What was this "primitive society" of New England Natives like and how did they come to own the land?  How many were there, where and how did they live, were there tribal boundaries, how did they travel, and communicate?

Native American Indian Landscape #1 - Pre History Period
The Department of Anthropology, Univ. of Mass. Amherst offers a timeline from the Ice Ages to the Arrival of Europeans on New England
www.bio.umass.edu/biology/conn.river/prehis.html

The period before 1492 period that is referred to as pre-historic times.

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First, the science of geology provides us with a topological calendar, back over 4 billion years to the beginning of life, and with intensive scrutiny and comparison can suggest a pattern of probable development of the earth’s crust.  This is important to help us consider the evidence of grinding and scouring related to the last ice age and retreat of the last glacier that created lakes, mountains and rock deposits.

Second, anthropologists have long suggested that the ancestors of the 17th Century Native American inhabitants can be linked back to the people of the Stone Age, who migrated over the Bering Straits off of Alaska, known as the “Land Bridge” and headed south to Mexico and Central America.  Around 11,000 B.C., the Northeast became a destination for first wave of immigrants from the Mississippi Valley. Others suggest an eastern migration from the Great Lakes to New England, Canadian Maritimes with a tributary heading down the Atlantic Coast. This initial migration wave was created when a new food source became available.  The “new” culture had already evolved to a society, which not only gathered its food and fished and hunted for sustenance but also saved seeds (squash, beans, corn or “maize”) and planted. As the glacier further retreated, the Native American Indian moved North and East.

Third, we turn to archeologists who have scientifically created a chronology of cultural periods. When a site is selected for as an archeological dig it is to seek "in situ" evidence (in the ground) of human lives from hundreds to thousands of years ago. Using "test pits" archeologists look for changes in stratified layers of soil and pieces of wood, bone, shell, shaped stone and ceramic material that might have been used and left behind by humans.  When successful, the "find" is dated and attributed to a cultural period, the oldest being "Paleo-Indian" about 10,000 years ago and the youngest, "Late Woodland" about 500 years ago.  Essex County has been documented to have evidence of Native American Indian habitation in both periods.

Certain archeological evidence documents the presence of Indians in Essex County in the Paleo-Indian Period @ 10,000 years ago (at Bull Brook Ipswich), and the Late Archaic Period @ 2,500 years ago (campsites have been discovered in Andover, Ipswich and Peabody and a stone industry in Andover). Shattuck Farm site on the banks of the Merrimack River shows a permanent village, 5,000 years ago.  Recently, it was discovered another permanent prehistoric village, determined to exist 3,000 years ago, further east on the Merrimack River in West Newbury.  The Davistown Indian Museum, Liberty, Maine refers it to as the "Coffin Stream Assemblage", which houses the collection of artifacts from this site. (2) See link in this Focus Point Reference Section at end. (At other regional museums, e.g. Peabody-Essex, Salem; Haverhill Historical Society; and Harvard University there are several ceramic finds from Essex County dating to the Woodland period @ 500 years A. D.)  

By 1,000 A.D. Native Americans populated the New England area and most had learned to use a bow and arrow for hunting and warfare. These brought about changes for the Native Americans, as they began to “group” in villages and move around seasonally to find fertile soil and better fishing and hunting grounds.  By the 1500's, all of the many New England tribes were "connected" by the Algonquian language allowing for some dialect differences among the regions.

The question is, how can we trace history before written history.? Certainly, there is a curiosity about how ancient tribes, followed by historic tribes (post contact) came to have rights to the land. Perhaps the answer can be found in research papers abstracted from "Proceedings:  The Continuance - An Algonquian Peoples Seminar 2000" (3) (New York State Museum Bulletin  #501, 2004).

In this publication, Edward V. Curtin presents a case for the historic linguistic theory for establishing Algonquian (and Iroquois) cultural origins. This contemporary concept offers an alternative to traditional migration theories, as well as "in situ" theories of the 1950's and 1960's. Historical linguists (belonging to a multidisciplinary cultural research group studying material what is now referred to as the field of ethnohistory) have findings, which identify ancient Algonquian homelands, through words that are common to modern and historic languages. The overlapping geographic range of these words is considered to indicate the "home" of the language group. The languages are believed to have expanded geographically.

