by Thomas MacMillan | Mar 26, 2012 11:00 am

(16) Comments | Commenting has been closed | E-mail the Author

Posted to: Downtown, Occupy Wall Street

In its last-ditch fight to stay on the New Haven Green, Occupy New Haven brought in a medicine man from the tribe that occupied the land before the Puritans.

Medicine Man Fox Running (pictured above) told his new friends Sunday that in his view, the fight’s already lost. He advised them to pick up their tents and buy some land elsewhere. He also offered a history lesson that fueled their case questioning the Green’s ownership.

Meanwhile, occupiers are trying to enlist another Quinnipiac, the tribe’s sachem, Iron Thunderhorse, to join them in their legal battle against the city.

Iron Thunderhorse won’t be able to make it to Wednesday’s possible showdown over whether Occupy New Haven can remain on the Green, though. He is in prison in Texas on rape and kidnapping charges.

Gordon Fox Running Brainerd, a 77-year-old Branford man who’s a Bear Clan medicine chief in the Quinnipiac tribe, showed up at Occupy New Haven’s embattled encampment on the Green Sunday afternoon for a teach-in on Native American history.

The land belongs to everyone, Fox Running told a group of two dozen occupiers under a tarp canopy in the camp’s central compound.

Unfortunately, modern society doesn’t recognize that fact, he said. As it is, your best bet is to pool your money and get some private property of your own, he said.

Fox Running said he’s not picking a side in the battle of Occupy vs. the City. The five-month-old occupation is the last standing New England outpost of the Occupy Wall Street movement, which swept the nation last fall with a message of opposition to corporate greed, income inequality and money in politics. It’s been fighting to keep its spot on the Green amid city efforts to remove it.

Nearly two weeks ago, a last-minute legal appeal forestalled the removal of Occupy New Haven and raised the question of to whom the Green really belongs. The people of New Haven? The Proprietors of the Green, a self-perpetuating private body descended from the colony’s founding Puritans? Or, as occupiers are now asking, does it belong to Connecticut’s “original peoples”—the Native Americans?

They won a temporary victory on March 14, when a federal judge issued a two-week restraining order enjoining the city from removing them.

The court victory came through the efforts of attorney Norm Pattis, who filed a complaint on behalf of eight occupiers. As part of his legal work, Pattis has been delving into the history of the Green and the Proprietors of the Green, the central square’s technical owners. Part of Pattis’ complaint challenges the very existence of the group, which formed in the 17th century. The matter will be taken up in federal court in New Haven on Wednesday.

In the meantime, the challenge to the proprietors’ authority has inspired some occupiers to take the matter even further.

“We’ve decided to try to return the land to the native peoples,” said occupier Ben Aubin. “Through speaking about the Green, we realized we’re entering into a decolonization campaign.”

Occupier Tommy Doomsday acknowledged that if occupiers are successful in handing the Green back to the descendants of indigenous people, it will mean Occupy has to leave too.

That’s fine, he said. “We’re going to get kicked off here one way or another.”

Occupy New Haven is looking to form alliances with Native Americans in the state, who may have a firmer claim on the Green than the Proprietors do, Aubin said. “We’re reaching out to all original peoples of Connecticut.”

As a result of that effort, Fox Running arrived at the Green Sunday. Wearing traditional “regalia,” the mustached man took a seat on a plush red couch in front of an upside-down American flag. Two dozen occupiers, on folding chairs and milk crates, gathered around.

Chicken Fat In A Bonfire

Fox Running began with a history lesson on the interaction between the indigenous people of “Turtle Island” (now known as North America) and the European colonizers. Waves of disease in the 1600s wiped out the majority of the native peoples of Connecticut, which “made it easier for Europeans to come here and occupy land,” he said.

Europeans made treaties with the local tribes, and “purchased” land from them, concepts that the indigenous people did not understand, Fox Running said. “They had no concept that you could own land.”

According to histories of New Haven, English settlers made a real estate transaction with the Quinnipiac in 1638.

