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Originally published in the Historic Nantucket , V. 23 No. 4 (April 1976), p. 14-22
Sachem Nickanoose of Nantucket and the Grass Contest
By Elizabeth A. Little
Part 1. The Sachem
THE PEACEFUL RESOLUTION of a land use controversy between approximately 100 English and 1500 Indians on Nantucket stands in remarkable contrast to King Phillip's War on the mainland, where a brutal conflict set back English colonization for many years and virtually eliminated the Indian civilization of New England. The proud and powerful Sachem Nickanoose was a worthy counterpart for the aristocratic Tristram Coffin, leader of the English settlers. With the mediating leadership of two Nantucket half shares men, John Gardner and Peter Folger, a racial and cultural accommodation was reached without violence. The source of the controversy was an agricultural revolution, brought about by the introduction of domestic grass-eating animals into a hunting, fishing, gathering and planting culture. The resolution was accomplished without separation of the races and without the subjugation of the Indians. At the time of Nickanoose's death, the Indians retained ownership of most of the land, and the English had gained ownership and strict control over all of the grass. In addition, the Indians had won the right to join the English land use system; for example, Nantucket Indians could own and pasture horses on the commons, a right that Indians of the Massachusetts Bay never obtained.
The issues of Phillip's War, 1675-1677, are inadequately explained by saying the Indians couldn't learn the meaning of property deeds. See Vaughan (11). Complex and fundamental land use differences separated the Indians and English of early New England. Many of these issues are surprisingly revelant to our own future. Nantucket, because it was self-contained and has good early records, provides a unique opportunity to understand the conflict between the two cultures. Let us then explore the participants and events of what we shall call the "grass contest" on Nantucket.
Any history of this area must notice first a remarkable man, Thomas Mayhew, Jr., whose missionary efforts, starting in 1643, helped make good will and brotherhood concrete ideals for both races on the islands. To Peter Folger also is due great credit. He says in 1676:
"I have bin Interpreter here from the Beginning of the Plantation, when no Englishman but myselfe could speake scarse a Word of Indian... And I have ever since bin able by the Helpe of some Antient Men, to keep Peace upon the Island..." (Starbuck 10, p.55)
Who were the Indian counterparts of these Englishmen? In 1659, there were four main sachems of Nantucket: Wanackmamack, whose heir was Jeptha; Nickanoose, whose heir was Wawinet; Attapehat, whose heir was Musaquat; and Spotso, who married Nickanoose's daughter. In order to simplify the story and to obtain an Indian viewpoint, we shall focus on Nickanoose, who, as the least cooperative sachem, dominated recorded Nantucket history for 25 years. In Part 1 we introduce Nickanoose and in Part 2 we shall give details of his role in the grass contest.
Appearance
By all reports (8) Indians of the islands south of Cape Cod, also known as Indians of the South Seas (6), were good looking and taller than the average Englishman. See Figure 1 for an English view of one such Indian about 1629.
Domain
Nickanoose himself emerges from dusty records as a sachem of considerable power, autocratic and yet willing to learn. He shared with Wanackmamack rule of the whole island before the English came, possibly, as tradition has it, having won the land at the western end by a victorious battle with a hostile tribe. His homelands included today's Quidnet, Sacacha, Polpis, and Squam, and he called himself "Sachem of Nantucket", or "Sachem at Wannasquam" (Mass. Archives (3) 32, 385). Figure 2 shows the Indian sachemships and the lands sold to the English by 1684. The deeds will be listed in detail in Part 2.
Nickanoose sold the English their first piece of land on Nantucket, but in his lifeline (he died about 1684), I don't believe that he sold to the English any of his useful tribal lands, with the almost trivial exception of one acre for a fishing stage at Sacacha to Richard Gardner. The West End, as will be shown, was not indisputably under his rule, and Coatue, Quaise, and Pocomo appear to have been unused by Indians in 1660, a strange situation which may have resulted from intertribal wars. Nickanoose's sons, Watt Noose and Wawinet, did sell Polpis land to Swain and Cartwright, but this was neither legal by English rules nor authorized by Nickanoose. The most important conclusion to draw from the map of Figure 2 is that until Nickanoose's death, Nantucket was still mostly an Indian land with mostly Indian people.
Love and Tribute
To read one of Nickanoose's deeds gives a glimpse into the quality of an Indian sachem — direct, simple, and related to his men by love and tribute. Here is a deed of land at Squam to Jutte (Judas), an Indian of Nickanoose's tribe:
"I Nickanoose unto this Jutte I do give land twenty acres as Wassonuhkattog and so to Pakpannogkahkunnut toward the South East. It shall be measured unto him when he desires to have it measured. He hath forever. I give it him freely. He shall not have trouble about his land because this Jutte is my man. I love him and he often gives me victuals and goods freely. 1676.
