My name is William. I was born in the year 1723 to an English Settler and his Mohican wife.
Our lives were rooted in the woodlands in which we lived. These were covered with Red Spruce, Elm, Pine, Oak, Maple, and Birch trees. They were filled with black bear, deer, moose, beaver, otter, bobcat and mink, as well as turkey and other birds. The clean rivers were filled with fish. We built their homes near rivers so we could be close to food, water, and transportation. Our village homes, called wigwams, were circular and made of bent saplings covered with hides or bark.
We also lived in long- houses, which were often very large, sometimes as long as one hundred feet, with curved roofs shingled with elm bark. Several families of the same clan lived in each long house. There were no windows, but every twenty feet or so there was a fire pit with a smoke hole above it, the center of one family's section. While women planted gardens in the spring, the men fished for herring and shad, which swam up the river in large schools. From dugout and bark canoes, we speared or netted fish. During late summer and fall we hunted the animals, which were so plentiful in the woods. After the harvest, dried meat and vegetables and smoked fish were stored in pits dug deep in the ground and lined with grass or bark. During the winter months, time was spent doing a variety of things. Eating utensils and containers were made and repaired, as were hunting gear and tools. Pottery was made for future use, clothing and blankets were fashioned and often beautifully decorated with porcupine quills, shells and other natural things. If the food supply began to run low during the winter, we traveled by snowshoe to hunt game.
Early spring meant gathering sap from the maple trees to make syrup and sugar. The round of planting and fishing began again. The Mahikan and Munsee people lived in harmony with the seasons and found everything we needed to live the good life from the abundance that Mother Earth provided.
Our economic pattern was greatly changed by contact with the Europeans. The people stopped making many traditional items because new tools, iron kettles, cloth, guns and colorful glass beads were available at the trading posts. The English, who eventually replaced the Dutch in this area, chose to “civilize” all the Native people in what they called “New England.” The vast lands, which we had used for gardens, hunting and fishing, began to have boundary lines and fences when shared with non-Indians. Since our lands were declared to belong to European monarchs by “right of discovery,” we found that we could not defend their ownership in the courts of the colonists. As more and more Europeans arrived, my people, like other Native people who had traditionally depended upon themselves and the resources of Mother Earth, found ourselves dependent on white people and what they could provide.
European Christians with missionary zeal also entered Native villages for the purpose of converting the people from their traditional spiritual practices to Christianity. Some Native people, noting that the Europeans seemed to be prospering in this new land, felt that perhaps the Europeans’ God was more powerful, and agreed to be missionized. In 1734, a missionary named John Sergeant came to live with the Mohicans in our village of Wnahktukuk. He earnestly preached the Christian religion, baptized those who accepted his teaching, and gave them Christian names such as John, Rebekah, Timothy, Mary and Abraham. I became William John.
In 1738, my people gave John Sergeant permission to start a mission in the village. Eventually, the European inhabitants gave this place the name “Stockbridge,” after a village in England. It was located on the Housatonic River near a great meadow bounded by the beautiful Berkshire Mountains in western Massachusetts. In this mission village, a church and school were built. From that time on we became known as the “Stockbridge Indians.”
During my early years I had experienced war with the Mohawk Indians, and now as the British and the French are going to war I will once again raise my tomahawk.
Mohican History
According to tradition, Mohican history says that a great people came from the north and west. They crossed the waters where the land almost touched. The people inhabited these lands for many years, leaving settlements behind when they moved on. It is said that they were looking for a place where the waters were never still, like the land from which they originally came.
After a long journey, these people settled in the east. In time, they divided into different groups and dialects. The oldest of these, the Muh-he-con-ne-ok or Mahikans, lived along the Muh-he-kun-ne-tuk, later called Hudson's River. The waters of this river are never still because of the influence of the tides. There they lived, forming a great Mahikan Confederacy, for several hundreds of years before the arrival of white men.
The area they inhabited included land south of what is now called Lake Champlain, west to Scoharie Creek, east to Vermont and New Hampshire and south to Manhattan Island.
The Stockbridge Indians were originally part of the Mahikan Confederacy. The Munsee, on the other hand, were a group of native people in the Delaware Confederacy. The land where they lived was west of the Hudson River, covering an area on either side of the Delaware River and stretching south to what was later called the state of New Jersey.
The lifestyles of the Mahikan and Munsee were so similar that to describe one is to describe the other also. Their lives were rooted in the woodlands in which they lived. These were covered with red spruce, elm, pine, oak, maple and birch trees. They were filled with black bear, deer, moose, beaver, otter, bobcat and mink, as well as turkey and other birds. The clean rivers were filled with fish.
