A complicated history

FROM MACHIMOODUS TO NAUGATUCK TO THE PEQUONNOCK RIVER, INDIGINOUS DESIGNATIONS ABOUND IN CONNECTICUT

The seemingly humble tradition of place names is easy to overlook given other folklore that animates Connecticut, from its fascinating legends to its vibrant festivals.

Yet place names are tales waiting to be told, expressions of cultural heritage that literally shape how we navigate the world. Those that concern Indigenous people are especially compelling and complicated. On the one hand, they may demonstrate an abiding debt to Native Americans. On the other, they may reveal a disturbing legacy of colonialism.

Anyone who examines Connecticut place names borrowed from Indigenous people should be aware that different groups spoke different dialects of the Algonquian language and that English orthography was inconsistent, so a variety of spellings — and misinterpretations — readily appear. In many cases, European surveyors transformed Indigenous descriptions into proper names. An excellent example is Machimoodus, the “place of bad noises.” Originally it described a general area known for eerie sounds, now called the Moodus Noises. Eventually, Machimoodus referenced a specific location, and is currently the site of a state park.

Similarly, there is a Poquonock in Windsor and Groton, both appearing in records from the early 1600s. A consensus agrees that the name derives from an Indigenous term for land cleared for cultivation. The Pequonnock River in Fairfield County is another representative, although the English mistook the river for the surrounding land.

As James Hammond Trumbull noted in 1881, Milford Point at the mouth of the Housatonic was once Poconock and the area near what is now Indian Mountain in Salisbury was Poconnuck.

The rechristening of Indigenous terms-turned-names was common, especially when English-speaking inhabitants wished to commemorate their own.

Today only Union has a Mashapaug Pond — meaning a large body of water — but both Alexander Lake in Killingly and Gardner Lake in Salem were once Mashipaug and Tyler Lake in Goshen was once Marshapaug. Indigenous people had little say in this use, misuse and abuse of their language by those whose political and military power extended over them.

Of the state’s 169 municipalities, only Naugatuck (meaning “one tree,” probably a landmark) and Norwalk (likely “a point of land”) derive from Indigenous languages. That is not by chance.

Settlements received European names to demarcate administrative authority, enact land claims, produce private property, and create appearances of a “discovery” — all actions removing Indigenous presence.

Rivers often maintained their Indigenous origins because they traversed numerous settlements and were not privatized, although some took English monikers over time. Quinnehtukqut, the area on “the long tidal river,” generated the name for a colony and the state itself.

A more troubling practice is the invention of place names about Native Americans, for which Connecticut has a lamentable litany.

Some — not all — monikers reflect colonialist demonization of Indigenous sacred spaces. Moshup’s Rock in Uncasville — named for a Culture Hero believed to have touched it — was denigrated as the “Devil’s Footprint” for a considerable time.

The personal names of Indigenous people were routinely employed as place names, particularly during the late 1800s, when a rising tourist industry exploited romanticized images of Native Americans.

Many non-Native people imported Indigenous terms from other parts of the country with no consideration of the potential cultural appropriation or their misplacement in Algonquian territory. Ernest Thompson Seton indulged in this convention while creating the Woodcraft Indians — an outdoor organization for white youth and a predecessor to the Boy Scouts of America — at his mansion in Cos Cob. Accordingly, many non-Algonquian names punctuate Connecticut, especially at campgrounds and trails.

Many non-Native people imported Indigenous terms from other parts of the country with no consideration of the potential cultural appropriation or their misplacement.

Some of the most spurious cases occur when non-Native people concocted legends to explain place names after their origins were forgotten. Sachem’s Head in Guilford is an exemplar.

In 1637, Gov. John Winthrop recorded that Englishmen beheaded two Pequot sachems fleeing the Mystic Massacre there.

By the mid-1700s, a Guilford minister conveyed a new story that Uncas, the Mohegan leader, killed a Pequot sachem and left his head in an oak tree. This narrative shifted the savagery away from the English and onto the Mohegan.

Perhaps there is no better illustration of this problematic tradition than the use of “Indian” itself, found in a plethora of proper names, and attached to meadows, hills, necks, points, “chairs” and the like.

To state the obvious, Indigenous people did not coin such terms. Those names frequently reflect a desire to represent “Indians” as characters in stories predominantly told by white people to white people. “Indian Well” at the state park in Shelton is one such instance of a purely fabricated place name and narrative, as are copious “Indian” and “Indian Council” ledges or caves.

Occasionally, accounts of the reasoning behind place names survive.

In 1972, for example, Lillian Kruger Brooks published a memoir of Haddam Neck. She explained that “Injun Hollow Road” was so named “to keep alive the memory of our first inhabitants, the Indians.”

It is true that a contingency of Indigenous people lived there in the 1700s, but an 1819 report identified the area as “Indian hollow.”

And it is equally true that “Injun” was a derogatory term as early as the 1800s. Its use in the 1970s reveals a common prejudice no one thought to correct. Place names are not permanent.

If some are questionable by today’s standards, citizens can debate the decision to pass them on or to change them.

Doing so responsibly requires honest conversation, respect for Indigenous voices, and a willingness to redress the thorny history of Connecticut.

Shutterstock Like many places in the U.S., Connecticut has a complicated history with Indigenous places and names.