Nukanoos Mark" (3-42)
Genealogy
Deeds give us accurate information about family relationships. Nickanoose's family, as shown in Figure 3 and documented in Table 1, differs substantially from that of tradition, which appears to be based on the memories of Zaccheus Macy (9). We are grateful to Macy, however, for recording his memories, because in them we find clues to otherwise mysterious puzzles. For instance, he tells of a sachem's son at Squam who was angry and left the island for many years because his father took a new wife, the mother of the Nooses. The records show that this son of Nickanoose was probably Jethro, who returned from Harwich to claim his share of Nickanoose's sachemship 45 years after the death of Nickanoose (4-79).
The father of Nickanoose at present appears to be unknown. Traditionally it was Wawinet, but, since Wawinet was definitely the son of Nickanoose, it seems best to pause a bit before assuming there were two Wawinets. A reference to "Nickanoose his father" who gave land to "Spotso his father" (2-1) supports the tradition that it was bad manners to mention the name of a deceased father. King Phillip was supposed to have come to Nantucket in 1665 in order to punish John Gibbs (Assassamoogh) for naming Phillip's dead father, Massasoit. This Indian courtesy to the dead raises substantial obstacles to the reconstruction of an Indian history as we might hope to know it.
Shipwreck, Murder, and Hanging
According to Gookin (7), a Harvard student, Joel, the son of Hiacoomes, "took a voyage to Martha's Vineyard to visit his father and kindred, a little before the commencement; but upon his return back in a vessel, with other passengers and mariners, suffered shipwreck upon the island of Nantucket; where the bark was found put on shore; and in all probability the people in it came on shore alive, but afterwards were murthered by some wicked Indians of that place; who, for lucre of the spoil in the vessel, which was laden with goods, thus cruelly destroyed the people in it; for which fault some of those Indians was convicted and executed afterwards." The Plymouth Colony Records (6) of February 1664-5 show the following order; "if the Natuckett Indians suspected for murther...bee found within this govment, that...they bee sent to the govment of the Massachusetts..."
Further details are given by William Worth of Nantucket, who testified: "in or near the year 1666 that Nickanoose being accused of being privy to a Murder committed by Indians on Englishmen at Coatue and being in grate fear he hired or otherwise got Quaquachwinnit to go with him to Plymouth in the winter to ask council of Nickanoose's had (head) Sachem. . ." (PR-97). The year was probably 1665 as shown in Figure 4, a deed from Nickanoose to Quaquachwinnit in payment for his services at that time. This is quite interesting because it implies that Nickanoose's head sachem was King Phillip (Metacomet), Sachem of the Wam-panoags, who, probably not by coincidence, was said to have visited Nantucket in that same year, 1665. Nickanoose himself does not appear to have been incriminated in this episode, but very likely some of his men were hanged.
Lifestyle
Indians had lived on Nickanoose's lands for at least 2000 years. A knowledge of their prehistoric lifestyle must come from archeology. However, for a glimpse into the Indian life on Nantucket in the 1660's and 70's, we report details from the town records and deeds.
One is impressed at the mobility of the Nantucket Indians. The records mention frequent trips or semi-permanent moves to Martha's Vineyard, the Cape, Plymouth, Boston, and even New York.
Important land decisions were made by large gatherings of old men, who interspersed their deliberations with formal "smorks". Zaccheus Macy describes the dignity and grace of the Indian ceremonial use of the tobacco pipe. As to the value they placed on age, one of their objections to the English during the grass contest was that the English magistrates were young. "They cannot believe that Young Men. . .can understand Things like old Men", according to Peter Folger (Starbuck, p.55).
In addition, we learn from the records that the Indians kept dogs, burned their planting fields in April, planted corn, harvested in October, used reeds and flags and beach grass for making mats and baskets, caught fish in weirs, owned bows and guns and canoes, and divided up, sometimes with controversy, drift whales and other fish washed up on the beaches. They lived in mat covered sapling-framed wigwams. So far I have found no mention of deer.
We can conclude from the documentary record that, aside from the mats and baskets, there is no evidence that the swamp grass, salt marsh grass or any other grass was much used by the Indians of Nantucket prior to 1659. In Part 2 we shall see how the arrival of the English, for whom grass was valuable and scarce, precipitated the events of the grass contest.
Sources
1. Dukes County Records, Registry of Deeds, Martha's Vineyard.
2. Land Records, Registry of Deeds, Martha's Vineyard.
3. Massachusetts Archives, State House, Boston.
4. Nantucket County Records, Registry of Deeds, Nantucket.
5. Nantucket Proprietors' Records, Registry of Deeds, Nantucket, Vols. 1 &2.
6. Plymouth Colony Records, Boston 1855, 4, 80.
7. Gookin, Daniel, "Historical Collections of the Indians in New England", Mass. Hist. Soc. Series 1, 1 (1792)
8. Howe, H.F., Prologue to New England, Kennikat Press, Inc., Port Washington 1969.
9. Macy, Zaccheus, Mass. Hist. Soc. Series 1, 3 (1792).
10. Starbuck, A., The History of Nantucket, Charles E. Tuttle Co., Inc., Tokyo 1969.
11. Vaughan, A.T., New England Frontier, Puritans and Indians 1620-1675, Little, Brown & Co., Boston 1965.
