HomeMy WebLinkAboutFort Corchaug - Talk by Lorraine Williams Fort Corchaug
A talk by Dr. Lorraine Williams
As part of the Southold Town
# 350`h Anniversary Celebration
N .
Talk by •br. Lorraine Williams
• Thank you very much. It' s
really a pleasure and an honor
to be here as a part of the
celebration of the 350th
anniversary of the settlement of
Southold. I came here in 1958
as a graduate student digging
Fort Corchaug, and so this is a
nice chance for me to relive the
past in a personal sense as
well . We may have to do a
little bit of adjustment with
the slides . Maybe we could just
have the lights out for a moment
so we just check whether or not
they' re going to show up on the
screen. Maybe I could have it a
little bit closer. That' s
better. Everybody see that
okay? If I get into your way
just holler and if I wander too
far and you can' t see whatever
it is .
Fort Corchaug which I'm
going to talk about today is one
of four forts that were supposed
to be occupied contemporaneously
in the early 15th century by the
Indians of eastern Long Island.
We have . . . what am I doing?
That' s better? Okay.
The four forts that were
supposed to be occupied by the
Indians of eastern Long Island
were located on Montauk, at
Shinnecock, in the hills of
Shinnecock, and at Shelter
Island, and also at Cutchwood,
today Cutchogue, which is right
here. The one that has Corchaug
next to it on the map here.
The Indian of eastern Long
Island were supposedly organized
into a kind of loose confedera-
tion. And the Corchaug were the
ones that occupied the North
Fork. Wait a minute, I can stop
it . If I turn it off can you
hear me? I don' t want to blast
your ears off with it . Okay.
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Talk by Dr. Lorraine Williams
Can you hear me now? Maybe if
you push the machine up a little
bit so that everybody can get a
sense of the area we' re talking
about .
There are no boundary lines
you' ll notice on these maps .
The Indian areas really didn' t
have boundaries in the sense
that we with a European back-
ground of property lines and
specific boundaries for states,
for counties, for municipali-
ties, well at the time, tend to
think in terms of very pre-
scribed territories . The
Indians occupied areas where
they have villages, they have
planting fields and they had
fairly large hunting territory.
And of course along the coast,
they also were exploiting a lot
of the rivering, the resources
of the bay, the shellfish and
they did a lot of fishing. Can
I have the next slide please.
All of the Indians of the
area of eastern Long Island and
southern New England, and they
were quite closely linked in the
17th century, are referred to by
anthropologists as the Indian of
the Eastern Woodlands. And you
can see that the large purple
area on the side of the map,
most of the eastern half of the
North American continent was
occupied by Indians that, that
focused . . . can we focus?
Most of this area of eastern
North America was occupied by
Indians that we tend to talk of
as eastern Woodlands Indians
because they shared more traits
with one another within that
area than they did with Indians
outside of it .
For instance, if you go to
areas such as the southwestern
part of the United States,
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Talk by Dr. Lorraine Williams
• northern Mexico today, you' ll
find Indians with tremendously
different lifestyles tradition-
ally, than the Indians that
occupied the eastern area of
North America.
Of course within that area
of eastern North America there
was also tremendous diversity
though. The Indians that were
living 150 - 200 miles apart
from one another, they have
considerable variations in their
cultures, their lifestyles . But
they have more in common than,
with each other than they have
with Indians of the other
sections. Next slide please .
Now, even though Varrazano
sailed along the eastern coast
of North America and made some
contact with the Indians living
along the Atlantic seaboard and
in 1524 the real contact of
. Indians along the eastern sea-
board with Europeans in any
sustained way began, more
likely, around 1600 . We
probably will never know all of
the original points of Indian-
European contact along the
Atlantic coast because in many
cases they were fishing boats
that came over to fish the bays
farther north and came down
along the coast, sometimes they
spent a time on land drying
their catch before they went
back with it to the Old World.
And they weren' t officially
supposed to be dealing with the
Indians. They were exploring,
like Henry Hudson, looking for a
northwest passage through the
continent of North America, or
they were on a fishing expedi-
tion. But in all cases they did
some trading with the Indians.
They also fortunately left
us some descriptions of the
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Talk by Dr. Lorraine Williams
• Indians which gives us some
information that we wouldn' t be
able to get from the archeo-
logical record alone. These are
our only first-hand descriptions
of eye-witness descriptions of
the Indians of the Atlantic
seaboard at a time when they are
just starting to be influenced
by the arrival of Europeans as
explorers and traders and
eventually settlers .
And the first thing that
the Indian saw was the ship and
these ships, this is a Dutch one
of the early 17th century, plied
the rivers and bays along the
coast and traded, in most cases
with the Indians that they met .
Next please.
In some cases the Indians
were friendly and were sort of
intrigued by this, new people
coming to meet them and to look
at their areas . In other cases
they were very unfriendly. For
instance, here up in Labrador,
you can see a little party of
exploring Europeans getting a
very unfriendly welcome from the
natives in that area. Next
please.
And this was also true
frequently along the southern
coast . This is what is today
Florida Atlantic coast which was
explored by both the French and
the Spanish and again, in many
cases, they found the Indians
not very friendly. Next please .
And what the Europeans
frequently did, even before they
hit land and bring any settlers
into the area, was to build a
fort . And this is important in
terms of Fort Corchaug because,
we' ll come back to this later,
but I'd like you to note that
this is a small European built
fort on the coast of Florida.
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Talk by Dr. Lorraine Williams
•
And you' ll notice the bastion
length design at the corners of
the fort . This is a very
European design for a fortifi-
cation. Most of the Europeans
that came over to eastern North
America already knew how to
build this kind of a fort . In
Europe, it would be more likely
something very elaborate built
of stone . In North America it
tended to be built out of wood
because that was the material
that was close at hand. And
frequently it had an earthen
embankment for part of it.
Because again, that was easy for
a small number of people to
manage. Next please.
So the Indians very soon
started to see European-styled
forts springing up along the
Atlantic coast wherever the
Europeans got a foothold. They
also, the European explorers and
traders also gave us our first
maps of the New World. And for
instance, this is a Dutch map
that was compiled as early as
about 1614 based on a number of
different Dutch explorers and
traders and fishing parties that
had gone along the Atlantic
seaboard.
So during all this time,
even though we don't have very
many specific references to
Europeans having met with
Indian, having traded with, and,
you know, where we can say well
they met with this group, they
talked with these Indians, they
stayed here so many months . We
know that they were sort of
here, there and all over the
place because of the details
that we find on the maps,
because they could only be
making the maps by having spent
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Talk by Dr. Lorraine Williams
a certain amount of time in the
area. Next please .
And the maps get progres-
sively more detailed as we go
from 1614 into the 1630s. Next
please .
Even though sometimes
they' re a little hard for us to
read if we're not used to
looking at the coast of what,
this is Cape Cod down there,
they didn' t see us that we saw
it . They had no preconceived
notions and we' re all very
conditioned at this point time
to think of how the map of North
America is supposed to look. In
some of the early maps you would
have to sort of either hold your
head at a funny angle or turn
the thing around from the way it
was originally printed. But I
think you can get an idea from
these that the amount of detail
that is being filled in is
increasing steadily. And there
is also a lot of names of Indian
groups and there' s little marks
where there were Indian settle-
ments. And frequently there is
a name that the Indians used for
the rivers, the bays and certain
points of land. And some of
these have come down to us
today. For instance, Cutchogue
and many other names on eastern
Long Island and southern New
England are Indian derived
names. Next please.
Now the one thing that the
Europeans always did when they
hit the coast, well they did two
things . For the northern part
of North America along the
Atlantic coast, one is they
always bought land from the
Indians. Sometimes they bought
land when they first landed.
For instance, this is supposed
to be Peter Minuet running
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Talk by Dr. Lorraine Williams
• (inaudible) cotton, buying land
from the Indian. One reason
that they were interested in
buying land is that they wanted
to grow tobacco and crops that
could sustain themselves,
particularly Indian corn, wheat,
they tried barley and oats, they
tried many crops that they
brought from Europe . They
bartered the land from the
Indians if they were well
organized as soon as they
arrived.
Sometimes, as is true of
most of the records for eastern
Long Island, the land was
purchased from the Indians after
the settlers had already been in
the area for some time. Presum-
ably the Indians were friendly
when the settlers first arrived.
There was no confrontation
involved in the first settlers
• coming into the area. So they
then settled and eventually
there was an accommodation made
where there was some kind of a
trade, particularly cloth which
was one of the more popular
things that was traded to the
Indians on eastern Long Island,
in exchange for rent for their
land.
Now of course the Indians
have a very different concept of
property than the Europeans that
were arriving. The Europeans
thought they were buying the
land, fee simple the way we
think of land today. I buy your
land, that means you get off the
land and the land is mine, I
have total control over it . The
Indians of eastern North America
had no idea of land used in that
sense. They thought of land as
something that you had the right
to live on and the right to use
the resources of and so when
Talk by Dr. Lorraine Williams
• they sold land to the Europeans,
what they thought they were
doing was having a formal gift
exchange which entitled the
Europeans to come in and use the
land with them.
