Footnotes - foundOdanak

Footnotes/Further Reading

Footnote # 1

Although many Native signers specifically reserved rights to continue to plant, fish, hunt, and live on the lands supposedly "sold," there is little evidence that the English paid much attention or respect to these rights.

Footnote # 2

For example, in 1663, attacks by the Kanienkehaka (Mohawk) and their Iroquois allies damaged the Sokoki fort. Later that same year, with assistance of several English fur traders, the Pocumtuck hosted a peace conference at their fort with 36 of the Sokoki sachems and several emmissaries from the Kanienkehaka and Mohican. But by 1664, the English had formed a new alliance with the Kanienkehaka, Mohican, and all of the Hudson River tribes, who agreed to assist each other in any conflicts against the Connecticut River Valley Indians. In early February of 1665, the Kanienkehaka attacked and destroyed the Pocumtuck fort.

Footnote # 3

Historical errors about the origins of Schaghticoke and Odanak abound in the writings of 19th century historians and secondary sources. These errors are linguistic and geographical as well as historical in nature. The most common mistakes are the following: assuming that the Schaghticoke Indians in New York were all Mohican; confusing the Schaghticoke Indians in New York with the Schaghticoke Tribe in Connecticut; confusing the Pequot in Connecticut with the Pennacook in New Hampshire; confusing the Mohican in New York with the Mohegan in Connecticut; confusing the Cowass in Vermont with the place name Cohoes in New York; mistaking the Saco Indians of Maine for the Sokoki Indians of the Connecticut River Valley; assuming that Odanak was a place of origin for all of the Abenaki people of Vermont and New Hampshire; and mixing up Eastern Abenaki and Western Abenaki. These mistaken identities have all encouraged the mistaken impression that the middle Connecticut River Valley Indians and other Wôbanaki peoples disappeared.

Primary documents of the 1600s and 1700s often used generic identifiers such as "North Indians, " "River Indians, " "Schaghticokes, " "St. Francis Indians" etc. rather than calling these Native people by their original tribal names, and that the definition of these terms changed over time. Gordon Day’s work The Identity of the Saint Francis Indians (1981) is an excellent source for untangling the various Native tribes who came and went from Odanak, but there is not, as yet, any comparable source for the histories of those who came and went from Schaghticoke.

Footnote # 4

Many historians have been confused by the fact that there were two different Native settlements by this name during the 1600s. In 1637, a group of Native people, many of whom were Pequot, formed the core group of a Native village called "Schaghticoke, " situated in northwestern Connecticut along the Housatonic River; those people make up the Schaghticoke Tribe today. Decades later, in 1676, a large number of Connecticut River Valley Indians from Massachusetts relocated to an entirely different place, also called "Schaghticoke, " situated at what had formerly been an exclusively Mohican village site in New York state, on the Hoosic River. The two Schaghticokes were culturally similar, but their histories and founding populations were dramatically different.

Footnote # 5

Governor Andros’ letter of May 1676 reads, in part, as follows:

Also send by some Mahicander [a message to the] Eastward. . . that all Indyans, who will come & submitt, shall be received to live under the protection of the Government and that the Governor will be as afore, where any of them may freely come and speake with him and return againe, as they see cause without Molestation... (NYCD XIII:497).

Footnote # 6

The oak tree was planted on the south side of the Hoosic River, on lands that were later absorbed into the farm of Johannes Knickerbocker. The Knickerbacker family cemetery, on the grounds of the farm, was superimposed upon the existing cemetery from the Schaghticoke settlement. Local historian Grace Greylock Niles wrote a compelling book, Hoosac Valley: Its Legends and Its History (1912), that includes some important Native oral traditions about the Schaghticoke settlement, but it consistently misidentifies many of the tribal nations involved, and liberally mixes fact and fiction. She does, however, reference the fact that a Native woman known as "Queen Esther, " a member of the Akwesasne (St. Regis) Kanienkehaka, who was a direct descendant of the Pocumtuck sachem Soquans, made regular visits back to Schaghticoke until the 1860s.

Footnote # 7

An August 26, 1676 letter from John Pynchon reads in part as follows:

...the enemy who we certainly understand are gathered together at Paquaog on the Hudson River about 200 men and having there wives and children (John Pynchon Papers 1:170).

Footnote # 8

The exchange between Sadochques, who is identified in earlier English records as Shattoockquis, took place during a July 1, 1685 conference. Sadochques knew that the French King would miss them, but stated that he felt a closer kinship with the Native peoples at Schaghticoke than he did with the French. During a lengthy exchange of wampum and beaver furs, after securing the safety of his own people, Sadochques also asked New York’s Governor Thomas Dongan to allow some Mohican people who were then living among the Saint Francis Abenaki to return to the Hudson River Valley (see Livingston Records, Leder 1956:77-81).

In August 4, 1685, an invitation was extended to Connecticut River Valley refugees then living at Pennacook to relocate to Schaghticoke as well (see Livingston Records, Leder 1956:82.

