting, Aug. 3, 1713, Photostats of Council Minutes, box 2, folder 6,  NYSA. 38.  Pelletreau, History of Putnam County, 89–9l; Petition of Catherina Brett, July 7, 1721, ALG, 8:54; Cadwallader Colden to Sir William Johnson, Oct. 8, 1763, Colden, “Letter Books,” 1:247–48; Catharyna Brett to Johnson, Aug. 26, 1762, LPC, 6:190– 92; Certificate from Governor Burnet to the Wappinger and Westenhoek Indians, Sept. 7, 1721, CP, 63:143; Report of John Tabor Kempe to Governor Robert Monckton and Council, 1762, John Tabor Kempe Papers, box 10, folder 9,  NYSA.

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39.  Binzen, “Weataug and Wechquadanch,” 77–84; Dunn, Mohican World, 231–64; Answer of the River Indians to Governor Burnet, Aug. 31, 1722, NYCD, 5:662–64. MOA, box 113, folder 5: Memorandum, Sept. 1743, item 2; Memorandum by Abraham, Oct. 16, 1743, item 4; Gottlieb Büttner to Noble, Oct. 16, 1743, item 6; Abraham to the Little Nine Partners, Oct. 17, 1743, item 8. Loskiel, History of the Mission, 2:79–81, 114. 40.  Smith, “Highland King Nimhammaw,” 39–76; Deed to Land in Dutchess County, Oct. 13, 1730, Eighteenth-Century Documents, ed. McDermott, 110–13. 41.  In ALG: Deed to Land in Ulster County. Mar. 22, 1707, 4:92; Deed to Land in Ulster and Albany Counties, June 6, 1746, 40:126; Deed to Land in Ulster and Orange Counties, Aug. 2, 1746, 40:126; Affidavit of Johannes Ousterhout, Sept. 15, 1785, 40:128; Affidavit of Petrus Low, Sept. 9, 1785, 40:128; Affidavit of Petrus Dumond, Dec. 29, 1785, 40:128. John Bradstreet’s Account of Hardenbergh’s Patent, May 4, 1769, JP, 6:735–38; Declaration of the Esopus Indians, May, 1769, JP, 6:738–39; “Claims of Col. John Bradstreet to Lands in America,” 153–81. 42.  Affidavit of Petrus Dumond, Dec. 29, 1785, ALG, 40:128; Affidavit of Peter Helm, Sept. 15, 1785, ALG, 40:128 (quote). 43.  In ALG: Deed to Land in Ulster and Albany Counties, June 6, 1746, 40:126; Indian Deed to John Bradstreet, Oct. 29, 1768, 40:125; Affidavit of Jacob Westfall, Jan. 21, 1771, 28:71; Affidavit of Peter Kockindal, Jan. 21, 1771, 28:72; Affidavit of Benjamin Shank and Jacobus Haken, Jan. 22, 1771, 40:150; Affidavit of Johannes Ousterhout, Sept. 15, 1785, 40:128; Affidavit of Peter Helm, Sept. 15, 1785, 40:128. In JP: Meeting with Oquaga Indians, June 28, 1768, 12:542; Declaration of the Esopus Indians, May 1769, 6:738–39; Johnson to Bradstreet, Jan. 22, 1771, 7:1098. 44.  Brief State of the Controversy, Oct. 30, 1765, ALG, 18:128; Meeting of a Committee of the Council, Jan. 17, 1746, CM, 21:71 (quote). 45.  In NYCD: Peter Schuyler to John Nanfan, June 30, 1699, 4:575; Message sent by Schaghticoke Indians, June 30, 1699, 4:575–76; Nanfan to Schuyler, July 8, 1699, 4:577; Robert Livingston’s Report of his Journey to Onondaga, Apr. 1700, 4:652; Meeting with the River Indians, Aug. 31, 1700, 4:743–45; Propositions by Lord Cornbury to the River Indians, July 17, 1702, 4:983–85; Propositions by Governor Hunter to the River Indians and Schaghticokes, Aug. 17, 1710, 5:222–23; Meeting with the Mahicans and Schaghticokes, Sept. 27, 1714, 5:387–89; Meeting with Schaghticokes, Sept. 13, 1726, 5:798–99; Meeting with the River Indians, Oct. 5, 1728, 5:868–70; Meeting with the River Indians, Sept. 12, 1733, 5:969–70; Propositions of Lieutenant Governor Clarke to the Schaghticokes, July 1, 1737, 6:108–9; James de Lancey to Lords of Trade, Oct. 8, 1754, 6:908–9. Wraxall, Abridgement of Indian Affairs, 227–28. Chapter 8

  1.  In NYCD: James de Lancey to Lords of Trade, Oct. 8, 1754, 6:909; De Lancey to the Governor of Canada, Oct. 16, 1754, 6:911; Marquis du Quèsne to De Lancey, Dec. 26, 1754, 6:936.   2.  M. de Beauharois to Count de Maurepas, Oct. 8, 1744, NYCD, 9:1108; JR, 67:29–33, 241; Speech of the Stockbridges to the Mohawks, 1747 [?], JP, 1:125–26; Theodore Atkinson’s memo book, “Personal Accounts of the Albany Congress of 1754,” ed. McAnear, 738 (quote).

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  3.  Fenton, Great Law and the Longhouse, 487–89, 528–29, 601–3; Hatley, Dividing Paths, 99–100, 159–60, 218–28; Dowd, Spirited Resistance, 23–33; Hunter, “Delaware Nativist Revival,” 39–49.   4.  John Harris to Governor Robert Hunter Morris, Oct. 28, 1755, CRP, 6:654 –55. In CM: Council Meeting, Nov. 30, 1755, 25:100; Council Meeting, Dec. 26, 1755, 25:105; Council Meeting, Feb. 21, 1756, 25:110; Council Meeting, March 1, 1756, 25:110; Council Meeting, June 11, 1757, 25:176 –77; Council Meeting, Oct. 10, 1757, 25:203–4; Council Meeting, Aug. 25, 1758, 25:254 –55. In LPC: Cadwallader Colden to Archibald Kennedy, Nov. 17, 1756, 9:155–56; Colden to Governor Charles Hardy, 1756, 5:105–7; James Alexander to Colden, Dec. 11, 1755, 5:48–51. Corporation of Kingston to Johnson, Jan. 17, 1756, JP, 2:418–19; Pennsylvania Gazette, Mar. 11, 1756; Francis Bernard to Lords of Trade, June 20, 1758, NJA, 9:117. Folts, “Westward Migration,” 37–38.   5.  In CRP: William Parsons to Governor William Denny, Oct. 15, 1756, 7:284 –89 (quote 1 on 285); Conference with the Indians at Easton, Nov. 8–17, 1756, 7:313–38; Examination of Akoan, Dec. 1, 1756, 7:357–58; George Croghan to Johnson, Apr. 1, 1757, 7:506 –7 (quote on 506); Treaty with the Indians at Easton, July 21–Aug. 7, 1757, 7:649–714; Conference with Teedyuscung, Dec. 4, 1759, 8:415–21; Conference with the Northern Indians at Lancaster, Aug. 19, 1762, 8:741– 50. In JP: Johnson to Bernard, July 19, 1758, 2:873–75; Conference with Delawares at Kingston, Nov. 16 –17, 1761, 3:566 –69; Conference with the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, and Tuscaroras, Jan. 27–29, 1762, 10:356 –71. In Smith, History of the Colony: Conference at Burlington, Aug. 7, 1758, 448–55; Conference at Easton, Pennsylvania, Oct. 8–26, 1758, 456 –84. Remarks on the Observations of the Proprietors of Pennsylvania on a Letter from Sir William Johnson dated Sept. 10,  1757, DHNY, 2:437; Bernard to Lords of Trade, July 3, 1758, NJA, 9:120–22; For Ohio Indians: McConnell, Country between, 142–45; Wallace, King of the Delaware, 103–15.   6.  Census of New York Province, 1749, NYCD, 6:550; Council Meeting, Nov. 30, 1755, CM, 25:100; Cadwallader Colden to Capt. Johannes Newkerk, Dec. 20, 1755, LPC, 5:51–52; Council Meeting, Dec. 26, 1755, CM, 25:105; Proclamation of Governor Hardy, Dec. 27, 1755, CP, 82:40; Treaty between the Government of New-Jersey and the Indians; Council Meeting, Mar. 16, 1756, NJA, 17:4 –5   7.  Council Meeting, Nov. 30, 1755, CM, 25:100; Sir Charles Hardy to Johnson, Nov. 30, 1755, JP, 2:359–60 (quote 1 on 360); Johnson’s Account of Indian Expenses, July 27, 1755, JP, 2:585; William Johnson’s Account of Indian Expenses, July 23, 1755, ibid.; Fenton, Great Law and the Longhouse, 496 –513; Jennings, Empire of Fortune, 325–26.   8.  Calloway, American Revolution, 108–28. Deed to John Bradstreet, Oct. 29, 1768, ALG, 40:125. In JP: Meeting with Oquaga Indians, June 28, 1768, 12:542; Bradstreet to Johnson, June 25, 1769, 7:41; Conferences with Indians of Several Nations, Feb. 2–29, 1756, JP, 9:347–94 (quote on 394).   9.  Merritt, At the Crossroads, 169–97; Merrell, Into the American Woods, 225–52, 276 –301; Hatley, Dividing Paths, 91–115; Proclamation of Governor Hardy, Mar. 8, 1756, CP, 82:88; Pennsylvania Gazette, Mar. 18, 1756 (quote); Meeting with River Indians, Mar.14, 1756, CM, 25:112; Meeting with River Indians, Mar.15, 1756, CM, 25:112–13; Meeting of the Mohawks, Mar. 23, 1756, NYCD, 7:94; Council