"Algonquian language" speakers had a homeland in the eastern Great Lakes region. Similarly "Iroquois language" speakers found homeland in the upper Appalachians. Algonquian migrations moved west to the Dakotas and East to the New England area and Canadian Maritimes.  These migrations went down the Atlantic Coast to the Carolinas. The reach of this culture creates an opportunity to examine similarities in life styles among Late Woodland Tribes, noting environmental and climate differences.  Much is written about cultural adaptations and tribal interaction, friendly and unfriendly, in various regions. It is noteworthy that long distance travel and trade was common, especially between 1400- 1600.

The Algonquian Native American culture consists of many tribes sharing a language group allowing for some changes in dialect as one moves from one territory to another. The Iroquois New York, east of the Great Lakes, is another language group that fit in the center of the Algonquian culture and the different languages effectually established the bounds of tribal territory.

As the legal and historical context of "Aboriginal Land Title" is examined, one must consider how they used the land.   It was similar to the Anglo- American concept of "Adverse Possession"… if one uses the land, without complaint for a long period of time, "You own it."  The ancient people used the land in their environment for subsistence, hunting, gathering, and fishing, followed by planting and later for economy (fur trade). Aboriginal land title is a very complex issue but provable and central to contemporary legal suits brought by Native Americans.

Focus Point #3 Indian versus English Regarding Rights to Land goes into great detail how Native People looked at land, not as a property but what resources it offers. To the contrary, the English viewed land as a commodity to be bought and sold, at a profit.

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Native American Indian Landscape #2 - First Contact with Europeans:
  
The Norse Sagas theorize that the "Vikings touched our shores around the year 1000 and even possibly settled for a short while at Byfield (Newbury) and also at Nahant. Christopher Columbus certainly encountered Native Americans when he landed in the West Indies in 1492. It was only a few years later, when 16th Century explorers followed John Cabot and Henry Hudson beyond the rich fishing grounds of the North Atlantic. Temporary fishing stations were set up along the New England coastline to catch and dry the abundant codfish for European markets.  While there, Late Woodland Indian people with whom they interacted met them. Apparently there was a mutual understanding that "international trade" (of furs for metal and cloth goods) with the Europeans would enhance both their positions. Over a dozen explorers sailed from four European countries during the 16th Century to check out the New World from Florida to Nova Scotia.

It was Henry Hudson who claimed territory for the King of England. The arrival of the Europeans would bring many changes for the Native Americans and for their lifeways.  It has been reported that the Iroquois and Eastern Indians had more European goods than the pilgrims did when they landed in 1620. Some unscrupulous fishermen even kidnapped Indians on their return trip to Europe and sold them into slavery.

In the early years of exploration, Europe anxiously awaited news from the New World. Three traditional accounts are particularly noteworthy for different reasons.   The first accounts sent back to Europe came from France's Samuel de Champlain in 1605 (4) and later by England's Captain John Smith in 1614 (5) and again in 1630.  Finally, a permanent settler, William Wood, who arrived in Lynn in 1633 and departed the same year, prepared a very descriptive book his American adventure.   

Champlain and Smith met with and traded with the basically friendly native Indian of the area now called Essex County. Both also "mapped" the coast region noting where Indians indicated the great rivers were located. Champlain noted Indian villages about Cape Ann in his explorations in 1605. He called the eastern shore of Gloucester "Beauport".  Captain John Smith, who had left Virginia, also wrote about meeting with the Indians he encountered along Massachusetts Bay and Plum Island in 1614. Smith's map of "New England" is the foundation of New England cartography; the first printed map devoted exclusively to its coast. (See Map for further detail.  He chose different place names to appease young Prince Charles.)

William Wood, an early settler of Lynn with his father, wrote in his New England Prospect (1633) (6) an unbiased treatise on Essex County's natural environment and native inhabitants. He reported on the condition experienced by the "new-come planters" and the old native inhabitants. His descriptions of Indian life went beyond typical accounts of government, religion and war. He included details such as features of daily life, dress, recreation, role of women and hunting and fishing techniques. However, he did not account for the Small Pox epidemic of 1633, which seriously depopulated the region at the end of the year he returned to England.  His rough map locates the Native American villages and names their Sagamores. John Winthrop, Roger Williams, Cotton Mather, Richard Hubbard and Daniel Gookin offer other traditional accounts of the Native residents.