As Edward Atwater writes in his “History of the Colony of New Haven to its absorption into Connecticut,” “Momaugin the Indian Sachem of Quinnipiac” and his tribesmen were weakened by disease and had observed the benefits of living with the English settlers since their arrival in April of that year. “Which with all thankfulness they now acknowledged, they jointly and freely gave and yielded up all their right, title and interest to all the land, rivers, ponds, and trees with all the liberties and appurtenances belonging unto the same in Quinnipiac to the utmost of their bounds east, west, north, south, unto Theophilus Eaton, John Davenport and others, the present English planters there and to their heirs and assigns forever.”

The Quinnipiac were given some 1,200 acres as a reservation, which was gradually whittled away by the Europeans. They were finally coerced to move to Waterbury, where the land was sold out from under them, Fox Running said. “Many of my ancestors scattered.” They remain scattered today, he said.

Fox Running then spoke about the dangers of modern society’s obsession with technology and its destruction of the planet. He warned about the dangers of overpopulation and global warming; he predicted New Haven will be underwater in 50 years.

Occupier Don Montano asked Fox Running about the idea of occupiers going to Ft. Nathan Hale—the site of the original Quinnipac reservation—and “re-occupying the land.”

“I think you have about as much chance of that as a piece of chicken fat in a bonfire,” Fox Running said.

Occupier Aubin said some occupiers are thinking of “returning to the land.” He asked for advice on how to proceed with a “vision quest.”

“We’d like, for a little while, to maybe live as Quinnipiac,” said occupier Ty Hailey.

That requires respect and gratitude for the land and its gifts, Fox Running said.

“If you’re going to do this in a native fashion…” he began, as a PVC tarp support-post suddenly slipped off its chair-milk-crate-cinderblock platform and nearly clocked an occupier on the head.

“Make sure you put your house together properly,” finished Norm Clement, a confederate member of the Quinnipiac sitting next to Fox Running.

Fox Running ended the meeting by standing and offering a prayer.

“Grandfather,” he began.

“Mother!” interrupted occupier Sara Gregory with a shout.

“Sara!” other occupiers groaned.

Fox Running continued with his prayer for guidance for “these young people,” to help them “out of the rut” they’re in.

Outside the tent, Fox Running was asked what he thinks about the Occupy movement.

“I never really got a good sense on what the premise behind this is,” he said.

As for his thoughts on Occupy’s right to continue to camp on the Green, Fox Running articulated a position nearly identical to that of the city.

“This Green is supposed to be for public use,” but it can’t be used by the general public because Occupy is here, he said.

Fox Running said he doesn’t yet have a clear opinion on whether or not Occupy should be allowed to continue to stay on the Green. “My answer to you is a question: What is your goal in occupying this land?”

“Get out of the damn city,” he said to Hailey. “Get together all your quarters and go out and buy a piece of land in the countryside somewhere. How else are you going to get a piece of land to occupy?”

Fox Running lit up a USA Gold cigarette. He said he’s sure Occupy doesn’t stand a chance of holding onto the Green.

“I think the powers are going to prevail, unfortunately,” he said. “History tells the tale, doesn’t it?”

Paging Iron Thunderhorse

Clement (pictured) respectfully disagreed with Running Fox. Clement said he’s a Penobscott from Maine. He was given the name Momowetu by Quinnipiac sachem Iron Thunderhorse, who made him a confederate member of the tribe.

Indigenous people have a 500-year history of resistance, he said. Buying land is not the way out, because the government can take the land anyway, through eminent domain, Clement said.

“You have to fight the system, and that’s what Occupy is all about,” he said.

Clement said he has been working on contacting Iron Thunderhorse—in prison in Texas—through the sachem’s wife, Little Owl, who lives in Indiana. Clement said he’s looking into the possibility of Iron Thunderhorse getting involved as a party to Occupy’s legal action against the city and the Proprietors.