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Meeting, June 30, 1756, NJA, 17:38–40. For Pachgatgoch Indians: Nicholas Heinrich Eberhardt’s Journal, Feb. 1756 –Mar. 1757, Gideon’s People, ed. Dally-Starna and Starna, 2:65. 10.  Colden to Archibald Kennedy, Nov. 17, 1756, LPC, 9:165–66; Pennsylvania Gazette, Mar. 11, 1756; Deposition of Margery West, Sept. 25, 1756, LPC, 5:94 –97. 11.  In NYCD, 7: Meeting of the Mohawks at Fort Johnson, Mar. 23, 1756, 94; Meeting of the Mohawks at Fort Johnson, Mar. 26, 1756, 96; Instructions for Jacobus Clement, Apr. 8, 1756, 96; Report of Mohawk Delegates, Apr. 22, 1756, 85; Meeting with Mohawk Delegates, Apr. 22, 1756, 99–100; Johnson’s Speech to the River Indians Come to Live at the Lower Mohawk Castle, May 22, 1756, 113; Meeting with River Indians, July 9, 1756, 152–53; Meeting with River Indians, July 12, 1756, 159–60; Meeting with Schoharies, May 21, 1756, 110–11. In JP, 9: Johnson to William Shirley, Apr. 9, 1756, 424 –25; Shirley to Johnson, Apr. 17, 1756, 435; Johnson to Shirley, Apr. 22, 1756, 437–40; Meeting between Mohawks and River Indians, May 28, 1756, 463–37; Johnson to the Magistrates of Fishkill, May 28, 1756, 477–79. For Schoharie community: Preston, Texture of Contact, 71–85. 12.  Johnson to Shirley, Apr. 9, 1756, JP, 9:424 –25; James Alexander to Colden, Dec. 11, 1756, LPC, 5:48–51 (quote 1 on 49); Johnson to Abercromby, Sept. 16, 1757, JP, 2:739–41 (quote 2 on 740); Petition of Daniel Nimham, Jan. 7, 1767, ALG, 22:139; Handlin and Irving, eds., “Chief Daniel Nimham v. Roger Morris, Beverly Robinson, and Philip Philipse,” 197. 13.  Nicholas Heinrich Eberhardt’s Journal, Feb. 1756 –Mar. 1757, Gideon’s People, ed. Dally-Starna and Starna, 2:139. In NYCD, 7: Meeting of the Mohawks at Fort Johnson, Mar. 26, 1756, 96; Meeting with Schoharies, May 21, 1756, 111; Speech of Johnson to Seth, Sachem of Schoharie, May 26, 1756, 116; Hardy to Lords of Trade, May 10, 1756, 80; Meeting with River Indians, July 9, 1756, 152–53; Meeting with River Indians, July 12, 1756, 159–60; Meeting with the Onondagas, June 26, 1756, 138–39; Meeting with Delawares, July 11, 1756, 155–58. In JP, 9: Meeting between Mohawks and River Indians, May 28, 1756, 465. Meeting with River Indians, May 10, 1757, 720–21; Meetings with Oneidas and River Indians, Sept. 15, 1757, 833. 14.  Frazier, Mohicans of Stockbridge, 105–37. Abraham Buninger and Carl Gottfried Rundt’s Journal, Jan.–Dec. 1755, Gideon’s People, 1:579–84 In JP: Johnson to James Abercromby, Sept. 16, 1757, 2:739–41; Johnson to Daniel Claus, Mar.10, 1761, 3:353; Johnson to Claus, Mar. 17, 1761, 3:360; Johnson to Claus, Mar. 10, 1761, 3:353; Johnson to Claus, Mar. 17, 1761, 3:360; Johnson to Claus, Dec. 12, 1761, 10:346; Johnson to Sir Jeffery Amherst, Feb. 6, 1762, 3:623; Conference with Abenakis, Mar. 27–30, 1762, 10:409–15; Meeting with Westenhook Sachems, Apr. 15, 1762, 10:431–32. 15.  Brief State of the Controversy, Oct. 30, 1765, ALG, 18:128 (quote 1); William Alexander to Robert Hunter Morris, June 18, 1756, Robert Hunter Morris Papers, vol. 2, doc. 74, NJHS (quote 2); Grumet, “Nimhams,” 88–89; Johnson’s Account of Indian Expenses, Feb. 22, 1757, JP, 9:653 (quote 3); Frazier, Mohicans of Stockbridge, 116 –17, 124 –27; Nicholas Heinrich Eberhardt’s Journal, Feb. 1756 –Mar. 1757, Gideon’s People, ed. Dally-Starna and Starna, 2:99. 16.  Council Meeting, June 2, 1756, NJA, 17:29–31; Message from Governor Bernard to the Minisink and Pompton Indians, June 25, 1758, NJA, 9:125–26;

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Conference at Burlington, Aug. 7, 1758 in Smith, History of the Colony, 449–45; Conference at Easton, Pennsylvania, Oct. 8–26, 1758, ibid., 456. 17.  Kraft, Lenape, 230–32; Revey, “Delaware Indians of New Jersey,” 72–82. In Smith, History of the Colony: Treaty at Crosswicks, Feb. 1758, 442–46; Private conference with the Indians at Easton, Oct. 19, 1758, 469–70; Private Conference with the Indians at Easton, Oct. 21, 1758. In NJD: Quitclaim to New Jersey Lands,  Sept. 12, 1758, Liber O:458–64; Quitclaim to Northern New Jersey, Oct. 23, 1758, Liber I-2:89–92 (quote on 89). Council Meeting, Dec. 8, 1758, CM, 25:271; Beauchamp, Aboriginal Place-Names, 165. 18.  Quitclaim to Northern New Jersey, Oct. 23, 1758, Liber I-2:89–92 (quotes on 92), NJD; Catharyna Brett to Johnson, Aug. 26, 1762, LPC, 6:190–92; Deposition of David Ninham, Aug. 2, 1762, quoted in Smith, General History, 175–76. 19.  Treaty between the Government of New-Jersey and the Indians, 3; Hearing on the Claim of Daniel Nimham and other Wappingers, Mar. 6, 1765, CM, 26:5–6; Petition of Daniel Nimham, Jan. 7, 1767, ALG, 22:139; Petition of Daniel Nimham and other Wappingers, Mar. 1, 1765, ALG, 18:127; Power of Attorney of Daniel Nimham to Samuel Monroe, Nov. 10, 1764, John Tabor Kempe Papers, box 10, folder 9,  NYHS. 20.  Grumet, “Nimhams,” 86 –87; Conference with Teedyuscung and the Chiefs of the Wappingers and Mahicans, Oct. 1, 1761, CRP, 8:667–69. 21.  Wheeler, To Live upon Hope, 36 –40, 50–52; Hopkins, Historical Memoirs, 33–37; Appleton, Gospel Ministers, vi; Entries Nov. 4 –6, 1743, Gottlieb Büttner, Shekomeko Journal, Aug. 10–Dec. 31, 1743, MOA, box 111, folder 2, item 7. 22.  Zeisberger, History, 136 –37 (quote); Nov. 6, 1743, Wheeler, 76; Gottlieb Büttner’s Journal, Aug. 10–Dec. 31, 1743, MOA, box 111, folder 2, item 7; Frazier, Mohicans of Stockbridge, 54; Journal of Azariah Horton, 1741–1744, 206, 209–10. 23.  Frazier, Mohicans of Stockbridge, 57–68, 75–80; Fogleman, Jesus Is Female, 159– 63; David Bruce, Shecomeko Journal, 1746, HSP. 24.  Hopkins, Historical Memoirs, 99–102 (quote 1–2 on 100); Edwards, Memoirs, 174. 25.  In MOA: Box 112, folder 19: Entry May 21, 1744, Gottlieb Büttner, Shekomeko Journal, May 12–June 23, 1744, item 4; Entry, Oct. 30, 1744, Gottlieb Büttner’s Journal, Aug. 14 –Oct. 30, 1744, item 5. Entries Oct. 27, Nov. 1, and Nov. 10, 1743, Büttner, Shekomeko Journal, Aug. 10–Dec. 31, 1743, box 111, folder 2, item 7. Entries Apr. 29, May 9 (quote) and 22, 1745, Shekomeko Diary, Dec. 1739–July 1746, box 111, folder 1. 26.  Entry May 10, 1745, Shekomeko Diary, Dec. 1739–July 1746, MOA, box 111, folder 1; Joachim Heinrich Sensemann’s Journal, Feb.-June, 1751, Gideon’s People, ed. Dally Starna and Starna, 1:163–64; List of Baptized Indians, MOA, 319.1, folder 1. 27.  Loskiel, History of the Mission, 2:148–89; Merritt, At the Crossroads, 169–97; Dowd, Spirited Resistance, 30. 28.  Bishop Spangenberg’s Journal of a Journey to Onondaga in 1745, Moravian Journals, ed. Beauchamp, 9. In CRP, 7: Council Meeting, Feb. 26, 1756, 50–54; Council Meeting, Sept. 6, 1756, 242–43; Conference with the Indians, June 3, 1756, 137–42 (quote 1 on 141) Council Meeting, Mar. 27, 1756, 64 –69; Treaty with the Indians at Easton, July 21–Aug. 7, 1757, 707; Conference with Teedyuscung, Aug. 30,

