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American Indian baskets made in New England

Magazine Antiques, Jan, 2004 by Nan Wolverton

During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in New England, Indians were making splint baskets in large numbers for sale to non-Indians. (1) In order to survive in the new world of European conquest and settlement, Indians were forced to find ways to eke out livings, and for many of them making and selling baskets and related handcrafted objects became a livelihood as well as a way to maintain some independence. Many Indian basketmakers were also skilled makers of chair seats, mats, brooms, and scrub brushes as well as wooden trays, bowls, and spoons. Ironically, just when Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) described the local Natick, Massachusetts, Indians in her novel Oldtown Folke as a "roving, uncertain class of people, ... hanging like a tattered fringe on the thrifty and well-kept petticoat of New England society," the Indians were actively making and selling the brooms, mats, scrub brushes, and newly woven chair seats that allowed Americans to maintain "well-kept" houses. (2)

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Baskets of all types are commonly listed in early New England probate inventories, but rarely are they described specifically as Indian. Some entries only suggest Indian makers. For instance, a "colored basket and contents" valued at ten cents in the inventory of Prudence Clark (1761-1837) in Sturbridge, Massachusetts, in 1837 may refer to a painted Indian basket. (3) Because they were so common, Indian baskets may not have warranted special distinction in probate listings. In many cases, undecorated Indian baskets would have looked much like Yankee-made baskets to those taking inventories. Indian baskets do, however, appear on occasion in paintings such as the watercolor of a Connecticut interior a detail of which is shown in Plate V or the girl with a stamp-decorated splint basket full of fruit and corn shown in Plate I.

The Indians made both plain and decorated baskets, but it is the decoration traditionally used on Indian baskets that helps distinguish them from Yankee-made baskets and sometimes narrows them down to a specific Indian community. The painted stylized stockade, believed to represent the boundaries of ancestral lands, for instance, is often found on Nipmuc and Mohegan baskets (see Pl. II). The four-lobed medallion is another symbolic motif often found on Mohegan and Pequot baskets (see Pl. III). Some believe that this design may symbolize the four winds and the spiritual force in the world. (4)

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While most Indian baskets are unsigned, about a dozen are known that are signed on the base with the initials J.H.S. It is believed that J.H.S. was of Mohegan descent and grew up in Brothertown, New York. The various decorative designs of these signed baskets suggest that the maker was an itinerant basketmaker who borrowed designs from a variety of Indian groups. (5) The initialed basket illustrated in Plate IV displays stockade designs on the two sides shown, with stylized hearts on the other two sides. The other distinguishing feature of the J.H.S. baskets is that their rims are swabbed with paint.

Some Indian basket decorators drew on both their own and European traditions, perhaps to make their product appealing to white buyers. The baskets illustrated in Plates VI and VII are painted with vase and flower designs that have been tentatively attributed to members of the Arnold family of the Hassanimisco Nipmuc community, in Grafton, Massachusetts. (6) These designs could have been inspired by common New England household objects such as floral-painted fireboards, but it is likely that they became traditional for this family of basketmakers. Although the vase and flower decoration on baskets may have been requested by white customers, Indian artists added their own distinctive variations. In an interview with Sarah Cisco Sullivan, a Nipmuc, in 1948, the anthropologist Frank Gouldsmith Speck (1881-1950) recorded information about the basketmaking methods of Sarah Sullivan's grandmother; Sarah Maria Arnold Cisco. He wrote:

In accounting for the fancy of the people in producing flower like designs she [Sarah Sullivan] said she had understood that they "sat and looked at something and drew it the way they wanted." (7)

Because kinship networks were strong in Indian societies, the vase and flower design, like others, may also have been used by Indian basketmakers in other communities. The basket in Plate IX shows some similarity to those in Plates VI and VII, but it has its own distinctive vase patterned after a checkered basket weave. The basket in Plate VIII displays in its painted design what might be seen as yet another variation of a vase with flowers. There a heart sprouts two stemmed flowers arched in much the same way as those in Plate IX.

Wall pockets, cradles, baskets with legs, and other specialized forms may have reflected the needs of white buyers. In addition, "fancy" souvenir baskets were developed by the second half of the nineteenth century for the growing tourist industry. By this time, Indian basketmakers no longer peddled their wares as frequently throughout southern New England, but more commonly set up camps at resorts to sell to tourists who flocked to the sea-shore and mountains of northern New England. (8)

American Indian baskets made in New England

Magazine Antiques, Jan, 2004 by Nan Wolverton

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