Quinnipiac Indian Monument

By Gypsy Meneses

The Quinnipiac Indian Monument is a relatively new memorial sight, honoring the Native Americans that once called New Haven their home. Three individuals decided it was time to commemorate this Native American tribe: Doris Townshend and Harry Townshend, whose grandfather Captain Charles Hervey, was an early historian of the Quinnipiacs, and Priscilla Oliver. The memorial sight is located at Fort Wooster Park in New Haven on Townshend Ave, just below the oldest burial sites of the Quinnipiac tribe. Peter Horbrick from Bethany, Connecticut was the artist who carved the memorial depicting a father, mother, son, and their dog at the harbor walking up to greet five English Puritan settlers on April 24, 1638. The 9,000-pound black granite memorial has inscribed, “A Quinnipiac Indian family walks to the harbor to meet the Newcomers- April 24,1638 as their way of life changes forever.” Quinnipiac history has been difficult for New Haven historians to recover, since the descendants of the original indigenous people at the time of European contact are widely dispersed and relatively unorganized, and since most Greater New Haven residents no little or anything about this indigenous group, the monument serves an essential function. The monument joins pizzerias, universities, and the eponymous Quinnipiac River--another sort-of natural monument--to the Quinnipiacs are reminders of the original inhabitants of the land that would become New Haven.

The Quinnipiacs were an Algonquian-speaking Native American group whose name means “long water land” or “long water country.” When the first English Puritans arrived in the area in 1637-38, approximately two hundred fifty Quinnipiacs lived in the area. The Dutch explorer Adrian Block was the first to come cross the Quinnipiac people in 1614 during his exploration of Long Island Sound and the Connecticut River. The Quinnipiacs not only had over two hundred fifty square miles of land, but also ranged approximately twenty miles inland along Long Island Sound. This included what we now know as West Haven, North Haven, East Haven, Guilford, Branford, and Hamden. Each area had its own subgroup of Quinnipiacs. Branford have the Totokets, New Haven had the Momauguins, Guilford had the Shaumpishun, and North Haven had the Montowese. They all spoke a language called Quiripi a dialect of Eastern Algonquin. The language they spoke, and geological location was part of the reason they fused together and formed the Quinnipiacs. Each of these smaller groups had their own sachem, or leader, who maintained peace among these groups and organized defense against larger, more powerful Native American groups to the East.

On April 24, 1638 the Quinnipiacs first encountered the English settlers that had just arrived at what the first called "Quinnipiac." The Quinnipiac’s helped the English settle  and survive the harsh winter by providing food, shelter, and furs. They would allow the English to stay in their wigwams, which were round dwellings made out all different types of material such as rush mats, bark, and animal skin typically were made by the women in the tribe. In the winter, the tribe would move over to the Wallingford/Meriden area to hunt bear, wolves, wildcats, deer, and mink for fur and food. During the summer, they would return to the coast and spend time by the water with its rich resources in fish, clams, and oysters. They would go on to teach the English how they fished. They would get in canoes and used hooks, spears, and nets to catch clams, fish, shellfish, mussels, and oysters. While some fished, others collecting berries on shore. The men would be out growing tobacco and the women would be growing beans and corn. The planting and growing would have been quite difficult during this time because of the small selection of tools they had. They used wooden spades and large shells that were attached by wooden handles to do this type of work.

In November of 1638, only seven months after the English settlers had arrived, the Quinnipiac Indians ceded a significant portion of their land to the English. The treaty was brokered by John Stanton since he was they only one that was able to understand the language the Quinnipiacs spoke. The treaty was signed by the English leaders Reverend John Davenport and Theophilus Eaton and the leaders of the Quinnipiac tribe Montowese, Momaugin, and Shaumpishuh. The Quinnipiacs' population declined due sickness, epidemics, starvation and suffering attacks from other Native American groups. The treaty allowed them to have an alliance in which English agreed to protect the Quinnipiacs from outside attack. By the mid-seventeenth century, and numbering only fifty-seventy individuals, the group migrated to Farmington and joined the tribe that was there.

With this memorial in Fort Wooster Park, we can commemorate the lives, presence, and sacrifices the Quinnipiacs had to go through, thus recognizes their contributions to the present day history of the city.

Figure 1: Quinnipac Monument, New Haven (Courtesy of Michael Herrick/Historical Marker Database)

Figure 2: Ezra Stiles sketches of Quinnipiac wigwams (Courtesy of Yale University

Bibliography

“Colonists from Massachusetts Meet the Quinnipiac Indians.” Society of Colonial Wars in the State of Connecticut. https://www.colonialwarsct.org/1638_quinnipiac_indians.htm (Accessed November 24, 2021).

“Life of the Quinnipiac Tribe.” The Quinnipiac Chronicle. https://quchronicle.com/3134/uncategorized/life-of-the-quinnipiac-tribe/. (Accessed November 24, 2021).

Menta, John. Cultural Conflict in Southern New England: A History of the Quinnipiac Indians. MA Thesis, Southern Connecticut State University, 1994.

Menta, John. The Quinnipiac: Cultural Conflict in Southern New England. New Haven: Yale University Publications in Anthropology, 2003.

“Quinnipiac Monument Dedicated.” The Register Citizen, August 29, 2017. https://www.registercitizen.com/news/article/Quinnipiac-monument-dedicated-12143628.php. (Accessed November 24, 2021).