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Northeast Historical Archaeology
Volume 43 Article 6
2014 A Family Affair: Whaling as Native American Household Strategy on Eastern Long Island, New York Emily Button
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Recommended Citation Button, Emily (2014) "A Family Affair: Whaling as Native American Household Strategy on Eastern Long Island, New York," Northeast Historical Archaeology: Vol. 43 43, Article 6. https://doi.org/10.22191/neha/vol43/iss1/6 Available at: http://orb.binghamton.edu/neha/vol43/iss1/6
This Article is brought to you for free and open access by The Open Repository @ Binghamton (The ORB). It has been accepted for inclusion in Northeast Historical Archaeology by an authorized editor of The Open Repository @ Binghamton (The ORB). For more information, please contact [email protected]. 110 Button/Native American Whaling on Long Island
A Family Affair: Whaling as Native American Household Strategy on Eastern Long Island, New York
Emily Button Nineteenth-century Native Americans from the northeastern United States became locally famous as mariners in the commercial whaling fleet. In the struggle to protect their small land bases and maintain their communities, going to sea became part of household practices for cultural and economic survival. From approximately 1800 through 1880, indigenous whaling families from Long Island used wages from commercial whaling to combat the limitations of land, credit, and capital that they faced on and off reservations. Whaling’s opportunities supported household formation and property accumulation among Shinnecock and Montaukett people for three generations, but whaling’s instability and risk meant that these gains were hard to pass on during and after the industry’s collapse. En suivant la vie de membres des communautés Shinnecock et Montaukett de Long Island au cours du XIXe siècle, cette étude examine les façons uniques par lesquelles les familles amérindiennes ont incorporé leur travail dans l’industrie baleinière au sein de leurs économies domestiques. Cet article s’appuie sur des recherches historiques, des inventaires après-décès, et une collection de céramiques du Shinnecock National Museum and Cultural Center, afin d’explorer la démographie des ménages, le travail, et la culture matérielle dans les villes de Southampton et East Hampton, N.Y., et le port de Sag Harbor. Les théories des cycles et changements dans les maisonnées et l’ethnohistoire amérindienne se combinent pour fournir un cadre interprétatif permettant de comprendre ces tendances.
Historical Background Shinnecock lost land through sales and court settlements, and both groups dealt with The ancestral homelands of the Shinnecock damage to their remaining lands from and Montaukett peoples are on the south fork roaming English livestock (Stone 1983; Strong of eastern Long Island, New York, in the 2001). Dispossession pushed many Native modern towns of Southampton and East Americans into indenture and wage labor. Hampton. The former whaling port of Sag Extended family networks crossing reservations, Harbor sits on the boundary between these farms, towns, and even oceans played towns. When Sag Harbor’s deep-sea whaling important roles in mediating social connection industry took off around the turn of the 19th and economic survival in the Anglo-American century, indigenous people had already been economy (O’Brien 2010; Reiser 2011). Many participating in offshore commercial whaling for indigenous people’s labor practices were around 150 years in response to the economic highly mobile, including whaling, along with and environmental pressures of colonialism. seasonal work in agriculture, Shinnecock and Native whalers from the Northeast were Montauk men’s work as guides around the skilled mariners, familiar with local waters marshes and bays of Long Island, the careers and drift whales. On Long Island, Cape Cod, of many Algonquian women as traveling craft and Nantucket, they were key members of producers, medicine practitioners, and early English whaling crews in the 17th century, domestic workers (Stone 1983; Herndon and whaling from shore and in nearby waters Sekatau 2003; Mandell 2007; Mancini 2009; (Macy 1835; Vickers 1997; Strong 2001; Handsman 2010). Nicholas 2002; Johnson 2006; Braginton-Smith In the late 17th and 18th centuries, maritime and Oliver 2008; Little and Andrews 2010; labor was both a means of economic survival Philbrick 2011; Strong 2011). Whaling brought and a threat to it. The income it provided necessary access to cash and trade goods. could be vital, but colonial legal systems often Agreements between the Montaukett and snared Native American men in cycles of debt English after King Philip’s War led to the and punishment that they tried—and often reduction of Montaukett lands to a small failed––to pay off through work on whaling parcel on Montauk Point, while the ships (Strong 1983; Vickers 1997; Nicholas 2002). Northeast Historical Archaeology/Vol. 43, 2014 111
Whaling on Long Island changed after the lead to the inescapable cycles of the previous American Revolution; it grew into a global century. Sailors took out loans to outfit industry that could offer economic opportunity themselves for the voyage, as this incomplete rather than exploitation for indigenous people. 1843 loan record from the firm Cooper & Ships from Sag Harbor reached the South Jenings illustrates: Atlantic and eventually the Pacific and Arctic Whereas I owe Cooper & Jenings the sum of (Starbuck 1964; Bockstoce 1986; Frank 1991; blank with interest until paid, for my outfits as Lund 2001). Until 1882 Native American seaman, on board the ship. ... I do assign to the whalers from Long Island signed on to multiyear said Cooper & Jenings all such wages, share voyages out of major northeastern ports, like and proportion of money, oil and bone, as may Sag Harbor, Nantucket, New Bedford, and be due me at the expiration of the voyage I am New London (Frank 1991: 41; Barsh 2002; about to make in said ship: to have and to hold Mancini 2009; Shoemaker 2014). Sag Harbor to their own use towards payment of the afore- said debt, and also, for all necessaries they may grew from a small village to a significant port furnish my family, during my absence, and all due to its whaling industry and customs house other moneys and mierchanize they shall (Thompson 1843; Ross and Pelletreau 1905; advance to me, and for me, up to the time of Zaykowski 1991). In the early nineteenth the settlement of such voyage, the overplus, if century, Native Americans lived on their own any, to be paid to me. (Providence Public lands on the Shinnecock reservation and Library 1802–1880) Indian Fields on Montauk Point, in rural Working-class whalers took out these loans households throughout the area, and in settler when their families could not afford to outfit villages, including Sag Harbor’s working class them for their voyages (Norling 2000). Loans neighborhood known as Eastville. From the burdened individual sailors, but