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1757, 725–27. Meeting with Mahicans, Shawnees, and Nanticokes, Apr. 19, 1757, NYCD, 7:246 –49. 29.  Weslager, Delaware Indians, 224; Deposition of Margery West, Sept. 25, 1756, LPC, 5:94 –97; Meeting with Mahicans, Shawnees, and Nanticokes, Apr. 19, 1757, NYCD, 7:246 –49. In Minutes of Indian Treaties and Conferences, American Philosophical Society: Journal of George Croghan, Apr. 3–Nov. 12, 1759, item 11; Conference with the Indians at Fort Pitt, Apr. 6 –12, 1760, item 15. 30.  Rev. Gideon Hawley to Governor Morris, Jan. 4, 1756, CRP, 7:12–13. In NYCD, 7: Meeting with Indians from the Susquehanna, Jan. 29, 1756, 50; Meeting with Oneidas and Tuscaroras, May 20, 1756, 109–10; Meeting with Delawares, July 2, 1756, 149–51; Meeting with Delawares, July 11, 1756, 155–58. In JP, 9: Meeting with Ohquagas, Tuscaroras, Nanticokes, and Conoys, Apr. 29–May 1, 1757, 703–13 (quote on 706); Conferences with Several Nations, Feb. 2–29, 1756, 347–94. 31.  Meeting with Mahicans, Shawnees, and Nanticokes, Apr. 23, 1757, NYCD, 7:252–54; Meeting with Ohquagas, Tuscaroras, Nanticokes, and Conoys, Apr. 29– May 1, 1757, JP, 9:703–13; Johnson to the Earl of Loudoun, Apr. 28, 1757, JP, 9:700; Conference with the Indians, Aug. 26 –27, 1761, CRP, 8:655–61 (quote on 660). For the location of Otsiningo: Parker, Archaeological History, 492. 32.  Conference with the Indians at Easton, Oct. 21, 1758, Smith, History of the Colony, 476 –77. In CRP, 8: Meeting with Teedyuscung, June 11, 1759, 344 –46; Conference with Teedyuscung and Wyoming Indians, Apr. 6, 1761, 594 –96; Treaty with the Indians at Easton, Aug. 3–12, 1761, 630–54; Conference with Teedyuscung and the Chiefs of the Wappingers and Mahicans, Oct. 1, 1761, 667–69 (quote on 668); Conference with Teedyuscung and the Chiefs of the Wappingers and Mahicans, Oct. 11, 1761, 669–70; Brief State of the Controversy, Oct. 30, 1765, ALG, 18:128; Wallace, King of the Delawares, 176 –91. 33.  In JP: Johnson to Loudoun, Apr. 28, 1757, 9:700; Meetings with Oneidas and River Indians, Sept. 15, 1757, 9:831–33; Meeting with the River Indians and Oneidas, Sept. 19, 1757, 9:843–47 (quotes on 845); Meeting with Oneidas and River Indians, Sept. 20, 1757, 9:849–52; Meeting with Indians from the River Susquehanna,  Feb. 16 –17, 1764, 11:59–67; Journal of Indian Proceedings, Mar. 17, 1764, 11:110– 11. Meeting with Mahicans, Shawnees, and Nanticokes, Apr. 23, 1757, NYCD, 7:252–54; Smith, Tour of Four Great Rivers, 2:62–65. 34.  Council Meeting, Aug. 14, 1760, CM, 25:319–20 (quote on 320). 35.  Johannes Hardenbergh to Johnson, Oct. 19, 1763, JP, 10:887–88 (quotes on 887). Ruttenber wrote that Ulster County officials renewed the treaty again on September 7, 1771, but the manuscript he cited dates from September 7, 1741. Ruttenber, History of the Indian Tribes, 253; Day, Calendar of Sir William Johnson Manuscripts, 9. 36.  In JP: Journal of Indian Affairs, Sept. 20, 1763, 10:853–54; Johnson to Cadwallader Colden, Sept. 20, 1763, 4:205; Johnson to Colden, Nov. 4, 1763, 4:229. Colden to Johnson, Oct. 8, 1763, “Colden Letter Books,” 1:247–48. In Pennsylvania Archives, 1st series, ed. Hazard: Henry Quamash to Governor Hamilton, Oct. 7, 1760, 3:758; Lewis Gordon to Richard Peters, July 29, 1761, 4:66. 37.  In CM: Council Meeting, Aug. 26, 1761, 25:388; Council Meeting, Sept. 1,  1761, 25:389; Council Meeting, Sept. 9, 1761, 25:390; Council Meeting, Sept. 16, 1761, 25:392–93. Deed to Land in Ulster and Orange Counties, Aug. 2, 1746, ALG, 40:126. In CRP: Treaty with the Indians at Easton, Aug. 3–12, 1761, 630–54;

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Conference with Teedyuscung, Apr. 6, 1761, 8:594 –96; Conference with Teedyuscung, Apr. 11, 1761, 8:598–601; Conference with the Northern Indians at Lancaster, Aug. 19, 1762, 8:741–50; Conference with Munsees, Oct. 4, 1770, 9:689–91. In JP: Conference with Delawares at Kingston, Nov. 16 –17, 1761, 3:566 –69 (quote on 569); Meeting with Indians, Dec. 3–7, 1763, 10:945–48. Meeting, Apr. 24, 1777, Journals of the Provincial Congress, 1:900; Folts, “Westward Migration of the Munsee Indians,” 37–38, 41. 38.  Weslager, Delaware Indians, 211–12; Merritt, At the Crossroads, 257–60. In Susquehannah Company Papers, ed. Boyd, 1: Deed to the Susquehanna Company, July 11, 1754, 101–17; Daniel Claus to Richard Peters, Sept. 1754, 130–33. Conference with Teedyuscung, Nov. 13, 1760, CRP, 8:508. 39.  In CRP: Conference with Teedyuscung and Wyoming Indians, Apr. 6, 1761, 8:594 –96; Conference with Teedyuscung, Nov. 19–20, 1762, 9:6 –9. In JP: James Hamilton to Johnson, May 12, 1761, 3:390–92; Report of Daniel Broadhead, Sept. 27, 1762, 10:530–33; Lords of Trade to George III, Jan. 14, 1763, 4:18–20. In Susquehannah Company Papers, ed. Boyd, 2: James Hamilton to Thomas Penn, Nov. 21, 1762, 327; Report of the Lords of Trade, Mar. 3, 1763, 196 –98; Order of the King in Council, June 15, 1763, 255. Wallace, King of the Delawares, 223–66; Merritt, At the Crossroads, 260–61, 277–78. 40.  In Susquehannah Company Papers, ed. Boyd: Indian Deed, Dec. 20, 1754, 1:196 –200; Deed to Land on the Delaware, May 6, 1755, 1:260–72; Deed to Land on the Delaware, Oct. 29, 1755, 1:308–14; Report of Lewis Gordon and Others to James Hamilton, Oct. 15, 1760, 2:29–32; Thomas Penn to Richard Peters, Aug. 8, 1761, 2:105–6 (quote on 105). In CRP, 8: Deposition of James Hyndshaw, Apr. 29, 1761, 612–14; Conference with Teedyuscung and others at Philadelphia, Dec. 4, 1759, 415–  21; Conference with Teedyuscung, Jan. 28, 1760, 435–36. Croghan to Johnson, Sept. 21, 1758, 3:3–5. 41.  Hanna, Wilderness Trail, 206 –10; Extract of a Letter from Sandusky, Sept. 20, 1763, Pennsylvania Gazette, Dec. 22, 1763; Johnson to Thomas Gage, Apr. 28, 1771, JP, 8:75–78; Heckewelder, 94; Loskiel, History of the Mission, 2:211–34; Weslager, Delaware Indians, 247–48; Merritt, At the Crossroads, 278–306. 42.  Folts, “Westward Migration,” 38–39; Weslager, Delaware Indians, 248–51. In JP: Henry Montour, William Hare, and John Johnston to Johnson, Apr. 7, 1764, 4:392–94; Johnson to Thomas Gage, Apr. 16, 1764, 11:131–33; Intelligence from Johnson Hall, Apr. 23, 1764, 4:405–6; Meeting with Oquaga Indians, June 26, 1763, 10:773–75; Meeting with Mohawks and Indians from the Susquehanna, Oct. 17, 1763, 10:896 –99; Meeting with Indians of Several Nations, Dec. 3–7, 1763, 10:945– 48, 959–61; Meeting with Indians from the Susquehanna, Feb. 16 –17, 1764, 11:59– 67 (quote on 66); Johnson to Henry Montour, Feb. 21, 1764, 4:336 –37; Meeting with Indians from Chugnut and Wyalusing, Mar. 4 –5, 1764, 11:88–96; Journal of Indian Proceedings, Mar. 6 –8, 1764, 11:106 –7. Johnson to Colden, Jan. 12, 1764, LPC, 6:277–78; Colden to Amherst, April 13, 1764, “Colden Letter Books,” 1:319; Articles of Peace with the Senecas, Apr. 3, 1764, NYCD, 7:621–23; Treaty of Peace with the Delaware Nation, May 8, 1765, NYCD, 7:738–41. In CRP: Conference with Teedyuscung and others, Dec. 4, 1759, 8:415–21; Deposition of James Hyndshaw, Apr. 29, 1761, 8:612–14; Conference with Wyalusing Indians, Dec. 10, 1763, 9:85–88; Council Meeting, Dec. 21, 1763, 9:93–94; Loskiel, History of the Mission,

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3:4. For nativism at Wyalusing: Dowd, Spirited Resistance, 31–32; Hunter, “Delaware Nativist Revival,” 42–43. 43.  Meeting with the Stockbridge Indians, Nov. 10–11, 1763, JP, 10:930–32 (quote 1–2 on 931); Hopkins, Historical Memoirs, 33–34 (quote 3 on 33); Loskiel, History of the Mission, 2:140. 44.  Frazier, Mohicans of Stockbridge, 144 –45. In JP: Journal of Indian Affairs, July 24, 1763, 10:771; Amherst to Johnson, July 28, 1763, 10:761; Chief Sachem and Warriors of Stockbridge to Johnson, Mar. 12, 1764, 11:99–100; Journal of Indian Proceedings, Mar. 17, 1764, 11:110–11; Journal of Indian Affairs, May 11, 1764, 11:188–89 (quote 2 on 189). 45.  Colden to the Mayor or Recorder of the City of New York, Aug. 31, 1763, Colden, “Letter Books,” 1:227; Colden to Amherst, Sept. 1, 1763, ibid., 1:227–28. Chapter 9

  1.  In HP: Deposition of Isaac Arnold, Sept. 30, 1784, 21763:355 (quote 1); Arent Schuyler DePeyster to Sir Frederick Haldimand, Oct. 5, 1784, 21763:359. Pennsylvania Gazette, Aug. 13, 1783 (quote 2); Certificate to the Muhhekunnuk Indians, July 18, 1783, Washington, Writings, 27:53 (quote 3).   2.  John Young to DePeyster, Oct. 5, 1784, HP, 21763:361 (quote 1); Certificate to the Muhhekunnuk Indians July 18, 1783, Washington, Writings, 27:53 (quote 2).   3.  In JP: Johnson to Bradstreet, Dec. 17, 1762, 3:975 (quote 1); Bradstreet to Johnson, Dec. 26, 1762, 10:603–4; Bradstreet to Johnson, Mar. 16, 1763, 13:284 –85; Johnson to Bradstreet, Apr. 28, 1769, 6:714 –15 (quote 2 on 714); Declaration of the Esopus Indians, May 1769, 6:738–39; Johnson’s Account of Disbursements to the Indians, Nov. 18, 1768, 12:734.   4.  Frazier, Mohicans of Stockbridge, 152–57, 164 –71. In JP: Meeting with Mahicans, Feb. 25, 1762, 10:386 –88; Remonstrance of the Westenhook Indians, Apr. 10, 1762, 10:429–30; Meeting with Westenhook Sachems, Apr. 15, 1762, 10:431–32; Petition of the Stockbridge Indians, Dec. 18, 1762, 10:599–601; Petition of the Housatonic Indians, Dec. 20, 1762, 10:601–3; Stockbridge Indians to Johnson, Mar. 8, 1763, 10:620; Petition of the Stockbridge Indians, 1765, 4:891–93; Meeting with Mahicans, Feb. 24, 1767, 12:271–73; Johnson to Timothy Woodbridge, Apr. 28, 1767, 5:542–44; Journal of Indian Affairs, Sept. 20, 1763, 10:853–54; Meeting with Mahicans, Apr. 26, 1768, 12:480–82. Council Meeting, Apr. 15, 1767, CM, 26:91. Loskiel, History of the Mission, 2:113–17.   5.  Mark, Agrarian Conflicts, 34 –36, 131–32; Deed to Lambert Dortlandt and Jan Sybrant, July 15, 1691, reproduced in Pelletreau, History of Putnam County, 12; Brief State of the Controversy, Oct. 30, 1765, ALG, 18:128; Handlin and Mark, eds., “Chief Daniel Nimham v. Roger Morris, Beverly Robinson, and Philip Philipse,” 193–99.   6.  Mark, Agrarian Conflicts, 131–33; Kim, Landlord and Tenant, 376 –79. In John Tabor Kempe Papers, box 10, folder 9, NYSA: Lease by Daniel Nimham to Joseph Craw Jr., July 24, 1764; Lease by Daniel Nimham to Stephen Wilcox, July 23, 1764; Lease by Daniel Nimham to Jonathan Hubbey, Dec. 22, 1764; Articles of Agreement made by and between Moses Northup, Samuel Monroe, and Stephen Wilcox and Daniel Nimham, Apr. 26, 1764; Lease by Daniel Nimham to Samuel Monroe,  July 24, 1764; Appointment of Guardianship from the Indians to Samuel Monroe,

