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On Translating the Moravian Records: Part 2
| By Corinna Dally-Starna
This is the second of a two-part series on the Moravian Records of 1747 to 1763 that contain historical information on American Indian communities of Connecticut’s Housatonic River Valley. Click here to read Part 1. Corinna Dally-Starna, a native of Bremen, Germany, holds a B.A. in History, and a B.S. and M.S. in Social Studies Education from the State University of New York, College at Oneonta. She is the co-author of "American Indians and Moravians in Southern New England," appearing in Germans and Indians: Fantasies, Encounters, Projections, edited by Colin G. Calloway, Gerd Gemünden, and Susanne Zantop (University of Nebraska Press, 2002).
The last issue of Cross Paths summarized some of the technical aspects of my translation of the Moravian Records, a project funded by the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation. In this article I present a few of my findings, especially as they concern some of the day-to-day activities of the Indians at Pachgatgoch [Schaghticoke] and their interactions with their colonial neighbors.
While working on these translations, I frequently was asked about what "jewels" I was finding in the Moravian Records; that is, what bits and pieces of information was I coming across that told us something about the Indians of western Connecticut that we did not know before. From my perspective, though, it is not so much the "jewels," the isolated details about Pachgatgoch, that I find to be most interesting. More compelling yet is the larger picture, one formed by more than 1000 manuscript pages. Here a story is waiting to be told.
The picture that I see taking form is one of a dynamic community of Indians, consisting in the mid-eighteenth century of about 100 individuals. Not unlike their colonial neighbors, the people at Pachgatgoch focused much of their energy on subsistence. Although a great deal of their time was certainly spent on growing and harvesting their crops, preparing them for storage, and building fences to protect the fruits of their labor, the Indians at Pachgatgoch engaged in a number of other important activities.
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Fishing for shad and lampreys at the falls near New Milford provided food to carry the people through times of scarcity, primarily in the spring and early summer when stored provisions were depleted and new crops not yet available. Depending on the time of year, additional food resources were relied on. Apples and blueberries, for example, were gathered, in part for the Indians’ own use, but also for sale to neighboring colonists.
In preparation for the long and harsh winters, hunting parties traveled many miles from home, sometimes staying out for weeks at a time while they pursued large game such as deer and bear. The best time for hunting, wrote one Moravian, was during November. But once the snow became too deep and the hunters were forced to return. The Indians owned guns and either bartered for or purchased their powder from merchants in New Milford and elsewhere. It is probably the case that small game also was hunted or trapped, but the missionaries give no indication of this. However, there is one example where an Indian shares a wild turkey with a Moravian.
The Indians are reported to have raised pigs for their own use; one historian asserts that they also tended goats, but I have not been able to find any evidence for this. Horses were kept and used to transport goods and for travel. Yet to what extent they might have been employed to plow fields is uncertain. It is interesting to note that during a visit by Brother August Gottlieb Spangenberg, at that time the head of the American branch of the Moravian Church, he suggested that the Indians exchange their horses for stronger ones so that they could be used for farm work.
In the fall and winter, brooms, baskets, bowls, a kind of pitcher or tankard, spoons or ladles, as well as dugout canoes, were manufactured by the Indians. These goods were transported as far away as Long Island Sound, either by canoe--after having negotiated a three mile portage around the falls at New Milford--by horse, or on the Indians’ backs, and sold mostly in exchange for blankets and winter clothing. From all indications, brooms and baskets were generally made by women, and the wooden ware and canoes by men. Entire families would go into the woods where the raw materials to make such items were found. At other times these materials were brought back so that goods could be manufactured at home. Occasionally, work parties were segregated by gender.
The Indians at Pachgatgoch often went out to find work with local farmers, although sometimes their neighbors came to them to solicit labor. During the early summer and early fall, the Indians, accompanied by their children, hired themselves out to help with the harvest. As one Moravian observed, anyone capable of holding a sickle went out to cut wheat. The Indians were paid in meals, and sometimes drink, which caused grave concern both to the Moravians and many of the Indians. At other times they were given bushels of corn.
Reflecting a recognition of the Indians’ expertise, other types of services were sought out by colonial people. Approached by a Quaker suffering from an illness, Gideon, the headman at Pachgatgoch, suggested that he use a sweat lodge, and then built it for him. In addition, colonial women in the neighborhood availed themselves of the midwifery skills of an elderly Indian woman living at Pachgatgoch. The records, however, do not bear out whether, or in what way, these kinds of services were compensated.
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A Translation
In the course of many of their everyday activities, the Indians at Pachgatgoch had a good deal of contact with the colonial population that surrounded them. While some of these exchanges were of mutual benefit, others clearly were not. To illustrate this point, and as an example of the intimate nature of the records that the Moravians left behind, I offer the translation of one such episode as reported by the missionary Abraham Büninger on July 4, 1751:
In addition, they [the Indian brethren and sisters] related the circumstances surrounding Warrop’s child, who had died last week and has been buried on the God’s Acre of this place. This is how it had occurred with the child: Its father, Warrop, had been to New Milford with it. As he was walking in the open street, a Negro unexpectedly approached him from behind and pushed Warrop so that he fell hard on top of the child (who was on his [Warrop’s] back), doing harm to it [so] that it died 11 or 12 days later. It having died, one of the neighbors here reported the matter to the maggisstrats [magistrates] in New Milford, who right away called a grand jury and sent it to Pachgatgoch, where the child lay. The child was opened up by the doctors who were present, and it was recognized by the grand jury that the fall, brought on by the Negro, was the cause of its death. Afterwards [the] c[o]urt sat in judgment upon it, but the Negro was able to present witnesses [who stated] that the child had been eating and drinking following the fall. Yet the child’s parents, Warrop and Sr. Rebecca, knew nothing about that, but this did not help the matter, for the testimony of the witnesses was accepted as truth. Thereupon the c[o]urt advised Warrop to reach a settlement with the master of the Negro and take money for his child, which then happened. The master of the Negro paid Warrop 24 £ in New England corranzi [currency], along with all expenses. The c[o]urt, however, acquitted the Negro [so] that not a hair on his head was harmed, so to speak. Br. Samuel [an Indian] acted as interpreter. He said: It had made him feel sick at heart that the poor Indians were being so despised. The c[o]urt is said to have hardly cared about that.
Corinna Dally-Starna
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