Now this of course was the
source of most of the friction
that went on between European
settlers and the Indians all
over the eastern seaboard for
the next hundred years, with the
Europeans immediately saying
well we own the land, you're not
supposed to be hunting on it
anywhere, you're trespassing,
you' re not supposed to be trap-
ping here, and the Indians
thinking, you know, these people
are strange, because we' re just
letting you use it with us, and
now they' re being rather
childish about the whole thing
and they wanted us to move off
it completely. So this, in some
• cases, led to confrontation.
Next please.
The other thing that the
Europeans always did with the
Indian along the northern coast
of North America was trade for
furs. There was, really the way
to make money in the 17th
century in Europe, it was
thought, even though people
didn' t make the fortunes that
they expected to out of it, was
to make money out of tobacco and
furs from eastern North America.
Next please.
Tobacco, from the first
time it was brought back to the
Old World, became an addiction.
It' s unfortunate that we' re
still suffering from this
addiction today. People wanted
tobacco to smoke. A whole pipe
industry grew up in Europe. The
little white clay pipes that you
see here are late 17th century
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Talk by Dr. Lorraine Williams
• ones that were made in Europe.
They started being made in the,
as early as the late 15th
century and smoking spread
quickly throughout Europe so
there was a constant demand for
tobacco. Next please .
And of course also for
snuff. These are very decorated
snuff boxes which became another
big industry in Europe as people
took tobacco in snuff form.
Next please.
The other thing that people
were interested in getting in
North America were beaver pelts.
Next please.
These beaver pelt became a
status symbol for gentlemen in
Europe and England, as early as
the late 15th, early 16th
century, and by the early 17th
century, beaver, the beaver top
hat, here we see a much later
version, styles change through
• time. The earlier styles were a
little more cap-like and less
like the formal top hat that we
see here. Now this was not
something that men wore only,
say for the opera. A man,
literally by the early 17th
century, could not go out of the
house to go to his job, to go to
anything that he did during the
day without having his beaver
top hat on or else he was really
undressed for the public. This
was a status symbol that showed
that you had arrived in the
world, so there was a tremendous
market for beaver pelts . And
North America, particularly the
Indians who did the trapping of
beaver in North American
woodlands were seen as a great
source of supply for the
European market . Next please.
There was also developing
during the 15th and 16th
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Talk by Dr. Lorraine Williams
centuries and coming into its
own during the early 17th
century a great market for furs
of all kinds in Europe. This is
partly due to practical reasons.
There was no central heating,
You go to many places in Europe
today you still find there' s no
central heating. It' s much,
much colder even indoors in
winter time. If you've ever
visited any of the older
buildings, they' re cold, they' re
frequently made out of stone,
they're drafty. It' s difficult
to stay warm. When people went
outside, they frequently walked
places, even if they had money
they spent much more time on
foot than we tend to today, and
if they were riding anywhere,
they rode frequently on horse-
back or in open carriages. So
you needed warm fur clothing to
survive in European winters
• particularly in northern Europe.
Also, however, by the early 17th
century, some furs were, such as
ermine, mink, were very well
established as status symbols.
The furs were used to trim the
clothing of royalty, the
aristocracy, the people that
were making money in that time
period in Europe wanted furs
trimming their clothing so that
they could show that they were
successful . Next please.
Now, fortunately from the
European point of view, they had
to exchange for the furs and for
the land on which they could
grow the tobacco, they had what
they considered in Europe at
that time trinkets . Things that
were mass produced fairly
cheaply and could be transported
over here and traded to the
Indians so that the Europeans
involved in the trade could
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Talk by Dr. Lorraine Williams
. think of themselves as making a
tremendous profit . One of the
things that was very popular and
that we hear about all the time
in the history books, it was
glass beads . Next please .
These are a sample of the
kinds of glass beads that were
made in Europe in vast numbers
and traded to the Indians. Now
we hear a lot about the Indians
selling Manhattan Island for a
handful of beads and the
Indians selling all kinds of
other valuable things for a
handful of beads. The Indians
were very interested in getting
glass beads . They were color-
ful, they were good for jewelry
they were useful in trimming
clothing to make it more decora-
tive, and if any of you have
tried to work with porcupine
quills, which is the way that
they decorated their clothes
• before they got the glass beads,
you' d understand why the glass
beads were much in demand,
especially by the women that
have to do the work on the
clothing and on most of the
jewelry.
But, the Indians were not
only interested in glass beads .
This is what has been passed
down as the traditional oral
history. But the Indians were
not interested only in beads .
Next slide.
They had some very
practical interests in what they
wanted from the European
traders. I'm sorry this slide
is so bad, it was taken through
plexiglass . They wanted
muskets, which you see at the
top, the gun was very quickly
something that was sought after.
And even though if you look at
any of the early accounts of the
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Talk by Dr. Lorraine Williams
• colonies, anywhere along the
Atlantic seaboard whether it was
the Dutch, the English, the
Spanish or the French, you
always find the law in the book
that, you know, you will not
trade any guns to the Indians,
and of course everybody did
trade guns to the Indians.
Because the Indians were very
interested in acquiring the guns
and there were always people who
were willing to make a trade .
They were also very
interested in getting metal
tools such as the metal hatchets
that you see down in the lower
left there. Next please.
And European flints that
were brought over as the guns
went, were very high grade
flints and they were not only
used in gun flints by the
Indians but they were often used
as strike lights . Next please.
• These offered advantages in
hunting and they also offered
advantages in butchering game.
The metal-edged tools were seen
as far superior to the stone
tools that the Indians had
themselves.
Another popular trade item
was the brass kettle. And the
brass kettles that were made in
Europe for the Indian trade were
so flimsy, you bought them, and
they were so thin that after a
few times of cooking over an
open fire the bottom tended to
burn out completely on it. But
the Indians used it then as a
source of raw material and they
made many things out of the
brass, the sheet brass from the
kettles.
For instance, these little
arrow footings are made out of
brass from a kettle that has
fallen into disuse and with the
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Talk by Dr. Lorraine Williams
• material supplying another need.
Next please.
Now the virtues of the gun,
the hatchet made with a metal
head and the different kinds of
knives that they could acquire
was that they were very good for
the Indians already adapted
lifestyle to the woodlands of
eastern North America.
Most of them, next please,
was gotten from game that they
hunted through the forest . Next
please.
And a hunter could be much
more effective with these
weapons. They also fished and
metal, metal nails actually,
were turned into fish hooks very
quickly, which were much less
trouble to make than the old
bone fish hooks which took a lot
of time and effort to produce.
Next please.
They also required traps,
• metal traps from the Europeans
and a lot of the small game such
as muskrat, beaver, they could
be trapped in marshy areas along
rivers, again they can increase
their efficiency at making a
living in your area. Next
please. Next please.
And more of the river areas
such as you have out here that
were very heavily utilized for
both fish and for shellfish.
Next please.
Now fortunately, the
Europeans while they were
involved in what was basically
an attempt to either settle the
land or to make money or both,
did leave us some description of
what the Indians were like. And
sometimes some of the Indians
even got to go back to Europe .
Mostly the traffic was all from
Europe this way but there were a
few Indians that were taken
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Talk by Dr. Lorraine Williams
• back, sometimes willingly,
frequently unwillingly, in order
to show people in Europe the
wonders of the New World and the
inhabitants were seen as one of
the wonders of the New World.
They were colorful, they were
exotic, they have strange
customs to the Europeans and
they wanted to show them off.
Now this is one of the
Indians from the area around
Chesapeake Bay probably, that
got carted back to Europe, and
here he' s being drawn and
painted in St . James Park in
London in 1514 . So a few in
Europe were sometimes getting a
look at Indians first hand, more
often they were reading accounts
of what Indians looked like that
had been written by people who
had come over here and then
published accounts in newspapers
• or sometimes put out pamphlets
or books . Next please.
In some cases we' re fortu-
nate that the people that came
over were skilled as artists .
This man, John White, maybe you
have seen some of his water-
colors in other places, he came
to what is now North Carolina,
we tend to think of the Lost
Colony of Roanoke as in
Virginia, because all of the
southern part of eastern North
America was called Virginia at
that time by the English, but
actually it' s where North
Carolina is today. And the
short-lived colony at Roanoke
was fortunate in having as one
Of its leaders John White who
was a very good watercolorist
and did some lovely drawings and
watercolors of how the Indians
were living along the eastern
seaboard.
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Talk by Dr. Lorraine Williams
And here you see a scene of
the fishing with the dugout
canoe and you can also see the
fish lures, in the background
spear fishing and this gives a
nice kind of picture that
slashes doubt what we find in
the archeological record where,
of course, most of the things
the Indians made out of wood
have long since rotted away in
the ground and what we have left
are only the metal parts of the,
the metal that they got from the
Europeans or the stone parts of
the implements they made. Next
please.
And he also gave us some
Pictures of the kind of houses
they lived in. You notice that
this is an unfortified settle-
ment, and this is actually, even
though the fort to me received a
lot of attention in North
America, the Indian forts, most
of the Indians in eastern North
America lived in unfortified
settlements. So this makes the
fort even more significant
because they were a rarity.
Definitely the Indian along the
coast of eastern North America
was not living inside a fort in
the 17th century. Most of them
were living in what they, the
English, called plantations .