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Nov. 17, 1764; Power of Attorney of Daniel Nimham to Samuel Monroe, Nov. 10, 1764; Agreement between Daniel Nimham and Samuel Monroe and Several Residents of Dutchess County, Dec. 27, 1764; Advertisement by Daniel Nimham and Samuel Monroe, Dec. 22, 1764. In Pelletreau, History of Putnam County: Council Meeting, Feb. 6, 1765, 69–70; Report to the Governor and Council, March 6, 1765, 71–73; Deed to Lambert Dortlandt and Jan Sybrant, July 15, 1691, 12; Deed to Adolph Philipse, Aug. 13, 1702, 18. Petition of Daniel Nimham and other Wappingers, Mar. 1, 1765, ALG, 18:127; Hearing, Mar. 6, 1765, CM, 26:5–6; Petition of Samuel Monroe, Mar. 9, 1765, JP, 11:630–31; Brief State of the Controversy, Oct. 30, 1765, ALG, 18:128.   7.  Frazier, Mohicans of Stockbridge, 160–69; Mark, Agrarian Conflict, 134 –58; Kim, Landlord and Tenant, 367–415; Calloway, Scratch of a Pen, 93–111; Dowd, War under Heaven, 188–89; Henry Moore to the Lords of Trade, Aug. 12, 1766, NYCD, 7:849–50. In ALG: Petition of Daniel Nimham and other Wappingers, Mar. 1, 1765, 18:127; Petition of Daniel Nimham, Jan. 7, 1767, 22:139. In JP: Petition of Samuel Monroe to Johnson, Mar. 9, 1765, 11:630–31; Samuel Monroe to Johnson, May 12, 1765, 11:734 –36; Roger Morris to Johnson, Aug. 12, 1765, 11:884 –86; Johnson to Roger Morris, Aug. 26, 1765, 11:911–12; Shelburne to Johnson,  Oct. 11, 1766, 5:394 –95; Instructions for Guy Johnson, Feb. 24, 1767, 12:268–69; John Tabor Kempe to Johnson, Mar. 17, 1767, 12:282. In CM 26: Council Meeting, Dec, 17, 1766, 69–70; Council Meeting, Dec. 23, 1766, 71–74; Council Meeting, Jan. 3, 1767, 74; Council Meeting, Feb. 4, 1767, 78; Council Meeting, Feb. 17, 1767, 81; Hearing on the Claim of the Wappingers, Mar. 5, 1767, 81–82; Hearing, Mar. 6, 1767, 82–83; Hearing, Mar. 7, 1767, 83–84; Hearing, Mar. 9, 1767, 84 –85; Judgment and Opinion in the Case of the Wappinger Claims, Mar. 11, 1767, 85–89. Handlin and Mark, eds., “Chief Daniel Nimham v. Roger Morris, Beverly Robinson, and Philip Philipse,” 210–42.   8.  In JP: Journal of Indian Affairs, Sept. 20, 1763, 10:853–54; Johnson to Colden, Sept. 20, 1763, 4:205; Journal of Indian Affairs, Apr. 6, 1767, 12:303; Johnson’s Account of Disbursements, Aug. 22, 1769, 12:760; Johnson’s Account of Disbursements, Sept. 18, 1769, 12:762; Johnson’s Expense Account, Aug. 23–24, 1771, 12:925; Johnson’s Account of Disbursements, Aug. 12, 1772, 12:1001. Johnson to the Earl of Shelburne, Apr. 1, 1767, NYCD, 7:913–14; Report of John Tabor Kempe to Governor Robert Monckton and Council, 1762, John Tabor Kempe Papers, box 10, folder 9, NYSA; Colden to Johnson, Oct. 8, 1763 Colden, “Letter Books,” 1:247–48.   9.  Calloway, Scratch of a Pen, 66 –76; Nester, “Haughty Conquerors,” 1–12; Dowd, War under Heaven, 69–73; Meeting with Mahicans, Feb. 25, 1762, JP, 10:386 –88 (quote 1 on 386; 2 on 387); Remonstrance of the Westenhook Indians, Apr. 10, 1762, JP, 10:429–30 (quote 3 on 429). For murders, see in JP: John Broadhead and Samuel Gonsalus to Johnson, Apr. 6, 1766, 5:150–51; William Franklin to Johnson, Apr. 15, 1766, 12:72–73; Johnson to Thomas Gage, Apr. 17, 1766, 12:74 –75. Meeting of the Privy Council, June 13, 1766, Council of New Jersey Journals, folder 2,  New Jersey State Archives; Meeting of the Privy Council, June 24, 1766, ibid. Pennsylvania Gazette, Aug. 10, 1766. In CRP, 9: John Penn to Thomas Gage, Jan. 21, 1768, 422–23; Penn to Chief Newalecka, Jan. 23, 1768, 428–30; Penn to the Indians at Wyalusing, Jan. 28, 1768, 436 –37; Council Meeting, Feb. 4, 1768, 450–51; Names

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of the Indians Killed on Jan. 10–11 by Frederick Stump and John Ironcutter, 470; Conference with the Indians at Fort Pitt, Apr. 26, 1768, 514 –18. 10.  Smith, Tour of Four Great Rivers, 11. In JP: Journal of Alexander McKee, Sept. [?], 1769, 7:184 –85; Johnson’s Account of Disbursements, Feb. 20–24, 1770, 12:802 (quote); Johnson’s Account of Disbursements, June 11, 1772, 12:999. Journal of Indian Conferences at Pittsburgh, 1770–1771, box 204, folder 11, George Croghan Papers, Cadwalader Family Collection, HSP (quotes 2–3); Loskiel, History of the Mission, 3:37–82; McConnell, Country Between, 209–10. 11.  Brief State of the Controversy, Oct. 30, 1765, ALG, 18:128; Frazier, Mohicans of Stockbridge, 172; Johnson to Governor William Tryon, Oct. 22, 1773, NYCD, 8:458. 12.  In Journals of the Provincial Congress, 1: Meeting, July 24, 1776, 539–40 (quote on 539); Meeting of the Provincial Convention of New York, July 27, 1776, 545; Calloway, American Revolution, 28–29. 13.  In Journals of the Provincial Congress: A. D. Witt to Matthew Cantine and Charles De Witt, Sept. 30, 1776, 2:270; Meeting, Oct. 2, 1776, 1:656 (quote); Meeting, Oct. 5, 1776, 1:662–63. Affidavit of Benjamin Shank and Jacobus Haken, Jan. 22, 1771, ALG, 40:150; D. Wynkoop to George Clinton, Oct. 5, 1776, Clinton, Public Papers, 1:369; State of New York to the Justices of Ulster County, Nov. 13, 1776 quoted in B. M. Brink, “Remnants of the Esopus Indians,” 321–29; Council at Pittsburgh, Oct. 15–Nov. 6, 1776, George Croghan Papers, Cadwalader Family Collection, box 204, folder 9, HSP. 14.  Minutes of an Indian Conference held at Wyoming, Aug. 20, 1775, Susquehannah Company Papers, ed. Boyd, 6:342–45; Treaty with the Six Nations at Albany, Sept. 1, 1775, NYCD, 8:625–27. In Journals of the Provincial Congress: Chiefs of the Onenhoghkwage Indians to Henry Wisner, June 4, 1776, 2:300–301; Meeting, July 24, 1776, 1:539–40; Meeting, July 25, 1776, 1:542; William Johnston to John McKeeson, Sept. 18, 1776, 2:219. Graymont, Iroquois in the American Revolution, 48–128. 15.  In Journals of the Provincial Congress: The Indians at Onenhoghkwage and Tuscarora to the Officers at Otsego Lake, Oct. 22, 1776, 2:340 (quote 1); Meeting of the Committee, Feb. 10, 1777, 1:801–2; Meeting, Feb. 11, 1777, 1:803; Meeting, Apr. 14, 1777, 1:879–81; Speech of Indian Chiefs, Apr. 14, 1777, 2:423–24 (quote 2 on 424); Meeting, Apr. 24, 1777, 1:900. Calloway, American Revolution, 122–23; Taylor, Divided Ground, 77–90. 16.  Frazier, Mohicans of Stockbridge, 193–233; Calloway, American Revolution, 91–93, 97–100; Treaty with the Six Nations at Albany, Sept. 1, 1775, NYCD, 8:626; Pelletreau, History of Putnam County, 119–20; Wermuth, “Central Hudson Valley,” 142–43. For the death of the Nimhams: Simcoe, Journal of the Operations, 83–86. 17.  Frazier, Mohicans of Stockbridge, 202–3; Calloway, American Revolution, 93–95; Graymont, Iroquois in the American Revolution, 68, 72, 87, 101; Meeting, July 8, 1775, Minutes of the Albany Committee, ed. Sullivan, 1:129–33; Council at Pittsburgh, Oct. 15–Nov. 6, 1776, George Croghan Papers in Cadwalader Family Collection, box 204, folder 9, 9–31 (quote 1 on 26; quote 2 on 30), HSP. The term Wapanokhies may here have referred to the Wappingers at Stockbridge, but could also be a variation of the word Wapanoos, a general term for Indians in New England. See Goddard, “Ethnohistorical Implications of Early Delaware Linguistic Material,” 95–96. 18.  Calloway, American Revolution, 122–26; Taylor, Divided Ground, 91–94; Graymont, Iroquois in the American Revolution, 126 –56; Halsey, Old New York Frontier,