Irving Pinsky, a lawyer who represents Occupy, said he hopes to speak with Iron Thunderhorse on Monday.

Iron Thunderhorse’s wife, Little Owl, responded to an email from the Independent on Monday.

Occupy has already connected with at least one other local Native American leader. Aubin said the group has been talking with Aurelius Piper, the Peace Chief of the Golden Hill Paugussetts. The tribe has a rich history of attempts to re-claim lands allegedly illegally taken from them, including claims to land in more than a dozen towns in Connecticut, from Westport to Branford.

Aubin said he’s hoping to have Native Americans join occupiers on Wednesday as they face the threat of possible removal from the Green, depending on the outcome of that day’s court hearing.

“I support the Occupy New Haven movement,” Chief Piper said in a phone conversation. “They are actually standing up for the indigenous tribes in this area. They’re speaking up for us.”

As for joining the occupation this week, however, Piper was non-committal. “I made no plans to be anywhere at any particular time.”

“Coates” And “Alcumy Spoons”

City Chief Administrative Officer Rob Smuts had no comment on the question of Proprietors versus Indians. Head Proprietor Drew Days did not respond to a request for comment.

Attorney Pattis weighed in on Friday. “When I was a kid, I was taught that Manhattan was turned over to settlers for $24 of trinkets,” he said. It sounds like New Haven was transferred the same way, he continued. “We’ve got another case of unjust enrichment in our midst.”

In a March 18 post on his blog, Pattis wrote that his research found that land that is now New Haven was purchased from the natives for “twelve coates of English Trucking cloath, twelve alcumy spoons, twelve hatchets, twelve hoes, two dozen of knives, twelve porengers & foure cases of French knives and sizers.”

In that post, Pattis agrees with Fox Running’s statement that the Indians didn’t have the same understanding of the transaction as the English did. “Go ahead, a native American might have thought, give me some warm clothes and knives, and I will sign your paper: do you really think that a piece of paper can transform land given to all into yours alone? I suspect some Indians thought the Europeans fools, much as we would if a man were to give us a car in exchange for our promise that he would never die. Some promises are essentially meaningless.”

The post concludes, “Perhaps the folks occupying the Green can take up a clothing drive. Let them collect old coats and kitchen utensils. Make a big stack of these items on the Green and then offer the Proprietors the items in exchange for the land. Absurd, you say? No less so than claiming that title so acquired almost 400 years ago vests in a group now asserting ownership in what everyone regards as a public space. Or do acts of unjust enrichment and what amounts to thievery flow in one direction only?”

“Can somebody challenge a 1649 land purchase?” he asked. It’s an interesting question, but not one he intends to raise before the court on Wednesday, Pattis said.

However, if any Native Americans want to secure legal counsel, “they’re welcome to join the pow-wow,” he said.

So, does the Green belong to the city, the Proprietors, the occupiers, or the Native Americans?

“Who knows whose Green it is?” Pattis said. To settle that very question, he’s raised a “quiet title action” that he’d like to have considered by the state Supreme Court. He hopes to settle the issue of ownership of a piece of land, and thus quiet any challenges.

The question again goes back hundreds of years. In 1810, the state legislature recognized the Proprietors of the Green. But, Pattis said, the state constitution adopted in 1818, some portions of which are still in effect, “prohibits the granting of hereditary title.” It states, in Article 1, Section 20, that “No hereditary emoluments, privileges or honors, shall ever be granted, or conferred in this state.”

The question then, is if self-selected perpetuation of the members of Proprietors of the Green amounts to hereditary title, Pattis said. “We want it to get the state Supreme Court.”

It’s not right that a private body can tell people what to do on land that’s enjoyed by the public, Pattis said. It’s like if “Skull and Bones” said everyone had to eat Chinese food on Wednesdays, he said.

In a Sunday blog post, Pattis writes that the New Haven’s “first official act” was to execute a Native American named Nepaupuck for the crime of murder and then place his severed head on the Green.