Wattanummon's World: Personal and Tribal Identity in the Algonquian Diaspora c. 1660-1712 EVAN HAEFELI Princeton University KEVIN SWEENEY Amherst College Wattanummon's adult life was spent, and ultimately consumed, in a strug­ gle to live in the borderlands between New England and New France during the half century of conflict following the outbreak of King Philip's War in 1675. At different points in his life Wattanummon was known either as a Pennacook or a Pigwacket, while at other times he might have been called a Pawtucket, a Cowassuck, or a Schaghticoke. These groups are frequently assumed to be separate and self-contained entities, tribes with distinct histories. At times, the tightly bordered model of tribal history may be appropriate and useful, but when one studies the Northeast in the decades after King Philip's War, such a framework obscures the many ties that bound these groups together. Recounting what we know of Wattanum­ mon's life reveals the limits of narrow tribal histories by demonstrating just how fluid and interconnected tribal groups were during this period. From the late 1670s until the late 1730s Algonquian-speaking refugees from southern New England and Abenakis in northern New England strug­ gled to maintain themselves in a region torn apart by wars with the Iro­ quois, the English, and the French. We are calling the movement of peoples and the establishment of new villages and tribes that occurred in the Northeast in the wake of King Philip's War the "Algonquian Dias­ pora" . Reconstructing the life of a single individual clears one path among the many followed by hundreds of individuals whose lives remain hidden beneath ethnic and tribal labels. This distinction is significant in a his­ toriography that generally assumes a person's politics were shaped by his tribal identity. Wattanummon was originally from the lower Merrimac River Valley, near what is today Newbury, Massachusetts, in the heart of the Pawtucket 212 .-------------~----------~~~==========~====~~~ l'2j d'Q" E; ID 1-' ~ ~ 0...., t-3~ c:-t-::r (!) ~ z z 0 c::: '"1 c:-t- s;:: ::r' s;:: (!) g; 0 c:-t­ z Ul en. ::r' 0 ~ ::1l 0 s· ~ (Tq t"' t:J ~ l (!) Ul ~ Atlantic 0.. Ocean :;:'"1 · (!) Ntshawty• '"1 NorwotludJ Ul 'Nmhampton &. ll•l.lley Notick, • 1\ ga w•miSpringl"ield t-,J 1-' "" 214 HAEFELI et SWEENEY homeland (Abbot 1829:44). Wattanummon's name appears to add support to this traditional account of his origin (see Figure 1). David Pentland (personal communication) suggests that if the anum is derived from the proto-Algonquian *-elem- 'think' then the name probably comes from a people speaking an n-dialect. The Pawtuckets, though closely linked to the Western Abenaki-speaking (an /-dialect) Pennacooks, are believed to have been speakers of Massachusetts, an n-dialect (Goddard 1978:75-76; Salwen 1978:168-170). Daniel Gookin, who wrote extensively about the region's natives, claim­ ed the Pawtuckets originally stood at the head of a number of tribes, including the Pennacooks, who lived further up the Merrimac (Gookin 1972b:8-9). In the aftermath of the 1616-1617 epidemic that destroyed na­ tive settlements along the Massachusetts coast, the influence of the inland Pennacooks appears to have grown and overshadowed that of the Paw­ tuckets (Salisbury 1982:105-106). By the 1630s, when English colonists started negotiating with the native peoples along the Merrimac River, Pas- saconaway of the Pennacooks was their leading spokesman. Passaconaway, and after him his son Wanalancet, pursued a policy of peace and friendship with the English in the period from the 1630s to the 1670s, though this did little to prevent the gradual loss of land to the encroaching colonists (Calloway 1988:265-270). Intermittent warfare with the Five Nations of the Iroquois League prob­ ably made peace with the English a necessity for the Pennacooks, despite its costs. Hostilities between the Pennacooks and the Iroquois began in the 1630s, escalated into several bloody campaigns during the 1660s, and only appeared to end when mutual exhaustion overcame both sides' ability to fight in the early 1670s (Day 1984:35-50; Salisbury 1987:68). The Iro­ quois campaigns of the 1660s generated the first refugees of the Algonquian Diaspora. Some of the Sokokis and Pocumtucks, forced to abandon their villages in the Connecticut Valley, sought refuge along the Merrimac River with their Pennacook allies or along the St. Lawrence River among the French (Thomas 1979:395). Presumably Wattanummon was born during the 1660s when his people were greatly diminished by disease, fighting a protracted war against the Iroquois, and losing land to the English. When King Philip's War broke out in 1675 the Pennacooks were able to remain neutral during the first year of fighting. It was, however, an uneasy neutrality. Some of the southern New England Algonquians fighting the English had recently been allies of the Pennacooks against the Iroquois. The English, who distrusted the Pennacooks, sent a military expedition to secure their submission. When