minimized 1800s to the 1880s, the fortunes of the whaling impact on their households; the availability of industry and Native American households credit meant that families did not have to pay evolved together (Fig. 1). up front and wait until the men’s return to Whaling was dangerous work, poorly recoup their investments. The accounts of compensated at the lowest levels; yet, it Cooper & Jenings show that even men with offered rare opportunities for advancement for debt could still complete voyages with sums Native American mariners. By the 19th century, that were substantial for the time. Henry whaling was most often wage labor, not Wright and Stephen Fowler earned lays of indenture. Sailors received their pay at the end of the voyage as shares of the total profits, or 1/110 for their voyages ending in 1848. They “lays,” minus the debts they had incurred on received pay of $86.90 and $92.55, respectively, the voyage (Busch 1994). These debts could after Cooper & Jenings deducted $255 from include outfitting with clothing and equipment Fowler’s work on the Huron (Providence at the beginning of the trip and use of items Public Library 1802–1880). The accounts of Sag from the slop chest (i.e., ship’s supply) Harbor merchant John D. Gardiner also indicate throughout. Lay sizes followed the ship’s that outfitting mid-century whalers did not hierarchy: captains and masters received the create cycles of debt. He lent sums ranging largest, or “shortest,” lays, followed by officers. from $39.57 to $186 to outfit working-class Skilled harpooners, boat steerers, and coopers whalers like Native Americans John Joseph, received the smallest lays, which ranged from Henry Cuffee, and Jeremiah Cuffee, in the 1/8 to 1/100 of the profits. Common sailors, early 1840s, and all of them paid off their debts stewards, cooks, and blacksmiths earned in full from their whaling shares (Gardiner 1/100 to 1/160, while “long lays” went to 1840–1845). In these examples, credit was not “greenhands” and cabin boys in fractions as exploitative. As Little (1987) argues for 18th- low as 1/160 or even 1/250 (Hohman 1928). century Nantucket, it was, instead, a tool that Among black and Indian whalers from Sag facilitated everyday life for whalers in an Harbor, known lays ranged from 1/55 to industry with delayed payments. 1/175 ( Providence Public Library 1802–1880; From the perspective of absolute earnings, Shoemaker 2012, 2014). whaling was not necessarily the most profitable In Sag Harbor, available records show that option. As economic historian Hohman (1928: debt was still part of whaling, but it did not 240) calculated: “[T]he average whaleman was 112 Button/Native American Whaling on Long Island
Figure 1. Research area: Sag Harbor and the Shinnecock reservation on eastern Long Island, New York. (Map by Emily Button, 2013.) receiving about twenty cents per day, plus 19th century, overall wages in the whaling food and bunk space ... when the average industry declined, and Portuguese-speaking unskilled shore worker was being paid about sailors from the Azores and Cape Verde ninety cents per day without room and Islands began to fill more berths than native- board.” Native American career whalers were born American sailors (Bolster 1997; Warrin neither average whalemen nor average 2010). The corresponding exodus of white unskilled shore workers, however. As agricul- sailors from the whaling industry might have tural laborers, they earned less than Hohman’s given Native Americans who retained a average: Montaukett men in East Hampton in comparative advantage in competition for the 1830s made $8–$11 per month, or $111– officer positions. For instance, Shinnecock $125 per year, not including food or housing whaler Moses Walker served as first mate on (East Hampton Library 1830–1837). In contrast, the Niger out of New Bedford, and Orlando on one voyage they could make that much or Eleazer as second mate on the Ohio, with more. Lays were also released at the ends of crews consisting mainly of Portuguese sailors. whaling voyages in sums greater than day While no Native American whalers from Long laborers would ever receive at once. This method of delaying pay could function as a Island became whaling captains, several mode of accumulating wealth. became officers, and many became boat Changing racial dynamics in New England steerers (Providence Public Library 1877–1881; also made whaling attractive to Native Mancini 2009; Shoemaker 2013, 2014). This American men in the mid- to late 19th century. would have qualified them for larger lays in The stereotype that native mariners were this period of maritime-wage stagnation. One talented boat steerers may have helped them whaler, Aaron Cuffee, also became a captain advance into more lucrative officer positions on a local boat in his retirement (Rabito- (Shoemaker 2013). Additionally, in the late Wyppensenwah 1993a). Northeast Historical Archaeology/Vol. 43, 2014 113
Native whalers established their careers in whalers on Nantucket and in New Bedford a context of widespread, intergenerational, violated the 19th-century domestic ideology of and often-communal trips to sea. Shinnecock “separate spheres” to support their households and Montaukett often joined with their during their husbands’ long absences at sea brothers, cousins, or neighbors in the practice (Norling 2000). In contrast, Algonquian gender of “cohort whaling,” which was common systems supported women’s economic leader- among Native Americans from the Northeast ship. Indigenous social systems involved (Mancini 2009; Handsman 2010; Shoemaker women in decision making (Shoemaker 1995; 2013). On New Bedford voyages, cohorts often Strong 1998; Richmond and Den Ouden 2003; consisted of two to five men (Providence Rubertone 2012). Land, cultivation, and Public Library 1877–1881; New Bedford household leadership had strong female Whaling Museum 2012; Shoemaker 2012). On associations, while hunting was associated ships from Sag Harbor or New London, with men (Bragdon 1996; Roesch Wagner 2001; Shinnecock and Montaukett men sometimes Rubertone 2001; Haile 2013). On Long Island, constituted half or more of the crew. For Indian women have been active in negotiating instance, in 1847 the Panama carried ten land transactions and maintaining agricultural, Shinnecock men out of Sag Harbor, while the botanical, and cultural knowledge since the Nimrod enlisted seven in 1853, and the 17th century (Guillaume 1998; Strong 1998). As Pioneer left from New London with six in 1862 indigenous land bases were decimated in the (Brown 2002; George W. Blunt White Library 18th and 19th centuries, many native women 2007). Mid-19th-century Shinnecock whaling also provided cash income, selling crafts or cohorts formed three overlapping generational working for wages as seamstresses, laundresses, groups (Providence Public Library 1802–1880; servants, and cooks (Stone, Johnson, and N. & G. Howell 1833–1847; Providence Public VanDeroef 1988; O’Brien 2010; Reiser 2011). Library 1877–1881; Brown 2002; New Bedford Native