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Contrast and Conflict: The Tale of Connecticut River Valley Colonists and Natives

The second part in the story of Windsor's founding examines the contrast between European and Native American society. The various conflicts that arose, from disease to societal destruction, left a lasting impression on colonial relations.

Perhaps the Europeans' biggest misperception of Native American's was their original population size. Many archeologists, historians and other scholars have been able to estimate that the population of North America rivaled that of Europe. In fact, James Wilson asserts in The Earth Shall Weep that the native population may have actually exceeded that of their European counterparts. The implications of this misperception were immensely significant.

Unfortunately, it was difficult for colonists to gather enough information to make certain estimates on the population size. The most prominent reason for this was disease. It is now widely acknowledged that one of the most unfortunate consequences of Euro-American contact was smallpox. Smallpox was extremely detrimental detrimental to the local, native population. Some estimate that almost 75% of New England's population was wiped out by the infectious disease in a matter of weeks.

Additionally, disease spread much more quickly in Native American society than European circles. The Abenaki tribe, of current day Vermont and Quebec, was so devastated by smallpox that most died and never even came into contact with settlers. So as colonists moved farther inland, it is easy to see why Europeans like John Stewart Collis could believe that the continent “...was only inhabited by Red Indians, and not more than a million of them, while long stretches of wild meadow and primeval forest, extending like years into the distance had no human dwellers at all. A wildly beautiful land, enormously fertile, carrying but a million Indians – it is difficult to conceive now.” Collis' assertion would become the norm for Europeans.

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This assumption led to several misconceptions of native life. Modern researcher Henry F. Dobyns supposes that “the idea that social scientists hold of the size of the aboriginal population of the Americas directly affects their interpretation of New World civilizations and cultures.” The empty world that John Stewart Collis discovered had only recently been emptied. To his credit, there was little evidence available that would suggest otherwise.

Smallpox and other diseases devastated American aboriginal populations to the extent that the vast political, agricultural and trading infrastructure was interrupted abruptly. These features (staples of native life) faced extinction along with their populous. This led many to believe that Native Americans were mere roamers, collecting food and supplies as they moved aimlessly around the land. As the theorist Emerich Vattel believed in the 1700's, “The people of those vast tracts of land rather roamed over them than inhabited them.” While it is true that Native American's lifestyles were not as permanently fixed in place as European's, Vattel's assertion is more assumption than fact.

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Northeastern Native Americans relied heavily on subsistence farming that was based on cyclical, annual activities that were constantly being adapted for changes in the land. Farming fields were often rotated in an effort to preserve the naturally-occurring nutrients that would often surcharge crops. Their society was not as permanently impressed as European agriculture. James Wilson put it best when he wrote that “although [Native Americans] managed their relationship with the land and with each other in a profoundly different way, their world was at least as orderly as contemporary Europe's.”

In essence, the European tradition of civilization is determined by a governing body; it is someone's (or many people's) distinct job to determine how society operates on a day to day basis. The tribes of New England, including the Pequot Tribe who once inhabited the Windsor area, founded their society on family lineage. The Native American Nanepashemet explained that “people had different ways of identifying themselves. There was personal self identification. There was being a member of a lineage, which might extend into many other communities. There was also the community identification, and identification with people who spoke the same language.” More so, ties between different tribal groups were established through marriages. These familial relations transcended tribes and helped to establish a vast trading network.

Unfortunately, all of these organizational systems, which were so dependent on everyone being a piece of the puzzle, were severed due to the introduction of smallpox. It not only depopulated vast tracts of land; disease essentially destroyed Native American's way of life. It also gave reason for European settlers to be so inclined to think the land was available for the taking. This recipe, now close to being fully cooked, would lead to greater conflict and confusion when Europeans began to settle in what is now Windsor.

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