Attawanhood II, - 1676

Attawanhood, known to the colonists as Joshua, was the son of Uncas and the daughter of Tatobem and the daughter of Sebequenish.  He was known to have three wives, a Niantic woman, whose name is presently unknown, and two daughters of Arramamet -- Sowgonosk and Autanyesh.  With his wives, he had at least three children, one of whom was Abimelech and lived at Saybrook.

As a member of the leading Mohegan family, Attawanhood had rights to amounts of property throughout Mohegan territory and through marriage had rights to land at Saybrook, Hartford, Podunk, and Tunxis.  When he became the sachem of Niantic, he claimed a tract of land within the limits of Lyme on the north side of Eight Mile River as his inheritance in the right of Attawanhood I, a younger brother of his grandfather, and a great sachem.  In 1699, Attawanhood (II) sold 330 acres of land in Lyme for thirty pounds of wampum.

Through his marriage to Arramamet's daughters, he gained political control over Podunk territory.  Attawanhood, with his father Uncas and brother Owaneco sold land to John Mason and to James Fitch, a nine-mile square tract of land, that would become the town of Norwich.

In the middle of the 17th Century, Attawanhood served as a guide and translator to an exploratory mission by George Fenwick's men William Pratt and William Hyde looking for possible expansion of Saybrook Colony into the Pootapaug Quarter.  In late summer of 1675, Connecticut's Council of War commissioned him a Captain during King Philip's War.  He, Tomsquash, and the rest of the Indian Captains were ordered to patrol the east side of the Connecticut River for suspicious activity.  Attawanhood later marched a number of his men to Brookfield, Massachusetts, to support the beleaguered townspeople there. 

After his death in May 1676, the Mohegans grieved for Attawanhood and would not continue their service to the Colony.  His will provided a tract of land northwest of Saybrook to his two sons, with the remainder going to his daughter, and in case of her death, to his father, Uncas.  Attawanhood also bequeathed his Pondunk land to his sons, with the remainder going to his two widows.  All other property was given in generous shares to a number of colonists. Of his three children, only Abimelech survived.  

PRCC 2: 65, 157, 186, 352, 303, 374, 448.  Griswold and Major, Connecticut River Shipbuilding, 14.  Oberg, Uncas: First of the Mohegans, 154.  Deforest, History of the Indians of Connecticut, 266.  Trumbull, Extracts from the Records of the United Colonies of New England, 45.