There would be a string of
houses of this longhouse variety
that you can see which housed,
at least at some season of the
year, more than one nuclear
family, usually a group of
related families . Frequently
for eastern North America
related to the mother' s line
which lived together for at
least on part of the year in
these extended family houses .
And they would have their
planting fields sort of
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Talk by Dr. Lorraine Williams
• interspersed among the houses
and from here they would go out
and gather firewood and hunt .
But eventually they would hunt
out the area, they gather up the
firewood to the extent that
you've got to go too far to get
more and then the village would
move a little bit farther north,
south, east or west, and
eventually in 20 to 40 years it
might come back to close to
where it had been before . So
there was a sort of migratory
pattern even though the houses
are quite emphatically
structured in some cases . Okay,
next please.
But occasionally the
Indians did build forts for
protection. In some cases such
as this, a fort where people are
seen actually living inside the
fort, and this is one that White
drew in North Carolina in the
late 1500' s . You' ll notice the
circular shape, a sort of baffle
made entrance and it' s
palisaded, it' s wooden posts
that come around. Next please.
Next . There' s just a blank
spot there .
This is a fort that's
closer to home, here. This is
the Pequot fort which was
standing at the town of Mystic,
Connecticut, and was attacked by
the English for Massachusetts
Bay colony in the Pequot war,
1636-37 . And here we see that
Indian (inaudible) was drawn of
the battle, you see the Pequot
houses inside the fort, you see
the English and the Indian
allies.
Many of the Indians of
eastern Long Island allied with
the English forces in attacks on
Pequots for a very good reason.
They had been subject to the
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Talk by Dr. Lorraine Williams
Pequots and had to pay tribute
to them and therefore they saw
the English as removing an
oppressor. What they didn' t
realize of course was that the
English were going to turn
around almost immediately after
the battle and they will
reconquer Pequot . You used to
pay tribute the Pequot so now
you can pay tribute to us. But
the Indians thought that this
was a great opportunity to get
out from under what they saw as
an oppressive system.
Now you' ll notice again the
fort is circular, there are
houses inside, and it' s got a
sort of baffle made entrance .
Next please.
Now the Indians in this
area, at the time that the
Europeans arrived had, as I
mentioned before, basically a
• Stone Age culture. This is one
reason that they were so excited
by the metal that the Europeans
brought. The Indians here had
used nothing but native copper
which they called hammered, and
this had gone on for thousands
of years, we can trace it back
into the early prehistoric
times . They hammered these into
ornaments, sometimes into small
tools, but they really didn't
have any kind of effective metal
for cutting implements such as
the iron the Europeans were
bringing in in terms of
hatchets, knives and hoes. So
these were very sought after.
And changed the Indian lifestyle
considerably when they were
acquired. Before this every-
thing was made out of stone.
Their arrowhead chips were made
from stone or from bone in some
cases. Next please.
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Talk by Dr. Lorraine Williams
•
Some of their ornaments
were made out of stone which had
been ground smooth and polished
and you can see the examples of
most of these pieces upstairs in
the museum. If you haven' t had
a chance to go around, I recom-
mend that you go around after
and look at the objects, there
are just many very good examples
of the kinds of tools and kinds
of ornaments that the Indians
made in this area. Next please .
And they also made things
out of bone. It is very reward-
ing to make things out of bone,
bone is a popular raw material
because they're getting a good
part of their food supply from
hunting so there was a lot
animal waste bone around. If
you were going to sew hide you
had to first punch and work for
hide, it' s not easy. You have
• to first punch a hole through
the hide, you couldn' t just
stick your needle in like we're
used to sewing cloth. You had
to punch a hole through the hide
with the awl such as the
implement that you see at the
top, and then you could pass the
thread through. The sinew you
must through with a bone needle
that you see at the bottom.
This is a very laborious
practice in fact, and this is
why, in many of the early
accounts, you find the Indians
very anxious to get the European
cloth. Now England had already
become a big manufacturer of
fairly cheap cloth. And this
was one of the main things that
was sent over to trade with the
Indians. The Indians were
delighted to have the cloth
because you could make garments
out of it much more quickly and
• 18
Talk by Dr. Lorraine Williams
simply than you could working
with hide. Next please.
They also made their own
smoking pipes . The pipes that
they made were made out of clay
and fired. They were sometimes
very elaborately decorated in
beautiful pieces of art work but
they were very hard to make . It
took considerable time and skill
to make them and to make them
nicely decorated. So another
thing that quickly became
popular as a trade item was the
little white clay pipes that
were made in Europe, and you
find these on the Indian places
that were occupied after
European contact in many, many
fragments because they also
broke very easily. Next please.
They made pots out of the
local clays also. They tempered
the fabric of the pot very
heavily with shell and they
decorated the top portion,
collared areas that' s all, very
elaborately by stamping them.
In most cases at this time
period was the edge of a hard
shell clam shell . And again,
upstairs you can see many
beautiful examples of the kind
of pot that were made in this
area. Next please .
These are just a few
examples to show you the kind of
elaborate decoration that was
done . Next please.
These obviously took a lot
of time and effort to produce.
They were very fragile . Again,
You' ll see upstairs that some of
them have been glued back
together. You see here many of
these are fragments where we
couldn' t find the rest of it .
They broke very easily and this
is why the trade kettles, as
imperfect as they were as
• 19
Talk by Dr. Lorraine Williams
icooking vessels, were much
sought after. Because to make a
large pot, fire it safely so
that it came out in one piece
and then use it for any length
of time for cooking, there was
always a somewhat hazardous kind
of situation as to how long it
was going to last . Next please.
And some of them were
considerable size. Next please.
They also made some things
out of wampum fibers . We know
that from the account of the
European explorers and settlers
and also because fortunately a
few pieces were taken back to
Europe and put in European
museum collections where they
have survived for 350 years.
Obviously something like this
woven bag buried in the ground
350 years ago we won't find in
the temperate climate of eastern
North America let' s say, when we
excavate an archeological site.
But fortunately a few pieces
were taken back and therefore we
know that they made most of
their woven work by twining. It
was not coiled, it was not
plaited as later baskets were in
this area, but mostly it was
twined. Next please.
Now this brings us back to
the North Fork of Long Island
where we are here. And to the
town that today is Cutchogue .
This comes from the Indian word
that presumably meant
" (inaudible) place . " It may
have been that it would be peace
of the leader of the Corchaug
that they took the name and
frequently converted it into
English by the settlers.
And on a little area of
fairly dry land next to a marsh,
next please, the Corchaug
Indians, next please, sometime
20
Talk by Dr. Lorraine Williams
40
we think around 16-, late 1630s,
early 1640s built a fort and
this is what has been given the
name Fort Corchaug. You can see
the outline of the fort up there
toward the left-hand side. If
you notice that the outline has
European bastions . Next please.
And here you can see it in
a little more close-up detail .
From the arch- , I should mention
here that this fort was never
really lost . The, the records
for this area of Long Island
refer to the fort fairly early
and it was mentioned again and
again in the deeds and in local
documents as the place where the
fort did stand, the trees so
many feet from where the fort
did stand and this means that it
never really was totally lost
track of in the community. The
Indians probably were not
• occupying this fort at the time
that the first settlers arrived.
We don' t think it was a heavily
occupied habitation area until
after Southold was settled.
It' s very interesting if
you look at the early records of
Southold the first place that
the settlers settled in Southold
is Indian Old Field. This makes
good sense because when the
settlers first arrived, it' s
much easier to plant a crop
where land had already been
cleared by the Indians and not
to go out in the forest and try
to clear the new land yourself
when you've just gotten to the
place and you're worried about
being able to get a crop in to
feed yourself over the ensuing
winter. So it was not at all
uncommon to find that the first
settlements that occur are
frequently named Indian Old
• 21
Talk by Dr. Lorraine Williams
• Field, Indian Old Place, and
this is true for Southold.
So probably downtown
Southold more or less, down to
the bay is where most of the
Indians, the Corchaug Indians,
were living at the time that
Southold was first settled.
They may have already had the
fort as a place of refuge but it
certainly was not a fortified
settlement where there were
houses located inside the fort .
Instead it was a place of
refuge. And it was built on the
European plan. So obviously
when the Indians built it they
had had some exposure to what
European-built forts looked
like.
You' ll notice it' s very
different from the picture of
the Pequot' s fort at Mystic and
the picture of the North
• Carolina fort . It looks much
closer to the European one with
the two bastions at the top
there. It covered, the area
enclosed covered about three
quarters of an acre and the
walls were a palisade that in
the ditch was the dirt piled up
to further secure the palisade
wall .
You can notice one great
importance of this site is that
the area was never plowed as the
farm and that is very unusual .
Any of you have ever been
involved in an archeological
excavation know how rare that is
for any archeological site along
the eastern seaboard. Usually
the plowing has destroyed the
archeological features on the
site down to about anywhere from
9 to 14 inches from the surface
today. Fort Corchaug
fortunately stands in an area
where no plowing occurred and
• 22
Talk by Dr. Lorraine Williams
therefore the very shallow
remains have been left undis-
turbed. Next please.
The area heavily wooded, it
always has stayed more or less
heavily wooded.
