meanes to "A knitt them togeather": The Exchange of Body Parts in the Pequot War

Andrew Lipman

was IN the early seventeenth century, when New England still very new, Indians and colonists exchanged many things: furs, beads, pots, cloth, scalps, hands, and heads. The first exchanges of body parts a came during the 1637 Pequot War, punitive campaign fought by English colonists and their native allies against the Pequot people. the war and other native Throughout Mohegans, Narragansetts, peoples one gave parts of slain Pequots to their English partners. At point deliv so eries of trophies were frequent that colonists stopped keeping track of to individual parts, referring instead the "still many Pequods' heads and Most accounts of the war hands" that "came almost daily." secondary as only mention trophies in passing, seeing them just another grisly were aspect of this notoriously violent conflict.1 But these incidents

a in at the Andrew Lipman is graduate student the History Department were at a University of Pennsylvania. Earlier versions of this article presented graduate student conference at the McNeil Center for Early American Studies in October 2005 and the annual conference of the South Central Society for Eighteenth-Century comments Studies in February 2006. For their and encouragement, the author thanks James H. Merrell, David Murray, Daniel K. Richter, Peter Silver, Robert Blair St. sets George, and Michael Zuckerman, along with both of conference participants and two the anonymous readers for the William and Mary Quarterly. 1 to John Winthrop, The History ofNew England from 1630 1649, ed. James 1: Savage (1825; repr., New York, 1972), 237 ("still many Pequods' heads"); John Mason, A Brief History of the Pequot War: Especially Of the memorable Taking of their Fort atMistick in Connecticut In 1637 (Boston, 1736), 17 ("came almost daily"). There are several have more a historians who given trophy exchanges than passing glance. See James Axtell and William C. Sturtevant, "The Unkindest Cut, orWho Invented no. Scalping?" William and Mary Quarterly, 3d ser., 37, 3 Quly 1980): 451-72; Axtell, "The inNatives Moral Dilemmas of Scalping," and Newcomers: The Cultural Origins ofNorth America (New York, 2001), 259-279. Evan Haefeli examines trophies' place within two different "cultures of violence" in an essay on a contemporary Dutch Indian war. See Haefeli, "Kieft's War and the Cultures of Violence in Colonial in America," Lethal Imagination: Violence and Brutality in American History, ed. Michael A. Bellesiles (New York, 1999), 17-40. Jill Lepore analyzes the meanings embedded in severed for body parts both cultures during King Philip's War, though she emphasizes display rather than exchange. See Lepore, The Name of War: King

William and Mary Quarterly, 3d Series, Volume LXV, Number 1, January 2008 4 WILLIAM AND MARY QUARTERLY more than a footnote. were a kind of just macabre They strange negotia tion, a cross-cultural conversation rendered in flesh and blood. to Algonquian Indians often exchanged wartime trophies affirm alliances, whereas the English decapitated enemies and displayed their heads to establish dominance. Because body parts were symbols of acts were a political relationships in both cultures, these of giving way for the two peoples to express and mediate their different notions of saw as authority. Narragansett sachem Miantonomo described what he to a war the function of such exchanges when he began plot against a English and Dutch colonists in 1642. At meeting with his coconspira tors,Miantonomo told them that "when the designe should be putt in to execution he would kill an Englishman & send his heade & handes near Longe Hand," and the Indians of Long Island and those the Dutch this would be a meanes to knitt them should do the same, "& togeather." Miantonomo's how could rela phrase aptly suggests body parts represent note tionships. Anthropologists that exchanged objects symbolize and thoughts and values, define the flow of power within societies, foster between and receivers. between cultures in expectations givers Exchanges particular deserve close attention because different peoples attach multi and sometimes to the same ple conflicting meanings things.2

American Philip's War and the Origins of Identity (New York, 1998), 148, 173-80, 190, in New T. 303 n. 103. Discussing the bounties for wolves' heads England, Jon Coleman made connections between colonists' and Indians' uses of human parts and their uses of animal parts. See Coleman, "Terms of Dismemberment," Common no. 1 place 4, (October 2003), http://common-place.dreamhost.eom//vol-04/no -oi/coleman/coleman-2.shtml. 2 "Relation of the Plott?Indian," in Collections of theMassachusetts Historical These and hands are Society, 3d ser., 3: 161-64 (quotation, 164). heads, scalps, prime Nicholas Thomas calls mate examples of what anthropologist "entangled objects": so rial artifacts of colonial encounters that are invested with many meanings that cannot a cultural context. See they be located within single Thomas, Entangled Material and Colonialism in the Objects: Exchange, Culture, Pacific (Cambridge, Mass., 1991), 1-23. Several other thinkers have also influenced this article, including Commodities in Cultural Arjun Appadurai, ed., The Social Life of Things: Perspective R. "A New (New York, 1986), 3-63; Christopher L. Miller and George Hamell, on Contact: Cultural and Colonial Perspective Indian-White Symbols Trade," no. 2 Laurier Journal of American History 73, (September 1986): 311-28; Turgeon, an no. 1 "The Tale of the Kettle: Odyssey of Intercultural Object," Ethnohistory 44, Van Settlement: (Winter 1997): 1-29; Cynthia Jean Zandt, "Negotiating in Atlantic North Colonialism, Cultural Exchange, and Conflict Early Colonial David America, 1580-1660" (Ph.D. diss., University of Connecticut, 1998); Murray, Power in Indian-White Mass., Indian Giving: Economies of Exchanges (Amherst, Value and Material 2000); Fred R. Myers, ed., The Empire of Things: Regimes of Heads: Culture (Santa Fe, N.Mex., 2001), 3-61; Regina Janes, Losing Our Beheadings Heads in Literature and Culture (New York, 2005), esp. chap. 5, "African and Imperial D?colletage: Beheadings in the Colonies," 139-75. EXCHANGE OF BODY PARTS IN THE PEQUOT WAR 5

At first heads, hands, and scalps conveyed simple messages about trust were natives and power that understood by and newcomers, strengthening their partnership during the campaign against the Yet such communications obscured Pequots. any pidgin many secondary about what the meanings, causing disagreements exactly exchanges sym some bolized. In the years following the war, Indians became disillu sioned with their alliance with colonists, arguing that it was built on of cultural sameness and that the were violat faulty assumptions English its fundamental terms. These demonstrate the ing exchanges peculiar of frontier at this in the colonization character relationships early stage of New a at a moment when England. By attempting military conquest they could not yet assert cultural hegemony, colonists dealt with Indians in that were at once and ways aggressive accommodating.3

When reading descriptions of the English spectacle of drawing and quar to tering and the Algonquian ritual of torturing captives, it is tempting

3 In the voluminous historiography of the Pequot War, few scholars have as a emphasized cultural accommodation major feature of the English victory, to out though that appears be changing. Jenny Hale Pulsipher points the large in degree of negotiation and flexibility the early stage of Indian-English relationships in war were a New England and argues that the years after the 1637 turning point. See unto Same Pulsipher, Subjects the King: Indians, English, and the Contest for Authority in Colonial New England (Philadelphia, 2005), 8-36. More typical is the debate between Hirsh Karr Adam J. and Ronald Dale about the English incineration a on of Pequot village the Mystic River. Hirsch posits that English frustration with to resort to a new the Indians' military tactics caused the colonists ruthless form of frontier whereas Karr to was not a combat, insists that the decision burn the village saw as novel tactic; instead, it reflected how the colonists the Pequots illegitimate enemies. Despite their differences, both scholars emphasize "drastic cultural imbal to ances" and "the failure establish reciprocity between the military cultures of the English Puritan forces and the Pequots." See Hirsch, "The Collision of Military in New no. Cultures Seventeenth-Century England," Journal ofAmerican History 74, 4 (March 1988): 1187-1212 ("drastic cultural imbalances," 1209); Karr, "'Why Should You Be So Furious?' The Violence of the Pequot War," Journal of American History no. to 85, 3 (December 1998): 876-909 ("failure establish reciprocity," 909). Much on war a of the literature the builds from debate between the self-confessed puritan hater Francis and the reluctant Jennings puritan apologist Alden T. Vaughan. See 2 Vaughan, "Pequots and Puritans: The Causes of theWar of 1637," WMQ 21, no. (April 1964): 256-69; Vaughan, The New England Frontier: Puritans and Indians, 1620?167$ (Boston, 1965), 93-154; Jennings, The Invasion of America: Indians, and the Cant Colonialism, of Conquest (New York, 1975), 177-227; Vaughan, and Puritans: The Causes of War of *n "Pequots the 1637," Roots ofAmerican Racism: on Essays the Colonial Experience (New York, 1995), 177-99. The most detailed treat ment to is Alfred A. War date Cave, The Pequot (Amherst, Mass., 1996). Other major interpretations include Neal Salisbury, Manitou and Providence: Indians, and the Europeans, Making ofNew England, 1500?1643 (New York, 1982), 166-239; Laurence M. "The War and Its in Hauptman, Pequot Legacies," The Pequots in New an Southern England: The Fall and Rise of American Indian Nation, ed. 6 WILLIAM AND MARY QUARTERLY