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Advance, ed. Kellogg: Zeisberger to the Commissioners at Fort Pitt, Aug. 25, 1778, Zeisberger to Commissioners, Aug. 25, 1778, 132–33. Zeisberger, Diary, 1:1–146. 25.  White, Middle Ground, 412–68; Dowd, Spirited Resistance, 90–115; Aupaumut, “Journal,” 14 –21 (quote on 20); Taylor, “Captain Hendrick Aupaumut,” 431–57. 26.  Return of Indians of Colonel Guy Johnson’s Department gone to Plant at Buffalo Creek, May 13, 1781, HP, 21761:181; Speck, Celestial Bear, 2. 27.  Fenn, Pox Americana, 108–9, 259–77; Samuel Kirkland to Philip Schuyler, January 19, 1777, Papers of the Continental Congress, reel 173, v. 1, p. 72. 28.  Calloway, American Revolution, 126 –27, 102–4; Quinlan, History of Sullivan County, 316 –20; Frazier, Mohicans of Stockbridge, 234 –45; Brink, “Remnants of the Esopus Indians,” 328–29; Trowbridge, “Account of some of the Traditions,” 471–72. 29.  Brink, “Last of the Esopus Indians,” 253; Dippie, Vanishing American, 12–31; “Former Nurse Dies at 107,” New York Times, July 4, 1929, 15; Pelletreau, History of Putnam County, 86. 30.  Kraft, Lenape, 239–43; Lenik, Indians of the Ramapos, 47–81; Hawk, “Revitalization of the Matinnecock,” 41–87; Danny Hakim, “U.S. Recognizes an Indian Tribe on Long Island, Clearing the Way for a Casino,” New York Times, June 16, 2010, A23. 31.  Graymont, Iroquois in the American Revolution, 259–96; Lehman, “End of the Iroquois Mystique,” 523–47; Wallace, Jefferson and the Indians, 17–19. 32.  Loskiel, History of the Mission, 3:58–59; Aupaumut, “Extract from the Indian Journal,” 468 (quote 1); Meeting with Mahicans, May 9, 1768, JP, 12:497–500 (quote 2 on 498); Zeisberger, Moravian Mission Diaries, 126 –28, 378–81, 475. 33.  Hinderaker, Elusive Empires, 149–62; Snapp, John Stuart, 32–33, 116 –88; Holton, “Ohio Indians,” 453–78. Conclusion

  1.  Van der Donck, Description of New Netherland, 73.   2.  Diamond, “Terminal Late Woodland/Contact Period,” 3–4, 159–62; Curtin, “Ancient Mohicans,” 10; Kraft, “Late Woodland Settlement Patterns,” 110–11.   3.  DuVal, Native Ground, 88–93; Meredith, Dancing on Common Ground, 79–87; Zeisberger, History, 34 (quote); Miller, “Delaware as Women,” 507–14; Shoemaker, “Alliance between Men,” 239–63; White, Middle Ground, 33–40.   4.  Dennis, Cultivating a Landscape, 119–71; Gleach, Powhatan’s World, 106 –22; DuVal, Native Ground, 1–11, 63–102.   5.  Richter, Facing East, 164 –71.   6.  Strong, Montaukett, 19–61, 63–81; Colin G. Calloway, “Introduction: Surviving the Dark Ages,” 1–18; Usner, Indians, Settlers, and Slaves, 60–63; Merrell, Indians’ New World, 106 –19; Den Ouden, Beyond Conquest, 59–60, 120–21, 154 –55; Le Master, “In the ‘Scolding Houses,’ ” 193–232; Bragdon, Native People of Southern New England, 1650–1775, 199–216.   7.  Kraft, Lenape, 239–43; Lenik, Indians of the Ramapos, 47–81; Hawk, “Revitalization of the Matinnecock,” 41–87; F. Romall Smalls, “Indians Gather to Keep Traditions Alive,” New York Times, July 16, 1995, WC16.

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I n de x

Abenakis, 105, 113, 124; attack on Hoosick settlement in 1754, 167; as brethren of Mahicans, Schaghticokes, and Wappingers, 31; invited to join neutrality pact, 137– 38; refugees at Schaghticoke, 58; relations to Mahicans of, 45; relations to Schaghticokes of, 167, 207; in Seven Years’ War, 175; and war with New Englanders, 155. Abraham (headman of Shekomeko), 158, 190, 193; and relations with ­Wappingers; and struggles to defend his lands, 162 Abraham (Mahican chief in the Susquehanna Valley), 182, 183 Aepjen alias Eskuvias (Mahican sachem), 12, 18; as go-between for Mohawks to New England Indians, 97, 116; as mediator in First Esopus War, 77; as mediator at peace treaty in 1645, 52, 53, 54, 75 –76; as peacemaker in the war with the Iroquois, 115; and Robin Cassacinamon, 56 Albany (Fort Orange), 17; and DutchIndian wars, 95, 96, 112; magistrates of mediate in Indian-Indian conflicts, 96 –97, 99, 116, 118 –19; relations to Iroquois of, 52, 65, 67, 105, 107, 109, 127, 129, 130; relation to Mahicans of, 13, 17, 43, 52, 62, 87, 89–90, 94 –95, 130– 31. See also Covenant  Chain alcohol: and intercultural violence, 68, 76; and social problems among Indians, 160 Andros, Sir Edmund (governor), 8 –9, 13, 14, 50, 56, 91, 126, 127, 129, 133, 149; and creation of the Covenant Chain, 87; and Hudson Valley Indians during Metacom’s War, 124 –25; offers refuge to New England Indians in New York, 57 Ankerop I (Esopus sachem), 19

Ankerop II (Esopus sachem), 19, 43, 91, 151, 153, 253 n12 Aupaumut I (Mahican sachem), 12 Aupaumut II (Mahican sachem), 12, 155, 158, 160 Aupaumut, Hendrick (Mahican leader), 6, 7– 8, 9, 12, 18, 25, 28, 30, 42, 43, 45, 53, 89, 128, 152; as diplomatic emissary, 203; on the founding of Stockbridge, 207 Becancourt. See Abenakis Bellomont, Lord Richard (governor), 58, 59, 88, 96, 139 Bradstreet, John, 136, 171, 192–93; and boundaries between Iroquois and Esopus Indians, 164 Brainerd, David, 39, 147, 158, 180 Brant, Joseph, 104, 105, 146, 199, 200, 202 Brett, Catherina, 161– 62, 186 Burnet, William (governor), 139, 155, 158, 162 captives: European taken by Indians, 44, 74, 77, 100, 112, 123, 125, 182, 186 – 87; given as gifts in conflict resolution, 45; in Indian-Indian conflicts, 44, 52, 105, 123, 127, 129, 151, 159; Indian taken by Europeans, 16, 100, 111, 120 Cassacinamon, Robin (Pequot sachem), 56, 150 Catskills Mahicans, xi, 3, 10, 28, 29, 41, 67, 105, 128, 135, 137, 146, 154, 174, 190; relations to Esopus Indians of, 13, 23, 55, 110, 112, 151, 196, 209; relations to other Mahicans of, 12–13; and war with the Iroquois, 114, 117–18. See also Mahicans Cayugas, 118, 126. See also Iroquois Chechong, 147 chiefs. See sachems

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clans (phratries), 25 –26, 59, 178 Cochecton (Cashetunk), 25, 34, 176, 178, 184, 186; and Connecticut settlement, 187– 88; and cooperation with Esopus Indians in land sales, 163 – 64; European descriptions of, 146 – 47; as mixed Minisink, Esopus, and Wappinger settlement, 157; relations to Esopus Indians of, 148; residents of oppose survey, 161. See also Minisinks; Munsees Colden, Cadwallader: Indians living near estate of, 148; and Seven Years’ War, 173, 174, 186; surveys land in Wappinger country, 161– 62 Cookoze (Cook House), 163, 202 Corlair alias Metoxon (Mahican sachem), 13 –14; and attitude toward Moravian missionaries, 179 Corruspin (Haverstraw sachem), 18 –19; as mediator in First Esopus War, 77 Covenant Chain, 94, 122–23, 133 – 34; creation of, 129– 31; and Hudson Valley Indians in the eighteenth century, 137– 38; relations of Mahicans and Schaghticokes to, 87– 88, 130– 31 Cowenham (Wappinger), 19, 147, 194 Cowenham, Stephen (Wappinger), 19, 178, 194 Croghan, George, 159, 169, 183, 196 Danckaerts, Jasper, 2, 6, 10, 28, 33, 43, 67 Danskamer, 48 Delawares, 1, 51–52, 91, 93, 103, 105, 106, 136, 146, 156; and crisis in 1727–28, 93, 155 –56; and fictive kinship with other Indian peoples, 30, 31, 152; in Pontiac’s War, 31; in Revolutionary War, 198, 200, 202, 203; in Seven Years’ War, 169, 175, 176, 177, 181, 182, 183 Denton, Daniel, 6, 9, 40, 46, 65 De Rasiere, Isaack, 28, 36, 38, 75, 107 De Vries, David Pietersen, 8, 15, 24, 32, 47– 48, 52, 66; describes massacre of Indian refugees, 21; negotiates release of Dutch captive, 100; negotiates with western Long Islanders, 24 –25, 27–28, 54, 75 Dongan, Thomas, 37, 58, 86, 134, 139, 144; demands that Hudson Valley Indians aid the Iroquois, 129–130; and land ­purchases, 48 epidemic disease, 2, 6, 7, 29, 82, 113, 144, 197, 204 Esopus Indians, xi, 1, 2, 5, 6, 8 –9, 10, 11, 35, 45, 52, 72, 78, 84 – 85, 145 – 46, 206, 207,

