Christ Church Easton acknowledges the Paugussett peoples, the traditional custodians of the land on which we worship today. We recognize that they and their ancestors occupied and cared for this land over countless generations, and we celebrate their living descendants’ contributions to this region and beyond.

 

The Paugussett peoples and their ancestors before them dwelled continuously in the fields, coastal areas and river basins between the Quinnipiac and Housatonic Rivers, spoke a common language, and lived, worshipped, farmed, and traded with neighboring Pequot and Haudenosaunee nations. European Christian arrival brought disease, war, and enslavement that decimated the Paugussett peoples, and nefarious and unjust practices of land acquisition followed, leading to large-scale dispersal. We lament the role of the church that permitted and contributed to these injustices.

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The present-day Paugussett at Golden Hill and the Schaghticoke Tribes comprise the known descendants of the Paugussett peoples, yet ancestry is carried in still unknown peoples whose lineage traces to Paugussett intermarriage with local Black residents and with the Oneida and Brother Tribes, now established in New York and Wisconsin respectively.

 

Let us acknowledge with respect and reverence the Paugussett Peoples who stewarded this land through the generations and their descendants living today. 

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Go here to learn more about the first peoples of these lands and here to learn about the historic injustice they faced.

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