conclude that the two traditions of human butchery were essentially so alike. But doing obscures the vast differences between the social structures of the two peoples and ignores how violent acts can be shaped by larger cultural contexts. The English employed many kinds of pun ishment that involved dismemberment. was Drawing and quartering a their most elaborate ritual: criminal would be hanged, disemboweled, emasculated, and decapitated, and the remainder of his corpse would be to divided into quarters. English officials also sentenced criminals have their hands, ears, and tongues cut off and condemned others to be beheaded. Of all the body parts that the English severed in sickening numbers, the object that they valued the most (and thus the object that an expressed the most of their values) was the head. Heads supplied obvious metaphor for hierarchy, indicated by the use of the word "crown" as a for the monarch. The metonym words "capital," "capitu and like all derive from the Latin late," "captain," "decapitate," caput, meaning head.4 Appropriately, the English often reserved beheading for to high treason, the most capital offense. The beheaded tended be the most members of subversive powerful society: preachers, scheming and to the throne. nobles, pretenders During the tumultuous century of religious strife and dynastic crises at that preceded the colonization of New England, the headsmen the Tower of London were constantly busy. To some extent these beheadings was had a clear function; the sovereign who quick to cut off the heads of would-be usurpers remained the tallest person in the realm. The Tudor of was far more had and early Stuart concept monarchy nuanced; subjects notions of as and contractual. When some kingly authority reciprocal a citizens believed that King Charles I had violated the compact between king and his people, the monarch himself lost his head. Scholars who have studied the symbolism of capital punishment in this period suggest were a of real-life that cast that executions essentially genre morality plays "traitors living and dead in the staging of royal power."5

Steven T. Hauptman and James D. Wherry (Norman, Okla., 1990), 69-95; Katz, no. 2 "The Pequot War Reconsidered," New England Quarterly 64, (June 1991): The of 206?24; Michael L. Fickes, "'They Could Not Endure That Yoke': Captivity New no. Pequot Women and Children after theWar of 1637," England Quarterly 73, 1 First the (March 2000): 58-81; Michael Leroy Oberg, Uncas: The of Mohegans (Ithaca, N.Y., 2003), 34-86. 4 s.v. Janes, Losing Our Heads, 1-9; Oxford English Dictionary, "capital," "decapi coastal methods of torture tate." To compare English colonists' and Algonquians' some broad and dismemberment succinctly, the following sections present generali are meant to was static but rather to zations, which not imply that either society their first demonstrate that each had distinct practices of dismemberment before major conflict. 5 of modern execu Numerous scholars have investigated the symbolism early tions with a focus on their theatrical properties, including Karin S. Coddon, EXCHANGE OF BODY PARTS IN THE PEQUOT WAR 7

There was theatrical about a turn something undeniably monarch ing his subjects into objects. Not surprisingly, detached heads had key roles in many dramas of the English Renaissance, in particular Christopher Marlowe's Edward the Second and Doctor Faustus and William Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus, Cymbeline, Richard III, and Macbeth. For fictional and real-life monarchs, the severed head became a useful prop. When Marlowe's Edward II considered how to put down a one brewing revolt, of the king's advisers recommended that he should on "Strike off their heads, and let them preach poles. /No doubt, such lessons theywill teach the rest, /As by their preachments theywill profit to much, /And learn obedience their lawful king."6 Marlowe suggested that in taking life, the king reminded his subjects of the source of his authority and turned the heads of his rebellious subjects into preachers, messengers of his and God's words demanding obedience down the great chain of being. English royals frequently placed severed heads in prominent loca as tions around London such Aldgate, Temple Bar, and London Bridge, towns and sheriffs repeated the practice in larger throughout the realm. Executioners often parboiled the heads of traitors; that is, they quickly cooked them in hot water, which temporarily arrested decay. The prac tice the heads so that would remain preserved they recognizable longer, though sometimes this kind of prop mastery worked too well. In 1535, two weeks after the execution of John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, were Londoners aghast to notice that his head "grew daily fresher and fresher, so that in his lifetime he never looked so well; for his cheeks a as being beautified with comely red, the face looked though it had beholden the people passing by, and would have spoken to them." a Despite the indignities of postmortem display, doomed nobles actually

"'Unreal Unreason and the Problem in Mockery': of Spectacle Macbeth," English no. Literary History 56, 3 (Autumn 1989): 485-501 ("traitors living and dead," 499). See Karen also Cunningham, "Renaissance Execution and Marlovian Elocution: The Drama of 2 Death," Publications of theModern Language Association 105, no. (March Michel trans. 1990): 209?22; Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, Alan 2d ed. Sheridan, (New York, 1995), 3-103; Philip Smith, "Executing Executions: and the Aesthetics, Identity, Problematic Narratives of Capital Punishment and no. 2 Ritual," Theory Society 25, (April 1996): 235-61; Janes, Losing Our Susan The Modern Heads, 1-96; Zimmerman, Early Corpse and Shakespeare's Theatre For an of uses (Edinburgh, Scotland, 2005), 1-23. overview the English of see A beheadings, John Laurence, History of Capital Punishment (New York, i960), For an overview of how colonists conceived 28?29. English of monarchical authority, see T. H. The Character the Good Ruler: A Breen, of Study of Puritan Political Ideas in New D. England, 1630-1730 (New Haven, Conn., 1970), 46-48; James Drake, King sWar: Civil War in Philip New England, 1675-1676 (Amherst, Mass., 1999), 44-48. 6 Edward the in B. Christopher Marlowe, Second, J. Steane, ed., Christopher Marlowe: The Complete Plays (New York, 1969), 484 (act 3, scene 2, lines 20-23). 8 WILLIAM AND MARY QUARTERLY

as more preferred decapitation, seeing it less painful and dignified than on was the alternatives. Yet being dispatched the chopping block not as as some always swift hoped. In many executions, including SirWalter Ralegh's, the headsman found it necessary to drop his axe twice.7 Whereas English nobles typically only had the elites of the realm beheaded, soldiers sometimes beheaded foreigners in a more indiscrimi nate a fashion. In notorious 1569 incident during the Tudor reconquest of Ireland, Sir Humphrey Gilbert unleashed a total war against the defi ant people of Munster. Declaring that "the stiffe necked must be made to stoupe," Gilbert decapitated the bodies of slain rebels and created a to tent so grisly "lane of heddes" leading his that approaching villagers would have to pass "the heddes of their dedde fathers, brothers, chil dren, kinsfolke, and freendes." Describing this horrific scene, Gilbert's took to assure his readers that such extreme "ad ter propagandist pains rorem" measures were to end the natives' Half a cen necessary uprising. tury later, English colonists in America again used spectacle to In 1622 rumors a encourage submission. Plymouth settlers heard of Massachusett Indian plot to kill the English. A company led by the colony's chief soldier, Miles Standish, removed the head of the lead con and it outside the to where it spirator placed gate Plymouth's fort, for more than a remained, slowly rotting, year.8 to New England colonists' ideal vision of how make stiff-necked enemies stoop was not just informed by Elizabethan Ireland; it dated back to biblical Israel. The puritans envisioned their arrival in America as a continuation of a narrative. And for the most scriptural many fitting biblical role model was King David. The books of Samuel depicted as a David righteous believer and the savior of Israel while showing his to be an David's predecessor, Saul, inadequate pretender. life, especially his exile into the wilderness, offered inspiration to the colonists who fled

7 Laurence, History of Capital Punishment, 30-33 (quotation, 33); Cunningham, of the convicted con Publications of theModern Language Association 105: 212-13. One to be beheaded on spirators in the 1605 Gunpowder Plot, Sir Everard Digby, pleaded status as a merited a more death. The court was the logic that his gentleman dignified not was with the others. See swayed and Digby drawn and quartered James Sharpe, Remember, Remember: A Cultural History of Guy Fawkes Day (Cambridge, Mass., 2005), see H. State Trials: Political and Social 72-76. For Ralegh's execution, L. Stephen, ed., (1899; repr., New York, 1971), 1: 60-61, 71. 8 Thomas Churchyard, A Generall Rehearsall of warres, called Churchyardes n. of notions Choise (London, 1579), p. (quotations). For further discussions English a see of just war, Karr, Journal of American History 85: 880-88, esp. 885-88; Lepore, colonization of Ireland influenced the Name ofWar, 105-13. An overview of how the colonization of America is found in Nicholas P. Canny, "The Ideology of English Colonization: From Ireland to America," WMQ 30, no. 4 (October 1973): 575-98. at see For a discussion of Standish's actions Plymouth, Salisbury, Manitou and Providence, 130; Axtell and Sturtevant, WMQ 37: 464. EXCHANGE OF BODY PARTS IN THE PEQUOT WAR 9

the rule of Charles I and Archbishop William Laud and saw their settle ments as the salvation of David's wars the England. against Canaanites also included numerous and other slaughters, beheadings, mutilations. Young David's greatest act was to slay the oversized Philistine Goliath. Just before he drew his sling, David declared: "This day will the Lord deliver thee into mine hand; and I will smite thee, and take thine head from thee; and I will give the carcases of the host of the Philistines this day unto the fowls of the air, and to the wild beasts of the earth; that all a the earth may know that there is God in Israel." After felling Goliath, David decapitated the massive body and proudly toted his trophy back to Jerusalem, appearing before Saul with the giant's head in his hand. was more Though this beheading about David proving himself to Saul than intimidating the Philistines, itmarked the beginning of David's repeated tactic of dismembering his heathen foes, precedents that colonists would later invoke as a for their actions justification against the Pequots.9 The sacred history of Israel, like the accounts of Ireland, authorized and dismemberments in a war beheadings against intractable enemies. To Christian authorities these that true were examples proved when believers