 What the English settlers did not know or understand or perhaps chose not to admit was the fact that there was a resident society here in New England that had social structure with some form of political organization. This primitive society evolved over several thousand years. A valid history of early times cannot be created. However, without going through the entire process of acculturation, it is suffice to say that in this local environment the first people had strong powers of discovery set before their eyes by the workings of nature.  Through each change in season (in the winter’s cold forest and along the summer's warm coast) over many generations, Native Americans developed a genius to invent and to adapt their society and enhance their mental abilities. This is illustrated time and again through their extraordinary technological advancements (e.g. a birch bark canoe, crafted in two days or that they could put 16 arrows in flight in one minute). Such Native American advancements were without recognition by the Europeans, who measured technological advancement by mechanical means and metallurgy.  The Native American Indian cultural identity was first a unity with nature and its laws then enhanced by a consciousness and adaptations to the behavior of beasts and fish, which provided their sustenance in everyday life. It is a fascinating story, filled with legend and historical anecdotes, which centuries later help connect each of us with our Native American heritage.

To gain an invaluable analysis of our Native American Heritage we suggest reading William Cronon, author of Changes in the Land Indians, Colonists and the Ecology of New England (7).  He is a contemporary “ecological-historian” who offers a unique perspective cultural interrelationship between Native Americans and the Europeans in the 17th Century.  He helps us to better understand what he calls the “cultural pinnacle" which our Native American society achieved before their sovereignty (social and political structure) and their environment was "taken" from them.  It is Cronon who offers great insight to explaining why the two cultures were incompatible and why it was destined that the English would replace the original resident population.  Cronon, of all writers reviewed, best explains the differing views regarding property ownership held by the Indians and the English.  Cronon contrasts the high importance of ecological relationship with the land held by the Indians with the "economic" value of the land held as most important by the English. His explanation extends a description of Native American lifestyles by going beyond William Wood's (1634) explanation of how they lived to why they lived the way they did, "moving" through the wheel of seasons.

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There were many Indian trails taking this mobile society to their destinations within their territory and beyond.  Rivers were the primary transportation routes for long distance travel for it is reported that the Native Americans had an uncanny sense of direction and could travel overland 100 miles in two days and be back in two. It might seem hard to believe that the Pennacook Sachem, the great Chief Passaconaway, traveled from the vicinity of the Merrimack River to Plymouth in 1620, at the request of Massasoit, to strategize on how to "treat with the English".  It was at this time, Passaconaway first saw a sign of English advantage…. the gun. He was awed that a brave warrior could be killed dead and was not within 100 paces of his enemy. He claims, in his retirement ceremony many years later that was the moment the Great Spirit told him that they could not defeat the English.

The first colonial "highways" were overlaid on old Indian Trails.  Route 127 from Beverly to Gloucester follows an old Indian path called the "Squam Trail" that eventually was laid out as a public way back in 1628. There was a trail toward Boston over the "Mystick Trail".  Toward the north there was the "Abenaki Trail" into Maine and the "Pennacook Trail" to New Hampshire and Canada. The "Agawam Trail" went from Salem to Ipswich and the "Wamesit Trail" connected the Pawtucket tribes between Salem and Wamesit. See Map:  Ancient Indian Trails and Canoe Routes of Essex County. (9)

Archeological surveys also document evidence of intertribal trading through non-native artifacts, as well as seasonal migration patterns, based on the abundance of resources for survival. These Native Americans only took what they needed and left the rest for another time.  Spring and summer seasons would draw the native tribe, family or band to the coastal rivers, streams and flatlands for fishing and planting.  Especially along Ipswich Bay, from Salisbury to Annisquam, there is evidence of favorite summer residences, which are referred to as "shell middens", or large shell dumps, representing many years of return. Throgmorton Cove, off Salem Harbor in Marblehead was also a long- favored summer village for Sagamore as evidenced by a large heap of shells.   Fall harvests (dried fish and corn for underground storage) would begin the retreat from the coast to higher and sheltered locations for winter wigwam residence. Snowshoes were made in the fall and used in winter.

Tribal Territories, Succession and Alliances: on the macro scale, the Algonquian language that also extended into the southern states as well as Canada and west to the Rocky Mountain States culturally linked New England Indians.  On the more local scale, the Indian Tribes of New England were typically described as those hunter/gatherers found in the forests of Northern New England Eastern Abenaki) over to Nova Scotia or those hunters/gatherers/planters found below the Saco River in Maine (Western Abenaki)west to the Connecticut River and South. Essex County Indians and their allied kinship tribes were part of the latter group.