• 23
Talk,'by' Dr. Lorraine Williams - Part 2
• It always has stayed more
or less heavily wooded and this
has been another feature of
protection. Well, I mean
there' s been a certain amount of
damage done by tree roots to
some things, but nothing like
the kind of damage that you
would get from plowing activity.
The site was excavated in a
test way as early, probably, as
around the 1890' s and early in
this century. The main, first
major excavations that were done
there were done by Ralph Solecki
who grew up in Cutchogue and
went on to get a Ph.D. in
anthropology with a specialty in
prehistory from Columbia
University and he actually got
his M.A. degree based upon the
excavations that he did at Fort
Corchaug. He did them over a
period of time, about 1936 -
• 1948, as he could. He really
never had any funding for the
fort in any major way. He had
assistance by members of this
chapter which he was also a
member of. And some time later,
from fellow graduate students
who would come out and help do
some test excavations on the
weekend.
And he was able to find the
ditches that showed the fort
wall location. And you can see
that there is a series of those
in places, so it was quite an
elaborate fortication.
Obviously, it was a serious
fortification.
On the interior of the
fort, there, in places where he
tested and where we later tested
in 1968, there is some evidence
of small features that look like
cooking peds, there' s some post
molds that could mean some kind
of rack structure, but there is
• 1
Talk by Dr. Lorraine Williams - Part 2
nothing that anyone was able to
find inside the fort that
suggests that there were houses
located inside the fort .
Instead, outside the fort to the
south of it, there is empirical
evidence of habitation. So
probably, the Indians lived
outside of the fort and used the
fort as a refuge when they were
frightened or fearful of an
attack. Next please.
Now what do you see when
you dig this kind of a fort?
It' s not the individual post
molds of the posts palisade but
instead the ditch, the staining
where the posts stood, where the
barrow fill has been packed back
in. Next please.
You can see how shallow
this material is. It is right
at the ground surface. It is
very, very fragile . If it had
been plowed, probably not much
would have been found except a
jumble of objects that might
have been very difficult to
interpret because most of the
features of the fort
construction would have been
damaged beyond our ability to
decipher them any longer.
Along the edges of the fort
on the outer perimeter, there
are indications of storage tests
such as this darkened area that
you can see dug down into the
lighter color soil . The
darkness comes from the decay of
organic material . There were a
lot of food remains that were
thrown into the pit. It may
have been that it originally was
used as a sort of horn or not
but eventually it turned into a
handy receptacle for garbage and
so there is a lot of food
remains and a lot of broken
2
Talk by Dr. Lorraine Williams - Part 2
artifacts that you find in most
of these tests .
And there is indication
that by 1661, 1662, the fort was
no longer standing. And
probably, there, this is true
for two reasons. People that
have done experimental with
untreated wood, palisade
structures where they're put in
the ground surface with no kind
of preservation treatment
because certain Indians had no
way to do that with them. I
found that it stands as a
functional palisade. It could
be used for a wall for
protection for about 20 years at
the most. And even slightly
before that, it may develop
breaks in it. By the time of
1660 - 61, the fort was probably
in a very bad state of repair
and the walls may have just been
• allowed to fall at that time.
The other reason that the
fort was probably not repaired
at that time is that the Indians
no longer really needed the fort
for protection. By 1659, we
find what becomes much more
frequent occurring in the
colonial records for eastern
Long Island, both on the North
Fork and on the South Fork, and
that is the Indians in the area
asking the settlers to protect
them against Indian attack. At
this point, the settlers
outnumber the Indian population
considerably and the settlers
are armed. I mean, they have
their own volunteer militia.
They have many more arms or guns
that are working than the
Indians do. And so from here,
the Indians, as opposed to
worrying protecting themselves
with the fort, were more likely
to turn to the colonists and
3
Talk by Dr. Lorraine Williams - Part 2
make arrangements to be
protected by them if they were
fearful of attack from another
Indian group.
One thing that we found
peculiar when we were excavating
the site which Ralph found
peculiar and which we found
peculiar is that there is so
much going on right around the
walls . Normally, we think of a
fortification on the European
plan where you want nothing
right outside the wall and
nothing right inside the wall
because you're trying to, you
know, keep it from being
something that the enemy could
use. This does not seem to be
true. In looking at some
pictures of Dutch forts from the
17th century, I found that they
had all kinds of things shown
along the wall . So this may
actually be a rather modern
notion that you keep the
perimeter area of a
fortification clear. It doesn' t
seem to be so strange now that
we find all kinds of little rack
structures and little cooking
pits and all sorts of things
like that located right along
the margins of the outside and
inside of the fortification
wall . This seems to be
something that Europeans also
didn' t worry as much about in
the 17th century. Next please .
Now in terms of why did the
Indians build Fort Corchaug, I
think we have the answer in the
majority of the artifact
material, the majority of the
man-made debris that we find out
of Fort Corchaug in all the
excavations that have been done
today and that is these little
tiny beads that you see in the
center, little tiny shell beads
4
Talk by Dr. Lorraine Williams - Part 2
only about a quarter of an inch
long on the average that were
known as wampum.
Most of you are probably
familiar with the term "wampum"
as a slang term for money. To
the Indians, wampum was not
money. Wampum was something
which was very important as a
ritually significant object .
The shell beads were prized by
Indians along the Atlantic
seaboard and they were traded
inland by those Indians that
made the wampum beads to Indians
farther from the coast who
couldn't make them themselves .
And they increased in value as
they moved away from the coastal
manufacturing area.
Now the wampum beads were
both blue and white and they
were made from the local
resource of the Long Island
beaches. The white ones were
made from the whelk shells that
you see up here, this side.
They were ground, the central
cone was ground down very
laboriously into a cylinder and
then small beads were cut from
the cylinder and drilled a hole
with a drill . It is very hard
to do that . I tried doing it
and I wore out three dentist
drill bits. When you consider
that the Indians made these
beads by drilling them first
with stone drills and then with
little, tiny metal drills that
were called "mucksies" that they
got from the Europeans in trade,
it becomes an incredible
exercise . Especially when you
think of, when you look at
colonial records, you find that
the references to wampum beads
are in fathoms, which is 288
beads to a fathom. That is a
lot of beads.
• 5
Talk by Dr. Lorraine Williams - Part 2
• The blue beads were even
harder to make. You see on your
left-hand side facing the
screen, the blue beads were made
from the dark spots on the
inside of the hard shell clam.
Now if any of you have ever done
much clamming or opened many
clams, you know that that blue
spot varies incredibly from clam
to clam. It' s only going to be
a decent size for the most part
on a few large clams and it' s a
relatively small area to work
with and you could mess it up
very easily by breaking it the
wrong way or drilling it the
wrong way so that it splits
during the drilling process.
And this is why the blue
beads were always worth twice as
much as the white beads . You
could get a lot of beads out a
whelk shell . You could get very
few beads out of a hard shell
clam and so, therefore, the blue
were always the more highly
valued. Sometimes they are
referred to in the literature as
black, as purple, as gray, but
basically they're all the darker
beads from the inside of the
hard shell clam. Next please .
Now this is the majority of
the kind of material that we
find at Fort Corchaug in all the
excavations that have been done .
Many, many broken fragments of
hard shell clams and whelk in
the different stages of
manufacture of these wampum
beads. We don' t find very many
finished beads and that's not
surprising, because the beads
were not meant to stay there.
The beads were being made and
then traded out . First to other
Indians and then to the European
traders who also wanted wampum
beads to take inland to others .
• 6
Talk by Dr. Lorraine Williams - Part 2
We also find pieces of the
kinds of stone that the Indians
used to grind the beads down.
These kinds of soapstone
material with an area hollowed
in the center from grinding
activity. Next please.
If we can bring that down a
little bit. This will give you
some idea of how the wampum was
used by the Indians in this
general area. Unfortunately, we
do not have any representations
of the Corchaug Indians from the
17th Century but the group that
was not very different
culturally were the Eastern
Niantic Indians that were
located in what today is Rhode
Island, along the coast, on the
other side of the sound. Here
we see a picture of Chief
Minigret of that group and he is
wearing a lot of wampum. Next
• please .
Wampum in his earrings,
wampum sewn into his headband.
Now this partly showed his
status as a chief. The display
is important to the group that
he can wear a lot of wampum.
His wives, his children, all
were wearing a lot of wampum to
show their status in the
community. Next please.
When you get to the
Delaware Valley in New Jersey, I
have to get a New Jersey plug in
here. We have a rare depiction
of the Indians of the Delaware
Valley in New Jersey that was
done about 1654 - 55 . And here
again, you see them wearing
wampum.
Now these Indians,
Minigret' s people could make
their own wampum because they
had the same shells along the
beaches of Rhode Island but Long
Island was known from the
• 7
Talk by Dr. Lorraine Williams - Part 2
• earliest days as the land of the
wampum because of the prime
source and, of course, that' s
why the Pequot were getting
tribute from Long Island. I
think some of you people know
what the tribute was . It was
wampum beads, thousands and
thousands of wampum beads. And
the Indians of eastern Long
Island — Corchaug, Montauk,
Manhasset and Shinnecock — were
all supposed to pay to the
Pequot Indian etiquette every
year. That was to keep the
Pequot — it was like a
protection racket . If you pay
the tribute, Pequot didn' t come
and burn your house or burn your
village down.