9 i Sam. See also 1 Sam. 17:46 (quotation). 17:49-57 for the slaying of Goliath and the return to For discussion of how Jerusalem. colonists compared their "errand into the wilderness" to biblical see "The Scholastic ordeals, James Axtell, Philosophy of no. the Wilderness," WMQ 29, 3 (July 1972): 335-66; William S. Simmons, "Cultural Bias in the New England Puritans' Perception of Indians," WMQ 38, no. 1 (January 1981): 56-72. Puritans also saw David as the author of the book of Psalms, him a source of See D. et making key spiritual inspiration. Michael Coogan al., eds., "Introduction to 1 Samuel" and to "Introduction Psalms," The New Oxford Annotated Bible Revised Standard ed. (New Version), 3d (Oxford, Eng., 2001), In sermon 398-99, 775-77. John Winthrop's famed "A Modell of Christian written en route to the Charity," Massachusetts Bay Colony, he offered the disobe dient Saul as a a cautionary example: "When God giues speciall Commission he lookes to haue it stricktly obserued in every Article, when hee gaue Saule a to Commission destroy Amaleck hee indented with him vpon certaine Articles and because hee failed in one of the least ... it lost him the kingdome." See Massachusetts Historical 2: Society, Winthrop Papers (Boston, 1931), 282-95 (quota tion, 294). Many ordinary puritans also drew inspiration from David's story. "I out I shall one a cryed David-like, day perish by the hands of Saul," recalled young woman who was the "I one briefly kidnapped by Pequots, shall day dye by the hands of these barbarous Indians." See John Underhill, Nevves From America; Or, A new and discoverie . . . experimentall of New England (1638; repr., Amsterdam, Netherlands, 1971), 30. The quotation is a reference to the moment David decided to flee which could well be a maxim for Israel, all "godly" colonists: "And David said in his heart, I shall now one the hand of Saul: there is perish day by nothing better for me than that I should speedily escape into the land of the Philistines; and Saul shall of to seek me more despair me, any in any coast of Israel: so shall I escape out of his hand" Sam. For further of (1 27:1). examples David ordering bodily muti lations and dismemberments, see 1 Sam. 18:25-27, 2 Sam. 4:12. IO WILLIAM AND MARY QUARTERLY

faced with unacceptable insolence, God mandated this special brand of mayhem. English law seemingly accommodated Davidic precedents. Noting the prevalence of dismemberment in the Bible, English jurist Sir as Edward Coke legitimized these actions "godly butchery."10 Inspired by their holy texts and by the daily realities of early modern England, colonists found dismemberment a useful practice to assert their authority over a foreign land. Severed heads enabled sovereigns and their surrogates to their and illustrate their strengthen power righteousness.

Coastal also saw human as of Algonquians fragments representations and albeit in to their own culture. Sachems power order, ways specific (Indian political leaders) did not have a country and subjects but rather a sontimooonk and kannootammanshittogik, literally, sachemship and defenders of the sachemship. Unlike the monarchical and monotheistic a colonists, Algonquian leaders drew their authority from series of oral traditions and gift exchanges that defined relationships between rulers and the ruled, between the human and spirit worlds. The largest sachemships coast along the southern of New England?the Wampanoag, and a male "chief" sachem and Narragansetts, Pequots?had multiple lesser sachems who the chief tribute in return for of paid promises protec as tion. Sachems accepted gifts such wampum (shell beads) and maize, then in a sense of trust and gave gifts return, fostering obligation between themselves and their defenders. In comparison with the English or even a colonial a sachems was far more lim king, governor, authority ited and his means of were collect reciprocal; primary exercising power ing gifts, redistributing them, waging war, and maintaining peace. Still sachems, like monarchs, could punish treason. Roger Williams observed that "sometimes the Sachim sends a secret Executioner, one of his cheifest . . . Warriours to fetch of[f] a head when they have feared Mutiny by execution."11 publike

10 ii Lee Haskins Laurence, History of Capital Punishment, (quotation). George an not cautions that the Bible "was indispensable touchstone, but the cornerstone, he also notes that New colonists of Puritan legal thinking," yet England closely to crimes. See Law and in adhered scriptural definitions of capital Haskins, Authority A in Tradition and Early Massachusetts: Study Design (New York, i960), 118, 141-53, statutes were word-for-word 162 (quotation). Some Massachusetts capital nearly transcriptions of biblical passages. 11 A Into An to the Roger Williams, Key the Language of America; Or, help in that America called . . . Language of the Natives part of New-England (1643; repr., Colonists found numerous kinds of Bedford, Mass., 1997), 136 (quotation). to lack leader and sachemships, including groups that seemed any paramount groups to east toward the and the Islands. The led by women, particularly the Cape a in which the elder Narragansetts had unique power-sharing arrangement were the time of the Canonicus and his nephew Miantonomo cosachems, though by was the leader for the Pequot War it appears Miantonomo principal diplomatic EXCHANGE OF BODY PARTS IN THE PEQUOT WAR II

Though severed parts occasionally represented executive power, more often were of war. Coastal natives war they symbols rarely waged to accumulate to murders and to accumu territories; they fought avenge late people and things of symbolic and practical value. The most prized war was a Women were plunder of live captive. and children usually assimilated into their captors' lineages. Captured warriors often had to face an excruciating and slow death; they would be methodically dis an membered in front of entire village and expected to remain brave and stoic under the duress of torture. These ceremonies usually included the or amputation of hands and feet and culminated in either the beheading a scalping of the captive. The methodic and public slaughter of male was a where vent captive cathartic theatrical performance Indians could a over a their anger for wrongful death and revel in their victory bitter a to enemy. It also gave the enemy warrior chance redeem the honor he lost in being captured by demonstrating his fearlessness toward death. Colonial observers were often at the torture of at the aghast captives but, same to were more time, they had admit that Indian conflicts far restrained than were and concentrated European wars, where victories often measured by the total number of enemies slain. To Indians, killing on a scale was wasteful and it served to large dangerous; only perpetuate violence. They much preferred butchering a few foes in a deliberate fashion to emotional gain rewards.12 not Native Americans did just dismember living captives, they also on mutilated the wounded and dead the battlefield. According to when "their arrow in the enemie . . . Williams, sticks body of their they follow their arrow, and falling upon the person wounded and tearing his head a little aside by his Locke, they in the twinckling of an eye fetch off a his head though but with sorry [dull] knife." The Narragansetts called act as this Timeq?assin, which Williams translated "To cut offor behead."

more tribe, since he dealt with Roger Williams frequently than his uncle. See Kathleen J. Bragdon, The Native People of Southern New England, i$oo?i6$o (Norman, Okla., 1996), 40-41; Paul A. Robinson, "Lost Opportunities: Miantonomi and the English in Seventeenth-Century Narragansett Country," in Northeastern Indian Lives, 1632-1816, ed. Robert S. Grumet (Amherst, Mass., 1996), 13-28, esp. For an overview of the contrast between and of 21-24. English Algonquian notions see Manitou and authority, Salisbury, Providence, 37-49; Bragdon, Native People of Southern New unto England, 44-49, 130-39, 140-55; Pulsipher, Subjects the Same For a discussion of the theoretical debate King, 1-36. long about the role of the gift in nonstate societies from Marcel Mauss to Marshall Sahlins and its relevance to Indian and colonial in see exchanges early America, Murray, Indian Giving, 15-47. 12Daniel K. "War Richter, and Culture: The Iroquois Experience," WMQ 40, no. 4 (October 1983): 528-59, esp. 529-37; Hirsch, Journal of American History 74: Patrick M. The War: 1190-92; Malone, Skulking Way of Technology and Tactics among theNew Indians England (Baltimore, 1993), 9-11; Bragdon, Native People of Southern New England, 148-50, 226. 12 WILLIAM AND MARY QUARTERLY

