New Netherland Settler Sketches

Name

Nathattou. He appears in one near-contemporary source, a description of the West Indies published by Johannes de Laet in 1625.[1] Skipper Adriaen Block, who had made four voyages to New Netherland between 1611 and 1614,[2] provided the information about Nathattou.[3]

Origin

According to Dutch skipper Adriaen Block, Nathattou belonged to the Nahican tribe.[4] The tribe has been identified as the Narragansetts.[5]

Settlement

Nathattou probably lived either in the western part of present-day Rhode Island or on the east side of Long Island. According to De Laet, skipper Adriaen Block called the people living on the west side of the Sloep baye [Sloop Bay, present-day Narragansett Bay] the Nahicans.[6] However, around 1614, Adriaen Block annotated his discoveries on a map of New Netherland. The map shows the Nahicans on the eastern part of Long Island and records the Wapanoos as living to the west of “Sloupbay.”[7] Because the map was created closer to Block’s voyage, it is probably more reliable.

Biographical Details

Nathattou was born between say 1534 and 1589. He was a sachem of his tribe around 1614,[8] suggesting he was probably at least 25 and at most 80 years old. He died at an unknown time after say 1614.[9]

Offices

Nathattou was a “sagimo” of the Nahicans (Narragansetts).[10] According to De Laet, the Native Americans did not have a formal government but were led by chiefs called sackmos or sagimos.[11] The term sagimo is a variation of the word sachem or sagamore and indicates that Nathattou was a Native American leader.[12]

Associations

Nathattou would have been well acquainted with Cachaquant, the other sagimo of the Nahicans according to Block. Nathattou and Cachaquant apparently met and probably traded with the skipper Adriaen Block, De Laet’s informant.[13] Block was in New Netherland to explore the area and to establish trade relations with the native population.[14]

Literature

De Laet, Johannes. Nieuwe Wereldt ofte Beschrijvinghe van West-Indien Wt veelderhande Schriften ende Aen-teeckeninghen van verscheyden Natien by een versamelt. Leiden, Netherlands: Isaack Elzevier, 1625. Description of the Nahicans and their chiefs (p. 85).

Lavin, Lucianne. Dutch and Indigenous Communities in Seventeenth-Century Northeastern North America: What Archaeology, History, and Indigenous Oral Traditions Teach Us About Their Intercultural Relationships. Albany, New York: SUNY Press, 2021. Describes the early voyages to New Netherland, including Block’s map (pp. 174–75) and his narrative about the tribes in the area (p. 176).

Source Editions

Jameson, J. Franklin. Narratives of New Netherland, 1609–1664. New York City, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1909. Includes a translation of De Laet’s description of the West Indies (pp. 29–60), with a section about the Nahicans (Narragansetts) and their chiefs (p. 42).

Citations

[1] Johannes de Laet, Nieuwe Wereldt ofte Beschrijvinghe van West-Indien Wt veelderhande Schriften ende Aen-teeckeninghen van verscheyden Natien by een versamelt (Leiden, Netherlands: Isaack Elzevier, 1625), 85.

[2] Simon Hart, The Prehistory of the New Netherland Company: Amsterdam Notarial Records of the First Dutch Voyages to the Hudson (Amsterdam, Netherlands: City of Amsterdam, 1959), 48–51.

[3] De Laet, Nieuwe Wereldt ofte Beschrijvinghe van West-Indien, 85.

[4] De Laet, Nieuwe Wereldt ofte Beschrijvinghe van West-Indien, 85.

[5] Lucianne Lavin, Dutch and Indigenous Communities in Seventeenth-Century Northeastern North America: What Archaeology, History, and Indigenous Oral Traditions Teach Us About Their Intercultural Relationships (SUNY Press, 2021), 176.

[6] De Laet, Nieuwe Wereldt ofte Beschrijvinghe van West-Indien, 85.

[7] Map of New Netherland, as well as a part of New France and Virginia, with annotations by Adriaen Block, circa 1614; imaged, Nationaal Archief (https://www.nationaalarchief.nl/onderzoeken/archief/4.VEL/invnr/520); citing call no. 520, Record Group 4.VEL: Buitenlandse Kaarten Leupe [Leupe Collection of Foreign Maps], Nationaal Archief, The Hague, Netherlands. For a description of the map and its creation, see Bea Brommer and Henk den Heijer, Grote Atlas van de West-Indische Compagnie/Comprehensive Atlas of the Dutch West India Company, vol. 1, De Oude WIC/The Old WIC 1621–1674 (Asia Maior, 2011), 42–43.

[8] De Laet, Nieuwe Wereldt ofte Beschrijvinghe van West-Indien, 85.

[9] De Laet, Nieuwe Wereldt ofte Beschrijvinghe van West-Indien, 85.

[10] De Laet, Nieuwe Wereldt ofte Beschrijvinghe van West-Indien, 85.

[11] De Laet, Nieuwe Wereldt ofte Beschrijvinghe van West-Indien, 89.

[12] Charles T. Gehring, ed., Council Minutes, 1655–1656 (Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press, 1995), 86.

[13] De Laet, Nieuwe Wereldt ofte Beschrijvinghe van West-Indien, 85.

[14] Hart, The Prehistory of the New Netherland Company, 48–51.