208, 210; boundaries of, 47, 48, 49, 164; and crisis in Pennsylvania (1727–28), 156; eighteenth-century resettlements of, 148, 156 –57, 182, 184, 196, 201–2, 203; and Kieft’s War, 50, 71; and Metacom’s War, 124, 125; political organization of, 14, 16, 18, 19, 28 –29; population estimates of, 6 –7, 196; relations to colonial authorities of, 43, 69, 82, 88, 89–90, 91, 95, 96, 97, 98, 131– 32, 139– 40, 160, 213; relations to Mahicans of, 13, 23, 54 –55, 110–11, 112, 151, 156, 196; relations to Minisinks of, 42, 110, 112, 134, 148, 155, 157, 163 – 64; relations to Mohawks of, 37, 105, 112, 113, 122–23, 128, 135 – 36, 137, 173 –74; relations to New England Indians of, 57, 117; relations to Oquaga Iroquois of, 171, 198 –99; relations to Orange County Indians of, 147– 48; relations to Shawnees of, 153 –54; relations to Susquehannocks of, 107, 111, 112–13; relations to Wappingers of, 50, 112, 157; relations to western Iroquois of, 108 –9, 134, 138 – 39; and Revolutionary War, 197–99, 200–202, 204, 215; and Seven Years’ War, 168, 170–71, 171–73, 174 –75, 182, 185 – 86, 192; and struggles to defend lands, 163 – 64, 192–93; and war with the Iroquois, 112–14, 117–18, 119. See also Ankerop; Esopus Wars; Nicolls Treaty; Sewakenamo Esopus Wars: First Esopus War, 22, 36 – 37, 66 – 67, 68, 70, 71, 75, 76 –77, 109–110; Second Esopus War, 10, 61, 76 –77, 78, 79, 111–12, 119–20. See also Esopus Indians fictive kinship: in alliances and diplomatic relationship, 29– 31, 146, 151–52; in Indian-European relations, 64, 80– 81, 87–90, 94, 98, 138; in interpersonal relationships, 31– 32; in relations between Hudson Valley Indians and Iroquois, 104 –5, 127–28 Five Nations. See Iroquois Fletcher, Benjamin (governor), 86; and negotiations with Mahicans, Minisinks and Shawnees, 48, 64, 88, 89, 152 Fort Orange. See Albany fur trade, 17, 47, 57, 62– 63, 65, 70 gift exchanges, xiii, xv; in atonement for violence, 24, 44 – 46, 68 – 69, 74; in diplomatic and political relationships,

i n d e x      291 36 – 37, 43, 49; in Indian-European relations, 65, 71, 81, 90–91; in ritual and ceremonies, 38 – 39; and role of wampum, 36; in social and interpersonal relations, 37– 38 Gnadenhütten, Ohio, 196; and massacre of Moravian Indians, 203 Gnadenhütten, Pennsylvania, 158, 168, 181; attack on during Seven Years’ War, 181– 82 Hackensacks, 4, 8, 10, 16, 28, 68, 145; and Metacom’s War, 124; political organization of, 14 –15; population estimate for, 7; relations to colonial authorities of, 69, 78, 83, 95; relations with the Iroquois of, 134; relations to neighboring peoples of, 26, 49, 50–51, 53, 75, 83, 101, 111, 143; relations to Susquehannocks of, 107, 111; and war with the Iroquois, 117–18. See also Hans; Oratam; Tantaqua Hans alias Perewyn (Hackensack sachem), 10, 29, 33, 67, 83; as chief of Hackensack, Tappan, and Staten Island, 51, 118; as successor of Oratam, 19 Hardenbergh Patent, 163 – 64 Hardy, Sir Charles (governor), 170, 171–73, 174, 178, 184 Haverstraws, 18 –19; relations to neighboring peoples of, 26, 48, 49, 50 Heckewelder, John, 17, 43, 188 Hekan, Hendrick (Esopus sachem), 148, 163 – 64, 252 n12 homicide. See violence and homicide Horton, Azariah, 145, 179 Houghlaling, Philip (Esopus sachem), 198, 199, 200, 202, 203 Housatonic Valley Mahicans, xiv; and Congregationalist mission among, 158, 179, 189–90, 207– 8; different communities of, 157–58; and message sent to the Abenakis, 137– 38; relations to colonial authorities of, 140; relations to Hudson Valley Mahicans of, 13 –14, 31, 35, 124 –25, 138; relations to Mohawks of, 138; relations to Wappingers of, 55, 124 –25, 158 –59, 162; relations to Wiechquaesgecks of, 13; resettlement of other Mahicans among, 157–58; and rituals and festivals, 35. See also Stockbridge Hunter, Robert (governor), 34, 88, 90, 134, 139, 147, 155, 158 hunting territories, 46, 47– 48

information and intelligence, 41– 42; exchange of as reciprocal duty, 43; Native ways of preserving, 42– 43; networks of exchange of, 43, 143, 145, 154 –56 Iroquois, xx, 2, 3, 16, 19, 35, 44, 92, 211, 213 –14; and fictive kinship with Hudson Valley Indians, 127–29; and Hudson Valley Indians during King William’s War, 129– 34; and Metacom’s War, 126; and Pontiac’s War, 189; and refugee communities among, 134, 150–51; relations to colonial authorities of, 65, 87, 94, 127; relations to lower Hudson Valley Indians of, 105 – 6, 108 –9, 131– 34; relations to Mahicans of, 52, 105 – 6, 109, 128 –29; relations to Minisinks and Munsees of, 78, 112, 134 – 35, 177; relations to Schaghticokes of, 128 –29; relations to Shawnees of, 30, 150, 154; relations to Wappingers of, 177; and Revolutionary War, 198, 200, 201–2, 205 – 6; and rivalries between the Mohawks and the western Iroquois, 108 –9, 111, 113 –19; as supervisors of other Indians, 138 – 39; and Susquehannah Company, 187; and Tuscarora War, 154; and war with Hudson Valley and New England Indians, 96 –97, 99; and war with Susquehannocks, 107, 112, 116 –17, 127. See also Cayugas; Mohawks; Oneidas; Onondagas; Senecas; Tuscaroras Johnson, Sir William, 96, 136, 170, 176, 186, 188, 194, 196, 197, 198, 208; and relations to Hudson Valley Indians of, 122–23, 135, 137, 170, 173 –75, 183, 184 – 86, 189–90, 192–93, 194 –95 Kahnawakes (Catholic Iroquois), 44 – 45, 137– 38, 199–200 Kichtawancs, xi, 22; diplomatic relations of, 24, 50, 52–53, 75; in King William’s War, 132 Kieft’s War, 15, 21–22, 24, 49–51, 101, 141; causes of, 66, 67, 68 –71; effects of, 71–72. See also Kieft, Willem Kieft, Willem, 8, 69, 75; and attempt to levy tribute on the Indians, 17, 64, 69–70; and conflict with the Raritans, 51; and failed peace treaty in 1643, 24, 45, 75; and massacre of Indian refugees, 21–22; and war of the 1640s, 50, 70–71, 74. See also Kieft’s War King George’s War, 138, 139– 40, 167 King Philip’s War. See Metacom’s War

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Kingston (Wiltwyck), 74 –75; diplomatic relations with Esopus Indians of, 10, 89, 91, 95, 96, 124, 131– 32, 153, 185 – 86; Esopus Indians attack, 76. See also Esopus Indians; Nicolls Treaty King William’s War, 129– 32 kinship relations, 8 –9; among chiefly families, 26 –27, 28 –29, 159; among members of different peoples, 22–25, 55 –56, 59, 63, 137, 156, 159. See also clans; fictive kinship land: conflicts over with Europeans, 73, 76, 83 – 86, 161– 64, 169, 177, 187– 88, 192–95; Indian and European understandings of sales of, 72–73, 84 – 86; Indian patterns of possession of, 10–12. See also territories and borders Long Islanders, eastern, xiv, 9, 35, 46, 47, 205; and Kieft’s War, 101; and Peach War, 102, 103; relations to western Long Islanders of, 55 –56, 102, 103, 143. See also Montauketts; Shinnecocks; Unquachogs; Wyandance Long Islanders, western, xiv, 2, 4, 5, 11, 19, 46, 143, 145; and disputes over land, 83 – 84; and Kieft’s War, 22, 24 –25, 49–50, 5, 70–71; and King William’s War, 132; and Metacom’s War, 124, 125; and Peach War, 102– 3; and political organization of, 9, 15, 26 –27; population estimates for, 6, 7; and Queen Anne’s War, 132; relations to colonial authorities of, 78 –79; relations to eastern peoples of, 27, 55 –56, 100–1; and responses to Christian proselytizing, 179; and war with the Iroquois, 115. See also Massapequas; Matinnecocks; Mechowodt; Penhawis; Tackapousha Lovelace, Francis (governor), 85, 86; and purchase of Staten Island, 83, 84; and war between Hudson Valley Indians and the Iroquois, 117, 118, 119. Mahak Niminaw (Catskill sachem), 12, 23; relations to Esopus Indians of, 55, 110. Mahicans, xi, xiv, xv, 1, 3, 4 –5, 11, 16, 18 –20, 27, 29, 34, 35, 39, 60, 85, 144, 145 – 46, 196, 206; and crisis in 1727–28, 154; in Covenant Chain, 87, 137–140; and defense of lands, 193; eighteenthcentury resettlements of, 157–58, 159– 60, 171, 182– 85, 187– 88, 196, 203; and phratries among, 25; political organization of, 8, 9–10, 12–14, 32, 42– 43, 45;

in Pontiac’s War, 188 –90; population numbers of, 6; relations to Abenakis of, 31, 137– 38, 174; relations to colonial authorities of, 17–18, 63, 64, 87, 89–92, 94 –95, 130– 32; relations to east bank peoples of, 37, 52–53; relations to Esopus Indians of, 23, 54 –55, 77, 110–11, 112, 156; relations to Iroquois of, 17, 54, 103 – 6, 109, 126, 128 –29, 130– 32, 135 – 36, 140– 41; relations to Minisinks and Munsees of, 30, 152, 186; relations to New England peoples of, 54, 56, 57, 96, 99, 114, 123 –24, 124 –26; relations to Schaghticokes of, 45, 57–58, 59, 149–50, 167– 68, 190, 207; relations to Shawnees of, 30, 31, 64, 88, 152–53, 154, 155, 159– 60, 180; relations to Wappingers of, xii, 31, 55, 123 –24, 180– 81; relations to western Indians of, 151–52; religious divisions among, 179–180, 207– 8; in Revolutionary War, 191–93, 199–200, 201–2 in Seven Years’ War, 168, 174 –75, 182– 83; and wars with the Iroquois, 99, 103 – 4; 114 –19. See also Housatonic Valley Mahicans; Stockbridge; Shekomeko; Moravians Mamaruchqua (Esopus sachem), 10, 151 Massapequas, xiv, 4, 5, 9, 15, 143, 145; assist the Dutch against the Esopus Indians, 10, 22, 78, 102; and Kieft’s War, 101; relations to colonial authorities of, 63, 78 –79, 83 – 84, 103; relations to eastern peoples of, 55 –56, 101, 102– 3; relations to neighboring peoples of, 26 –27, 37, 54; and struggle to defend lands, 72, 73. See also Tackapousha; Mechowodt Matinnecocks, xiv, 5, 22; and Kieft’s War, 15, 54, 101; persist as a distinct people, 145 – 46, 205, 215; population estimate for, 6, 7; relations to neighboring peoples of, 27, 55; and struggle to defend lands, 83 – 84, 86. See also Suskaneman Mattano (Staten Island sachem), 51; as mediator in Second Esopus War, 77, 78; sells land in New Jersey, 83 Mechowodt (Massapequa sachem), 54; kinship connections of, 18; relations to colonial authorities of, 64, 84 mediation, 53 –54, 56, 60, 211; by colonial officials in Indian-Indian conflicts, 94, 96 –97, 99, 113, 126; and Hudson Valley Indians and Iroquois, 105, 106, 112, 114, 127, 128; and wars between Dutch and Hudson Valley Indians, 77, 100, 105, 110–11, 112