American women in whaling house- Whaling Museum 2012; Shoemaker 2012). In holds assumed positions of responsibility and one, men began sailing ca. 1818–1830 through productivity prior to, rather than because of, the early 1840s, the years in which Sag men’s participation in whaling. Harbor’s whaling industry expanded and the neighborhood of Eastville began to form. A 19th Century Household Cycles transitional group spanned the 1840s and 1850s, the years in which Long Island whaling The responsibility that whalers’ absence peaked and began to decline, and the port placed on youth, adults, and elders in their neighborhood of Eastville grew significantly. households, and the wealth they brought back The last cohort began whaling during the when lays were distributed, made Native 1860s and ceased in the 1880s. The whaling American whaling a family affair. Indigenous industry was already declining nationally due household structures, family networks, and to the Civil War and the discovery of oil in labor practices both shaped and responded to Pennsylvania, but more significantly for Long men’s participation in the whaling industry. Island, most of a whaling generation died The links between houses as physical struc- when 11 Shinnecock men perished in 1876 tures, the social groups who use them, and the while attempting to rescue the crew of the activities that take place within them vary wrecked Circassian (Starbuck 1964; Stone 1983; cross-culturally, and changes in the broader Shoemaker 2014; Shinnecock Nation Cultural social organization of production also affect Center and Museum 2011) household formation, as household sizes grow For most of a century, whaling cohorts or shrink with the availability of land or functioned as informal men’s associations that wealth (Wilk and Rathje 1982; Barile and crosscut households and helped to define Brandon 2004; Voss 2008). Household patterns generations. Yet, the absence of significant and biographies from the Shinnecock reservation numbers of working men for years at a time and the neighborhood of Eastville in Sag meant that the women and men left at home Harbor show how families and communities were responsible for supporting their households responded to the pressures of limited land and (Herndon 1996). The Anglo-American wives of economic inequality in the 19th century; the 114 Button/Native American Whaling on Long Island
boom years of the whaling industry fostered 1992: 97). For Native American people with the construction of new houses and participation family members in the whaling industry, they in the consumer economy. would have helped to smooth long gaps between payments, foster support networks The Materiality of Everyday Life at among households, and reduce the need for debt. Shinnecock, 1800-1840 Indigenous people were also consistent participants in the consumer economy, pur- The decades between 1800 and 1840 chasing commodities they were unable to spanned the first generation of cohort whalers produce at home. Contemporaneous and the beginning of the boom in Sag Montaukett households in East Hampton Harbor’s whaling industry. Materially, it was a frequently purchased goods, including time of continued transition to a mixed tobacco, rum, flour, and cloth, on running economy that incorporated both local credit accounts with local stores, paying their resources and European American market debts with local products and labor (Van Scoy goods. Comparing whaling and non-whaling 1828–1829, 1835). families is difficult, due to the incredible integration of whaling into household and The purchased goods most visible community life, so I consider these material archaeologically were mass-produced English changes evidence of practices in the ceramics. An artifact collection of 971 ceramic “whaling economy,” in which the economic sherds illustrates consumption preferences on impact of maritime labor became entangled the Shinnecock reservation. This collection was with terrestrial wage labor, household formation, salvaged by volunteers during construction of and consumption. the Shinnecock Family Preservation Center in Historical evidence from the Shinnecock 2004. It is now housed at the Shinnecock reservation is sparse for this period. The National Museum and Cultural Center. The census recorded no households there until location of the site was near two households 1840, when it enumerated 18 (U.S. Department on an 1873 map (Beers 1873), but sources of the Interior 1840; Eichholz and Rose 2009). identifying the inhabitants or earlier house- Shinnecock oral histories and ethnographies holds have not been found. The deposit was recall the importance of local fishing, shellfish primarily a kitchen midden, and local oral and plant gathering, hunting, and production traditions hold that multiple households of basketry and scrubs (Carr and Westey 1945; shared middens until the 1970s. In addition to Stone 1983). Probate records from comparable ceramics, the deposit included a large number rural Montaukett households in East Hampton of clam shells, a smaller number of cattle also illustrate local production. The earliest bones, and a few other artifacts, including 22 Native American inventory belonged to Jason sherds of bottle glass, 5 utensil fragments, and Cuffee, who worked for a shipbuilder prior to 4 pieces of broken pipe stem. This analysis his death in 1807, but his record only includes focuses on ceramics because they were the major pieces of furniture and a cow (Surrogate bulk of the material excavated. Court Clerk’s Office 1807). The later, but signifi- The collection consists of 757 refined cantly more extensive, probate record for Peter earthenware and porcelain sherds (78.0%), Quaw describes an agricultural household and 211 stoneware and redware sherds well stocked with equipment for subsistence (21.7%). The refined earthenwares include (Surrogate Court Clerk’s Office 1868). He and shell-edged pearlware, transfer-printed and his wife Triphenia owned two small boats, hand-painted pearlware and whiteware, clam rakes, eel spears and pots, and nets and annular and mocha ware, and undecorated seines. These were stored outdoors with 15 whiteware and ironstone. (Figs. 3 and 4) There chickens, a horse, a scythe, a grindstone, and are also eight sherds of hand-painted and agricultural tools. Beyond reservations, raising undecorated English porcelain. Stonewares are chickens, gardening and agriculture, hunting, primarily American salt-glazed gray fabrics, and manufacture of wooden tools were with and without Albany-slip and cobalt common practices that enabled households in decoration. Redwares are primarily lead the Northeast to supplement intermittent glazed, with few other identifying features, wage labor and unpredictable harvests (Clark although a few sherds have yellow and blue Northeast Historical Archaeology/Vol. 43, 2014 115
Figure 2. Shell-edged pearlware excavated from the Shinnecock reservation, in the collections of the Shinnecock National Museum and Cultural Center. (Photo by Emily Button, 2013.)
