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By Kevin A. McBride
This is an excerpt from a paper presented at the recent Mashantucket Pequot History Conference hosted by the MPMRC. The paper, according to Dr. McBride’s summary, examines eighteenth century Colonial and Native American land use practices in southeastern Connecticut within the context of Colonial population expansion and Native American responses to a shrinking land base. Dr. McBride is Director of Research at the Museum and Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Connecticut.
The Mashantucket Pequots relied on a mixed subsistence economy of maize horticulture, hunting, fishing and plant collecting through the early eighteenth century. Evidence of Pequot land use and subsistence patterns is inferred from documentary sources and food remains recovered from archaeological excavations. One of the more significant sites is a Mashantucket Pequot fortified village occupied between 1675-1680. This and early eighteenth century occupations provide a comparative context to measure the nature of change in Mashantucket Pequot land use and food-ways during the mid and late eighteenth century.
The Pequots practiced a form of swidden horticulture, cultivating maize, beans, squash, sunflower and Jerusalem artichoke. This type of shifting field horticulture necessitated clearing new planting fields every two to three years as fertilizers were not used or available to replenish soil nutrients. Archaeological excavations have recovered a variety of open field tubers and herbaceous plants such as yellow nutsedge, cow parsnip, garlic, grape, strawberry, raspberry, huckleberry, goosefoot and wild bean, all of which attest to the importance and productivity of these abandoned fields. Woodland plant remains identified from archaeological contexts include hickory, beechnut, walnut, hazelnut, Indian cucumber, groundnut and hog peanut. Wetland plants and tubers were particularly important in the Pequot diet, including water plantain, water lily, bulrush, cattail, iris, sweet flag, marsh marigold, water chestnut and wild rice. Archaeological evidence indicates the Pequots began to incorporate European root crops such as radish, parsnip and possibly carrot, as well as peaches and apples into their subsistence economy by the late seventeenth century.
The European food crops and other plants recovered from late seventeenth and early eighteenth century sites at Mashantucket do not necessarily reflect a dramatic change in Pequot subsistence strategies. Species such as pig, apple, peach, parsnip, radish, beet and possibly carrot are very similar to the plants and animals traditionally used and cultivated by the Pequots. Pigs require minimal investment in care and feeding, unlike cattle. Pigs range free in woodland and open habitats and feed on tubers such as hog peanut and mast foods like hickory, acorn and walnut. Peach and apple are similar to many of the mast forest products already used by the Pequots. If we accept the premise that Native people have been managing forests for thousands of years to encourage species such as hickory, beechnut, oak, walnut and chestnut, the cultivation, management and harvesting of apple and peach do not represent a significant alteration in traditional forest management practices. The same argument holds true for the European-introduced species such as beet, radish, parsnip and perhaps carrot. In many respects these species are similar to the open-field native roots cultivated or encouraged by the Pequots crops including Jerusalem artichoke, yellow nutsedge, cow parsnip and groundnut.
Swidden horticulture is characterized by a system of shifting agricultural fields and requires relatively large amounts of good agricultural land. Only a small percentage of available land was cultivated at any given time. The remaining land was left fallow to replenish soil nutrients because maize horticulture quickly depletes soils of essential nutrients, particularly nitrogen. Without the addition of fertilizers, fields may have been left fallow for 15-20 years before they could support a crop of maize again. As a result, the landscape surrounding Native communities would appear as a patchwork of cultivated fields and those in various stages of regrowth. This pattern is exemplified by a description of the fields at Mashantucket in 1732 that identified 14 acres under cultivation with 200 acres cleared and 200 acres partially cleared.
The population at Mashantucket was recorded as 325 in 1725, 164 in 1731, and 140 in 1762 (CA Indian papers, I:116, 138). The lands available to the Mashantucket Pequots in 1725 included 1789 acres at Mashantucket and an additional 600 acres at Walnut Hill, adequate to sustain a population of 325 individuals. By the early 1630s Pequots had lost their rights to the 600 acres at Walnut Hill and their access to the 800 acres on the west side of the reservation was limited. The remaining land base of 989 acres would not have been sufficient to support the population at Mashantucket using traditional horticultural practices. This may explain the 50 percent reduction in population between 1725 and 1731 (disease, warfare, and off reservation labor may also have been factors). The remaining 1762 population of 140 individuals were only able support themselves for a short period of time (perhaps only 10-20 years) on a reduced land base of 989 acres using traditional horticultural techniques. It is likely not a coincidence that Euro-American farming strategies and domestic animals were adopted by the Pequots shortly after the effective loss of the west side of the reservation between 1740 and 1750.
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