Usually the native people built their homes near rivers so that they could be close to food, water, and transportation. Their village homes, called wigwams, were circular and made of bent saplings covered with hides or bark. They also lived in long- houses, which were often very large, sometimes as long as one hundred feet, with curved roofs shingled with elm bark. Several families of the same clan lived in each long-house. There were no windows, but every twenty feet or so there was a fire pit with a smoke hole above it , the center of one family's section.
While women planted gardens in the spring, the men fished for herring and shad which swam up the river in large schools. From dugout and bark canoes, the men speared or netted fish. During late summer and fall they hunted the animals which were so plentiful in the woods. After the harvest, dried meat and vegetables and smoked fish were stored in pits dug deep in the ground and lined with grass or bark.
During the winter months, time was spent doing a variety of things. Eating utensils and containers were made and repaired, as were hunting gear and tools. Pottery was made for future use, clothing and blankets were fashioned and often beautifully decorated with porcupine quills, shells and other natural things. If the food supply began to run low during the winter, men traveled by snowshoe to hunt game.
Early spring meant gathering sap from the maple trees to make syrup and sugar. The round of planting and fishing began again.
The Mahikan and Munsee people lived in harmony with the seasons and found everything they needed to live the good life from the abundance that Mother Earth provided.
Because they include all Algonquin tribes between the Hudson and Connecticut Rivers, some estimates of the Mahican population in 1600 range as high as 35,000. However, when limited to the core tribes of the Mahican confederacy near Albany, New York, it was somewhere around 8,000. By 1672 this had fallen to around 1,000. At the lowpoint in 1796, 300 Stockbridge, the "Last of the Mohicans," were living with the Oneida and Brotherton in upstate New York. However, if the Mahican with the Wyandot and Delaware in Ohio were also included, the actual total time was probably closer to 600. The census of 1910 listed 600 Stockbridge and Brotherton in northern Wisconsin.
Three years after the passage of the Indian Reorganization Act in 1934, the Stockbridge became a federally recognized tribe. They currently have almost 1,500 members living on, or near, their reservation west of Green Bay. There are also 1,700 Brotherton Indians (without federal status) on the east side of Lake Winnebago.
Both Mahican and Mohican are correct, but NOT Mohegan, a different tribe in eastern Connecticut who were related to the Pequot. In their own language, the Mahican referred to themselves collectively as the "Muhhekunneuw" "people of the great river." This name apparently was difficult for the Dutch to pronounce, so they settled on "Manhigan," the Mahican word for wolf and the name of one their most important clans.
Variations were: Maeykan, Mahigan, Mahikander, Mahinganak, Maikan, and Mawhickon. In later years, the English altered this into the more-familiar Mahican or Mohican. The French name for the Mahican was Loup (French for wolf) and followed a similar reasoning. However, the French were prone to using this without distinction for most Algonquin-speaking tribes south of the St. Lawrence (Mahican, Delaware, and Abenaki). Other names: Akochakaneh (Iroquois), Canoe Indians, Hikanagi (Shawnee), Monekunnuk, Mourigan (French), Nhikana (Shawnee), Orunges, River Indians, Stockbridge, Tonotaenrat, and Uragees.
THE COMING OF THE EUROPEANS
In September 1609, Henry Hudson, a trader for the Dutch, sailed up the Mahicannituck into the lands of the Mohicans. He found himself in an area rich in beaver and otter, the kinds of furs the Dutch most coveted.
By 1614 a Dutch trading post was established on an island later named Castle Island.
As the fur trade expanded and furs became more difficult to find, tensions developed between the Mohicans and the Mohawks, Haudenosaunee people to the west. Each group wanted to maintain its share of the fur trade business, as well as retain friendly relations with their European allies. Not only did conflicts occur between the Mohicans and the Mohawks, but the Native people also were caught in wars among the Dutch, English and French. The Mohicans were eventually driven from their territory west of the Mahicannituck.
In the early 1700’s, indebtedness, questionable land purchases and cultural conflicts caused them to move farther east near the Housatonic River in what were to become Massachusetts and Connecticut.
The Mohican economic pattern was greatly changed by contact with the Europeans. They stopped making many traditional items because new tools, iron kettles, cloth, guns and colorful glass beads were available at the trading posts. The English, who eventually replaced the Dutch in this area, chose to “civilize” all the Native people in what they called “New England.” The vast lands, which the Mohicans had used for gardens, hunting and fishing, began to have boundary lines and fences when shared with non-Indians. Since their lands were declared to belong to European monarchs by “right of discovery,” they found that they could not defend their ownership in the courts of the colonists. As more and more Europeans arrived, the Mohicans, like other Native people who had traditionally depended upon themselves and the resources of Mother Earth, found themselves dependent on white people and what they could provide.