trailed slip decoration. I calculated a mean but by the early 19th century imitations were ceramic date of 1835 from 747 sherds of mass-produced and affordable, and they pearlware, whiteware, ironstone, and porcelain became mainstays of American dinner tables (South 1977; Samford 1997) (tab 1). at more middling income levels (Sussman The majority of these ceramics is imported 1977; Wall 1994; Samford 1997). English styles, mainly used for table and tea This does not mean that Native American wares. Of the total, 266 had identifiable women necessarily bought into the European shapes: 149 plates, 49 bowls, 56 teacups, and 1 American ideologies of separate spheres and saucer. Most shell-edged, transfer-printed, and ritualized dining that were often associated hand-painted white ceramics were made for with these ceramic trends (Wall 1994; Spencer- dining, so it is likely that the number of table Wood 1995). The possibility that the and tea wares is much higher. The redwares Shinnecock collection might be part of a and stonewares were most likely storage and shared midden, and the presence of clam serving vessels. Fourteen are identifiable as shells, which were associated with more pieces of jugs or pitchers, including seven communal meals, means that people may sherds of terra-cotta imitation Jackfield ware, have enjoyed the shell-edged plates beyond and sixteen sherds of yellow slip-trailed redware the boundaries of nuclear families. Since the are fragments of platters. This collection is ceramics were found on the reservation itself, heavily skewed toward dining over preparation they represent an adaptation of imported or storage, and toward English imports over goods for internal audiences, an “indigenization” American-made ceramics. of European consumer goods that undermined On a small scale, these ceramic data from stereotypes of race and class (Silliman 2009; Native American whaling households on Long Pezzarossi 2014). These choices are important Island mirror the larger-scale complexity of “not for what they represent in the society of ceramic taste and consumption dynamics. origin but for their perceived use and meaning After the American Revolution, ceramic fash- in the context of consumption” (Dietler 2010: ions among upper-class white women created 55). In this context, ceramics signified that a symbolic language of civility and prosperity whaling-era Shinnecock families had the that middle-class women also strove to emulate. purchasing power to integrate popular Chinese porcelain and its British imitations European goods into their everyday lives, became popular status goods in the 18th century, even as they used them to consume local food 116 Button/Native American Whaling on Long Island
around 1800, and later homes combined frame houses with traditional cellar holes and some- times seasonal coastal wigwams (Burgess 1926). In the early 20th century, Shinnecock residents remembered the mid-19th-century frame houses on the reservation as products of “whaling money” (Haile 2013; Shoemaker 2014). The oldest standing example was from 1850 (Red Thunder Cloud [1940–1949]). Little (1981) found that, on Nantucket, wigwams and other traditional architecture were not recorded in probates or transferred as property, but frame houses were. The fact Figure 3. Transfer printed whiteware excavated from the Shinnecock reservation, that the census first in the collections of the Shinnecock National Museum and Cultural Center. recorded 18 Shinnecock (Photo by Emily Button, 2013.) households in 1840, indicates that men in items from land they protected from settler the first generational cohort to sail in Sag incursions. Harbor’s growing whaling industry were able Even more significantly, the houses, in to build new frame houses from their lays which Native American whaling families used (U.S. Department of the Interior 1840). On the their dishes, were increasingly built from Shinnecock reservation, land was allotted for whaling profits. Ethnohistorical accounts three-year leases, the land base itself was lim- identify the early 19th century as the period in ited, and mortgages were unavailable. While which Shinnecock dwellings changed from land could not be purchased, houses could— wigwams built of local materials to frame but only with cash. Holly Haile Davis recounts houses, in part due to the loss of the local in an oral history that whaling was one of the plants traditionally used in house construction only ways possible to gain sums large enough (Shoemaker 2014). On Montauk Point, two to build or buy a house (Shoemaker 2014). In houses from the period 1790–1830 exemplify contemporary societies, it can be difficult for this transition. An earlier structure is round low-income households to save regular wages and bounded by fieldstones, evidence of due to unpredictable financial demands, and indigenous construction techniques, while a people develop creative strategies to save later structure is larger and square, with a larger sums (Collins et al. 2009). Lays could footprint more comparable to European function as delayed savings to make large American houses of the time period purchases possible. Upon their returns, (Johannemann 1993; McGovern 2014). In New Shinnecock whalers may have had accounts at England, the first European American house local stores, like Isaac Plato’s in East Hampton. among the Aquinnah Wampanoag was built In 1828, “Captain” Plato suddenly showed up Northeast Historical Archaeology/Vol. 43, 2014 117
Table 1. Ceramics from the Shinnecock National Museum and Cultural Center
Type Number Percent Refined earthenwares 749 77.1 Shell-edged & undecorated pearlware 165 17.0 Transfer-printed pearl & whiteware 139 14.3 Hand-painted pearl & whiteware 119 12.3 Sponged and flow-blue whiteware 36 3.7 Undecorated (transitional whiteware, whiteware & ironstone) 241 24.8 Annular ware 49 5.0 Porcelain 8 0.8 Stonewares 27 2.8 Albany slip or imitation 8 0.8 Other 19 2.0 Redwares 184 18.9 Imitation Jackfield 9 0.9 Glazed 153 15.6 Unglazed 6 0.6 Slip trailed 16 1.6 Other or unknown 3 0.3 Total 971 100
