Coosucks and St. Francis
Indians
The territory embraced within the present limits of Vermont,
previous to any occupation by Europeans, was claimed as a hunting-ground by
several tribes of Indians who were hostile to each other, consequently it
was often the scene of their savage wars, and constant invasion prevented
its being made their permanent home. Indeed, it was Champlain's nominal
purpose to help the Canadian Indians in their war with those in the region
of the lake, that first brought him upon its waters. The
Iroquois, or Five Nations, was a powerful confederacy composed of
several tribes of Indians, who had planted themselves in Western New York,
on the shores of Lakes Ontario and Erie, and were the inveterate enemies of
the Canadian Indians. Champlain started from Quebec with about one hundred
of the Canadian Indians, in 1609, and proceeded up the lake to the vicinity
of Crown Point, where, on the western shore, as they had expected, they met
a large party of
Iroquois, who defied them. But, when Champlain, at a single fire of his
arquebus, killed two chiefs and mortally wounded another, and another
Frenchman fired from another quarter, they fled in alarm, ending the first
battle fought on Lake Champlain.
The origin of the Indian cannot be determined by history, nor will
calculation ever arrive at a probable certainty. For a period of over two
hundred years the subject has engrossed the attention of learned men, and
yet the question, "By whom was America peopled?" remains without
satisfactory answer. In 1637, Thomas Morton wrote a book to prove that the
Indians were of Latin origin. John Joselyn held, in 1638, that they were of
Tartar descent. Cotton Mather inclined to the opinion that they were
Scythians. James Adair seems to have been fully convinced that they were
descendants of the Israelites, the lost tribes; and, after thirty years'
residence among them, published in 1775, an account of their manners and
customs, from which he deduced his conclusions. Dr. Mitchell, after
considerable investigation, concluded "that the three races, Malays, Tartars
and Scandinavians, contributed to make up the great American population, who
were the authors of the various works and antiquities found on the
continent." DeWitt Clinton held, that "the probability is, that America was
peopled from various quarters of the old world, and that its predominant
race is the Scythian or Tartarian." Calmet, a distinguished author, brings
forward the writings of Hornius, son of Theodosious the Great, who affirms
that "at or about the time of the commencement or the Christian era, voyages
from Africa and ,Spain into the Atlantic ocean were both frequent and
celebrated;" and holds that " there is strong probability that the Romans
and Carthagenians, even 300 B. C., were well acquainted with the existence
of this country," adding that there are "tokens of the presence of the
Greeks, Romans, Persians, and Carthagenians, in many parts of the
continent." Then Priest, in his American Antiquities, states that his
observations had led him "to the conclusion that the two great continents,
Asia and America, was peopled by similar races of men."
It is unnecessary, however, to add to this catalogue. No two authorities
agree. Great faults have been charged against the Indians, and great faults
they doubtless possessed when judged from the standpoint of a different
civilization. Were the line strictly drawn, however, it might be shown that,
as a whole, they compared favorably with nations upon whom light had fallen
for sixteen hundred years. This at least appears to their credit, that among
them there were none who were cross-eyed, blind, crippled, lame,
hunch-hacked or limping; all were well-fashioned, strong in constitution of
body, well proportioned, and without blemish. Until touched and warped by
wrong treatment, wherever they were met, whether in Vermont, Canada, on the
Potomac, the Delaware, or the Hudson, they were liberal and generous in
their intercourse with the whites. More sinned against than sinning, they
left behind them evidences of great wrongs suffered, their enemies being the
witnesses.
Numerous arrow-heads, spear-points, etc., found in different localities
throughout the county, prove that it was at one time certainly a favorite
hunting-ground, if not their permanent home. The Indians who claimed this
territory, and the territory west of it to the vicinity of the Connecticut
river, were a branch of the
Abenaqui tribe, whose chief location, in modern times, has been at St.
Francis. There was always an intimate connection between them and the
Indians at St. Francis, and they have been commonly spoken of, by American
writers, as St. Francis Indians; and yet they had the distinguishing
appellation of Coossucks, which is descriptive of the country where their
principal lodge was. Coos, in the
Abenaqui languages
signifies the pines, and this name was applied by the Indians to two
sections of country upon the Connecticut river, one above the Fifteen-mile
falls, about Luenburg, and the other below, about Newbury, on account of the
great abundance of white pine timber in those places; and the termination,
suck, signifies river, so that Co-os-suck, signified the river of the pines.
The Coossucks and St. Francis Indians, who always acted on the part of the
French in the wars between the French and English colonies, were for many
years the most blood-thirsty and cruel enemies that the frontier settlements
of New England had to encounter. Two of these Indians,
Capt. Joe and Capt.
John, were known for years among the early settlers. The former once resided
on the banks of a pond in Morristown whence it received its present name,
Joe's Pond. Joe was mild and inoffensive in his disposition, and used to
boast that he had never pointed a gun at a man. When he became old and
unable to support himself, the legislature of Vermont granted him an annual
pension of $70.00 a year. He died at Newbury, February 19, 1819, aged about
eighty years, and with him fell the last of the Coossucks.
Capt. John was the opposite of Joe in disposition, being fierce and cruel.
He held a captain's commission during the revolution, and, at the head of a
party of Indians, was attached to the American army, which captured
Burgoyne, and was also in the battle in which Braddock was defeated. He used
to relate that he was knocked down by a British officer, whom he afterwards
shot, and that he tried to shoot young Washington, but could not hit him.
When under the excitement of strong drink, he exulted in the relation of his
former deeds of barbarity, among which he told how he mutilated a woman
taken at Fort Dummer, by cutting off her breasts, and would imitate her
shrieks and cries of distress.
In Cambridge there is a place called Indian hill, where hatchets, arrows,
and many other relics were found. In the early part of the century, a party
of the St. Francis Indians tarried for a time on this hill, and hunted and
fished in the neighborhood, and as late as 1840, a number of families from
the St. Francis Indians came into the town and encamped and made baskets and
bark dishes for a while.
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