i n d e x      293 Melyn, Cornelis, 21, 52, 73, 84, 85 Memshe (Tappan sachem), 22–23, 49; land sale of, 11 Mericokes, 15, 27, 115 Metacom’s War (King Philip’s War), 13, 56 –57, 124 –26, 129 Miamis, 135; relations to Mahicans of, 152, 160, 203 Miantenomie (Narragansett sachem), 69, 100; and anti-English alliance, 101; and Tackapousha, 29 Michtauk (Munsee sachem): and conference with Ulster County officials, 186; and land sale at Cochecton, 188 Minisinks, xiii; and Christian proselytizing, 180; and emergence of Munsee identity, xiv, 146, 156; and Esopus Wars, 110, 112, 120; fictive kinship relations of, 30; and King William’s War, 132; population estimate for, 7; relations to colonial authorities of, 37, 88, 130, 139– 40; relations to Esopus Indians of, 42; 47, 148, 151, 154 –55, 163 – 64; relations to Iroquois of, 78, 133, 134 – 35; relations to Shawnees of, 30, 48, 64, 152, 154; relations to Susquehannocks of, 107, 112, 114; relations to Tappans of, 22–23, 143 – 44; relations to Wappingers of, 157. See also Cochecton; Munsees missionaries. See Brainerd, David; Horton, Azariah; Moravian missionaries; Muirson, George; Stockbridge Mohawk or West Branch of the Delaware River: and boundary between Iroquois and Esopus Indians, 164; and Minisink settlement at Cookoze, 163, 202 Mohawks, 6, 10, 13, 16, 37; and borders with Hudson Valley Indians, 135 – 37; and fictive kinship with Hudson Valley peoples, 127–29; and Hudson Valley Indians during King William’s War, 129– 32; and Hudson Valley Indians during Seven Years’ War, 170, 173 –75, 186 – 86; as mediators during Esopus Wars, 77, 110– 11, 112; as mediators during Kieft’s War, 50; and Metacom’s War, 126; relations to colonial authorities of, 54, 67, 75 –76, 89, 96 –97; relations to Esopus Indians of, 105, 107, 122–23, 137, 138 – 39; relations to Indians of the lower Hudson of, 37, 105 – 6, 117–18, 127, 133 – 34; relations to Mahicans of, 29– 30, 52, 97, 104 – 6, 109, 123 –24, 126, 137– 38; relations to Minisinks and Munsees of, 133; 134 – 35; relations to Schaghticokes of, 58, 80, 129,

134, 137– 38; relations to Susquehannocks of, 107, 111, 112–13; relations to Wappingers of, 118, 127, 137– 38; in Revolutionary War, 198; and war with Hudson Valley and New England Indians, 99, 113 –19; and war with the Mahicans in the 1620s, 17–18, 54; 103 – 4. See also Iroquois Mohegans, 100, 101–2, 109, 110, 115, 117, 150 Mohickon John (Mahican leader), 188, 202 Monhaw (Esopus leader), 19, 47, 148, 163 Montauketts, 15, 102–103, 205. See also Wyandance Moravian Indians, 140, 156, 158, 159–160, 179– 81; and Pontiac’s War, 188 – 89; and Revolutionary War, 202; and Seven Years’ War, 171, 181– 82; westward migration of, 179– 80, 189, 196, 202. See also Pachgatgoch; Shekomeko Moravian missionaries, 67, 140, 159, 160, 178, 179– 82, 186, 189, 208 Muirson, George, 7, 145 Munsees: clans or phratries among, 25; and emergence Munsee identity, 146; fictive kinship relations of, 30, 152; and Munsee speakers, xiv; and Pontiac’s War, 189; and postrevolutionary exile, 203; and Revolutionary War, 198, 202, 203; and Seven Years’ War, 169, 176 –77; and Susquehannah Company, 188. See also Cochecton; Minisinks Murderers Creek Indians, 48, 49 naming practices, 19, 29 Nappaner Indians, 88, 93, 147– 48 Narragansetts, 29, 56, 78, 101–2. See also Miantenomie; Ninegret Nevesinks, 76, 82– 83, 91, 144; relations to Susquehannocks of, 127; and war with the Iroquois, 117 New Amsterdam. See New York  City New Netherland, xii; English conquest of, 81– 83; Hudson Valley Indians and the founding of, 17–18, 62– 64 New York City (New Amsterdam), 63; as destination for Indian diplomatic delegations, 13, 37, 50, 95, 171; and Peach War, 71, 73 –74 Nicolls, Richard (governor), 37, 84, 86, 126; and war between the Iroquois and the Hudson Valley Indians, 114, 115, 116. See also Nicolls Treaty Nicolls Treaty, 22–23, 28, 42, 56, 82, 91, 95, 186

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Nimham I alias Old Nimham (Wappinger sachem), 23, 95; attitudes toward Christianity of, 180– 81; kinship connections of, 59, 158 –59, 178; lands of, 11–12, 161– 62; land sales of, 163 Nimham II (Wappinger sachem), 177–78; settles at Wyoming, PA, 184, 187– 88 Nimham, Abraham (Wappinger), 199–200 Nimham, Daniel (Wappinger sachem), xi–xii, 162, 164, 196, 197; family landholdings of, 11–13; kinship connections of, 158 –59, 177–78, 184; land litigation of; 193 –95; in Revolutionary War, 199; in Seven Years’ War, 176 Ninegret (Niantic sachem), 101– 3, 110 Nochpeems, xi, 4, 50 Ohio Valley: eighteenth-century settlements of Hudson Valley Indians in, 156, 160, 168, 169, 182– 83, 188, 196, 202 Oneidas: fictive kinship to Mahicans, 128; at Oquaga, 171, 183; and Pontiac’s War, 190; and postrevolutionary dispossession of, 205 – 6; relations to Hudson Valley Indians of, 105, 136, 139; and resettlement of Stockbridge Mahicans among, 191–92, 204; and Revolutionary War, 198, 200; and Seven Years’ War, 182, 185; and war with Hudson Valley and New England Indians, 117, 118. See also Iroquois; Oquaga Onondagas, 117, 118, 128, 139, 198, 204, 205. See also Iroquois Oquaga (Onoquaga): destroyed by Patriots in Revolutionary War, 200, 204; and Esopus Indians during the Revolutionary War, 197–99; Iroquois at invite Mahicans to settle among them, 185; and Mahicans refugees at Niagara, 201, 203; and Pontiac’s War, 189; and relations to Esopus Indians of, 170–71, 209; and relations to Hudson Valley Indians in the Susquehanna Valley, 183; Wappingers visit, 196 Orange County Indians, 147– 48, 157, 190 Oratam (Hackensack sachem), 8, 15, 18 –19, 82, 83, 106; as mediator, 50, 53 –54, 61, 77, 112, 120; and Susquehannocks, 106 –7 Otsiningo (Chenango): Hudson Valley Indians resettle at, 183 – 85; in Pontiac’s War, 189; in Revolutionary War, 198 Ottawas, 144; relations to the Mahicans of, 151–52

Pacham (Tankiteke sachem), 16; as adversary of the Dutch, 49; aids the Dutch against the Raritans, 49, 51 Pachgatgoch, 159, 171, 175, 176 Paghatakan, 148, 171 Papakonk, 148, 171, 198 Peach War, 15, 16, 52, 70, 71, 73 –74, 75, 81– 82; and developments in New England, 102; and western Long Islanders, 79 Penhawis (western Long Island sachem), 28, 54; and Kieft’s War, 10; kinship connections of, 18, 26; relations to Narragansetts of, 29, 101 Pennacooks: refugees from Metacom’s War, 150; seek alliance with Hudson Valley Indians against the Iroquois, 105 – 6; and war with the Iroquois, 114 Pepacton or East Branch of the Delaware River: Esopus settlements on, 148, 160, 163 –164, 197; Indians and Europeans during Revolutionary War, 198, 201 Pequots, 56, 150 Philipse, Adolph, 193 –94, 195, 199 Pocumtucks, 29, 123; refugees from living at Schaghticoke, 58; relations with Mahicans of, 54; 109; Seek alliance with Hudson Valley Indians against the Iroquois, 105 – 6; and war with the Iroquois, 99, 115 –16; and war with the Mohegans, 102–103 Pontiac’s War, 31, 187–90 population estimates, 5 –7, 164 – 65, 197 Pynchon, John: and Metacom’s War, 124; and Schaghticokes in the Connecticut Valley, 150; and war between the Iroquois and the Hudson Valley and New England Indians, 115, 116, 117, 119, 123 Queen Anne’s War, 131, 132 Quinney, John W. (Mahican leader), 43, 53 Ramapough Indians, 205 Raritans: and conflict with the Dutch, 49, 66, 69, 76; relations to other Hudson Valley Indians, 51–52, 109 Reading, John, 146 – 47, 152, 161 renewal: of alliances and diplomatic relationships, 26, 32, 35 – 36, 37, 49, 50, 72–73, 89, 95, 106; as cosmological concept, 35 – 36 reciprocity: and European violation of Native expectations, 65, 66 – 67, 77–78, 97; in gift-giving, 37– 39, 81, 90–91; in

