Nehantic Tribe and Nation

Date: [unknown] [unknown]
Location: [unknown]
Surnames/tags: Tribes Algonquian Connecticut

Contents 1 Background 2 Contemporary Nehantics 3 Migrations and Displacements 4 Resources 5 Tribal Members and Descendants

Background

Also spelled Niantic

Map of Nehantic Territory

The name “Nehantic” means “those who live at the point.” The tribal people lived in wigwams and created decorated pottery. They were hunters and gatherers who also grew corn, squash, beans and pumpkins.

Like most tribes on the east coast of North America, the Nehantics lived in semi-permanent locations. Summers were spent near the waters of Niantic River and along the shore of Long Island Sound, both of which supplied an abundance of fish and shellfish. These were supplemented by crops of corn, beans and squash. As cold weather approached, tribe members moved to the higher grounds in the northern end of town, where longhouses, sheltered by dense forest, provided comfortable habitat through the winter.

Contemporary Nehantics

In 1998, a council for the Nehantic Tribe and Nation was formed. It is seeking Federal recognition as a tribe.

Migrations and Displacements

In 1672, the Connecticut Colonial Assembly assigned the tribe a 300-acre reservation that stretched from McCook’s Park to Attawan in East Lyme.

In the 1770s, Samson Occum and Joseph Johnson, members of the Mohegan tribe, led a group of tribal families from several New England tribes to upstate New York, to live among the Oneida. This settlement adopted the name of Brothertown. Some Nehantics moved there, too. By the early 1800s, with their land holdings rapidly shrinking, the Brothertown residents resettled in Wisconsin. Today, they maintain a distinct cultural community in the Fond du Lac area.

In the 1830s, many descendants of Joseph Jeffrey left Connecticut and settled in Rochester, New York, and nearby towns, where they continued the family tradition of working in the abolitionist and civil rights movements.

By the 1850s, a branch of the Jeffrey family had left Rochester for Ontanogan, Michigan, then to Winona, Minnesota, and by the early 1900s to St. Paul, Minnesota.

Resources

BOOKS

• Brule, David. LOOKING FOR JUDAH: Adventures in Genealogy and Remembrance
• Rose, James, and Brown, Barbara. Tapestry: A Living History of the Black Family in Southeastern Connecticut. New London: New London County Historical Society, 1979
• Welch, Vicki S. And They Were Related Too: A Study of Eleven Generations of One American Family! Xlibris Corporation, 2006

NEWS ARTICLES

• Nehantic Nation celebrates Indigenous Peoples Day - 2021 October 11 - by Elizabeth Regan "The Day"
• Now the Nehantics Ask U.S. Recognition - 1998 Aug 2 by Sam Libby, "The New York Times"

Tribal Members and Descendants

1700s - Family surnames include Jeffrey, Beman, Mason, Tatten, Brooks, Condol, Congdon, Waukeet, Strong, Caples.