As Williams's description indicates, Timeq?assin probably also referred to more famous and native of the two the widespread practice scalping; can viewed as of the same tradition. Because Indians practices be part that the soul?their closest to the believed "free" analogue European an concept of eternal soul?was anchored in the head, scholars have sug were to gested that beheading and scalping intended keep the free soul from reaching "the Southwest," the peaceful and plentiful land of the were to dead. Colonists sometimes vague in their references this custom, or using the word "head" interchangeably with "scalp" "head-skin." In meant as New England "heads" whole heads well; whereas Williams a seemed to be describing scalping, other colonists witnessed full decapi tations. have found evidence to the of Archaeologists support prevalence the of a headless beheading, including gravesite seventeenth-century Narragansett woman. By the time of King Philip's War in the 1670s, the colonial records had more explicit references to scalping, though this shiftmay have reflected the vast scale of that particular conflict. In his account of the war, William Hubbard observed that the natives in the too region preferred heads to scalps and only took the latter "when it is far to carry the heads."13 were matter. some native Hands and feet another Among peoples, torture cannibalism. Indians ate their enemies rituals also incorporated meat only for spiritual, not nutritional, benefits, and they often favored from the hands and feet. Most sources indicate that cannibalism was or rare who associated either forbidden very among coastal Algonquians,

13 arrow Williams, Key Into the Language of America, 50-51 ("their sticks"); William Scranton Simmons, Cautantowwit's House: An Indian Burial Ground on the in Island of Conanicut Narragansett Bay (Providence, R.I., 1970), 54-55 ("free," n. "Southwest"); Axtell and Sturtevant, WMQ 37: 462-63, 465, 469 52 ("head-skin," Wars inNew the 461-62); William Hubbard, The History of the Indian England from in . . . , ed. First Settlement to the Termination of the War with King Philip, 1677 2: too For a Samuel G. Drake (1865; repr., New York, 1969), 206 ("when it is far"). see discussion of how Indians related torture to justice and catharsis, Richter, WMQ 20-22. 40: 529-37; Haefeli, "Kieft's War," Among scholars who study the origins of Axtell that Indian dismemberment, Simmons only discusses heads, whereas suggests over tuft of decorated among Indians who favored scalps heads, the "scalplock" (the men to also the hair that Indian styled represent their tribal identities) "represented or "Moral Dilemmas of See also person's 'soul' living spirit" (Axtell, Scalping," 262). Native Southern New Simmons, Cautantowwit's House, 52, 54-55; Bragdon, People of The headless woman found is known as "Burial England, 190-91. by archaeologists was a woman more than old at the time 13" and probably Narragansett thirty years to "her skull could not be attributed to mod of death. According Simmons, missing not woman could have ern pot hunters, for the grave had been disturbed. The only and the ones around her date been beheaded before burial." The objects in her grave not to a See to the postcontact seventeenth century (but particular decade). 102 For a discussion of Indians' Simmons, Cautantowwit's House, (quotation), 105-6. see Name n. preference for whole heads, Lepore, ofWar, 303 103. EXCHANGE OF BODY PARTS IN THE PEQUOT WAR 13

anthropophagy with inland Iroquoian peoples. But it is possible that was a ves their practice of cutting extremities off the captured and dead a tige from time when they engaged in cannibalism. One historian has as also posited that Indians dismembered dying enemies figurative means of their foes In some the of the taking captive.14 ways origins matter less than its ultimate Whether practice metaphorical significance. it enemies or the Indian custom of derived from capturing eating them, a means taking body parts was symbolic of taking possession of enemies and consuming their spiritual strength. were in the sense that were mementos of a Body parts trophies they for more than a man's violent act, yet they stood just single triumph over were not to take but also another. Warriors only expected trophies compelled to give them. Colonial promoter William Wood observed that when Indians "returne [as] conqueroursf,] they carrie the heads of wars: custome to their chiefe enemies that they slay in the it being the cut off their heads, hands, and feete, to beare home to their wives and children, as true tokens of their renowned victorie." Williams also were to noticed that the Narragansetts "much delighted after battell hang up the hands and heads of their enemies." By bringing body parts men own back to their village, Indian demonstrated their bravery and fulfilled their duties as warriors by producing "a visible sign of justice done."15 and feet evoked the central rituals of Heads, scalps, hands, Indian military culture, making them weighty objects in native systems of obligation. a to a or one Deliveries of severed parts from warrior sachem from sachem to another showed a firm alliance, like that of kin. Miantonomo's "a meanes to knitt them best the phrase togeather" perhaps describes political function of these exchanges. Like all gifts given to sachems, tro a phies fostered obligations between the giver and receiver. By accepting a sachem that he shared the of the trophy, demonstrated grievances per son delivering it. It also symbolized his commitment, since taking the head made him complicit in the act of killing and reinforced the ethos of mutual defense that held all sachemships together. Body parts were therefore valued tokens of reciprocity and loyalty.Williams related the an tale of Indian warrior who, pretending to defect from his own peo a as ple, joined group of his enemies theywent into battle. As the fight an arrow ing began, he fired into the enemy sachem and "in a trice own fetcht off his head and returned immediatly to his againe." During 14 Axtell and Sturtevant, WMQ 37: 459-62; Richter, WMQ 40: 533-34; Haefeli, "Kieft's War," 20-22. 15 William Wood, Wood's New-England's Prospect (1634; repr., New York, 1967), Into 95 ("returne [as] conquerours"); Williams, Key the Language of America, 52 21 ("much delighted"); Haefeli, "Kieft's War," ("visible sign"). H WILLIAM AND MARY QUARTERLY

an the Pequot War, one soldier described Indian delivery of scalps and hands "as a testimony of their love and service," and another interpreted a a gift of heads from Indian allies "as pledge of their further fidelity." Another incident comes from the nearby colony of New Netherland. When Algonquian-speaking Raritan Indians attacked Dutch colonists on Staten Island in 1640, the Dutch demanded the heads of the killers. A year later a Tankiteke sachem named Pachem arrived on Manhattan a on a "in great triumph, bringing dead hand hanging stick, and saying that itwas the hand of the chief who had killed or shot with arrows our men on Staten Island, and that he had taken revenge for our sake, were because he loved the Swannekens (as they call the Dutch), who his to a best friends."16 Pachem intended his gift be token of love and were friendship, which common translations of Indian diplomatic The numerous of heads and hands the phrases. exchanges throughout war illustrated how Indians believed these grisly objects could represent and strengthen partnerships. As the moment that these two distinct uses of body parts became contrasts linked, the Pequot War brought the parallels and between into relief. For English beheading and Indian Timeq?assin sharp were more than other colonists detached heads always important any awesome body part because only heads conjured up the authority of the even English monarch and the greater authority of the English god. a Severed heads were most potent while at rest and on display in promi nent the of the location, suggesting futility resistance, advertising price a new of betrayal, and projecting the permanency of God's people in like a promised land. A displayed head functioned conclusively, period a of rebel marking the end of declarative sentence, bringing the episode to a made sense within a of lion close. For Indians trophies only system on and them. Native warfare that centered taking captives torturing peo as simi ples also did not exclusively favor heads, seeing scalps and hands human larly important objects. And though Indians displayed trophies, more inmotion and pieces had political significance while being passed from sachem to sachem because traveling trophies could bind the griev one. saw as less ances of many into Indians heads and hands connective, more in of sen like periods and like semicolons the middle complex to actions. The tences linking past violent actions conditional future

16 to Collections of theMassachusetts Historical Society 3: 164 ("meanes knitt"); fetcht A Williams, Key Into the Language of America, 51 ("trice off); Philip Vincent, Late in New Between the and the True Relation of the Battell Fought England, English, a Salvages (1637; repr., Amsterdam, Netherlands, 1974), 17 ("as testimony"); a Pietersz De "From Underhill, Nevves From America, 25 ("as pledge"); David Vries, . . . in the 'Korte Historiael Ende Journaels Aenteyckeninge' (1655)," Jameson, 211 Narratives ofNew Netherland, ("in great triumph"). EXCFIANGEOF BODY PARTS IN THE PEQUOT WAR 15

intersection of these different meanings shaped Indian and English rela the war. human as natives tionships during Using pieces punctuation, and newcomers created shared idioms of power.

