Dawnland Voices: An Anthology of Indigenous Writing from New England

Cheryll Toney Holley

404 Choosing Schmoozing Sowing compliments Slanting Panting Cutting Gutting Reaping benefits Printed. Minted. Set in stone. Used. Abused. Left alone by my own kind. Cheryll Toney Holley (b. 1962) Cheryll Toney Holley is the current Nipmuc Nation chief. She is also a highly skilled Nipmuc historian, researcher, and writer. She served on the Massachusetts Commission on Indian Affairs from 1998 to 2008. In addition to writing for the tribal newsletters, she maintains several blogs, including one for the Hassanamisco Museum, and also writes creatively. The historical essay below has been widely circulated on the Internet and among educational institutions. A Brief Look at Nipmuc History The people the English referred to as Nipmuc, or “fresh water people,” occupied the interior portion of what are now Massachusetts and parts of Rhode Island and Connecticut. The original homelands included all of central Massachusetts from the New Hampshire–Vermont borders and south of the Merrimac Valley to Tolland and Windsor Counties in Cheryll Toney Holley 405 Connecticut and the northwest portion of Rhode Island. To the east the homelands included the Natick-Sudbury area going west to include the Connecticut River Valley. The people lived in scattered villages throughout the area, including Wabaquasset, Quinebaug, Quaboag, Pocumtuc, Agawam, Squawkeag, and Wachusett. Their economic and subsistence cycles consisted of hunting, gathering, planting, and harvesting in their seasons. These villages were linked together by kinship ties, trade alliances, and common enemies. They lived in wetus, which could be moved to other encampments. Often thought of as wanderers, they were instead careful planners and good stewards of the land upon which they lived. There are scattered references throughout history to Europeans landing on the coasts of Canada, Maine, and the islands nearby. In 1497 John Cabot landed on Newfoundland, establishing new fishing grounds for northern Europeans. The French attempted several times to colonize the Canadian and Maine coastlines in order to capitalize on the fur trade. Deadly epidemics resulting from these encounters ravaged the Native population. Current scholars estimate a possible 80 percent mortality rate. Later, when the English began to settle the area, they took the vacant villages and abandoned cornfields as a sign from God that they were meant to supplant the Indians as the rightful inhabitants of the land. (Ojibway oral history tells that a sign was given and the people knew that a terrible thing was on its way to destroy the people. Therefore, they left and traveled west to new lands, taking the sacred fire with them until it was safe to return it to the homelands. They refer to the Indians in New England as the ones that stayed behind.) The earliest contact between Nipmucs and the English was possibly in 1621 at Sterling, Massachusetts, where Nashawanon was sachem. The Nipmucs initially had friendly relationships with the Europeans. In one instance a Wabaquasset native, Acquittimaug, walked from his home to Boston carrying corn for the starving colonists. It is estimated that there were 5,000 to 6,000 Nipmucs when the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth in 1620. The bulk of the Nipmuc population lived along the rivers and streams connected to the Blackstone, Quaboag, Nashua, and Quinebaug Rivers. In the 1640s the Reverend John Eliot of Roxbury began preaching to the Natives of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. Between 406 nipmuc 1650 and 1675 he worked to establish “praying plantations,” or villages to aid in the conversion of the Indian population. He felt that by removing them from their tribal villages and creating towns for them the Natives would eventually forsake their “ungodly” ways and emulate the English. In the towns the Native people were forbidden to practice their traditional ways, wore English-style clothes, lived in English-style homes, and attended the Puritan church. Eliot himself set up seven of the towns, known as the old praying villages: Wamesit, Nashobah, Okkokonimasit, Hassanamesit, Makunkokoag, Natick, and Punkapoag. Nipmucs and other Natives who joined these towns did so for a variety of reasons. Protection from Mohawk attacks, curiosity about English ways, economic survival, access to education, and the availability of food and clothing were some of the factors involved in Native people voluntarily moving to the towns. Natick was the first town and church to be established and Natives were trained there to serve in the other Indian churches. Word spread and Nipmucs further west set up seven more praying villages, known as the new praying towns. These included Manchaug...