Now the Indians in the
Delaware Valley prized the
wampum even more highly because
they couldn' t make it
. themselves . It had to come from
the coastal areas of manufacture
and so as you get inland, it' s
much more valuable and you can
get an even better price for it
in trade. And this is where it
became, the idea, usage in the
English language as money
because when the traders got it
from the Indians on eastern Long
Island and they would take it
down to the Delaware Valley,
they could get a really good
trade in furs from the Indians
in that area in exchange for the
wampum beads because it was so
valuable to the interior Indian.
Next please .
Even more so to the Indians
in central New York State, the
Iroquois. The Iroquois Indians
even used wampum, in fact in
every religious and social and
political function that any of
the groups practiced. They were
considered invalid without
• 8
Talk by Dr. Lorraine Williams - Part 2
wampum being used. Usually
exchanged between the parties in
a marriage, in a death, if
someone was murdered, the blood
money was to be paid in so many
wampum beads . If two groups
were at war and they needed to
negotiate a treaty, they
exchanged wampum to ratify the
fact that they were stopping the
fighting. They were also used
as belts. Next please .
Woven into wampum belts
where the symbols on the belt
and pattern of the white and
blue beads helped, as a memory
device . Certain people would be
assigned in the group to
remember what the terms of that
particular treaty were, for
instance and the belts would jog
their memory as they would look
at it .
Now this meant that they
• were in constant demand in all
the trading parties along the
Hudson Valley out into western
New York, up into southern
Canada, down into New Jersey.
We can trace it as far as
northern Virginia in the 17th
century. The Indians wanted
wampum beads and out to the
western, the eastern edge of the
Great Lakes . Next please.
Now the Corchaug Indians
out there on eastern Long Island
and this map is not I'm afraid
very, it may be hard for some of
you in the back to see,
unfortunately. This is the east
coast . Here' s Long Island and
this dark-shaded area, you' ll
notice, goes along with the
southern coast of New England, a
relatively thin line, you' ll
notice all of Long Island is
covered, colored down. Long
Island is the rear piece of
9
Talk by Dr. Lorraine Williams - Part 2
• wampum making by the Indians in
the 17th century.
In 1633, Massachusetts Bay
Colony sent a ship down called
The Blessing that explored the
Long Island Sound area and they
went back with the news that
Long Island was a land of wampum
making. The Dutch had already
known this for some time. It' s
interesting that it' s not long
after that that the Pequot War
occurs in New England and with
that Pequot War and the
Massachusetts Bay Colony' s
successful conquest of the
Pequot Indians in what is today
Connecticut, the English
colonies, the united colonies
thereafter, take over the wampum
trade from eastern Long Island.
So the reason for Fort
Corchaug is probably because the
Indians had something to
protect.
Once the Europeans came,
the Indians had the wampum which
is becoming more and more
valuable, both to other Indians
and to the European traders .
Now you' re making all these
wampum beads and from the
accounts that we have, we know
that this was an activity that
occurred mostly in the
wintertime around the campfires
in the evening. The men made
the beads .
If you' re piling up wampum
beads for your trading
excursions, either your own or
the ships for the Europeans are
going to come into the bays and
the harbors in the spring and
deal with you for wampum beads .
You have to build up a
considerable stockpile to be the
successful trader in the spring
and, therefore, you have a
valuable commodity. This is
10
Talk by Dr. Lorraine Williams - Part 2
• like storing gold under your
mattress today. You have to
protect what you' re accumulating
until you' re ready to trade it .
And this made it important to
have some place to retreat to
that was defensible during
probably that season when there
was a possibility that you could
be attacked, either by Indians
that were local who might decide
that they could take over the
wampum supply or, of course, the
Indians on the other side of
Long Island Sound such as the
Pequot, later the Narragansett,
who might decide that rather
than in effect trading, we' ll
try and deal with you for wampum
in trade, it might be easier to
send over a raiding party and
get all the wampum at one time.
And so Fort Corchaug owes
its existence, we think, to the
fact that the Indians in this
area were involved in the trade
that was probably one of the
more vital aspects of European
Indian trade throughout the 17th
and lasted into the 18th and
even into the 19th centuries,
the wampum trade . It began here
and the Corchaug Indians that
occupied, that built and
occupied the Fort Corchaug area
were some of the prime producers
in the very early years of that
trading pattern. Can I have the
lights on please?
Fort Corchaug is a rarity
as I mentioned because it is one
of the few Indian forts that
have been found from that time
period. Also, it has never been
plowed and fortunately, those of
us who dug there as
archaeologists on, and I can' t
take credit with saying that we
knew at the time what we know
now. We didn' t have enough
11
• Talk by Dr. Lorraine Williams - Part 2
resources to really dig up very
much of it at the time. We were
both too underfunded. Both
Ralph Solecki' s excavations were
done on a showstring and believe
it or not, in 1968, with a grant
of $2, 500 from the Smithsonian
in Washington, I was able to
fund a field group with four
people for four weeks. You
could do a lot more with money
in those days than you can now.
But both of us were operating on
very limited resources. So we
halfed excavations at the Fort
Corchaug site.
Now in other days
archaeologists were not as
sophisticated as they are about
the needs for preservation. We
didn' t realize ourselves, at
that time, how rapidly the
technology of archeology is
changing so that what we
excavated ten years ago we could
not have excavated as well as we
could today. Simply because
we've learned better
methodology, better ways of
extracting the marathon of
information from what we dig up
from the past . So, therefore,
today archeologists believe that
instead of when you know a site
is there, you don' t want to go
out and dig up the whole thing.
I don' t know if any of you
watched the program on Troy that
was on television where they
were lamenting the fact that now
we have all these questions
about Troy and we can' t go and
solve any of those questions or
answer any of those questions
because the archaeologists that
were there were, unfortunately,
very bold ones and they dug up
everything in sight .
It' s very important for the
future of our knowledge of
12
Talk by Dr. Lorraine Williams - Part 2
archeology, to preserve the site
where the information is intact
and where people are, we can see
them as sort of an archive in
the ground. You go back to the
library repeatedly. You go back
to the colonial records
repeatedly and we want to see
the archeological site used more
in that way so that instead of
something that' s there and let' s
go dig it, wipe out everything
we can at the moment and then
leave and go to another site,
what we would rather do is bank
those sites, preserve them and
keep them so that if someone has
other questions in another ten,
twenty or fifty years, they can
go back and answer those
questions with more limited
testing at that archeological
site .
And I know, that' s the
reason that you accepted, I know
• that one of the many interests
of the chapter here which I
applaud very loudly is the
attempt to put Fort Corchaug
into that kind of land bank
situation as an archeological
site where it will be preserved
and not threatened with being
obliterated for the future so
that everyone will learn more
and more from this in years to
come.
Thank you very much. If
anybody has any questions, I w
would e more than happy. . . .
Q: I would like to ask you, do
you think that the Indian
adjacent to Long Island
(inaudible) ?
A: Yes, I do, you' re referring
to Lynn Chichoo' s work.
Lynn is misquoted probably
more than anybody else in
archeological circles on
13
Talk by Dr. Lorraine Williams - Part 2
the eastern seaboard. Lynn
Chichoo, through work is
putting college through
this, many excavations on
Long Island but probably
the Indians living in
immediate areas along the
coast such as in
settlements at Fort
Corchaug, may not have
grown much corn while they
were at those very coastal
settlements until after the
Europeans came and they
tended to be moved and they
tended to be compressed
into smaller and smaller
zones that they could move
around at . She never did
say that didn't grow corn
at all before the Europeans
came. That' s how it has
been quoted frequently and
I agree with what she
• really said which is that
they probably grew more of
it because they could trade
it to the Europeans and
they were being confined
more and more and could not
depend on the hunting
resources as much as they
could before . Also there
were places like Southold,
obviously, when the
settlers first arrived, the
first place they settled
was Indian old field.
Obviously, the Indians were
planting at that time.
They weren' t necessarily
planting right in the
vicinity of Fort Corchaug
because that may not have
been the best choice for
farmland when they had all
the potential farmland
available to them in the
area. Later on, you find
the Indians frequently
• 14
Talk by Dr. Lorraine Williams - Part 2
planting what we would
consider very bad land
because it was the only
land that they eventually
had any access to.
Q: Listen, I thought you said
my (inaudible) ?
A: (Inaudible) . At one time
people thought that the
Indians that the Long
Island Indians were paying
tribute to, the Pequot, the
Mohegan and the Pequot in
Connecticut, were overlords
that had come down from the
border (inaudible) and
moved in. Now we know from
more excavation in that
area that actually they' re
relatives who simply got
the upper hand, you know
the same way that fine
European families, that
one brother rises and the
• other ones end up as under
baffles in the feudal
system. Well, among the
Indian chiefs in the areas
such as New England were
better at going up and
gaining more control during
their lifetime at least and
others over the rest of the
group and so there is a
very close action there.