The 1630s were a turbulent decade for colonists and Indians. Epidemics began to thin the numbers of coastal natives while the great migration to caused the English colonies expand rapidly. These trends brought the two into closer contact and conflict. Historians now peoples eventually a generally agree that the Pequot War began with deliberate English to seize trade and the Connecticut River and attempt territory along Long Island Sound. No major group of Indians was more vulnerable than the a located in the coastal area between the Pequots, once-mighty power Thames and Pawcatuck rivers.At their peak in the late 1620s, Pequots had dominated trade with the Dutch and collected wampum tributes from on numerous smaller sachemships the Connecticut River and Long Island Sound. By themid-i630s, though, the Pequots' heyday had passed. In 1633 a Dutch colonists killed charismatic sachem Tatobem during nasty trade dispute. That same year a smallpox epidemic further destabilized the trade in and after Tatobem's wampum, furs, European goods. Shortly ineffectual son Sassacus came to in sachem power 1636, Mohegan Uncas, who was once the Pequots' closest ally, cut his political and military ties with his old friends and kin.17 own Adding to the Pequots' troubles, the English accused them in a 1634 of murdering Virginia ship's captain named John Stone and eight of his crew. The English demanded that the Pequots act as surrogate executioners and us the heads of the the "give murderers," but sachems refused, believing Stone's killing to be just, and instead attempted to make peace with the English through gifts of wampum. Colonists paid to overtures to move little attention these friendly and continued closer to In towns Pequot territory. 1636 Massachusetts colonists founded the of Hartford, Windsor, and Wethersfield along the Connecticut River. same That year, using the unrelated murder of another English ship's

17 Jennings, Invasion of America, 190?91; Salisbury, Manitou and Providence, 207-11; Cave, Pequot War, 57-68; Eric S. Johnson, "Uncas and the Politics of in a common Contact," Grumet, Northeastern Indian Lives, 29-32. It is misconcep tion were once that the Mohegans wholly part of the Pequot tribe and that Uncas created the tribe out of thin air. The evidence were a suggests they long-standing to as sachemship that paid tribute the Pequots before 1636 just many other smaller did. the two were sachemships Culturally and linguistically, closely related, though were to they independent enough develop different styles of pottery. See Salisbury, Manitou and New 62: Providence, 41-49; Cave, England Quarterly 27-44; Kevin "The McBride, Historical Archaeology of the Mashantucket Pequots, 1637-1900," in and in Southern New Hauptman Wherry, Pequots England, 99; Cave, Pequot War, n. 40-43, 192 63; Oberg, Uncas, 18-20. i6 WILLIAM AND MARY QUARTERLY master on as an colonists attacks Block Island excuse, launched punitive an against the Pequots, burning empty village and its surrounding cornfields.18 The English also sought the friendship of the other Indian sachems in the area who had long resented the Pequots. Roger Williams, who founded Providence in 1636 after being banished from Massachusetts, cultivated a with sachems strong personal relationship Narragansett Canonicus and Miantonomo, learning their language and diplomatic to a protocols. Colonists along the Connecticut River began form simi lar bond with theMohegans and their ambitious sachem, Uncas. These new sachems had much to gain in siding with the English. Powerful own friends could help them challenge the Pequots and strengthen their Personal ties to the newcomers would their sachemships. guarantee access to a source of trade which in turn would steady European goods, to over allow them maintain their rule their smaller tributary groups. to The English and Indian decision marginalize the Pequots represented a calculated and mutually beneficial compromise between the colonists' secure native allies' for desire for territory and their desire protected new trade. As the Pequots realized the true danger posed by these alliances, they sought to reconcile their differences with their historic the But the were to humble enemies, Narragansetts. Narragansetts eager news to their old foes, refusing the proposal and quickly relaying of it the English.19 was One way the Pequots' rivals bound themselves to the English to was to offer intelligence; another offer heads. When Mohegan sachem some were Uncas pledged to help the colonists, wary because Uncas had a only recently been the Pequots' closest ally. The English demanded test of his loyalty. Uncas and his Mohegan warriors responded by deliv to at ering "five Pequeats heads" Fort Saybrook the mouth of the Connecticut River. "This mightily incouraged the hearts of all," Captain a John Underhill remarked, "and wee tooke this as pledge of their fur was to ther fidelity."With this act Uncas demonstrated that he agreeing once were a pact of mutual defense and obligation. But the heads in

18 There is a Underhill, Nevves From America, 9-15 (quotation, 10). debate or of about whether Pequots Western Niantics (a group Pequot tributaries) actually and Neal killed Stone. Laurence M. Hauptman, Francis Jennings, Salisbury argue were the the that the murderers Niantics, making English campaign against Pequots more A. Cave Niantics were all the duplicitous. Alfred concludes that, though likely were for the murder. See involved, the Pequots primarily responsible Jennings, Manitou and 210-n, 218; Invasion of America, 189?90, 194-95; Salisbury, Providence, Its Hauptman, "Pequot War and Legacies," 72; Cave, WMQ 49: 509-21. 19 unto the Same Salisbury, Manitou and Providence, 212-15; Pulsipher, Subjects "Lost "Uncas and the King, 21-22; Robinson, Opportunities," 21-22; Johnson, Politics of Contact," 32-33. EXCHANGE OF BODY PARTS IN THE PEQUOT WAR 17

were English hands, they translated from tokens of allegiance into props of dominance; the commander of Saybrook "set all their heads upon the fort," just as a king would display the heads of traitors.20 Objects that the Mohegans offered to cement promises between themselves and the now an English carried additional layer of meaning. In English eyes the five heads affirmed Uncas's loyalty and stated the consequences of defy ing colonial authority. a When receiving trophies, colonists made habit of responding with a another gift. Soon afterUncas delivered his heads, party of Narragansetts came to Boston "with forty fathom of wampom and a Pequod's hand"; the a English governor gave them four coats in exchange. Williams had major influence on the English decision to respond to Indian gifts with other gifts. Later he would rightfully take much of the credit for win over native the that he broke "to ning support against Pequots, boasting an pieces the Pequts n?gociation and Designe" of anti-English alliance and discharged most of the diplomatic legwork to create "the English Leauge with the Nahiggonsiks and Monhiggins." Williams not only per formed much of the face-to-face negotiation with Indians but also wrote letters his fellow colonists on how to meet native instructing expecta even on tions of reciprocity and counseled them appropriate gifts for particular men.21 Though many colonial leaders grasped the importance of giving back to Indians, they never perfected or standardized the prac were tice. The English too inconsistent with their countergifts for these rewards to be characterized as bounties. it would be a mis Accordingly, take to that were commodified the War as say trophies during Pequot were in scalps later other North American conflicts. a a In 1636 single Indian began circulating trophy that galvanized war in earnest. a the anti-Pequot alliance and started the Cutshamakin, Massachusett warrior and to the into a and guide English, "crept swamp a killed Pequot, and having flayed off the skin of his head, he sent it to

20 Nevves From Underhill, America, 24-25 ("five Pequeats heads," 25); Winthrop, 1: History ofNew England, 223 ("set all their heads"). In his account Lion Gardener men. only mentions that the Pequots killed four See Gardener, "Leift. Lion Gardener his relation the in of Pequot Warres," Collections of theMassachusetts Historical Society, 3d ser., 3: 131-60, esp. 3: 149. 21 New 1: Winthrop, History of England, 217 ("with forty fathom"); Roger Williams to John Mason and Thomas Prence, June 22, 1670, in Glenn W. LaFantasie, ed., The Correspondence of Roger Williams (Hanover, N.H., 1988), 2: 2: 609-23 ("to pieces," 611). When tutoring his countrymen in the ways of native to a gift giving, Williams hinted the Massachusetts colonists that Pequot spy would like a new coat or one and advised them that "For any gratuitues tokens," sachem Narragansett "desires Sugar," whereas the other preferred "powder." See to Roger Williams the Governor of Massachusetts, [May 13, 1637], inMassachusetts Historical Society, Winthrop Papers, 3: 410-12 (quotation, 412). i8 WILLIAM AND MARY QUARTERLY

[elder Narragansett sachem] Canonicus, who presently sent it to all the sachems about him." Once the scalp finally reached English hands, they rewarded the assassin with "four fathom of Cutshamakin's wampom." was not an an a gift simply example of Indian offering token of loyalty to was a his supposed overlords; it crucial that the scalp passed through to series of Indian villages before it got Boston. These exchanges further cause committed the Narragansetts to the English because handling the made Canonicus a in the unknown death and scalp culprit Pequot's sending it to the English ensured their shared complicity, though it is saw unclear if the English the gift in that light. Cutshamakin's scalping hardened the English-Indian alliance and turned the Pequots into a hos tile force. Lion Gardener, the English commander at Fort Saybrook, a demonstrated general understanding of the scalping's significance war us when he declared, "thus began the between the Indians and in these parts."22 a First came flurry of Pequot raids on the English at Fort Saybrook, where warriors killed a few colonists and captured John Tilley and later tortured him, cutting off his hands and feet. Then the Pequots attacked the new settlement ofWethersfield, where warriors killed nine people and carried off two English girls, whom the Indians later released. These raids further escalated the stakes of the conflict, leading Connecticut to declare inMay 1637 "that there shalbe an offensiue warr ag[ains]t the Pequoitt." Joined by several hundred Mohegan, Narragansett, and Niantic a attack on the Eastern allies, the colonists planned surprise east. on Pequots from the Before dawn May 26, 1637, they marched a near toward large, fortified Pequot village theMystic River. Under the a command of Captain John Mason, party of English soldiers charged inside the wooden palisades, with the remainder of colonists and Indians encircling the village. The dense clusters of wigwams frustrated were too to a the English; there many places for Indians hide. Grabbing firebrand, Mason declared, "We Must Burn Them" and "set the Wigwams on Fire." Emerging from the flaming village, the English on to joined their native allies and fired any person who attempted escape. It was all over in less than an hour. Three to four hundred a Pequot men, women, and children perished; only handful escaped.23

