The Quinnipiac were a historical

Indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands Indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands include Native American tribes and First Nation bands residing in or originating from a cultural area encompassing the northeastern and Midwest United States and southeastern Canada. It is part ...

. They lived in present-day

New Haven County, Connecticut New Haven County is a county (United States), county in the south central part of the U.S. state of Connecticut. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 864,835, making it the third-most populous county in Connectic ...

, along the

Quinnipiac River The Quinnipiac River ( ) is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed April 1, 2011 long river in the New England region of the United States, located entirely in the state of ...

. Their primary village, also called Quinnipiac, was where

New Haven, Connecticut New Haven is a city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound. With a population of 135,081 as determined by the 2020 United States census, 2020 U.S. census, New Haven is List ...

is today.

Name

The Quinnipiac name translates as "Long-water people."Hodge, p. 344. It was also spelled Quienepiage, Quenepiake, Qunnipiéuk, Qunnipiuck, Qunnipiug, Quinnpiipuck, Quunnipieuck, and Qvinipiak.

Language

The Quinnipiac and several neighboring tribes in central Connecticut and central

Long Island Long Island is a densely populated continental island in southeastern New York (state), New York state, extending into the Atlantic Ocean. It constitutes a significant share of the New York metropolitan area in both population and land are ...

all spoke the

Quiripi language Quiripi (pronounced , also known as Mattabesic, Quiripi-Unquachog, Quiripi-Naugatuck, and Wampano) was an Algonquian language formerly spoken by the indigenous people of southwestern Connecticut and central Long Island,Rudes (1997:1)Goddard ( ...

. This

Eastern Algonquian language The Eastern Algonquian languages constitute a subgroup of the Algonquian languages. Prior to European contact, Eastern Algonquian consisted of at least 17 languages, whose speakers collectively occupied the Atlantic coast of North America and adj ...

went extinct in the late 19th century. Reverend Abraham Pierson translated the

catechism A catechism (; from , "to teach orally") is a summary or exposition of Catholic theology, doctrine and serves as a learning introduction to the Sacraments traditionally used in catechesis, or Christian religious teaching of children and adult co ...

into Quiripi in 1658. Reverend

Ezra Stiles Ezra Stiles ( – May 12, 1795) was an American educator, academic, Congregationalist minister, theologian, and author. He is noted as the seventh president of Yale College (1778–1795) and one of the founders of Brown University. According ...

and

Thomas Jefferson Thomas Jefferson (, 1743July 4, 1826) was an American Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father and the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. He was the primary author of the United States Declaration of Indepe ...

both collected word lists in the language.

Political structure

Historian Edward Manning Ruttenber suggested that the Quinnipiac were part of the

Wappinger The Wappinger ( ) were an Eastern Algonquian Munsee-speaking Native American people from what is now southern New York and western Connecticut. At the time of first contact in the 17th century they were primarily based in what is now Dutc ...

confederacy, but the colonist

Daniel Gookin Danyell "Daniel" Gookin (1612 – 19 March 1687) was a Munster colonist, settler of Virginia and Massachusetts, and a writer on the subject of Indigenous peoples of the Americas, American Indians. Early life He was born, perhaps in County Cork, ...

wrote that they were part of the

Pequot The Pequot ( ) are a Native Americans in the United States, Native American people of Connecticut. The modern Pequot are members of the federally recognized Mashantucket Pequot Tribe, four other state-recognized groups in Connecticut includin ...

.Hodge, p. 345. Their leader was called a ''

sachem Sachems and sagamores are paramount chiefs among the Algonquians or other Native American tribes of northeastern North America, including the Iroquois. The two words are anglicizations of cognate terms (c. 1622) from different Eastern Alg ...

'', and historians invented the term ''sachemdom'' to describe political units led by a sachem. The Totoket people were part of the Quinnipiac sachemdom. The Hammonasset were likely also part of the Quinnipiac sachemdom.Frederick Webb Hodge, ''Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico'', p. 529.

History

17th century

The

Puritan The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to rid the Church of England of what they considered to be Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and should b ...

s established the first

Indian Reservation An American Indian reservation is an area of land land tenure, held and governed by a List of federally recognized tribes in the contiguous United States#Description, U.S. federal government-recognized Native American tribal nation, whose gov ...

in 1638. Located near

, the reserve was for the Quinnipiac, but only included 1,200 acres, a small portion of their original territory.Schultz et al., ''Encyclopedia of Minorities in American Politics'', 677 The reservation's residents, described as "free" Indians, were placed under the authority of an English agent. They were not allowed to sell or abandon that land, and Native peoples from other tribes were not allowed to visit. From around 1651 to 1669, Reverend

Abraham Pierson Abraham Pierson (1646 – March 5, 1707) was an American Congregational minister who served as the first rector, from 1701 to 1707, and one of the founders of the Collegiate School — which later became Yale University. Biography He w ...

, a

Congregational Congregationalism (also Congregational Churches or Congregationalist Churches) is a Reformed Christianity, Reformed Christian (Calvinist) tradition of Protestant Christianity in which churches practice Congregationalist polity, congregational ...

minister, proselytized the Quinnipiac near

Branford, Connecticut Branford is a shoreline New England town, town located on Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut, United States, about east of downtown New Haven, Connecticut, New Haven. The town is part of the South Central Connecticut Planning Regi ...

.Frederick Webb Hodge, ''Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico'', p. 883. He translated Christian texts into the

. Missionization was not very successful, and the tribe showed "a perverse contempt" for the church.

18th century

In 1730, there were an estimated 250 to 300 Quinnipiac. In 1768, some Quinnipiac left their reservation and joined the

Tunxi Tunxi District () is the central district of Huangshan City, Anhui Province, eastern China. It has a population of (2010) and an area of . Tunxi District has jurisdiction over four subdistricts and five towns. The most well-known tourist spo ...

near

Farmington, Connecticut Farmington is a town in Hartford County, Connecticut, Hartford County in the Farmington Valley area of central Connecticut in the United States. The town is part of the Capitol Planning Region, Connecticut, Capitol Planning Region. The populati ...

. In 1774, only an estimated 38 Quinnipiac survived. They were part of the large

Mahican The Mohicans ( or ) are an Eastern Algonquian Native American tribe that historically spoke an Algonquian language. As part of the Eastern Algonquian family of tribes, they are related to the neighboring Lenape, whose indigenous territory was ...

tribe, whose descendants ultimately migrated to Wisconsin with the

Stockbridge Munsee Community Stockbridge may refer to: Places United Kingdom * Stockbridge, Edinburgh, a district of Edinburgh, Scotland * Stockbridge, Hampshire * Stockbridge, West Sussex * Stockbridge Anticline, one of a series of parallel east–west trending folds in t ...

and Brotherton Indian Community.

References

Sources

* * *

External links

*
Stockbridge-Munsee Community Band of Mohican Indians
official website {{authority control Algonquian ethnonyms Algonquian peoples Extinct Native American tribes Native American history of Connecticut Native American tribes in Connecticut Wappinger