And one of the things that
amazed the first settlers
in this area was the way
the Indians ran back and
forth across Long Island
Sound. It used to
aggravate the Europeans a
lot because, especially the
English settlers want to
have a talk with the
Indians and no matter which
side of the Sound they were
on, the Indian chief was
always on the other side of
the Sound and he would be
• 15
Talk by Dr. Lorraine Williams - Part 2
back next Tuesday. They
never managed to get
everybody together, you
know, when they wanted to
have a conference because
the Indians would always
say, oh, they went across
the Sound and this amazed
them until they actually
saw the dugouts going back
and forth across the Sound
because to them that seemed
an incredible navigational
feat at that time.
Q: One of the features at the
corners of Fort Corchaug
was identified technically
as a sweat line or a well
line. What' s your thoughts
on that as far as similar
things at Fort Shinnecock?
A: Fort Shinnecock really
doesn' t have anything built
into it . Fort Shinnecock I
should mention for anybody
who doesn' t know it, is the
Mohegan Fort which was
contemporaneous with the
early tribes of, it was
contemporaneous to Fort
Corchaug and with the
(inaudible) . But in fact
it is located on the
(inaudible) river, over in
New London, Connecticut .
(Inaudible) that . Some
people have thought it
might be the remains of a
whale that was inside the
fort . What I tend to
(inaudible) in 1958 I was
in an obviously disturbed
area, where I went into it
and I really couldn' t tell
much from that . I think
Dr. Solecki thought that it
was most likely the remains
of a whale that had
collapsed unfortunately.
But when things like that
• 16
Talk by Dr. Lorraine Williams - Part 2
get into the local, you
know, traditional tales
about the place, it' s
certainly very hard to sort
it out as to how much is
really what was true and
how much has just been
repeated how many times
over hundreds of years that
it becomes standard
practice to say it is
again. Ultimately is right
now we really can' t say at
all . There' s no, as far as
I know, archeological
evidence that' s clear.
Q: There' s just (inaudible) ?
A: Hubert Gantz (inaudible) in
the fact that that' s where
people in the local area,
you know, we grew up in the
area. So referred people
that own the farms in that
area, referred to it for
years when he was a boy and
that was what it was
originally called, but in
terms of his observations
or mine, I don't think we
have enough evidence to
really say definitely what
it was .
Q: Regarding your comment
about resorting to an
archeological site for the
future, but we have a site
used as (inaudible)
Shinnecock.
A: Yes, I'm glad you mentioned
that . That' s very
exciting.
Q: It is and now if the
archaeologists would learn
well, let' s put this away ,
for the future, 50 years
from now, I think public
opinion as legal opinion,
would really dissolve that
situation. So because of
our effort, the land
17
• Talk by Dr. Lorraine Williams - Part 2
spectacle, a lot of futures
for the colonists that
bought it . Just to say if
you don' t put these things
away, you won' t have
nothing.
A: Well I think what we have
to do is we have to do
different kind of public
education today. You
don' t, what we' re going to
do — I want to thank you
very much — but what we
have to do is get away from
the Raiders of the Lost Ark
complex — that' s how other
people see archeology, you
know — that make, you know,
what I do interesting as an
archeologist, what I can
hold in my hands and show
you at the moment. That is
how most people view
archeology. What we have
• to do instead is try and
get, I'm mean, we' re still
going to do that . I mean,
I get excited when I find
things that are
interesting. I mean, it' s
always going to be part of
the field, but what we have
to do also, though, is try
to come to some kind of
middle position where we' re
not scrabbling to get as
many of those spectacular
finds as we can as soon as
possible or else we run the
risk, excuse me, like in
Troy where today we know
more about how important
the site was . They were
(inaudible) to dig it up,
and unfortunately, what we
mostly know is that we' ll
never be able to answer the
questions because all of it
is gone. What we need to
do is to dig another of the
18
Talk by Dr. Lorraine Williams - Part 2
sites to know what we have,
to know whether it' s fair,
whether it' s intact, what
kinds of interesting things
it holds and whether,
therefore, it' s worth
preserving. Because
obviously, you' re going to
convince people that they
should work to keep
something around and it' s
something underground where
you take them out to look
at it and you know, all
they' re seeing is a lot of
trees and leaves that you
walk across . You have to
have some information that
you can show people and
say, well, this is what we
know is under there and
this is what' s important
and this is the kind of
thing that we can find out
more of in the future. If
we do that, I think we have
a better chance but it is
an educational effort . You
can' t, it' s not like a
(inaudible) instructors,
I've worked with both. I
mean, with preserving in a
(inaudible) , it' s much
easier because you can walk
people up to the thing.
You can also usually even
if it' s in a fairly
depilated condition, show
them some old drawings and
photographs of what it
looked like when it was in
its glory and they can
empathize with that much
more easily. If you walk
them across an
archeological site, you
know, people look like,
what, where is it? You
want to save this piece of
ground? So it got to be
19
• Talk by Dr. Lorraine Williams - Part 2
more of an educational
effort to get that kind of
point across. And I think
you also have to be much
more open with the public
about what we' re doing and
why it' s interesting. You
know, TME will list an
archeological site and, I'm
an acheologist and
therefor, you guys take all
the archeological sites
that exist . You know,
nobody with common sense is
going to, you know, respond
positively to that kind of
pressure there. What you
need to do is really, you
know, treat people
intelligently and tell them
the appropriate facts and
say, you know, what we're
interesting in finding out
is this kind of
• information, you know, we
know enough to know that
there are only four or five
of these kinds of sites
that ever existed. You
know, this is the only one
in this particular area
that has been found intact .
It' s a very rare resource
and, you know, if something
happens to it, it' s a loss
for all time. And I think
there has to be much more
and it takes a lot more
effort . It' s much easier
to just, you know,
(inaudible) and say, you
know, look at we found and
isn' t this interesting.
Now we're off to the next
one. But I think we need
to do more of that if we' re
going to be responsible
about what we' re uncovering
because otherwise, you
• know, you sort of uncover
20
• Talk by Dr. Lorraine Williams - Part 2
it and make a big fuss
about and then, you know,
like you don' t care what
happens to it after that .
It' s not a very responsible
attitude on the part of the
archaeologists .
Q: Dr. Williams, your comments
are so well taken that I
very much appreciate it .
I'm Jed Briarfeld, the
chairman of the Committee
to Save Fort Corchaug, part
of the Cutchogue Historical
Counsel, working with Dr.
Smith and the Society and
other organizations . We' re
two thirds of the way as
you may know, to saving the
100 acres of which Fort
Corchaug is a part. And I
would ask everyone here, as
you may or may not know
about the middle of August,
• I think the date now is
about the 14th, that the
county legislature will be
acting on the third and
final appropriation to save
what we call the Baxter-
Downs farm on which Fort
Corchaug is located. I
would urge all of you to
communicate, especially
with your county
legislature. We have great
support from Mr. Field and
Mr. Gargiolia and Mr.
Englebright but we never
know what the temperature
of the times happen to be
and a political situation,
and votes count . So if you
would communicate with your
county legislature because
the Town Board is entirely
behind it. I think we' re
very, very close and
hopefully we will be able
• to invite you back in
21
• Talk by Dr. Lorraine Williams - Part 2
several months to do
exactly what we are talking
about because I think that
that' s what we all want to
see happen on that
property. I think it would
be marvelous personally.
A: Thank you and I would like
to say that it' s a pleasure
to come back here. I mean
I don't like to think how
long ago 1968 was, but it' s
a pleasure to come back
here and find this place as
it is now. Aside from Fort
Chantock and a couple of
sites that are being
preserved in northern New
Jersey by the National Park
. Service, I can' t say that
about most of the sites
that I have dug in my
professional lifetime. In
only 25 years, most of them
have gone under a bulldozer
since the time that I
excavated them and so it' s
nice to see a preservation
effort going on, especially
where a site is this much
of a rarity and as
important in Fort Corchaug.
Q: Yes, we've come close to
losing several times and it
always bounces back. The
good Lord is on our side .
(Inaudible . ) Hopefully, it
will again.
A: I hope so.
Q: We thank you very much.
Thank you.
22
December 29, 1997
TO: Jean Cochran
Ronnie Wacker
FROM: Jim Grathwohl
SUBJECT: L.I.Forum Article on Indians of Eastern Long Island
I discovered the attached article while perusing old L.I.Forums. I believe it is of interest to our
committees as it contains some data on the Corchaug tribe. Also,food for thought: Might"Fort Neck
Indian and Agricultural Preserve"be a more definitive name for the parcel since it includes the farm
history as well as the Indian's?One focus of our interpretation could be the Corchaug Indians and the
other colonial farming.
