The Totoket were an Indigenous community of Quinnipiac living in the area of present-day Branford, Connecticut. When the English began to settle there in 1644, the Totoket kept for themselves a 200-acre reservation on the peninsula known as
Indian neck. As pressures from colonists to move on to the Neck increased, the Totoket's leader Wampon developed a plan that would allow him to hold on to his community's land as long as he could. Instead of resisting, he accommodated them by renting out pieces of the reservation to the English as farm lots. But the strategy could not withstand the force of colonization. The first deed to pass Indian Neck land over to the English was a 30-acre parcel in 1685. More land was later sold to pay medical bills, legal expenses, and debt. From 1687-1744, Branford's Congregational Church purchased most of the rest of the Indian Neck reservation. With such land loss, many of the Totoket removed elsewhere, joining their other Quinnipiac kin, settling among other Indians, or leaving the shoreline entirely. Menta,
The Quinnipiac, 129-30, 147-48, 170-171. Map 'The reserve on Indian Neck in Branford, Connecticut by Pam Baldwin, Leon Yacher, and Linda Olendar in Menta, 128.