in Isaac Van Scoy’s account book, purchasing During these decades, when the second sets of dishware, knives, forks, wood, and and third generational cohorts of 19th-century nails, as well as food and rum (Van Scoy whalers were setting out on voyages, many 1828–1829). It is tempting to imagine that he Shinnecock households were multigenerational. was building and furnishing a home after They included several adults of working age: a time at sea. middle-aged or older head or couple, adult children and their spouses, and sometimes Demography after Whaling’s Peak, 1850–1880 grandchildren. Other household models con- sisted of young nuclear families or multiple adult family members. Few women were Shinnecock explicitly listed as household heads, but since Demographic data from the whaling years Shinnecock histories remember a number of of the second and third generations help to women as important community figures, this paint a more detailed picture of the families says more about the assumptions of census living in these frame houses. Beginning in 1850, takers than about indigenous attitudes (Stone, the census recorded names of all individuals Johnson, and VanDeroef 1988). Thirty-nine of within households. The Shinnecock reservation the men were known whalers, many of them was home to 22 families in 1850, and 29 in fathers, brothers, and cousins. Most men 1865 (U.S. Department of the Interior 1850; under 50 were also identified in the census as New York Department of State 1865). The 1860, mariners or fishermen, while many older men 1870, and 1880 censuses did not enumerate the and former whalers were farmers. Although reservation population, making demographic men’s maritime labor might indicate that changes difficult to trace after the Circassian women would make up a significant majority disaster and the decline of the industry. of the reservation’s population, gender ratios 118 Button/Native American Whaling on Long Island
were roughly even. Absence from home and people of African, Shinnecock, Montaukett, during early working years was common and Unkechaug ancestry (U.S. Department of across gender lines, and many women with the Interior 1850; Strong 2001; Grier-Key, Shinnecock and Montaukett names appear in McGovern, and Button Kambic 2013). the census as resident household servants Out of 41 people of color who lived and (U.S. Department of the Interior 1850; New sailed out of Sag Harbor’s Eastville neigh- York Department of State 1865). borhood from 1840 to 1880, at least 18 were These demographic trends illustrate how mariners of Native American descent, and whaling fit into household cycles (Handsman another 8 mariners were connected to Native 2011). Families relied on the cooperation of American families through marriage or co- multiple adult laborers, both at home and at residence. Like their counterparts at Shinnecock, sea. Young men and women often left their many went whaling in the 1810s–1850s and parents’ households as teenagers to work as then transitioned to farm labor, piloting local servants, farm laborers, and whalers. Many boats, or work in tourism as their families young parents continued to stay with their grew, while their sons struck out on voyages own parents or move in with in-laws, while into the 1880s (N. & G. Howell 1833–1847; U.S. others started independent households. In Department of the Interior 1840, 1850, 1860, middle age, career whalers retired and worked 1870, 1880; Brown 2002; George W. Blunt on local farms. As they grew older, they often White Library 2007). Over half the men who became leaders of their own multigenerational went to sea were heads of households during households, and men took official positions of or within a decade after their whaling years. responsibility as tribal trustees. Many of these men and their neighbors This way of life was an adaptation of bought properties by the 1870s: house lots of tradition to the spatial and economic constraints approximately 30 × 100 ft., with houses of one- of colonialism. Wilk and Rathje (1982) predicted and-a-half to two stories and outbuildings, that agricultural communities with insufficient valued by local tax assessments at $100 to $200 land will feature both large households, in (Beers 1873; East Hampton Assessors 1883; which adults hoping to inherit remain with Rabito-Wyppensenwah 1993b). Most Eastville their parents, and the growth of a class of households were nuclear families, with a few landless wage laborers. Limited resources headed by women with their children or parents. drove Shinnecock people to find work off the Large households containing numerous reservation, and whaling provided an important related adults were far less common than in source of independent income and potential Shinnecock. While single adults often lived cash windfalls in large families in which adult with relatives, and a few households hosted children could not expect to inherit land. the occasional boarder, larger composite However, the limited duration of voyages family households were more common among prevented strict divisions between wage European immigrants than among Native laborers who stayed off the land and farmers American, African American, or multiethnic who stayed on, which could have generated families in Eastville (Fig. 2). Eastville stands inequality within the community. out as a counterexample to an explanation that would identify large households as simply an indigenous tradition, rather than a useful Eastville economic adaptation. Other Native American families of the Many whalers in Eastville lived in single- mid-19th century used their earnings to move family homes, owned their properties, and off communal lands into the growing port sometimes passed land on to their survivors, neighborhood of Eastville. Many of Sag just like their European American neighbors, Harbor’s Indian and black whalers began to but they also maintained indigenous social settle in ethnically diverse Eastville in the networks. Links of kinship tied together many 1840s, after the founding of the St. David Native American nuclear families in Eastville. African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church For instance, six separate households in the (Zaykowski 1991). By 1850, Eastville was home 1850s–1880s belonged to Shinnecock/ to almost 30 households of Irish immigrants, Montaukett siblings: the five daughters and Northeast Historical Archaeology/Vol. 43, 2014 119
Figure 4. Research-area detail: Present location of the historic neighborhood of Eastville, in Sag Harbor, New York. (Map by Emily Button, 2013.)