•
•
4
1
1
1
T }
'A
x` J
LUNU ISLAND
FORUM
W-A
Photo by Henry Cordes
Clay pottery found in Southold town on the North Fork of
eastern Long Island. These items have been put together by
members of the Long Island Chapter of the New York Archae-
ological Association and are on exhibit at their headquarters
and museum in Southold.
i
•
SEPTEMBER 1970 50 CENTS A COPY; $4.00 A YEAR VOL. XXXIII, No. 9
LONG ISLAND FORUM SEPTEMBER, 1970
e nto "ff I
LONG ISLAND was called there were six towns, they are
Matowa when the Earl of Dr. Laurence is Wn reduced to two small Villages
Sterling acquired it from the Southold Town Historian and it hath generally been ob-
Plymouth Company by the served that where the English
royal decree of Charles I. Wil- more than forty feet in length. come to settle, a divine hand
ham H. Tooker interprets the wrought out of logs with stone makes way for them, by re-
name correctly as "The land tools and the help of fire. moving or cutting off the Indi-
of the periwinkle". Eastern The local habitations were ans, either by Wars one with
Long Island was also known beehive-shaped lodges made of the other, or by some raging
as Paumanock "the land of thatch of t h e grass called mortal disease".
tribute" and was so designated "Blue Vent", built over a In his history of N. Y., pub-
in the deed of 1639 by which framework of bent saplings fished sixty two years after
Chief Yoco and his wife, As- each end secured in the Denton, Judge William Smith
wan, sold Gardiner's Island to ground. A flap of skin over wrote that the Indians of the
Lion Gardiner. Western Long the entrance furnished the Island had become very incon-
Island was known as Seawan- door. A hole was left open at siderable and that those still
acka "the land of shells". the top to allow smoke to living usually bound them-
Life among the Indians of escape and this was plastered selves as servants for the white
Eastern Long Island must mound with clay to prevent man. Which would seem to
have been a veritable paradise it from catching fire. show that tribal life wagen-
on earth before the advent of The population of the area erally at an end by 1732.
the white man. Unfortunately is not definitely known. How- The great Algonkian stock
the men who wrote most of ever, just the amount of arti- believed to present one of the
the history of those early days facts gathered in this museum earlier waves of migrants from
were not interested in the na- would indicate a considerable Asia to Alaska drifted east-
tine peoples indigenous to the population prior to the ap- ward and finally occupied a
area Much of what we know pearance of the white settlers. vast fan shaped area fronting
• has to be pieced together from A disastrous plague or virus on the Atlantic Ocean, from
casual references and studies swept the Island from 1615 to Labrador to North Carolina.
of their camp sites. Time does 1620 killing o$ the great ma- In Suffolk County we had old
not allow me to dwell long on jority of the people. By the Algonkian culture in a state
the family life of the natives. time the whites arrived in of exceptional purity. Proof of
We do know that food was 1640 the natives were greatly this exists in the fact that
plentiful reduced. Wayland Jefferson, fired clay pottery types are
Southold's first Town Histor- extremely consistent
The very extensive shell ian, claimed that over 1000 John H. Morice, writing in
heaps throughout the Island Indians lived on the North the Long Island Forum in
indicate that clams, scallops Fork alone. After the great 1944 claims that the Indians
and oysters provided a large epidemic less than 150 re- of Long Island were all Algon-
part of their food. Game and mained. Seven smallpox epi- kians but that West of a line
fish also were in bountiful sup- demics raged through the from Smithtown to Great Riv-
ply. Large _tracts of cleared Eastern towns in the next 100 er on the Great South Bay
cultivated land at Southold years. Measles, TB and other they were descended from the
and Cutchogue indicated that diseases completed the catas- Delaware (Lenni Lenape) and
they were experienced farmers. trophy. East of that line from the In-
T h e squaws raised corn, Daniel Denton writing in dians of Connecticut and
squash and beans. They were 1670 thirty five years after Rhode Island, namely Nian-
particularly fond of ground the first white settlements de- tick and Mohegan.
nuts, berries and various roots. clared that "to say something Although tribes are de-
The Indians also were ac- of the Indians, there is now scribed there were, in fact, no
quainted with hemp and to- but few on the Island, and distinct tribes on the Island
bacco. It is said that the later those few no ways hurtful but and the names frequently as-
crop was the only one that the rather serviceable to the Eng- signed to the Indians, such as
males would cultivate. lish, and it is to be admired, Montauk and Shinnecock, in
The Eastern L. I. Indians how strangely they have de- reality indicated their place
were skilled fishermen. Fish- creased by the Hand of God, of settlement. There was a
hooks, harpoons and net sink- since the English first settling close affiliation between Indi-
. ers are often found in excava- of those parts". ans of Eastern Long Island
tions of their camp sites. They Denton continued with evi- and New England with strik-
became the most expert of the dent satisfaction at the rapid ing similarity of language.
offshore whalers. They made decline of the red man here: However, this did not prevent
large dugout canoes up to " . . . for since my time, where them from being almost con-
182
SEPTEMBER. 1970 LONG; ISLAND FORUA1
tinuously at war. They paid almost all their men were
tribute to the P uots and kill
ed, A sinallpoy -epidemic
arragansetts of New Eng- ��� in 1658 killed two-thirds of
• land. The Manhansetts and \� Xkr the ones left. The remaining
the Corchougs were associated �0„�``\1� �Q� Montauk Indians moved West
in a loose confederacy with \� ��� \� and lived in poverty and mis.
the more powerful Montauks �S\\�� \\\\\�\\ ery at the edge of the white
and Shinnecocks. Four blood ,� ��\�\ villages.
brothers ruled these people ,a�\
when the English came In �<, ? The Cerchougs inhob`ted
1640. the North Fork from Wading
Poggatacut, the eldest bro- i' i'```. River (Pauquacumsuck or
Cher and chief of the Man- '' ` clam wading creek) on the
•�
hansetts who lived on Shelter West West to Plum Island on the
and Ram Islands, also called East. At Cutchogue they had
Youghico and Yoco Uneen- ,*,, erected a stockaded village.
chick, was grand sachem of all %' �. " This was the residence of Mo-
the Eastern Indians until he `-�� moweta their chief. It was
died in 1653. He was rather ,/% too called Corchoug,meaning "the
inimical to the white man and % principal place", from which
never responded to their ad- they took their name. The
vanes. He was held in great ;� J Ccrchougs were expert pottery
esteem by his followers. After makers and farmers.
his death most of the Indians ) The Shinnecceks, who were
left Shelter Island. found from East Hampton to
Wyandanch, the chief of the Westhampton on the South
Montauks whose lodge stood side of Peconic Bay, had a
at Fort Pond, Montauk, as- large village at Sag Harbor as
sumed the leadership of the well as at Canoe Place and
Eastern tribes with the aid Sebonic. The leader of the
of the Europeans after his Shinnecocks was Nowedanah.
brother's death. Wyandanch ans and paid tribute to them. Many Shinnecocks turned to
was the true friend of the col- After the Pequot War the whaling or became sailors.
onists. This happy circum- Montauks paid tribute to the They also served in the French
stance for them was largely English in Connecticut. In and Indian War and the
due to his friendship with their large canoes they trav- American Revolution.
Lion Gardiner who was at all eled as far as Boston and made Many Indians intermarried
times just and fair in his deal- frequent trips to n. Connecticut with slaves and escaped slaves
ings with the red maand Block Island. from the South. The present
The supremacy of the Mon- The Montauks were often Shinnecock reservation of 600
tauks never really extended to urged by the Narragansetts to acres on Shinnecock Neck rep-
the West end of the Island. join with them to fight the resents a survival of tribal self-
However Wyandanch, with the English. They refused, largely government since colonial
sponsorship of the whites, because of the friendship of days. When the Shinnecocks
signed many deeds to the mid- Lion Gardiner and Wyan- in 1859 exchanged their lease-
dle of the Island, along With dance. Chief Ningrit and the hold of the Shinnecock Hills
the local sachems. The Mon- Narragansetts raided Mon- for the present reservation
tauks lived from Montauk tauk in 1653 killing many war- Paul Coffee's church was
Point to Easthampton on the riors and taking many prison- brought across the bay on the
South Fork. They often fought ers. Later the Montauks were ice to its present location on
with the New England Indi- ambushed at Block Island and the neck.
FRANKLIN NATIONAL
BANK
• MEMBER FEDERAL DEPOSIT INSURANCE CORPORATION
183
LONG IS1,ANI) YORUINI SETTEMBER, 1970
The sense of personal prop-
y WWI a t undewe'loped-
among Indians. At most, cer-
tain right;to territory,in which
they were accustomed to hunt,
trap or fish, and in some cases
to raise crops, were claimed
by the tribe and vaguely ac-
corded or recognized by oth-
T�_7 . ers. This land, as was the cus-
tom of all Indians, belonged
to the clan or tribe and could
a
not be sold by individuals.
August 30 to November 8 Therefore, when they signed
"THE VOTE" contracts with the white col-
HISTORY OF NEGRO AND WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE ON LONG ISLAND, onists for their land, they re-
Also Currently on Exhibit: Old Pewter ally thought they were accept-
ing a tribute to allow the
A FOUNDATION FOR LIF whites to share the land with
them.
In an atmosphere for leaming,with an Southampton was bought
outstanding record of academic achievement,
with a complete athletic program and many from Nowedanah and his
opportunities for self-divelopment,more
than 5,000 boys have matured into manhood Shinnecock warriors by agree-
at La Salle Military Academy,one of America's t ment dated Dec. 13, 1640.
finest boarding preparatory schools.Student Compensation included six-
cadets at La Salle,in grades 9 to 12,are under
the supervision of The Christian Brothers
whose life's work is dedicated to the,teaching teen coats and three scare
of Catholic young men. bushels of corn to be paid in
Send for catalog or telephone(516)LT 9-09M September of the following
year.
faSaCl%fi?, . .... In May of 1648 Easthamp-
OAKDALE,LONG ISLAND,N.Y.11769 ton was bought from the
Conducted by The Christian Brothers since 1883. Montauks embracing over
Please direct your inquiries to Box "1"' 30,000 acres. The articles giV-
en in payment consisted of
20 coats, 24 looking glasses,
24 hoes, 24 hatchets and 100
GLOVER awls or muses.