i n d e x      295 information exchanges, 43; and mediation, 54; in kinship relations, 24 –25 revenge. See violence and homicide rituals and festivals: and boundary regulation, 48; and disruptions caused by conversions to Christianity, 179, 208; and relations between Indians and Europeans, 34, 65; role of in intergroup relations, 32– 36 Rockaways, 15, 87, 92, 101, 115, 145; relations to eastern peoples of, 56, 143; relations to neighboring peoples of, 27 rumor. See information and intelligence sachems: authority of, 2, 3 – 4, 7–10, 14 –15, 33, 42, 44 – 45, 68 –70; control over land of, 11–12, 48 – 49; and exchanges of gifts, 37– 39; kinship connections of, 23 –24, 26 –29; as mediators, 53 –54; succession of, 18 –19 Sacquans (Schaghticoke sachem), 92, 96; as speaker for Mahican and Schaghticoke delegations, 59 Sandor (Esopus sachem), 98, 148, 160, 163 Sauwenaroque (Wiechquaesgeck sachem), 28, 37, 92, 110 Senecas: and Hudson Valley Indians in King William’s War, 132; and kinship ties to Esopus Indians, 137; and relations to Minisinks and Munsees of, 133, 135, 152; and relations to Schaghticokes of, 130; as uncles of the Mahicans, 128. See also Iroquois Schoharie Mohawks, 135 – 37, 174 Secatogues, 15, 27, 54, 101, 115, 132 Sergeant, John, 35, 43, 138, 158, 160 Seven Year’s War (French and Indian War), 135, 168 –71; Hudson Valley Indians as refugees during, 173 –75; and political divisions among Indians, 175 –78; population movements during, 183 – 85; in the Susquehanna and Ohio valleys, 182– 83; vigilante attacks on Hudson Valley Indians during, 171–73 Sewakenamo (Esopus sachem), 18, 29; kinship connections of, 26, 28; as peacemaker in Esopus Wars, 8, 33, 120 Shank, Benjamin (Esopus captain): and Hardenbergh Patent, 164; in Revolutionary War, 200, 204 Shawnees, 156; and crisis in Pennsylvania in 1727–28, 155 –56; fictive kinship connections of, 30, 31, 64; in Queen Anne’s War, 132; relations to Covenant Chain of, 88 – 89; relations to Esopus Indians

of, 152–52, 214; relations to Mahicans of, 152–53, 159– 60, 180, 196, 214; relations to Minisinks and Munsees of, 48, 146, 196, 214; and resistance to English expansion, 202; settlement in Minisink country of, 152, 161, 186; in Seven Years’ War, 169, 171, 175, 182– 83; and unrest in Hudson Valley in 1712, 154 Shekomeko, 11, 93 –94, 138, 140, 157, 160; Mahicans from visit Manhattan, 158; Moravian mission at, 156, 179– 81; struggles to preserve lands, 162, 193 Shinnecocks, 35, 47, 56, 205 Six Nations. See Iroquois smallpox. See epidemic disease Sokokis: relations with the Mahicans of, 54, 104; seek alliance with Hudson Valley Indians against the Iroquois, 105 – 6; and war with the Iroquois, 113 –15 Speck alias Waspacheek (Wappinger), 19, 147 St. Francis. See Abenakis Staten Island: sales of, 15, 73, 83 Staten Islanders, 51, 73, 83, 84, 85, 118, 173, 182. See also Mattano Stockbridge, xi; founding of, 158; in King George’s War, 167, 180; as Mahican central council fire, 13, 190, 201, 207; and Pontiac’s War, 31, 189–90; relations to Abenakis of, 31, 45, 175; relations to colonial authorities of, 140; relations to Schaghticokes of, 167– 68, 175, 190; relations to Shawnees of, 30, 159, 180, 195; resettlement of residents among Oneidas, 191–92, 204; resettlement of Wappingers at, xii, 164, 174, 180– 81; in Revolutionary War, 199–200; in Seven Years’ War, 175; and struggles to defend land, 193, 196. See also Housatonic Valley Mahicans; Mahicans Stuyvesant, Petrus, 2, 69, 107, 113, 120; and alliance with the Indians against the English, 77–78; and alliance with New England colonies, 72; and Esopus Wars, 8, 26, 76 –77, 110, 111, 112; and Ninegret, 101; and Peach War, 16, 52, 73, 74 –75, 102, 105; and reconciliation with the Indians, 71–72, 73; and western Long Islanders, 78 –79, 83 – 84, 103 Suskaneman (Matinnecock sachem), 22, 27, 56, 77, 86, 145 Susquehanna Valley: eighteenth-century settlements of Hudson Valley Indians in, 156, 159– 60, 164, 168, 169, 173, 177, 182, 183 – 84, 188 – 89, 196, 201–2

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Susquehannah Company. See Wyoming, Pennsylvania Susquehannocks, 3, 4, 106; and Esopus Wars, 26, 111–12; relations to Hudson Valley Indians of, xx, 29, 54, 75, 77, 106 –7, 127; relations to Mohawks of, 37, 111, 112–13; and war with the Iroquois, 99, 112–13, 116 –17, 119, 126 –27 Tackapousha (Massapequa sachem), 5, 9, 10, 18, 22, 29, 32, 34, 35, 37, 39, 56, 78, 132, 133, 145, 205; as diplomat, 54, 115; kinship connections of, 18, 26 –27, 55; relations to colonial authorities of, 78 –79, 83 – 84, 89, 90–91; relations to eastern Long Islanders of, 101, 103, 124; and struggles to defend Native lands, 73, 86 Tankitekes. See Pacham Tantaqua alias Jasper (Hackensack leader), 28, 33, 143 Tappans, 3, 4, 11, 16, 17; and Kieft’s War, 100; massacre of refugees, 21, 53; and Metacom’s War, 124; population estimates for, 7; relations to colonial authorities of, 64, 70, 130, 132; relations to the Iroquois of, 105, 133; relations to neighboring peoples of, 22–23, 47, 49, 50–51, 52, 75, 101, 143 – 44; and war with the Iroquois, 106, 118 Teedyuscung (Delaware leader): relations to Mahicans of, 182, 184, 187– 88; relations to Munsees of, 169, 188; relations to Wappingers of, 157, 184, 187– 88 territories and borders, xi, 11, 23, 46 – 49, 135 – 37 Tioga, 173, 175, 182, 183 Treaty of Crosswicks (1756), 170, 176 Treaty of Easton (1758), 84, 157, 177, 184, 186 Tuscarora War, 153, 154, 155, 161 Tuscaroras, 134; desire meeting with Ulster County officials, 181; fictive kinship with Mahicans, 128; at Oquaga, 171, 197, 198 –99; in Revolutionary War, 198. See also Iroquois; Tuscarora War Uncas (Mohegan sachem), 100, 101, 101; expresses distrust of Hudson Valley Indians, 150; Ninegret seeks alliance with Hudson Valley Indians against, 101–2; and war between Iroquois and Hudson Valley Indians, 115 Unquachogs, xiv, 56, 143

Van der Donck, Adriaen, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 14, 26, 32– 33, 35, 36, 45, 46, 62, 210 Van Gilder, John alias Tawanout (Wappinger): landholdings of, 12; as uncle of Daniel Nimham, 158 Van Rensselaer, Jeremias, 114; Esopus Indians request mediation of, 96; helps negotiate end to war with the Iroquois, 123 Van Rensselaer, Kiliaen: land purchases from Mahicans, 135; on Mohawk-Mahican War, 104 violence and homicide: as cause of intercultural conflict, 68 –71, 72, 76, 91; Indian customs of reconciliation in cases of, 44 – 46; Indian views of European retributive justice in cases of, 91–94, 138 – 39 Wallkill Indians, 148, 173, 182– 83 Wamaschkoo (Schaghticoke sachem), 58, 59, 144 Wamash, Hendrick (Wappinger), 186, 195 wampum: given to atone for acts of violence, 44 – 45, 46, 72, 93; given as contributions to sachems, 38, 208; production of by Hudson Valley Indians, 66; as records of treaties and agreements, 42– 43; role of in diplomatic exchanges, 36, 37 Wappingers, xi, 1, 2, 4, 5, 11–12, 16, 17, 19, 41, 43, 73, 78, 82, 84, 100, 145, 146, 160, 205; in the Covenant Chain, 94, 137– 38; and defense of landholdings, 161– 62, 193 –95, 208 –9; eighteenthcentury resettlements of, 157, 164, 174, 183 – 84, 187– 88; existence of clans or phratries among, 25; and Kieft’s War, 22, 24, 33, 43; population numbers of, 164 – 65; relations to colonial authorities of, 88, 95 –96, 127, 132, 140, 155; relations to east bank peoples of, 22, 23, 50; relations to Esopus Indians of, 7, 50, 77, 109–10, 111–12, 114, 120; relations to Mahicans of, xii, 31, 52, 55, 123 –24, 154, 156, 158 –59, 180– 81, 210, 213, 214, 215; relations to Orange County Indians of, 147; relations to Schaghticokes of, 31, 47– 48, 59, 205; relations to Susquehannocks of, 127; religious divisions among, 178, 180– 81, 208; and Seven Years’ War, 170, 173, 174, 175, 176 –78, 182, 186; and war with the Iroquois, 114, 118. See also Nimham I; Nimham II; Nimham, Daniel

i n d e x      297 Wattawit (Mahican sachem), 13, 18, 55, 126, 150; kinship connections of, 12 Weamus (Secatogue sachem), 27, 132 Wessecanoe (Wiechquaesgeck sachem), 13, 14, 22, 23 –24, 49, 57, 92, 132, 133, 158 West India Company (WIC), 17, 66; policies toward the Indians of, 69; 71, 72, 75, 76; trading policies of, 65 Wiechquaesgecks, xi, 4, 7, 13, 14, 17, 49, 68, 69, 73, 125, 126, 139, 143, 144, 158; refugees massacred by the Dutch, 21, 70; relations with neighboring peoples, 22, 23 –24, 31, 37, 50, 52, 57, 110, 123 –24; and war with the Iroquois, 115, 118 –19, 135. See also Sauwenaroque; Wessecanoe Wiltwyck. See Kingston Winthrop, John, Jr., 102, 115, 116, 119 Wolley, Charles, 7, 11, 33, 79, 144

women: and intercultural relations, 63, 66; as landholders, 10–11; and political authority, 8, 9, 10 Wyandance (Montaukett sachem), 9, 15; kinship connections of, 27; and western Long Island Indians, 56, 101, 102, 103 Wyandots: fictive kinship with Mahicans, 152; and Moravian Indians during Revolutionary War, 203; relations to Mahicans in the Ohio Valley of, 183, 188 Wyoming, Pennsylvania: and encroachment by Connecticut colonists, 187– 88, 208; Mahicans residing at, 159; Moravian Mahicans resettle at, 160, 181; and Seven Years’ War, 182; Shawnee settlements at, 152; Wappingers and Mahicans resettle at, 184, 187– 88 Zeisberger, David, 7, 28, 46, 146, 179, 202