Footnote # 9

Robert Livingston, Albany’s Secretary for Indian Affairs, promised that all of the Indians at Schaghticoke would be:

Protected, & Civilly used, & have Land Eneugh to Plant upon...ye Path being open for all Indians yt are willing to come and live Peaceably under this government (see Livingston Records, Leder 1956:77-81).

Livingston was however, at that moment, already maneuvering to purchase 2,000 acres of Mohican land that would soon be converted into the 160,000 acre Manor of Livingston. More deeds for Schaghticoke Indian land would soon follow.

Footnote # 10

Native people at Odanak were routinely fluent in several languages – French, Kanienkehaka, and English – in addition to the different Wôbanaki dialects. Missisquoi families had so many direct kinship ties with Odanak, that the Missisquoi dialect known today as Western Abenaki became the dominant language of the Saint Francis Indians.

Footnote # 11

In 1691, the Saint Francis Abenaki sent a wampum belt to the cathedral at Chartes as a token of their welcome for the Jesuits. A painting of that belt occupies an honored place in the church at Odanak today, as does a small replica of the Chartes cathedral that was sent over in 1691. The original gift from Chartes was stolen from the church in 1759 during Roger’s Raid.

Footnote # 12

John Pynchon seems to have been caught by surprise by this return of Pocumtuck people carrying passes of safe conduct from the Mayor of Albany. Samuel Partridge reported:

...the Indians that are come down are about 150 of them, men, women, and children, and are settled at Deerfield under the side of the mountain southerly from the town, living in the woods about a mile out of the town, the men plying hunting and leaving their women and children at home. (Partridge, quoted by Pynchon in writing to Massachusetts Governor Simon Bradstreet, December 2, 1691.

John Pynchon was well known to these Indians from his decades of trading furs, serving as a judge, fighting in King Philip’s War, and now, reporting to the governors of the New England colonies. Pynchon wrote a set of directions for Partridge to deliver to the Pocumtuck, including the following:

...we shall for the present overlook your seeming intruding upon us, and allow you abiding where you are this winter time, you behaving yourselves peacably and orderly and carrying it well to all our people...We do particularly caution you to beware of strong drink...We let you know that we are now apprehensive of some approach of the French and Indian enemy and therefore intend to keep out scouts, and to have more strict watch, and shortly to settle some more soldiers at Deerfield, wherefore none of you...are to go or wander from your present stations without orders in writing...

The Pocumtuck, who apparently hoped for a more welcoming response, replied that they:

...intend no ill to the English but to carry it peaceably...They desire their squaws may be safe under protection while they are all hunting.

Bridenbaugh, Carl. The Pynchon Papers, Volume I, Letters of John Pynchon, 1654-1700, Boston, MA: Colonial Society of Massachusetts 1982, p. 236-245.

Footnote # 13

The Winooski River and intervales, east of Lake Champlain near Burlington, Vermont, have long been part of the traditional Winooski and Missisquoi Abenaki territory. When some of the Schaghticoke claimed the region as "where we have formerly dwelt" they identified themselves as members of those tribal groups. The Mohican took the symbolism of the tree of peace, and their protection of the refugees at Schaghticoke, seriously. The sachem Caloolet, who had recently sold Mohican lands on the Hudson River around Albany, accompanied the Schaghticoke who went to Winooski. n June 20, 1699, in a message to Albany's Mayor, Peter Schuyler, Caloolet symbolically referred to the Schaghticoke as "children" when he wrote:

We must tell you there is a great fear among our children, because they have caught but a few Beaver to pay their debts, and when they come home, your people do threaten and strike them for beaver, which may occasion their departure; pray let that no more be done for the future...Last year our corn was scarce by reason of high waters, and what was left, most part thereof your people took from us, which caused our wifes [to] suffer for it in Winter...Schaakook has been appointed by all Governors for our dwelling place, where a tree is planted to cover all out people...We would not have you take ill throughts that we should leave you.

Schuyler was suspicious, having heard that the Schaghticoke at Winnoski were preparing to meet with the Governor of Canada. Although he reassured the Schaghticoke they need not fear their debtors, he interrogated Caloolet and reported the incident to Lieutenant Governor Nanfan. By 1701, the Schaghticoke had returned from Winooski with an assurance of leniency regarding their debts.

Footnote # 14

In 1702, during a conference between Governor of New York and the Schaghticoke, the sachem Soquans stated:

About 26 years ago [1676] Sir Edmund Andros then Governor of this Province planted a Tree of welfare at Skachcook and invited us to come and live there which we luckily complyed withall, and we have had the good fortune ever since that wee have encreased that Tree and the very leaves thereof are grown hard & strong, the Tree is grown so thich of leaves & Bows that the sun can scarce shine throw it, yea the fire itself cannot consume it, meaning that they are now so strong, that they do not much fear the enemy (Documents Relating to the Colonial History of the State of New York IV:991).