22 i: into a Winthrop, History of New England, 190, 195 ("crept swamp"); the Gardener, Collections of theMassachusetts Historical Society 3: 142 ("thus began war"). In his summary of the war, Gardener repeated his claim that this scalp trig the war because gered it, remarking that all the bloodshed of happened "only a one Kichamokin [Cutshamakin], Bay Indian, killed Pequit." See Gardener, Manitou Collections of theMassachusetts Historical Society 3: 151 (quotation); Salisbury, and Providence, 218. 23 J. Hammond Trumbull, ed., The Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut, to . . . 1: Prior the Union with New Haven Colony, May, 166$ (Hartford, Conn., 1850), EXCHANGE IN THE OF BODY PARTS PEQUOT WAR 19

mass Though this slaughter violated the normal practices of Indian it had the curious effect of the warfare, strengthening anti-Pequot alliance. The and warriors Mohegan Narragansett "greatly admired the manner mens of English fight," but they "cried mach it, mach it, that is, it is naught, it is naught, because it is too furious, and slaies too many men." As Francis in the Jennings pointed out, seventeenth century "admire" awe rather than and was a term implied approval, "naught" for or were not "bad wicked." Their protests solely motivated by sympathy was for the Pequots; they also realized how dangerous it to punish an a enemy with such devastating attack. It could potentially unleash of retribution. After the remains of never-ending cycles raiding smoking the Mystic village to gather Pequot heads, the Indian allies were well aware that were in the massacre. now to ensure they complicit They had that the colonists would defend them should the Pequots return. Two a an months later Pequot captive told English officer "that were it not for the English the Pecots would not yet feare the Narra[gansetts]" and that "when submitt to the it is they Narraganset they say meerly for the as English sake."24 In the following months, the Mohegans, Narragansetts, and Niantics delivered Pequot heads and hands to the were not English, they inspired just by memories of the English attack atMystic but by visions of a Pequot revenge yet to come. a Colonists similarly feared the prospect of facing wounded and furious alone. As one soldier "It is not to enemy wrote, good give to a breathing beaten enemy, lest he returne armed if not with greater puissance, yet with greater despight and revenge." If the English-Indian alliance had splintered, it was possible that the Pequots could have

9 ("there shalbe"); Mason, Brief History of the Pequot War, 7-10 ("We Must," 8). For accounts of see 1: John Tilley's, capture, Winthrop, History ofNew England, 200; Collections the Gardener, of Massachusetts Historical Society 3: 147-48. Descriptions of the Mystic attack are found in Underhill, Nevves From America, 28-29, 36-42; New 1: True Winthrop, History of England, 217, 260; Vincent, Relation of the Late Battell, 6, 10-14; Mason, Brief History of the Pequot War, ix, 7-10. Historians offer numbers of in the as as varying Pequots fortified Mystic village, citing few three hundred and as as seven hundred. But the many evidence seemingly favors the lower end of the All sources written at war at range. the time of the place the number three or four hundred, and only John Mason's account, which was written much later and defended the of the attack due to the necessity Pequots' overwhelming numerical offered the outlier of "six or seven hundred." See superiority, suspicious Mason, Brief 10. History of the Pequot War, 24 Nevves From Underhill, America, 42-43 ("greatly admired"); Jennings, Invasion Israel to ca. of America, 223 {"admire"); Stoughton John Winthrop, July 6, in Massachusetts Historical 1637, Society, Winthrop Papers, 3: 441?44 ("that were it For two of the see not," 3: 443). interpretations why English burned the village, American Hirsch, Journal of History 74: 1187-1212; Karr, Journal of American History 85: 876-909. 20 WILLIAM AND MARY QUARTERLY

to a war the who were vul regrouped fight prolonged against colonists, nerable without their A mere colonists in partners. ninety participated the and later attack were often much Mystic massacre, English parties smaller. Even after Mystic, officers at one point had to redirect their undermanned units "for fear of the Pequots Invasion."25 These soldiers on men depended the Indian marching by their side, offering much needed military support and guiding them through unfamiliar land scapes. For English and Indians alike, heads and hands represented a mutual guarantees for safe future. Colonists and their native the summer hun partners spent chasing as dreds of Pequots they scattered to Long Island and the Hudson River to while sachem Sassacus tried in vain reassemble his people and fight back. The specter ofMystic undoubtedly helped colonists recruit former Pequot tributaries to join the coalition. When Long Island sachem came Waiandance to Saybrook "to know if [the English] were angry with all Indians," fort commander Gardener replied, "No, but only with as such had killed Englishmen." Waiandance then asked if his people resume could trade. Yes, Gardener said, but with the following condi tions: "If you will kill all the Pequits that come to you, and send me their heads," then "you shall have trade with us."26 Gardener also insinuated that Indians who refused to bring heads and wampum would be assumed to be harboring Pequots and could be held responsible for war now any belligerent actions. The Indians who had avoided the had two choices: were either with the or them. only they English against The English enticed and bullied Indians from all around Long case Island Sound and the interior into bringing them body parts. In the of the and were insurance Mohegans, Narragansetts, Niantics, trophies the return of warriors. For other neutral against Pequot previously as the Montauks and heads and hands were groups, such Quinnipiacs, an the price of admission into English protection and trade racket that an superficially resembled the structure of Indian sachemship. The tri umphant Mason explained the effect of the demand for body parts: now a to were "The Pequots became Prey all Indians. Happy they that came could bring in their Heads to the English. Of which there almost daily to Winsor, or Hartford." News of this head exchange spread to quickly, and groups that only had loose ties the Pequots joined in, to including the inland Nipmucks, who delivered three Pequot heads became such a common occurrence in Williams. The delivery of parts

25 is not Vincent, True Relation of the Late Battell, 15 ("It good"); Mason, Brief History of the Pequot War, 13 ("for fear"). 26 Gardener, Collections of theMassachusetts Historical Society 3: 150 (quotations); Mason, Brief History of the Pequot War, 14. EXCHANGE OF BODY PARTS IN THE PEQUOT WAR 21

the summer of 1637 that Massachusetts Governor John Winthrop one seemed to lose track of the specifics, at point making a casual remark about the "still many Pequods' heads and hands [coming] from other Long Island and places."27 Even count of the mutilated of their after they lost parts enemies, puritan colonists still had to square the head and hand exchange with vision of New as a new Canaan. For some this their England particular kind of violence recalled David's campaigns against the heathens of the In an to critics of the massacre at Holy Land. attempt silence any Mystic and the bloodiness of the war itself, Underhill cited the example of a "Davids warre": "when a people is growne to such height of bloud, and sinne against God and man, and all confederates in the action, there hee no to sawes hath respect persons, but harrowes them, and them, and to most puts them the sword, and the terriblest death that may bee: sometimes the Scripture declareth women and children must perish with "harrowes sawes them" was their parents." Underbill's phrase them, and a to David's treatment of the Ammonites. On reference conquering them and of them David "put under saws, under harrows iron, and under axes of iron, and made them pass through the brickkiln." Though Underhill recognized that Indians intended heads and hands to be sym bols of friendship, he preferred to see the mass destruction and dismem berments of the war as evidence of the As puritans' righteousness. Underhill put it: "we had sufficient light from the word of God for our proceedings."28 Colonists did not rely solely on their Indian partners to harrow and saw soon to their enemies; they began mete out Davidic justice with their own hands. In July 1637 English soldiers beheaded two captured

