Name
Tonnosatton’s[1] name includes the phonemes for the noun “house” (nuhs) and verb “disappear” (ahtu) and may mean “he takes the whole house away.”[2]
Tonnosatton appears in only one known historical record, the journal of Harmen Meynderts van den Bogaert, who mentioned Tonnosatton in 1634.[3] The West India Company had sent three Dutch men to the area west of Fort Orange to investigate a decline in trade with the Iroquois nations and negotiate more favorable terms.[4]
Origin
Tonnosatton was a Native American chief who belonged to the Mohawk tribe.[5]
Settlement
Tonnosatton was one of the chiefs of Canagere castle (casteel) a term the Dutch used for Native American villages. The village was located on a hilltop, without any palisades or fortifications, and contained sixteen houses of 50–80 steps long. It had mostly been abandoned by 16 December 1634, when three Dutch settlers visited. The chiefs had gone out hunting, and the Dutch men encountered only a handful of men, old women, and children.[6] Archaeological research located the site just south of modern-day Sprakers, Montgomery County, New York.[7]
Biographical Details
A chief and hunter in 1634, Tonnosatton was probably born between say 1584 and 1609. He died at an unknown date after 1634.[8]
Offices
Tonnosatton was one of the chiefs of the Mohawk people who lived at Canagere.[9]
Associations
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Tonnosatton and Toniwerot were the chiefs of Canagere, and were out hunting together in December 1634.[10] They would have known Sickaris, in whose house the Dutch visitors stayed in the chiefs’ absence.[11]
Literature
Gehring, Charles T. and William A. Starna, eds., A Journey into Mohawk and Oneida Country, 1634–1635: The Journal of Harmen Meyndertsz van den Bogaert, Revised (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2013), 6 [English translation], 76 [Dutch transcription]. This journal is the only known contemporary source to mention Tonnosatton. Gehring and Starna transcribed, translated, and annotated the journal.
Citations
[1] Charles T. Gehring and William A. Starna, eds., A Journey into Mohawk and Oneida Country, 1634–1635: The Journal of Harmen Meyndertsz van den Bogaert, Revised (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2013), 6.
[2] Gehring and Starna, A Journey into Mohawk and Oneida Country, 38.
[3] Gehring and Starna, A Journey into Mohawk and Oneida Country, 6.
[4] Gehring and Starna, A Journey into Mohawk and Oneida Country, xxvii.
[5] The term in the journal is “Maquasen,” a Dutch reference to the Mohawks. Gehring and Starna, A Journey into Mohawk and Oneida Country, 26–27.
[6] Gehring and Starna, A Journey into Mohawk and Oneida Country, 6.
[7] Dean Snow, “Mohawk Valley Archaeology: The Sites,” Occasional Papers in Anthropology at Penn State, no. 23 (2016), 309–310, https://journals.psu.edu/opa/article/view/59781.
[8] Gehring and Starna, A Journey into Mohawk and Oneida Country, 6.
[9] Gehring and Starna, A Journey into Mohawk and Oneida Country, 6.
[10] Gehring and Starna, A Journey into Mohawk and Oneida Country, 6.
[11] Gehring and Starna, A Journey into Mohawk and Oneida Country, 6.
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