That “The Name Of Ben Uncas Be As Great As That Of Isaac Newtonâ€: Seeking Connections Between The Uncas Mohegans And The Colonial Ledyard Family, 1751-1789.
Marc Frucht
ANTH3904 – Ethnohistory of Native New England
Just how well did John Ledyard and Ben Uncas know each other? Certainly enough for Ledyard to declare:
If Descartes and Newton from the improvements of age could produce at last the magnicificent system of Philosophy that hath immortalized them; why should not these glorious savages, who, without any of those great collateral assistances, without which THEY could have done nothing, have discovered such astonishing sagacity, be intitled to equal veneration, and the name of Ben Uncus be as great as that of Isaac Newton. (Ledyard, 76-77)
He wrote this upon meeting indigenous families near Vancouver, BC, Canada while a seaman on Captain Cook’s third voyage. He wrote extensively that these families resembled Indian families near his Connecticut home.
Much has been written about John Ledyard being acquainted with the various Bens Uncas; however there does not appear to be printed documentation directly supporting any deep friendships in Mohegan or Pequot lands. A critical reading of the primary documents dealing with John Ledyard and the Uncas family should underpin the publication of books like James Zug’s American Traveler and Passage To Glory by Helen Augur but as of yet this does not appear to be the case.
Therefore questions of relationship and sphere of influence must be answered speculatively at best. Did the Ledyards know anyone in the Uncas family intimately?
And more importantly, how well do some of the Bens, or perhaps Isaiah or John Uncas, know any of the Ledyards; for they seem to have taught him how to make a 60 foot dugout canoe, many of them have attended similar Congregationalist churches and; as Ledyard traveled between Groton and Hartford, would he not have stopped to visit several Mohegan or Nipmuc homesteads, lest he be considered rude.
As a boy in Connecticut, he [Ledyard] had played with the sons of ‘Ben Uncas,’ and as a young man at Dartmouth he had lived and studied with Iroquois and Caghnawaga and Huron.” (Gifford,261)
But did Ledyard attend with anyone named Uncas? Isaiah was the son of Ben 3rd, attended Dartmouth fourteen years prior, about 1757 or 1758. He was the last Sachem with the Uncas family name (Brown, 417) and he also married Mary Sowop, Nov 30, 1769 at North Stonington Congregational Church which is the same denomination as First Church in Groton where Ledyard was baptized as a newborn. (Augur,9) Many records show Uncas family members attending Congregationalist churches in Franklin, New London and Stonington but not Groton.
Ben Uncas 2nd might have been much too old to know John Ledyard’s immediate family personally but it does appear he knew some of the families that would go on to defend the Colonies at or near Fort Griswold in Groton.
Most Mohegans, by the 1730s, came to believe that the second Ben Uncas was too close to the colonial leadership, and that he was not an effective guardian of Mohegan interests. (Oberg,210)
There are some other Benjamin’s named Uncus and Unkus signed up as soldiers and sailors during the French and Indian wars and the American Revolution. Benjamin served at Fort Henry October 13, 1756 and either he or another Benjamin was discharged March 2, Oct. 29. (French & Indian,113)(Fitch Papers,182) A couple decades later a Benjamin Uncas appears as Seaman on the 1778-1779 Pay List for the Ship Oliver Cromwell with Timothy Parker as his Commander. Whether he too is the same Benjamin is not clear. (Middlebrook,182)
It’s not likely that this Benjamin would have worked alongside Ledyard these years as he was sailing different waters with Captain Cook between 1776 and 1780; but his brother, Colonel William Ledyard was the Post Commander of Fort Griswold so might have known several Pequot, Mohegan or Wampanoag soldiers and sailors.
While in Paris, John Ledyard not only met and stayed friends with Thomas Jefferson, but he wrote home to his cousin Isaac that should he travel to New York, “I wish you may see my friend Paul Jones and read my letters – and perhaps the history of Ben Uncas.†(Zug,158)
The letters mentioned may have become part of Ledyard’s Captain Cook account; but if he ever finished a book about Ben Uncas it never saw publication in America. Had he interviewed an Uncas personally, or lived with them for a time? Maybe they traveled together. If he was writing to some of them regularly throughout his travels, those correspondences were not preserved the way letters to his colonial friends and relatives were, to be sure.
The lack of direct documentation should not prevent a sufficient ethnohistory of the Uncas and Ledyard colonial families, but more primary sources would surely serve helpful. John Ledyard’s own words to Jefferson instruct this:
In my travels I have made it my rule to compare the written with the living history of man, & as I have seen all kinds of men so I have not hesitated to make use of all kinds of history… I give in many cases as much credit to traditions as to other history.†(Zug,244)
An historical account of three or more generations of Ben Uncas would most likely be just as compelling as one about John Ledyard, his father Captain John, and grandfather Squire John; if not more so. It is no small wonder why there are half a dozen books about just one of the John Ledyards, while only one fictitious movie has been made along with only one historical account of Uncas, the ancestor of all the Bens Uncas. That the Ledyard and Uncas family could share the same small English Colony, (Southern Connecticut) for more than 100 years without knowing each other personally would be even more fascinating.
Primary and Secondary Sources:
Augur, Helen. Passage To Glory. Doubleday, 1946.
Bailey, Frederic W. Early Church Marriages as found on ancient church records prior to 1800. 1997 reprint – Baltimore, MD : Genealogical Publishing Co. “North Stonington,†61.
Brown, Barbara W., and James M. Rose. Black Roots in Southeastern Connecticut, 1650-1900. Detroit, MI : Gale Research Company, 1980. 417.
Gifford, Bill. Ledyard: In Search of the First American Explorer. Harcourt, 2007.
Ledyard, John. 1783 edition of John Ledyard’s Journal of Captain Cook’s last voyage to the Pacific ocean. Hartford: Nathaniel Patten, 1783.
Ledyard, John. Last Voyage of Captain Cook: The Collected Writings of John Ledyard (NG Adventure Classics). National Geographic, 2005.
Oberg, Michael. Uncas: First of the Mohegans. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2003.
“French & Indian Wars Muster Rolls excerpts.†Collections of the Connecticut Historical Society, Volume IX. Hartford : Published by the Society, 1903.
The Fitch Papers : correspondence and documents during Thomas Fitch’s governorship of the Colony of Connecticut 1754-1766. Vol II; January 1759 – May 1766. Hartford : Connecticut Historical Society, 1920.
Middlebrook, Louis F. History of Maritime Connecticut during the American Revolution 1775-1783. Volume I. Salem, MA : The Esseex Institute, 1925. 122.
Zug, James. American Traveler: The Life and Adventures of John Ledyard, the Man Who Dreamed of Walking the World. 2005.