it arrived at Pennacook it discovered that Wanalancet, seeking to stay out of the war, had taken his people north to Cowass, today Newbury, Vermont (Gookin 1972a:462-463; Drake WATTANUMMON'S WORLD 215 1971:(2):209; Calloway 1988:273-275). Wattanummon's family may well have gone with Wanalancet. In any case Wattanummon would return to Cowass in future times of trouble. During the spring and summer of 1676, as King Philip's War drew to a close, hundreds of Algonquians from southern New England fled from the English and the Iroquois to find a refuge with the Pennacooks. The acceptance of refugees increased English fears and effectively ended the Pennacooks' long-standing peace with the English (Drake 1971:(1):248; Calloway 1990:81). Major Richard Waldron, for years the leading trader with the Pennacooks, called a conference with the Pennacooks and their neighbors at Dover, New Hampshire in the fall of 1676. There, by means of trickery, he seized several hundred Indians, mostly refugees he sus­ pected of having fought in King Philip's War. Waldron released those Algonquians he recognized as Pennacooks, Wanalancet among them, but took the other "strange Indians" back to Massachusetts and sold them into servitude (Belknap 1972:(1):140-145; Drake 1971:(2):131-133; Drake 1973:17-20; Calloway 1988:275). The Dover incident would haunt the Pennacooks for years to come. In the aftermath, a number of them, including some of Wanalancet's rela­ tives, headed north to Cowass or Canada, both recognized refuges from the English and the Iroquois (Gookin 1972a:463; Drake 1971:(2):208-209; Cal­ loway 1988:276, 1990:81). Wanalancet, with other relatives and presumably Wattanummon and his family (judging from Wattanummon's subsequently close ties to Wanalancet), preferred to remain closer to the English. Within a year, a raiding party of Pennacooks and southern New England Al­ gonquians who had sought refuge in Canada attacked some villages in Massachusetts and brought Wanalancet and those Pennacooks still with him north to Canada (Gookin 1972a:520-521; Calloway 1988:276). This may well have been the young Wattanummon's introduction to the village that refugee Sokokis had established at Odanak. The move, however, did not represent an abandonment of the lands along the Merrimac. Within a few years many of the Pennacooks had returned, and by the 1680s Wat­ tanummon was again living near Newbury, Massachusetts (Abbot 1829:44). Not everyone returned. In these years, the Algonquian Diaspora reach­ ed its greatest extent, with native refugees spreading across the Northeast from New York to Acadia. Considerations of immediate protection, re­ lationships grounded in previous alliances, the pull of personal ties and kinship, and shifting relations with the English and the French influenced the choices shaping this diaspora. Some of Wanalancet's people stayed at Odanak under the protection of the French. Others went to Schaghticoke, a village of southern New England refugees established within the jurisdic­ tion of New York colony and under the protection of the Mohawks (Day 216 HAEFELI et SWEENEY 1981:16-21). More refugees could be found further east in Maine, where they joined tribes evolving on the Acadian frontier (Prins 1988:4). Thus the world in which Wattanummon grew to adulthood was delineated by new refugee settlements and characterized by constant movement among them. Contacts and interchanges undertaken during the relative peace of the early 1680s would continue to bind together villages at Cowass, Schaghticoke, Odanak, Pennacook and Amesoquanty (also Amesokanti) during the sub­ sequent twenty-five years of almost continuous warfare (Day 1981:21-25; Calloway 1988:276-277, 281; Prins 1988:5-6). King William's War (1689-1697), the first Anglo-French colonial war, began with two incidents arising directly out of this diaspora. In the summer of 1688 a group of Algonquians from southern New England led by several Pennacooks raided western Massachusetts (O'Callaghan 1855- :(3):62; Felt 1836-:(30):310-311; Haefeli and Sweeney 1995). To the east, Algonquians who been captured by Waldron in 1676 and had subsequently escaped from servitude joined with some Pennacooks and Pigwackets and attacked Dover, New Hampshire in June 1689. They captured Waldron and tortured him to death, taking specific revenge for his earlier treachery and his abusive trade practices (Belknap 1972:(l):245-253; Drake 1973:17-20; Calloway 1988:282-283; Haefeli and Sweeney 1995). Raids by the Indians and French and counterattacks by the English continued the war. Wanalancet and Wattanummon are nowhere to be found during the first years of fighting. They only appear in 1692, several years into the war. Speaking with colonial officials in Dunstable, Massachusetts, Wanalancet and Wattanummon, referred to as one of Wanalancet's "chief captains," proclaimed their continuing friendship with the colonists and promised to secure "any of the Enemy Indians that would come among them" (Penna- cook/Sokoki Inter-Tribal Nation 1977:61).