27 now Mason, Brief History of the Pequot War, 17 (" Pequots became"); 1: Winthrop, History of New England, 237 ("still many Pequods' heads"). For accounts see to of other Indian groups supplying heads, Roger Williams John in Winthrop, July 15, [1637], Massachusetts Historical Society, Winthrop Papers, 3: 450-52. 28 Underhill, Nevves From America, 40 ^Davids warre," "we had sufficient 2 light"); Sam. 12:31 ("put them under saws"). Elsewhere in his narrative, Underhill a cites the psalms of the "sweet affectionate Prince and souldier" David as source of not man can unto no nor strength: "I will feare that doe me, saith David, what trou bles can doe, but will trust in the Lord, who is my God." See Underhill, Nevves From Ps. 118:6. The of Ammon in America, 31, 35-36; conquest the King James Bible is probably mistranslated. In the New Revised Standard Version, the passage reads to saws or sent that David "set them work with and iron picks and iron axes, them to the brickworks." Still, to Underhill, "harrowes" and "sawes" referred to violence, not was not tools of coercive labor. And Underhill the only colonist who made such connections. In his celebration of the Treaty of Hartford, Mason quoted David's "How the Face is set them that to cut thirty-fourth psalm: of God against do Evil, off the Remembrance them the Earth" See of from Mason, Brief History of the Pequot War, 20-21; Ps. 34:16. 22 WILLIAM AND MARY QUARTERLY

one of was a and then site Pequots, whom sachem, named the of the execution a in "S?cheme head." About year later, puritan colonists the nascent settlement ofQuinnipiac (later New Haven) tried and convicted a local Indian named Nepaupuck for his alleged earlier cooperation with the Pequots. After his execution they placed Nepaupuck's head on a pole new town to center in their square. When colonists used heads mark the town or a on a statements about of place map, they made declarative their and on the These how power permanence landscape. executions, ever, did not always go as planned. In the final months of the war, seven English soldiers took Niantic men captive and accused them of aiding Pequots. The colonists "intended to have made [them] shorter by a on the Head" when Narragansett sachem stepped in their behalf and reassured the colonists that these men were them that loyal allies, telling we we as "if [the English] would spare their Lives should have many Murtherers Heads in lieu of them which should be delivered to the a to English."29 Those Niantics kept their heads with promise substitute colonists' desired relics of treason with native tokens of alliance. rare Despite negotiations like this one, the defining feature of the was no postwar traffic in heads its one-way direction. There is recorded a instance of the English giving head to Indians. Accordingly, colonists as at saw the gifts signs of submission. Noting the trophy taking Mystic, Philip Vincent described the Narragansetts and Mohegans "waiting [for] to the fall of the Pequets, (as the dogge watcheth the shot of the fouler as were fetch the prey) still fetched them their heades, any slaine." Mason echoed this with his "the now became a metaphor phrase Pequots never themselves as either the obedient hounds Prey."30 Though viewing or the wolves that some them to the rapacious English thought be, Indians have seen the as an indication of might asymmetrical exchanges own as the English belief in their superiority. Even the English made more after the there remained unre their interpretation explicit war, solved tensions between native and colonial practices of dismember ment. Though the English understood the basic Indian intentions to behind trophies, they tended diminish whatever political claims those trophies carried with them. No colonist had a better understanding of native culture than a to Williams, yet even he expressed strong desire reject Indian practices

29 to ca. in Massachusetts Richard Davenport Hugh Peter, July 17, 1637, Historical Society, Winthrop Papers, 3: 452-54 ("S?cheme head," 452); Mason, Brief executions are also discussed in History of the Pequot War, 19 ("intended"). The July 2: For of see Hubbard, History of the Indian Wars, 31. the beheading Nepaupuck, Cave, Pequot War, 16}. 30 12 the Vincent, True Relation of the Late Battell, ("waiting [for] fall"); Mason, Brief History of the Pequot War, 17 ("Pequots now"). EXCHANGE OF BODY PARTS IN THE PEQUOT WAR 23

and to recast as an act of deference. On trophy giving unambiguous receiving three pairs of Pequot hands from Narragansett warriors in the late summer of 1637,Williams described them as "no pleasing Sight," for he had "alwaies showne dislike to such dismembring [of] the dead." Despite Williams's obvious discomfort with the relics, he still accepted on them from the Narragansetts and then passed them toWinthrop. "If I had buried the present my selfe," he wrote begrudgingly, "I should have incurd suspicion of pride and wronged my betters, in the natives and others eyes." Recognizing the layered significance of the hands, Williams had to balance his personal feelings with the needs of his fel low colonists and Indian friends and participate in a practice that he found somewhat repugnant. But though dead hands troubled him, they also inspired him. Williams recognized that receiving parts had helped to legitimize the English conquest and considered ways to continue the the were In a letter to a few practice after Pequots subdued. Winthrop months later,Williams offered his "owne thoughts concerning a division and disposal of" the remaining Pequots. He proposed that "as once a Edgar the Peaceable did with theWelsh in North Wales, tribute of wolves heads be imposed on them etc. w[hi]ch (with Submission) I con ceave an to in incomparable way Save much Cattell alive the land." Williams hoped to extend English power and defend English livestock while mimicking native trophy exchanges and employing Indians, much as Vincent and Mason saw as His them, useful predators. fellow colonists rejected Williams's animal control policy, though other com munities inNew England later offered wolf head bounties to Indians.31 a Though Williams imagined future where colonists had full control as of trophy exchanges and could orchestrate them they saw fit, he knew too all well that Indian priorities shaped the original practice just as as ones. much English Colonists unfailingly requested heads from their native but often received hands instead. No partners, they Englishman ever refused hands and demanded heads in their place, yet the pattern itself is As a cross-cultural the of revealing. conversation, exchange body on were same parts relied false cognates: hands not the as heads or even

31 ca. Roger Williams, "To John Winthrop," Sept. 9, 1637, in LaFantasie, 1: 1: Correspondence of Roger Williams, 117-21 ("no pleasing Sight," 117); Winthrop, New 1: I had to History of England, 237 ("If buried"); Williams Winthrop, Feb. 28, in 1: 1638, LaFantasie, Correspondence of Roger Williams, 146 ("owne thoughts"). Williams not war only expressed qualms about the physical trophies, the itself, since he saw the as a real menace. Pequots Describing his diplomatic visits "with the bloudie Hands Arms Pequt Embassadours, whose and (me thoght,) reaked with the bloud of he recalled that he "could not but my Countrimen," nightly looke for their at owne bloudy Knives my throate aliso." See Williams to John Mason and Thomas Prence, June 22, 1670, ibid., 2: 611. Further discussion of wolf head bounties is in found Coleman, Common-place 4. M WILLIAM AND MARY QUARTERLY

Hands mattered to Indians because them was a cru scalps. amputating cial in the slow ritual torture of and have step captives may metaphori cally referred to the custom of consuming enemies. Still it is not clear why exactly Indians sometimes only gave hands. It is possible some war or riors preferred to keep the head scalp for themselves or their sachem and then offered the leftover hands to the none-the-wiser colonists. The of a and human remain seems difficulty transporting heavy rotting also to have been a factor?William Hubbard cited that as a reason natives instead of heads?but was a of gave scalps pair hands any less cumber some? Furthermore Indian men, who were hunters more often than war riors, certainly knew how to preserve dead flesh. They may have as preserved their trophies, just English executioners parboiled heads to ready them for display. So perhaps the gift of hands instead of a head or a scalp indicated that the Indian bearer was in a rush either to take the or to them.32 reasons were all trophies deliver These meanings and to to a opaque the English. Like anyone trying decipher foreign lan latched on to whatever was most or guage, they recognizable easily translated (heads, scalps) and glossed over what they did not quite grasp Colonists also realized that sometimes the mattered (hands). precise part less than the intentions of the people delivering it. were The English both celebratory and wary when Mohawk Indians arrived in Connecticut in the fall of 1637 with "part of the skin and lock of hair of [chief sachem] Sasacus and his brother and five other Pequod sachems." Mohawks loomed in native and colonial large imaginations. Suspicion of the Mohawks stemmed from their fearsome reputation not as a among the coastal Indians and from their identity nearby group cowed the massacre but rather as a distant force seemingly by Mystic that was more interested in ties with native possibily strengthening pow ers than colonial ones. For the next decade, rumors continued to circu a alliance. to late about Mohawk-Narragansett According Plymouth was satis colonist William Bradford, whether the Mohawks' delivery "to or as fie the English, rather the Narigansets, (who, I have since heard, or owne hired them to doe it,) for their advantage, I well know not; but thus this warr tooke end." Another account described the assassination as to of Sassacus an unambiguous act designed curry favor with the colonists: "These cruell, but wily Mowhacks, in contemplation of the to English, and procure their friendship, entertaine[d] the fugitive Pequets and their Captaine, by cutting off all their heads and hands, a which they sent to the English, as testimony of their love and service."