one son of Lucinda and Lewis Cuffee of East more on local production. For Native Hampton (East Hampton Library [1860–1869]; American households in Shinnecock and Beers 1873). These six siblings all established Eastville, it appears that whaling in particular their own families through maritime networks supported the purchase of housing through and communities of color, marrying materials on the reservation or property in Shinnecock, Unkechaug, and African American Eastville, which led to the expansion of young whalers and women (Surrogate Court Clerk’s households into nuclear family units in Office 1898). Without the constraint of limited Eastville. The relationship between local Shinnecock and Montaukett lands, families production and household cycles is less vis- who might have lived together in composite ible: Shinnecock and Montaukett men often households became spatially diffuse, spread continued to work for wages after the ends of over multiple dwellings, but with adult siblings their whaling careers, and probate records and parents only steps away. Perhaps with indicate that rural households generally relied access to both wages from whaling and land, more on household production than ones in families were able to optimize indigenous port, regardless of age or occupation (Surrogate household models by combining space, Court Clerk’s Office 1868, 1898, 1905). property, and independence with close family Complementing Handsman’s model, Long relationships nearby. Island’s demographic patterns and probate Handsman’s (2011) household-cycle records highlight the significance of family approach to the archaeology of Native support networks and additional labor activities American whaling suggests that income from in combination with whaling. Whalers young men’s whaling voyages supported brought in large amounts of cash at widely consumption and fostered prosperous standards spaced intervals, but women, youth, and older of living, while later in life their families relied male workers maintained basic household 120 Button/Native American Whaling on Long Island
living standards through wage labor, local valued together at $10.58; and crockery worth production, and kinship networks. At Shinnecock, $1.50. She also had books worth $3, the same men and women’s collaborative terrestrial value as her most expensive piece of furniture, activities helped to maintain multigenerational which hints at ideals of cultural capital and households while whalers were at sea. In education as a source of social mobility. Eastville, neighboring households of close-knit Wealthy’s belongings were appraised at $20.49 kin meant that the pattern of nuclear-family altogether, significantly less than the sums men households did not foreclose potential for could bring home from whaling voyages. This mutual support. supports the argument that whaling windfalls were significant enough to contribute to major purchases, like housing and property, beyond Household Biographies: Three Generations the everyday costs of living. of Whalers However, Wealthy Cuffee’s probate inventory Probate, land, and tax records from three is the only one to show the importance of Native American families living off-reservation credit and debt for perishable goods and from 1857 to 1897 show how household medical care, which dwarfed the value of her economies integrated maritime labor and household furnishings. Accounts with local women’s leadership––and why debt, risk, and doctors, merchants, and moneylenders were an low overall levels of wealth still made it difficult integral part of this Native American household to pass on property between generations. economy. Her largest debt, $33.80, was to Edgar Miles, a Sag Harbor doctor known in The Cuffees of Eastville particular for his use of traditional and herbal medicines (Zaykowski 1991). Between The household of Wealthy Ann Cuffee December 1856 and April 1857, dates that exemplifies the early Native American probably marked her final illness, she regularly whaling family in Eastville. She died in her purchased drops, tonic cordials, powders, home in Sag Harbor in 1857 at age 52, survived laudanum, other medications, and house calls. by her husband, Shinnecock whaler William She also owed Dr. B. Buck $11.11 for prescrip- H. Cuffee; and her children Wealthy Ann tions. She purchased groceries from B. Brown Johnson, Sarah Ann Cuffee, James L. Cuffee; & Co., with credit carried over from before and three minor sons, Cornelius, Isaac, and February 1857: three months of purchases and Stephen Cuffee. Following the common model interest added up to $25.36. The majority of her at Shinnecock, Wealthy’s children lived with purchases were perishable goods like butter, their parents as young adults (U.S. sugar, potatoes, soap, lamp oil, and candles, Department of the Interior 1850), but by the purchased once or twice a week. The Cuffees time of her death the younger generation treated the store as a source of staple foods, became part of the expansion, through flavor enhancers, and goods that could not be whaling, of young nuclear family households. produced at home. The majority of their fresh Daughter Wealthy had married black whaler foods must have come from gardening, Amos Johnson of Eastville, Eliza had married hunting, purchases from other vendors, or Sylvester Wright of Southampton, Isaac and food sharing with others. Stephen were at sea on the Odd Fellow, and For unknown reasons, she also owed the James, also a whaler, was living at Shinnecock estate of William H. Nelson $21.57, with steep (Surrogate Court Clerk’s Office 1857). interest of $11.59. Nelson was a Sag Harbor Wealthy Cuffee’s probate record is a lawyer who lent money to whaling captains snapshot of the home life of a family spanning and crew members before voyages in return for multiple generations of cohort whalers, soon shares of profits (Nelson 1831–1848). Cuffee’s after the peak of the industry in Sag Harbor in household may have taken advantage of this late the 1840s. She owned seven chairs, a service. The registration of the loan in her stand, and a bed and bedding, which added name could indicate either that she required a up to a value of $6.58; a bureau, a walnut loan for her own purposes, or that she acted as table, another kitchen table, a rocking chair, a guardian for her two sons at sea. chest, a looking glass, carpet, a mantle, Wealthy made a will stipulating that her window shades, and a cupboard, which were land and house in Eastville should remain for Northeast Historical Archaeology/Vol. 43, 2014 121
her husband to live in for the rest of his natural 1857; Rabito-Wyppensenwah 1993b). The life, at which point it should be divided home was decorated with books and pictures, among her minor sons Isaac, Stephen, and “ornaments,” curtains, and carpets. The chairs Cornelius. The Cuffees carried the Shinnecock were all grouped in multiples of 3 to 6, and so tradition of women’s stewardship of land to were the kitchen wares, which included 6 the purchase of property in Wealthy’s name knives and forks, 6 plates, 6 teacups and outside the reservation. This is also evidence saucers, and 12 small plates. of economic mobility for a whaling family: she The Plato household inventory indicates was one of the first, if not the first, Native that in the early 1860s, people of color in the American woman in Sag Harbor to purchase whaling industry were not only able to establish land and obtain a residence without a mortgage. independent households around nuclear Perhaps access to credit at local stores, combined families, but they were also living in houses with windfalls from whaling voyages, allowed that were increasingly divided into more her to gain property in her earlier and discrete spaces with different sleeping, work, healthier years. On the other hand, when she and leisure areas. The even numbers of table became ill, her household struggled to pay and tea wares show that preferences for those debts, and she was ultimately unable to matching sets, noted