BOTTLED GAS CO. On May 16, 1648 New Hs-
MWFOW 0. NO.PATCHOGUIE,N.Y. len Colony obtained a deed
GR*v*r 5-3120 from Momorweta, sachem of
Corchoug, to the land from
Hasharnmornock to Plum Gut.
Four or five other deeds gave
All Gas Appliances at Lowest Cost land to individual owners for
You Get Service Too! Hashammomock, Robbins and
Shelter Islands and Cutch-
ogue.
momE The first deed for the whole
Town of Southold was sup-
posedly lost along with other
records. The second or can-
WILLIAM A NICHOLSON JOHN P. NICHOLSON firinatory deed, dated Dec. 7,
1665, was signed by 43 Indi-
ans. It included all land from
NICHOLSON & GALLOWAY Wading River on the west to
Established 1849 Plum Island on, the East. It
was bounded on the North by
ROOFING and WATERPROOFING the Sound and on the South
Difficult commissions accepted to correct wall and roof by Peconic Bay. It included
leaks in schools, churches, banks, public buildings, etc, all necks, meadows, islands,
with woodlands, hunting and
261 Glen Head Road Glen Head, Long Island fishing rights, and other com-
101 Park Avenue modities on the said tract for
Now York 17,N.Y. forty yards of trucking or
0111tiolle 13900 MU 56677; 6678 trading cloth.
184
SEPTEMBER, 1970 -LONG ISLAND FORUM
In Southold the Indians land Indian., was made by
were ptighp(i from place to Thomas Jefferson. who visited
place. The white settlers div- the Island in 1791. With the
ided up the old field of sixty aid of an Indian girl who
acres or more East of the vii- T spoke English he made a list
lage of Yennicot for gardens. of 280 words. including num-
The natives were given sane- _ eralss. in the Unl;echoug (Un-
tuary at Pipes Neck. between quachog) dialect of the Algon-
Southold and Greenport, but , kian tongue. This list was lost
were expelled because the but later part of it recovered
coopers needed the hickory floating in the Potomac River.
there to make barrels. Another vocabulary was
Hogs Neck was given and compiled by John L. Gardiner,
taken away after the Indians i seventh proprietor of Gardin-
were made to fence it in. They , ers Island, from the lips of
were moved to South Harbor George Pharoah, oldest survi-
and then again to Indian ' " vor and chief of the Montauks
Neck. The pretext given was in 1798. The language of the
that the Indians had agreed Shinnecocks had almost died
to till the land continuously out before M. R. Harrington
but that they had failed to do of the American Museum of
SO. Natural History made a study
Each time the farmers of their speech and culture in
looked at the good land with 1902.
covetous eyes and forced them €' Having brought firearms
out on fictitious reasons. The and firewater to the red man
last foothold of the natives the colonists then offered him
in Southold town was at religion. The first clergyman
Fleets Neck near Cutchogue. servant of Richard Calicutt at East Hampton was Rev.
The Indians complained to the of Dorchester, he learned to Thomas James w h o labored
State but their claim was dis- read and write and helped long and hard among the In-
allowed because they could John Eliot translate t h e dians. For over 50 years this
produce no deed. Scriptures into the native dia- devoted minister baptized and
T h e Indians showed the lett. He returned to Long Is- befriended the natives,learned
colonists how to plant and fer- land where he became the their language, witnessed their
tilize crops, how to take game trusted intermediary between deeds and nursed the sick. The
and fish, even the huge the two races. For 40 years great Quaker missionary
whales. In return, various laws almost every important Indi- George Fog preached to the
were passed in the three plan- an deed bears his signature as Indians at Shelter Island. The
talions limiting the aborigines witness. first missionary appointed to
in their own land. In, town The first attempt to obtain work exclusively among the
meetings it was ruled that "no a vocabulary of the Long Is- natives was Rev. Azariah Hor-
man shall give, or lende either
guns, pistols, shot, powder,
swords or any engine of war
to the Indians." It was further
forbidden for the natives to
SavelWice
have dogs or even for the In-
dian men to come into the
villages. Later it was forbid- Join one of our Twin Savings Plans.
den to sell food or liquor to
the natives or for them to dig
ground nuts.
William H. Tooker of Sag A...>
Harbor, a painstaking histor-
ian who died in 1917, left an
excellent record of the Indian
habits and customs. His study
of Indian place names was an
excellent contribution.
Tooker relates the story of
Cockanoe, a youth of the Mon-
tauks who was captured by
the Pequots, taken to Massa- SUFFOLK COUNT" FEDERAL SAVINGS-,LC,]ASSO I>TIO.
chusetts and ransomed as the .AOYLOV RA1K OfT ICE115N11M"'.111NMRt.ACH!rURT JEFF t R1111 ST.1T10%ISHIRI ES iSU TN\NITO�iCURASI
185
LONG ISLAND FORliM AUGUST 1970
f
ton of Southold who labored Two members of the Shin-
among the Ind-i-ans -from 1741 nemeks perforrned
notable
to 1751. service in the aid of Christian-
M A R I N E( ,1I U c E U M Samson Occom, the great ity. They were Peter John and
* � Indian missionary and preach- his grandson, Paul Cuffee.
er, was born at Mohegan, BOA excellent preachers, they
Conn. in 1723. He studied at devoted their lives to preach-
the Indian school of Rev.Elea- ing and caring for their peo-
A Division of the Suffolk County Zer Wheelock at Lebonan, ple.
andd Conservation
Dept, Parks Recreation Conn. From 1749 to 1761 he I would like to quote the
served as a dedicated school- Rev. Horton on the character
Montauk Highway,Wast Sayville,N.Y. master and preacher at Mon- of the colonial Indians. He
Devoted to all aspects of the maritime tauk where he taught religion said that they listened to him
history of Suffolk County and its en- and rudimentary education. and learned to read and write,
virons, open daily from 10 to 3 p.m. For 12 years labor he was paid but he complained that they
Closed Mondays and Tuesdays. 180 pounds. were very addicted tD strong
Admission is free Often hungry, the Rev. Oc- drink. "They esteem their own
corn was forced to do hard education as immensely super-
manual labor to live. He for to that which we offer these
hunted and fished, cultivated and look upon the learning
TRIANGLE CLEANERS a garden, bound books and and education we offer as only
"Finest Cleaning Anywhere" carve] wooden tools and gun- good for the white man".
Fur Storage—Shirt Laundering stocks, He married a Montauk Benjamin Franklin, speak-
All on Premises woman, Mary Fowler, and had ing on the same subject said,
B'way at Avon PI., Amityville, N. Y. 10 children. The family lived "Savages we call them because
in poverty. their manners differ from ours,
Occom may have been the which we think the perfection
inventor of the kindergarten, of civility, they think the same
SOUTHOLD for he used flash cards of bark of theirs. The Indians when
SAVINGS BANK and other visual aids in teach- young are hunters and War-
ing. He went to England where riors, when old, councillors, for
"Home for Savings" he was a great success, preach- all their government is by the
ing eloquent sermons. He council or advice of sages.
Since raised a large sum of money There is no force, no prisons,
Suffolk County's for the education of Indians, no officers to compel obedi-
Oldest Savings Bank which was later used to found ence or inflict punishment.
Dartmouth College. After ser- Our laborious manner of life
wing in the Revolution he they consider slavish and base
SAVINGS ACCOUNTS helped found Brothertown at and the learning on which we
BANKING-BY-MAIL Oneida, N. Y., a unique exper- value ourselves they regard as
Dividends are paid from
iment in communal life, frivolous and useless".
formed by the remnants of In 1970, with conditions of
Day of Deposit several Indian tribes, includ- dissension and protest as they
Compounded Quarterly ing some Montauks. Occom are in America, these words
"Member of F.D.I.C." taught, preached and cared for of Franklin's give us food for
the sick here until he died in thought.
1792. Bibliography:
Southold Town Records, Volume 1, Li-
ber A & B.
THE ORANGE WEBB HOUSE Indian History of New York State, Part
Ili, The Algonkian Tribes, William A.
Richie,
Village Lane - Orient, L. I. Southold Town 1636.1939, Our Indian
Predecessors, Charles F. Goddard.
Opposite Oysterponds Historical Society The Indians of Long Island, long Island
Forum January through July 1944, John
Formerly Inn of Lieut. Constant Booth on Sterling Creek,Greenport, H. Morice.
Moved by barge to Orient in 1957. The Indians of Long Island, Long Island
Mr.and Mrs.George R. Latham, Owners Forum, August 8 September 1956, Paul
Bailey.
OPEN 2 TO 5 TUES.,THURS.,SAT.,SUNDAY Indian Place-Names of Long Island
William W. Tooker.
JULY 1 to OCTOBER 12 Chronicles of the Town of East Hamp-
ton, David Gardiner.
History of Southampton, George Roger
Admission Free Howell.
History of Long Island, Pelletreau.
186