32 no to some came There is evidence suggest that hands from still-living were Pequots whose heads had been spared and that therefore these hands produc a men killed. ing counterfeit tally of the actual number of EXCHANGE OF BODY PARTS IN THE PEQUOT WAR ^5

were new Other colonists less troubled by the ulterior motives of their allies and focused on the figurative and literal head of the Pequot sachemship that now rested in English hands, which seemed to merit Bradford's remark about the conclusion of the war. After Connecticut colonists presented the scalp toWinthrop in the fall of 1637, he immedi ately summoned his soldiers home.33 to see Though Winthrop and Bradford chose Sassacus's scalp as came to an punctuation marking the end of the war, the conflict official close a when the and met year later, English, Mohegans, Narragansetts in Hartford. The 1638 Treaty of Hartford gave the colonists and their a to closest allies chance divvy up the material and human rewards of the a had the war, process they begun previous summer, when Indians and corn English split the Pequots' harvest. Additionally, the treaty formal area ized the existing practice of Indians offering wampum tribute to colonial governors, payments that bought English protection (and pro tection from the English). Colonists would soon claim that the treaty a to and the tributes gave them legal basis make these peoples and their territories part of New England. The English could also recirculate the tributes in the fur trade, using them as Indian subsidies for further colo nial growth.34 The treaty also settled the fate of the surviving Pequots. With most of the now taken the and refugees captive, English, Mohegans, Narragansetts each wanted their share of the defeated population. The two major Indian sachemships had already been incorporating captured into their for more than a Pequots lineages year, but the colonists declared all Pequots "theirs" by right of conquest, claiming that the Indians would have to the purchase captives they had already taken. The

33 New i: Winthrop, History of England, 235 ("part of the skin"); William Bradford, Bradford's History of Plymouth Plantation, ed. William T. Davis (New York, 6: satisfie the 1908), 343 ("to English"); Vincent, True Relation of the Late Battell, 17 For a of the Mohawks' on ("wily Mowhacks"). larger analysis role the New England see "Indians and Colonists in New frontier, Salisbury, Southern England after the War: An in Pequot Uneasy Balance," Hauptman and Wherry, Pequots in Southern New England, 81-95; Salisbury, "Toward the Covenant Chain: Iroquois and Southern New in the Covenant England Algonquians, 1637-1684," Beyond Chain: The Iroquois and Their Neighbors in Indian North America, 1600?1800, ed. Daniel K. Richter and James H. Merrell (Syracuse, N.Y., 1987), 61-74. 34 Williams to Roger John Winthrop, [July 10, 1637], in Massachusetts Historical to Society, Winthrop Papers, 3: 446-48, esp. 3: 447-48; Hugh Peter ca. Winthrop, July 15, 1637, ibid, 3: 450. Lynn Ceci makes the point that wampum from Indians funded See "Native as a English expansion. Ceci, Wampum Peripheral Resource in the in Seventeenth-Century World-System," Hauptman and Wherry, in Southern a Pequots New England, 48-63. For discussion of the war's aftermath, see "Indians and Colonists in Southern New Salisbury, England after the Pequot War," ibid., 81-95. 26 WILLIAM AND MARY QUARTERLY

a English demanded fathom of wampum beads for every adult Pequot as and half much for each child. The English also confiscated several dozen Pequots for themselves. Some of these Pequots were "branded on the shoulder" and became slaves within colonial households; others found themselves sent to Providence Island to work on plantations. An additional clause in the treaty stipulated that the Indians "shall as soon as can they possibly take off [the] heads" of any remaining Pequot fugi tives.35 The Treaty of Hartford codified head exchange and slavery and two as intimately linked the the colonists took possession of the living bodies and the lifeless parts of their enemies. Though the only obvious Indian contributions to the treatywere a on a few inkymarks the bottom of the page, Indians had large influence on on war. the specific terms of peace and English conduct after the Colonists adhered to Indian practices: they took captives, exchanged war trophies, and offered gifts while demanding wampum tribute in return. These gestures made English colonial authority resemble won war Algonquian sachemic authority. The English the not just by but them as the on slaughtering Pequots by usurping greatest power cer Long Island Sound and by emulating theirmethods of rule. Indians tainly saw resemblances. On hearing of the English demand for a wampum and heads, Montauk sachem Waiandance immediately drew as we parallel to the old regime, saying "we will give you tribute, did the Pequits." A Quinnipiac sachem echoed this feeling, telling the English "that as Long Hand had payd tribute to [Pequot sachem] Sasacas hee to Yet acts were would procure it vs."36 these of cultural impersonation never fully convincing because the Indians' and colonists' most talented brokers?men such as Williams, Uncas, and Miantonomo?could not reconcile the differences between each others' beliefs. More importantly, the had no reason to resolve the situation: these transla English garbled tions to their worked advantage. The and had to come to terms with a con Narragansetts Mohegans was as as was not the war quest that creative it violent. They had entered new to with the intention of submitting to their partners; they fought a to secure a defeat declining but still dangerous enemy and steady source of European trade goods. Though the English imitation of their have made the new alliances seem the reciprocal practices may familiar,

35 the in Connecticut and the Indians Appendix II, "Articles Between Inglish "shall as Sachems," in Vaughan, New England Frontier, 340-41 ("theirs," soon," 341); on the New Cave, Pequot War, 159 ("branded shoulder"); Fickes, England Quarterly 73: 61 n. 13. 36 Massachusetts Historical will Gardener, Collections of the Society 3: 150 ("we to ca. in Massachusetts give"); Richard Davenport Hugh Peter, July 17, 1637, as Historical Society, Winthrop Papers, 3: 452-54 ("that Long Hand," 3: 452). EXCHANGE OF BODY PARTS IN THE PEQUOT WAR 27

differences soon became evident. Miantonomo his made displeasure known whenever he felt the English had slighted or mistreated him, at one point griping toWilliams: "Chenock eiuse wetompatimucks? that is, ever so Did friends deal with friends?" In the years following thewar, his louder. As he to other sachems protests grew eventually began encourage to a war join him in against the colonists in 1642, Miantonomo pointed no nor out that the English governors "are Sachems, none of their chil no dren shall be in their place if they die; and they have tribute given one over them; there is but king in England, who is them all, and ifyou would send him 100,000 fathom of wampum, he would not give you a nor knife for it, thank you."37 According to Miantonomo, even if the to were puritan leaders tried impersonate sachems, their attempts ulti because their notions of were so mately unconvincing power foreign. to a one not They belonged far larger polity, that did function through rituals of or structures of one that recognizable reciprocity kinship, a invested earthly power in distant sovereign and spiritual power in a even more remote Gifts of and were ren single, god. wampum heads dered useless by the insincerity and ingratitude of the receivers. same In the speech, Miantonomo described his plans for a native a rebellion that would spring into action with coordinated exchange of new heads and hands. This network of trophy exchange, unlike the was more circular than more on English one, centralized, based the shared fates of all participants than on the dominance of one (even if the Narragansett sachem saw himself as the likely leader of the alliance). itwas on a new And predicated kind of pan-Indian identity. According toMiantonomo any other choice led to extinction: "We [are] all Indians as the to one so must we one as English are, and say brother another; be are, otherwise we shall be all Miantonomo's they gone shortly." daring plot and his pleas for Indian solidarity suggest that he regretted his role in the War was a Pequot and felt the postwar order death sentence for all coastal Algonquians.38 In contrast no Indian was more satisfied with the results of the war than chief Uncas, sachem of the Mohegans. In the following years, he to used his friendship with elite colonials empower his people over the and the other native in the He a Narragansetts groups region. played role in the and of Miantonomo's and major discovery suppression plot,

37Williams to in Winthrop, Aug. 20, 1637, LaFantasie, Correspondence of Roger Williams, 113 ("Chenock," emphasis added); Gardener, Collections of theMassachusetts no Historical Society 3: 153 ("are Sachems"). 38 Collections theMassachusetts Gardener, of Historical Society 3: 154 (quotation). Further discussion of Miantonomo's with disillusionment the English is found in "Lost unto Robinson, Opportunities," 23-28; Pulsipher, Subjects the Same King, 25-27. 28 WILLIAM AND MARY QUARTERLY

Uncas's brother executed the sachem with a to Narragansett blow the head. Yet no matter how he in to the powerful seemed comparison other one Indians, Uncas had essentially gone from tributary relationship to another. Justmonths after he stopped delivering wampum to the Pequot to sachem, Uncas began offering heads the English newcomers. What as a began military partnership quickly became a relationship between since the colonists to their unequals, demanded deference authority.39 Though Uncas's strategy for accommodating the English required a partial surrender of Indian self-rule, Europeans never fully eliminated the natives of Long Island Sound. The ultimate legacy of the Pequot was not War extermination but subordination. Coastal Indian powers were never free from sachem again European rule, though Wampanoag Metacom (known as King Philip to the English) would lead a vast coali an tion of Algonquians in unsuccessful 1675 attempt to regain their autonomy. By the 1640s, the English governors had accomplished what had to create in 1620s: a vast Pequot sachem Tatobem tried the and across durable network of tributaries stretching Long Island Sound.

In its gory specifics, the Pequot War offers powerful examples of Indians to shaping the history of early America. Motivated different degrees by own colonial intimidation, colonial persuasion, and their self-interest, these Indians, with the exception of the Pequots, both willingly and unwillingly legitimized postwar English authority by delivering heads, was no hands, and other tributes. There top-down imposition of the invaders' cultural order; rather, the English seized power by accepting and reinterpreting symbolic gifts from the people they claimed to rule. as Miantonomo as Corporeal pieces functioned, imagined, connecting bonds between disunited people. Still the trophies' power to express was were a trust and translate foreign ideas limited, since body parts means crude of communication that invited misinterpretation. And for the Indians who delivered trophies to the English, the ultimate results of these negotiations were tinged with irony. For every Pequot head they an cut off, English one grew back in its place.

39 an a For analysis of how Uncas maintained degree of cultural and political autonomy, see Johnson, "Uncas and the Politics of Contact," 35-46.