in white middle- and pass on her land. It was sold at public auction upper-class households in the late 18th century, in October 1858 for $170 to pay her debts of were also part of their daily life (Wall 1994; $100.43. Only her children Wealthy Johnson Leone 2005). and James Cuffee remained in Eastville as adults. At the same time, the Platos also had equipment for household production, including The Platos of Southampton a clotheshorse, carpentry tools, fishing tools, The volatility of household economies in pistol ammunition, and gardening equipment, the whaling era was not limited to issues of as well as bushels of corn and potatoes. These inheritance. Montaukett whaler Silas B. Plato’s items hint at Juliet’s self-sufficiency and young nuclear family experienced worse reliance on local produce during Silas’s years hardships when he died at sea in 1863 at sea, as well as the likelihood that she made (Surrogate Court Clerk’s Office 1864). He had and mended clothes for outside income. signed on in 1862 as third mate on the barque Unfortunately, the challenge of survival Eagle of New Bedford (New Bedford Whaling after his loss must have dwarfed the household’s Museum 2012). His wife Juliet and daughters financial and material resources. Although the Ursula Ann and Harriet survived him at their agents of the Eagle owed the family $1,000, home in the town of Southampton, which was there is no record of payment to Juliet. likely located near Juliet’s sister Clarissa Rugg Meanwhile, Silas’s listed possessions were in the village of Bridgehampton (Surrogate appraised at under $120, his “cash on hand” Court Clerk’s Office 1868; U.S. Department of came to $80, and I have found no record of his the Interior 1870). or his wife’s ownership of land. Additionally, Silas Plato had no recorded debts, and he it is possible that Juliet had household debts in had $80 cash on hand and $1,000 due from the her own name, as did Wealthy Cuffee. Material agents of the Eagle. His probate inventory plenty was not necessarily an indicator of reads as though the appraisers listed objects as material security. Even if Juliet and her they moved through the house, visiting at daughters had produced food and earned least four rooms. These rooms were furnished income, three young women might have had not only with sufficient furniture for the four trouble supporting their household alone. members of the family to sit, sleep, and work, How did Silas’s death impact Juliet, Ursula but with 18 chairs, 2 bureaus for storage, and Ann, and Harriet’s lives? None of the three several tables and stands that could have appear definitively in the census, newspapers, served as work and dining surfaces. The Plato or poor records, so their lives beyond 1863 are house was divided into more multipurpose a mystery. Did Juliet rely on her parents, the spaces than earlier Native American dwellings Quaw family in East Hampton, or her sister in the area, probably including Wealthy Clarissa Rugg, who had married a black Cuffee’s (Surrogate Court Clerk’s Office 1807, whaler and become part of an extended family 122 Button/Native American Whaling on Long Island
network in Bridgehampton? Did she move around creating spaces of comfort and plenty. west to New York, near another sister, to look She had a whip, three guns, a powder horn, for new opportunities (Surrogate Court and a clam rake, but little gardening or fishing Clerk’s Office 1868)? These unknowns show material compared to other probate records. that even though whaling profits could enable As a woman living alone on a small town couples like Silas and Juliet to establish their property near younger nieces and nephews, own homes, furnish them with matching con- she relied less on her own household production sumer goods, and even save money, the very than did households on the Shinnecock reser- industry that enabled this upward mobility vation. However, she was highly engaged with could easily destroy it. The nuclear family the local economy as a consumer and, most household was as fragile as it was prosperous. likely, an earner. Many household objects indicate potential The Consors of Eastville sources of income. A clotheshorse, significant quantities of clothing, small pieces of cloth and Despite this risk, a number of Native American women who witnessed multiple old clothes, and a “work basket” likely relate generations of whaling were the final survivors to work as a seamstress or tailor, a common in their household cycles during its decline. In occupation among women of color (Stone, 1880 six women headed households in Johnson, and VanDeroef 1988; Bowser 2007). Eastville, and by 1902 their number had doubled The significant number of dishes included 211 (U.S. Department of the Interior 1880; E. pieces of ceramic table and tea wares (88.7%) Belcher Hyde Map Co. 1902). One of them, and 27 utilitarian pieces (11.3%), as well as Eliza Consor, was the daughter of one Native numerous glass serving bowls and jars. She American sailor, wife and sister to multiple had multiple sets of matching and “odd” whalers, and mother of a son who died at sea. plates and tea sets, which implies that she She kept three whale lines and a whale spade purchased entire sets of new plates to replace at her home in Sag Harbor until her death, old, mismatched, incomplete, or unfashionable years after the death of the last whaler in the ones. With five sets of siblings and in-laws in family (Surrogate Court Clerk’s Office 1898). the neighborhood, she likely cooked for major Her parents, Lewis and Lucinda Cuffee, were family and church events, but she may also founders of Eastville’s St. David African have used her home as a restaurant or board- Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, and she inghouse. There is no known documentation and five of her brothers and sisters established or oral history associating sizable boardinghouses houses in Eastville based on work in the with whaling-era Native American families on whaling industry during the 1850s and eastern Long Island, but women commonly beyond (East Hampton Library 1860–1869; ran them in ports (Bolster 1997; Norling 2000; Zaykowski 1991). Her husband, African Mancini 2009). Eliza Consor’s quantity of American George Prince Consor, was a whaler serving and dining wares may be a material until the 1870s, while her son, his namesake, signature of one such home-based business. was lost at sea (Surrogate Court Clerk’s Office Throughout her adult life, Consor accumu- 1891). Sadly, the family plot in Oakland lated numerous possessions compared to the Cemetery shows that none of her daughters younger households of Wealthy Ann Cuffee lived past age 30 either. When Eliza died in and Silas Plato, and many of these items may 1897, she was the last remaining member of have helped her to support herself through the her immediate family. deaths of her husband and children. Yet, Consor’s 1898 probate inventory ceramics on archaeological sites can be poor (Surrogate Court Clerk’s Office 1898) lists indicators of household wealth in minority extensive furnishings, household material households in this period, in comparison to culture, and possible work materials in an land ownership (Bower 1986; Landon 2007). inventory stretching to 18 handwritten pages, All of Consor’s possessions were appraised at detailing even “one postage stamp.” Unique a total value of only $126.84. Her home and highlights included 126 books, 10 rocking property in Eastville, valued at $150 in 1883, chairs, and 274 dishes and jugs, which lead were auctioned off after her death (East one to imagine a life of collecting oriented Hampton Assessors 1883; Surrogate Court Northeast Historical Archaeology/Vol. 43, 2014 123
