One day after the New Haven court system was organized, the colony made its first arrest and initiated its first case.¹ This case cannot be fully appreciated without some understanding of the extremely hostile relationship between the European colonists and the Native Americans residing in the area at that time. Between 1634 and 1638, these two groups waged a war known in U.S. history as the Pequot War.

      In 1637 an Englishman named Abraham Finch had been killed in Wethersfield, then part of the (separate) Connecticut Colony. A Quinnipiac (the English name for the Renapi, an Algonquin tribe in Connecticut) man named Nepaupuck was accused of his murder. Finch was a casualty of a deadly raid on Wethersfield during the Pequot War. The war had formally ended on September 21, 1638, with the Treaty of Hartford, but tensions remained high among the English and Native populations.² The Pequots had lost the war; by the end, about seven hundred Pequots had been killed or taken into captivity. Hundreds of prisoners were sold into slavery in the West Indies. The conflict had embroiled the many tribes in the area including the Niantic, Mohigg, Naragansett, Montauk, and Pequot.

      On October 26, 1639, a man calling himself Nepaupuck appeared in New Haven “of his own accord” and, “with a deer’s head upon his back,” presented himself to New Haven’s newly appointed magistrate, Theophilus Eaton. Whether he was, in fact, Nepaupuck was to be the central question in the case. For now, we’ll call him the prisoner. The reference to the “deer’s head upon his back” is one of the only references to attire in any of the records, so it seems significant—though we don’t know whether this detail was to indicate the stature of the man or his difference from the Europeans, or both.

      Robert Seely, the colony’s newly appointed marshal, made his maiden arrest by apprehending the prisoner on a warrant and tying him up. Seely had been a neighbor of Finch’s in Wethersfield and was second in command in the Pequot War. The arrest was anything but routine. Aided by a second Native American, the prisoner attempted to escape. The attempt was unsuccessful. He “was again taken and delivered into the magistrate’s power, and … kept in the stocks until he might be brought to a due trial.” The period of pretrial detention turned out to be a couple of days—short by modern standards but a long time to spend in the stocks, hinged wooden boards that locked his feet in place. In the meantime, Seely’s deputy whipped the accomplice who had aided the prisoner.

      Two days later, the colony witnessed its first judicial proceeding when the prisoner appeared before the New Haven magistrate and his deputies. The idea seems to have been that the judges would investigate the case and decide whether to refer it to the colony’s General Court for trial. In procedural terms, this was roughly analogous to a modern preliminary hearing, in which a court determines whether there is probable cause for a criminal case to proceed to trial. But the proceeding here seems to have had two somewhat different purposes: to examine witnesses and to persuade the prisoner to admit his guilt.

      The magistrate and his deputies examined an unspecified number of Indians; their names and tribal affiliations are not given in the record, so we do not know if tribal allegiance motivated them to testify against Nepaupuck or on his behalf. These witnesses told the judges that the prisoner had murdered one or more Englishmen, cut off their hands, and presented the severed hands to a Pequot sachem, “boasting that he had killed them with his own hands.”

      At this point, a witness intending to help the prisoner entered the room. The witness was the prisoner’s kinsman, Mewhebato. As recorded by the court, Mewhebato’s testimony did not go well. “At first he pretended ignorance, but with a distracted countenance, and in a trembling manner. Being admonished to speak the truth, he did acknowledge him guilty according to the charge the other Indians had before made.”

      Now it was the prisoner’s turn to testify. The other Indians withdrew, and he was brought in and examined. The question immediately turned to just who he was. He “confessed that Nepaupuck was guilty according to the tenure of the former charge, but denied that he was Nepaupuck.”

      At this point, Mewhebato was once again brought into the room. After “some signs of sorrow,” Mewhebato charged the prisoner “to his face that he had assisted the Pequots in murdering the English. This somewhat abated his spirit and boldness.” Another Indian was brought in and said that he had personally seen the prisoner, whom he called Nepaupuck, murder Abraham Finch in Wethersfield. Finally, the rest of the Indians were brought in. They too said that the prisoner was Nepaupuck and that he had murdered one or more of the English.

      At that point, the prisoner, “being by the concurrence of testimony convinced, confessed that he was the man named Nepaupuck.” He further “boasted that he was a great captain, had murdered Abraham Finch, and had his hands in other English blood. He said he knew he must die and was not afraid of it, but laid his neck to the mantle-tree³ of the chimney, desiring that his head might be cut off or that he might die in any other manner that the English should appoint.” At this point, he “was returned to the stocks, and as before a watch was appointed for his safe custody.”

      The General Court met the next day. The trial before this court was more summary than the hearing before the magistrates. The prisoner was “brought to the bar and examined as before.” He reverted to his original story. He was not the Nepaupuck who had committed the murder. But, once again, the other “did accuse him to his face.” The prisoner then “confessed that he had his hand in the murder of Abraham Finch, but yet he said there was a Mohawk of that name that had killed more than he.” At this point, another Indian “affirmed to his face” that the prisoner had killed a number of other men as well. The prisoner was now asked “if he would not confess that he deserved to die.” He replied, “It is weregin.”

      We don’t know what “weregin” means; early historians of the New Haven Colony suggest that it means “It is known” or “So be it.” The court was satisfied. Having “such pregnant proof,” it “proceeded to pass sentence upon him according to the nature of the fact and the rule in that case, he that sheds man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed.” The convicted man’s head was cut off the next day and pitched upon a pole in the marketplace.