Indian Biography; Vol. 2 (of 2): Or, An Historical Account of Those Individuals Who Have Been Distinguished among the North American Natives as Orators, Warriors, Statesmen, and Other Remarkable CharactersThatcher, B. B. (Benjamin Bussey)
History
Indian Biography; Vol. 2 (of 2): Or, An Historical Account of Those Individuals Who Have Been Distinguished among the North American Natives as Orators, Warriors, Statesmen, and Other Remarkable Characters
Thatcher, B. B. (Benjamin Bussey)
Indians of North America -- Biography; Indians of North America -- History
Well might they weep! He that lay before them was indeed the "Last of the
Senecas." The strong warrior's arm was mouldering into dust, and the eye
of the orator was cold and motionless forever.
APPENDIX.
* * * * *
NO. I.
Uncas.--The author is indebted to the Committee of the Historical Society
of Massachusetts for an opportunity to examine a valuable document
recently forwarded to them by Mr. Williams, of Lebanon, Connecticut, and
originally, we believe, a part of the Trumbull collection.
According to this account, which purports to have been "made by Uncas"
himself, that Chieftain was wholly of the royal blood of the Pequots.
Tatobam was another name for Sassacus, and Uncas married the daughter of
that Sachem (from whom he afterwards revolted,) about ten years before the
Pequot War. The Pequots and "Moheags," as they are here called, jointly
agreed to this match in a grand Indian Council, for the purpose of keeping
their land entire. "_Upon this his right to the Pequot Country was good and
unquestionable._" . . . "Quinebauge [New-Haven] Indians and Nipmugs [in
Worcester County, Massachusetts] not allowed to marry in the Royal
Blood--agreed to keep the Royal blood within the Realm of ye Mohegan and
Pequots."
In this genealogy, which is regularly derived, as accurately as possible,
from remote ancestors on both sides, Uncas himself is styled the Sachem of
Mohegan, and Mohegan is said to have been the Sepulchre or Burial-Place of
both the Pequot and Mohegan Sachems.
The father of Tatobam was the Sachem Wopegwosit. The father of Uncas was
Oweneco; _his_ father, Wopequand, a Pequot Sachem. His mother and
grandmother were both named Mukkunump; and the latter was daughter of
Weroum, a great _Narragansett_ Sachem, and of a Squaw of the royal Pequot
Blood named Kiskhechoowatmakunck. One of his great-grandfathers,
Nuckquuntdowaus, was Chief-Sachem of the Pequots; and one of his
great-grandmothers, Au-comp-pa-hang-sug-ga-muck, (as nearly as we are
able to decipher it,) was "a Great Queen, and lived at Moheage."
The son of Uncas, (mentioned in the text,) was Oweneco. Several of his
other descendants who inherited the Sachemdom were named Ben Uncas,--one
of them Major Ben. The last of the Sachems (also mentioned in the text,)
was Isaiah,--a grandson of Oweneco or Oneco. (He was a pupil in Dr.
Wheelock's Charity School,--"a fat fellow, of dull intellectual
parts."--Mass. His. Coll.)
The document before us gives an account of the cession of the Pequot
Country from Uncas by deed, dated Sept. 28, 1740. The following remarkable
passage ought not to be omitted, as it adds new confirmation to the
estimate of the Sachem's character which the author has given in the text.
"Afterwards sufficient planting ground was provided for him, _being
friendly to the English, though only to serve his own purposes._"
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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