There is a historical 17th Century account of intertribal warfare between resident (Massachusetts) Indians and their different enemy tribes to the North (East), the Tarrantines of Maine and the Mohawks and Iroquois to the West that suggests a capacity for warfare. However, regardless of their successes, this capacity was drastically reduced by a plague in the 1617 period and again by small pox epidemic in 1633. The Indians had no military exercises but relied on use of their hunting weapons to defend themselves.  Bows and arrows, spears and hatchets were the primary weapons. It is said that 16 arrows could be let go in one minute, with good accuracy up to 200 yards.  There was also a "root club" weapon that was favored by King Philip. His weapon of choice was a tree root carved in a manner to use multiple roots to surround a ball like shape and then return into a long handle so it could lay a lethal blow beyond the reach of an arm.  After the Contact Period 1600-1620, "trade" axes were imported and eventually "guns" exchanged for furs.  Palisades or vertical fences of poles stuck in the ground surrounded Native American Indian villages in a large circle as defensive protection.  Attackers would be required to take their chances by going over the top or otherwise risking death by penetrating the fort through a narrow opening, and meeting the arrows from those within.  War paint on the face was appropriate when braves were at war. Other belongings and adorned jewels reminded them of who and what they were fighting for.  There are local histories of Native American Indian forts at Salem, Marblehead and Lowell (Wamesit) and also noted in some early deeds.

The rules of succession were as follows: if the father died and there was no son or no son of age to ascend to the leadership, the widow could reign. This happened in Essex County.  According to Leo Bonafanti, New England Indians(10), when Captain John Smith visited New England in 1614,  (and Essex County in particular), the Massachusetts Federation class was at the peak of its power. He reports that there were 30 tribes along the Merrimack River, all part of the Massachusetts Federation.  Its territories including all lands from Weymouth, Mass to Portsmouth N.H. on the east to Thompsonville, Conn. to Brattleboro, Vermont on the west, including all the lands occupied by all the tribes living along the Merrimack River north to Concord, N.H.,  an area about 6,000 square miles. The Great Sachem Nanepashemet (the New Moon) was the very powerful ruler of maximum 45,000 subjects through tribal alliances. He had a number of coastal homes including Salem, Lynn (at Sagamore Hill), Marblehead and a winter retreat along the Mystick River (Medford).  He had elaborate forts of log poles built around his villages. 

In 1619, the Tarrantines returned to the North Shore with 300 revengeful warriors in dugout canoes and found Nanepashemet in hiding, in his winter home in Mystick (Medford) and killed him. Due to the reduced numbers as well as extreme fear of the barbarous Tarrantines, the Great Chief was unable to raise sufficient warriors to defend his people.  Thanks to an early warning of this attack, Nanapashemet’s wife and three sons were sent inland to a friendly village to avert danger. His widow, the now reigned over the Massachusetts tribe but the large confederated alliance broke down with only the Naumkeags (Salem), Saugus (Lynn), Winnisimmets (Chelsea) and Musketaquid (Concord) remaining loyal to the Squaw Sachem.  Her three sons John, James and George she assigned to the Saugus (Sagamore James)and Winnisimmet(Sagamore John)territories as subchiefs but they were teenagers.   Sagamore George who was only 4 years old at the time became sachem of the Naumkeag and placed in the care of a wise old man.  The Agawams and Pentuckets now allied with the Great Sachem Passaconaway.  In 1643, the Squaw Sachem along with 5 other sachems took the oath of allegiance to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in exchange for protection. Later she retired to Salem (Northfields) to live out her life. She died in 1667 blind and impoverished.

Indian Lifeways: All of Essex County has been occupied by Natives Americans Indians who enjoyed what "Mother Nature" still offers us today. Four hundred years after the first American Society was displaced, Mother Nature still brings us the beauties of the changing seasons, spawning rivers, major bird migrations, magnificent coastal views and the great surprise of encountering all types of wildlife (such as a white-tailed deer, a red fox, a wild turkey or a great blue heron) each in their own habitat.  School children and others can plan hiking and field trips over the same land and trails (from Lynn Woods to Deer Jump Reservation in Andover, to the Pow Wow River trails in Amesbury) that the Native American Indians traveled years ago. Our backroad and highway network connecting today's villages uses ancient Native American Indian Trails that connected their villages and tribes, as its backbone. Non-coastal residents perennially gravitate toward the beaches on our coastline every summer. Our rivers today are enjoyed by canoeists and kayakers. Our harbors and lakes are also filled with fishing boats and pleasure craft. Shellfish and finfish are an important part of our diets just as it was for the Native Americans. Our uplands are still producing agricultural products from summer berries to fruits and pumpkins in the fall.   We have dedicated forest areas for "living by the campfire" in a way not dissimilar to the Native American Indians.  

