Wampage I, also called Anhõõke and later John White, was a Sagamore of the SiwanoyNative Americans, who resided in the area now known as the Bronx and Westchester County, New York. He is most notable for his involvement in the murder of Anne Hutchinson and her fellow colonists in 1643. Some time after 1636, he married Prasque, daughter of Romaneck, the paramount chief over the Wappinger "confederacy". The Siwanoys, being one of the western bands of the Wappingers, were involved in Kieft's War and numerous disputes with the colony of New Netherland during Wampage’s chieftancy. He was later involved in a legal dispute with Connecticut Colony, which ultimately required Privy Council intervention. His name was variously spelled as Wamponneage, Wampage, Wampus and Wampers.
Role in Hutchinson massacre
The Siwanoys, under the leadership of Wampage I, massacred the family of Anne Hutchinson in August 1643. It has been written that Wampage himself was the murderer of Hutchinson and that he adopted the name of Anhõõke due to a Mahican custom of taking the name of a notable person personally killed. The name "Anne's Hoeck" came to refer to the land where the massacre was believed to have occurred - now called Rodman's Neck. Numerous sources also indicate that the lone survivor of the attack, Anne's daughter Susanna Hutchinson, bore a son to Wampage while in Siwanoy captivity - Ninham-Wampage, who would become Wampage II on his father's death.
Not long after the massacre, Wampage befriended Thomas Pell, then the Indian Commissioner at Fairfield, Connecticut. On June 27, 1654, 50,000 acres of land were sold by the Siwanoys to Pell, including portions of the Bronx and lands east of the Hutchinson River northward to Mamaroneck. Wampage and other Siwanoys signed a treaty under the Treaty Oak near Bartow Pell Mansion in Pelham. Wampage, along with Shawanórõckquot, Poquõrúm, Wawhamkus, and Mehúmõw, signed as "Saggamores". Cockho, Kamaque, and Cockinsecawa also signed as "Indyan Witnesses" to the "Articles of Agreement" section of the Treaty. The treaty also required that the Siwanoys and English peacefully attempt to resolve boundary disputes over the land in the future. On March 10, 1658, Wampage I and Pell negotiated the definitive treaty between the English and the Siwanoys, establishing their territorial claims, which would later keep Wampage and the Siwanoys out of King Philip's War.
Later life
Around 1677, the elderly Wampage went to Fairfield to collect on a bill of sale of lands to residents of the town, which lands he had inherited from his father in law, the late Romaneck. Nathan Gold, then Fairfield's chief magistrate, had Wampage beaten and thrown into jail. Gold argued that the English held all lands by right of conquest and that contracts between the English and Indians had no validity. Sir John Pell, the second Lord of Pelham Manor, intervened on Wampage's behalf, and represented him before the Privy Council of the United Kingdom. The Council ruled in Wampage's favor on March 28, 1679, denouncing Gold's "evill practices" and finding that "not only but all such Indians of New England as are Monarchy of the United Kingdom| Subjects and submit peaceably and quietly to his Government shall likewise participate of his Royall Protection". By the time of the ruling, Wampage and Prasque had been baptized, taking the names of John and Anne White, respectively. The Privy Council's ruling referred to him as "John Wampus alias White" and to his wife as "Anne the Daughter of Romanock late Sachem of Aspatuck & Sasquanaugh". Wampage died shortly thereafter, prior to July 1681. While his place of burial is not definitively known, one source claimed that a mound on the northern coast of Rodman's Neck was Wampage's final resting place.
Descendants
Wampage I was known to have fathered two children:
Ninham-Wampage, by tradition said to be his son by Susanna Hutchinson. On the death of Wampage I, Ninham-Wampage inherited his father's title and became Wampage II, Sachem of Ann Hook.
John Wampage White, his son by Prasque, daughter of Romaneck; John married Elizabeth French, and their children were Elizabeth, Mary and Nathaniel White.
Ninham-Wampage appears to have also used a variation of Anhõõke as an alias; he used the name "Wampage, alias Ann-hook" when he and another Sachem, Maminepoe, deeded additional lands to the trustees of Westchester in 1692. Sources indicate that Ninham-Wampage's daughter, Anna, married Thomas Pell II, who was the third Lord of Pelham Manor. Anna grew up on Hunter Island.