Clerk’s Office 1898). Perhaps if one of her housing and establish new households, both children had survived through adulthood, the on and off the reservation. Consors would have been a successful Some families maintained this property example of economic mobility for a whaling over multiple generations, although similarly family, passing down property through detailed financial and material data are generations. Instead, their example illustrates unavailable for these households. For the difference between plentiful material example, by the turn of the 20th century culture and wealth. Wealthy Cuffee’s daughter and son-in-law, All three of these household biographies Wealthy and Amos Johnson, and Eliza show the importance of women’s leadership at Consor’s sister and brother-in-law, Helen and all stages of the household cycle: when men Miles Ashman, both passed on houses to their were at sea in young families like the Platos, children (East Hampton Assessors 1883; E. when young adult sons like the Cuffees were Belcher Hyde Map Co. 1902). For these families, setting off on voyages and women and parents whaling in the early years of household cycles remained home, and when older women helped foster long-term prosperity, and their survived the men in their families and descendants often moved on to work in maintained roots and family connections in agriculture and tourism after the decline of the port. They show that both credit and women’s whaling industry (U.S. Department of the labor fostered consumption in comfortable Interior 1880). households that relied on a combination of Nevertheless, individual household mass-produced material culture, store-bought biographies illustrate the precariousness of life staples, and local products. Yet, for each of in the whaling industry. Whalers risked death these families, whaling supported household at sea, which was particularly dangerous for expansion and consumption for only one or young nuclear families without many other two generations at a time. adults supporting the household, and the tragedy of the Circassian shipwreck in 1876 Conclusion also had a massive impact on the Shinnecock In Sag Harbor, Southampton, and East reservation community. Furthermore, Native Hampton, New York, whaling was a risky but American whaling households still faced often profitable strategy for 19th-century barriers to intergenerational economic indigenous communities in combination with mobility, such as reliance on credit, which credit, household production, and women’s could result in the loss of hard-earned property. labor and leadership. Bolster (1997) has found that among black Demographic and historical overviews of families in northeastern ports, maritime labor the Shinnecock reservation show that resource was an economic pillar of the community, but constraints, in the form of a limited reservation its unpredictability meant that many mariners land base, shaped multigenerational household were unable to maintain their own households. structures that supported the tradition of Native American families on Long Island had cohort whaling in the mid-19th century. This parallel experiences of greater communal trend also supports historians’ claims that mobility, but faced serious individual risks. limited access to land and capital contributed While the wages of whaling were usually to the growth of maritime wage labor in worth their costs, they rarely eclipsed the Britain and the American colonies in general, economic inequality that had limited Native and to Shinnecock and Montaukett participation American families for centuries. in whaling specifically (Rediker 1987; Strong This study’s combination of historical and 2001). In both Shinnecock and Eastville, archaeological data reveals that native whaling also supported the formation of new households used the labor opportunities of households, because in comparison to terrestrial the whaling era to invest in some symbols of wages it offered windfalls. Oral histories and mainstream respectability, such as housing the documentary record show that whaling and ceramics, but that gains in property voyages had unique potential to provide large ownership were difficult to pass on after the one-time payments that could function in industry’s decline. Most evidence for labor place of savings, allowing families to invest in patterns is drawn from historical documents, 124 Button/Native American Whaling on Long Island
while material culture data primarily relate to Barsh, Russell Lawrence consumption. This mismatch between 2002 “Colored” Seamen in the New England archaeological and historical evidence for certain Whaling Industry: An Afro-Indian Consortium. In Confounding the Color Line: areas and time periods leaves open questions The Indian-Black Experience in North America, for future research. For example, probate and ed. by James F. Brooks, 76-107. University tax records provide a wealth of historical of Nebraska Press, Lincoln. detail for households in Sag Harbor, but there is not yet any direct archaeological evidence Beers, Frederick W. 1873 Atlas of Long Island, New York. Beers, pertaining to this whaling community. Field Comstock & Cline, New York. research at Shinnecock and in Eastville could better contextualize the ceramic collection at Bockstoce, John R. the Shinnecock Museum, yield measurements 1986 Whales, Ice, and Men: The History of Whaling of changes in house construction, household in the Western Arctic. University of practices, and consumption over the course of Washington Press, Seattle. the 19th century, and indicate whether there Bolster, Jeffrey were material differences between on- and off- 1997 Black Jacks: African American Seamen in the reservation households. Archaeology can have Age of Sail. Harvard University Press, much more to contribute to understanding the Cambridge, MA. whaling industry and how it transformed both the American economy and Native American Bower, Beth Anne 1986 The African Meeting House Boston, ways of life. Massachusetts, Summary Report of Archaeological Excavations, 1975–1986. Acknowledgments Manuscript, Museum of Afro-American History, Boston. Working with the Eastville Community Historical Society and the Shinnecock Bowser, Elizabeth Museum made this project possible, and I am 2007 Oral History Printed in Voices of Sag Harbor: grateful to Dr. Georgette Grier-Key, Kathleen A Village Remembered, ed. by Nina Tobier. Friends of the John Jermain Memorial Tucker, the board of the Eastville Community Library, Sag Harbor, NY. Historical Society, David Bunn Martine, Elizabeth Haile, and Holly Haile Davis for Bragdon, Kathleen J. their guidance, support, and thought-provoking 1996 Native People of Southern New England, conversations. Dr. Nancy Shoemaker was 1500–1650. University of Oklahoma Press, immensely helpful and generous in sharing Norman. her research materials and discussing how Braginton-Smith, John, and Duncan Oliver history and archaeology can complement each 2008 Cape Cod Shore Whaling: America’s First other, and Dr. John Strong provided early Whalemen. History Press, Charleston, SC. guidance and inspiration. I also thank my dissertation chair, Dr. Patricia Rubertone, and Brown, Hunting S. 2002 Dering Crew-List Database. Manuscript, readers Dr. Douglas Anderson and Dr. William Long Island Collection, East Hampton Simmons, for their constant advice and support. Library, East Hampton, NY. This research was partially funded by the American Philosophical Society Phillips Fund Burgess, Edward S. for Native American Research and the Paul 1926 The Old South Road of Gay Head. Duke’s Cuffe Fellowship from the Munson Institute County Historical Society Publications Vol. 1, No. 4. Edgartown, MA. for American Maritime Studies. Busch, Brighton Cooper References 1994 Whaling Will Never Do for Me. University Press of Kentucky, Lexington. Barile, Kerri Saige, and Jamie C. Brandon (editors) 2004 Household Chores and Household Choices: Carr, Lloyd G., and Carlos Westey [Westez] Theorizing the Domestic Sphere in Historical 1945 Surviving Folktales and Herbal Lore among Archaeology. University of Alabama Press, the Shinnecock Indians of Long Island. Journal Tuscaloosa. of American Folklore 58(128): 113–123. Northeast Historical Archaeology/Vol. 43, 2014 125
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