Native American Indian communities in pre-colonial Essex County instinctively exploited seasonal diversity and practiced mobility. Their principal social and economic grouping was the village, which ranged from a small settlement of a few hundred inhabitants organized into extended kin networks. Larger groupings were known as tribes, smaller ones were "bands" while even smaller were known as "families".  Where villagers could expect to find the greatest natural food supplies that is where they went. They only took what they needed and left the rest for another time. Because of proximity to the resources of the shore, local Indians could live a different lifestyle than inland Indians.  Villages were not fixed places but seasonal (places of) occupation. These natives did not own much of anything and generally only had to move what they needed or could make with their learned skills.  Clothing, baskets, fishing equipment a few tools, mats for wigwams some corn, beans smoked /dried meat: these constituted most of the possessions that Indian families maintained during seasonal migration. The idea of having a winter home and a summer home was not a new idea for the Indians. See Pequot Museum Native Lifeways.

Sachems and Sagamores: The chief ruler was called a sagamore or sachem and what would be considered, as an equivalent to a government was more like a monarchy. The right to rule (power and respect) came primarily from inheritance although some significant accomplishment or assertiveness by a warrior, for example, could qualify him to be a sagamore. Each succeeding generation was like its predecessor; its practices, manners and habits remained as its fathers had been.  Although they had a moral code of ethics they had no laws or revenue.  At the disposal of the Sagamore were half of personal possessions of their subjects. Also their subjects were extremely loyal, obeying him or her freely. A sachem could be male or female and asserted authority only in consultation with other powerful individuals in the village. Abuses were restrained generally, and murder in the village was not tolerated. The sachem and his wisest men investigated other offenses. The results would determine the admonition or punishments.  "What the Indians owned" or, more precisely, what their village gave them claim to" was not the land but the things that were on the land during the seasons that they were there. It was a conception of property shared by many hunter-gatherers and agricultural peoples of the world, but radically different from that of the invading the Europeans. If nothing is this more clear than in the names they attached to the landscape, the great bulk of which was not related to possession but to use…. Far more abundant than agricultural place-names were names telling where plants could be gathered, shellfish could be collected, mammals hunted, and fish caught. The purpose of such Algonquian place names was to turn the landscape into a mental map, which, if repeated carefully, could inform the village inhabitants, how to sustain themselves. Sometimes the place names marked trading places or edges of tribal territories.

Winter & Summer Housing the cold winter landscapes contained Indian homes called "long houses" which could support a village of approximately 100 people. They would be able to share two or three large fires to provide heat and fuel for cooking. The melting of snow and ice would signal a new year of planting and fishing. Spawning fish would return to the coastal rivers and migratory birds would return in great numbers to offer a new source of food. It would be time for moving in small group (families) to clear the fields and forests for summer planting and occupation in small houses, called "wigwams".  Areas for planting and summer occupancy would be assigned by the sagamore. This type of sites have been archeologically documented: as many as 29 throughout the Merrimack Valley watershed on both sides of the river and its islands; additional landmarks called Wig Wam Hill in Hamilton and Annisquam (Gloucester); Indian Hill in West Newbury and Salem; Pow Wow Hill in Amesbury; Sagamore Hill in Lynn and in Hamilton. These hills offered panoramic (strategic) views to spot potential approach by hostile tribes.  However the elevated perspective was the scene of many seasonal festivals and kin meetings. There are many known Native American Indian sites along the coast of Essex County from the Saugus River to Nahant, from Marblehead up to the Danvers Rivers & Bass River in Beverly and along the Merrimack River travel corridors.  Moving inland from of the coast, certain Essex County chiefs, a.k.a. sagamores, a.k.a. sachems sited winter villages in Medford near Spot Pond; at Will's Hill in Middleton; at Indian Ridge in Andover; North Fields in Salem; and Wamesit in Chelmsford (later Lowell).  Winter villages were more communal than summer sites and were typically near a large pond or lake for winter ice fishing.  Siting of a village was usually on the southern (warmer) side of a hill, on a flat area, at least 15 feet above the water body. Prevailing winds came from the Northwest, and winter storms typically from the Northeast.

Burial Grounds: Many early maps also note Indian burial grounds.  Indian gravesites have been found in many parts of Essex County, including Andover, Beverly, Salem, Haverhill, Georgetown, Newbury, Ipswich, Hamilton, Gloucester, Manchester, Rowley, and Salisbury. The more extensive however have been found in Marblehead

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