The coming of the Europeans into the lands of the Mohicans affected them in another catastrophic way. Europeans brought diseases with them: smallpox, measles, diphtheria, scarlet fever. Native people, unfamiliar with these diseases, had not built up an immunity to them, and hundreds of thousands — sometimes whole villages at a time — perished. These diseases greatly decreased the numbers of Mohicans.
European Christians with missionary zeal also entered Native villages for the purpose of converting the people from their traditional spiritual practices to Christianity. Some Native people, noting that the Europeans seemed to be prospering in this new land, felt that perhaps the Europeans’ God was more powerful, and agreed to be missionized. In 1734, a missionary named John Sergeant came to live with the Mohicans in their village of Wnahktukuk. He earnestly preached the Christian religion, baptized those who accepted his teaching, and gave them Christian names such as John, Rebekah, Timothy, Mary and Abraham.
In 1738, the Mohicans gave John Sergeant permission to start a mission in the village. Eventually, the European inhabitants gave this place the name “Stockbridge,” after a village in England. It was located on the Housatonic River near a great meadow bounded by the beautiful Berkshire Mountains in western Massachusetts. In this mission village, a church and school were built. The Mohicans, as well as other Native people who relocated there, became known as the “Stockbridge Indians.”
Between 1700 and 1800, European countries battled for control of the land called America. The French and Indian Wars were really conflicts between England and France over territories they had taken from the Native people who were recruited to help them fight. The Revolutionary War and the War of 1812 were fought between the American colonists and England. The “Americanized” colonies no longer wanted to be governed by the Mother country. The Stockbridge Mohicans, as well as the Oneida, Tuscarora and other Native warriors, supported the colonists in their revolution. In one battle, the Battle of Van Cortlandt’s Woods, a number of Stockbridge Mohicans lost their lives. When the surviving warriors returned home, they discovered that plans had already been made to remove them from Stockbridge.
At the onset of war in 1754, the English banked on the support of their Indian allies and covenant partners, the Mohawk and the Mohicans. So reliable was this support that it was the Stockbridge’s themselves who reminded the English delegates at the Albany Conference of the bonds between them (despite the cold reception they received).
Recorded in the Colonial Documents is the following statement delivered by the Mohican delegates; "We view ye now as a very large tree, and we look round to see if there be any who endeavor to hurt it, and if it should so happen that any are powerful enough to destroy it, we are ready to fall with it." The quote is an accurate representation of Mohican sentiment. Though they often found themselves in the middle of intrigue and were not always treated with fairness or respect, these Stockbridge Indians were amazingly loyal. A Massachusetts committee, recognizing the necessity of the Mohican alliance, recommended that the Stockbridge Indians be officially received into military service with pay. The rate of pay was higher than many thought it should be and Abigail Williams did not hesitate to express her opinion that the Mohicans was not worth it.
The majority of the male population at Stockbridge enthusiastically signed on to the English cause. For the young men in particular, the warpath offered them an opportunity to achieve the much coveted warrior recognition. At a time of great confusion, strife, and cultural limbo, such a possibility afforded a chance for a young Mohican to gain a sense of identity and purpose; a moment of order amidst confusion, however strange that may sound when one ponders the chaotic nature of war. But it makes perfect sense if considered in the proper cultural context; what worth or sense of purpose does a young man feel who is raised within a society that honors and praises the deeds of its warriors if he is denied the opportunity to prove his own prowess? Or, what worth has a warrior in a warrior society with nary a war?
There were some men who were not so eager to take up the hatchet, notably those who had been influenced by the Moravian missionaries. The pacifist doctrine of the Moravians had not fell completely on deaf ears. In addition to the few Stockbridge Mohicans whose warrior spirit had been somewhat tempered, there were the Moravian Mohicans and Delaware at Gnaddenhutten who had no inclination whatsoever to follow the English to war. Their steadfast adherence to the Christian life and Moravian teachings placed them in a dangerous predicament. They were surrounded by "hostile" Indians who were sure to express their displeasure with the "praying Indians", and would be suspicious of a possible English preference.
A further complication was from the Iroquois who, along with William Johnson, pressured the Moravian Mohicans to remove themselves to the Wyoming Valley where their presence would serve a two-fold purpose; strengthen an anti-French Indian presence and serve as a handy buffer for English settlements. The Stockbridge Mohicans favored the move as well and thus sent a wampum belt to Gnadenhutten explaining the agreement that had been worked out in their name. The Mohican chief Abraham and the Delaware chief Teedyuscung felt bound to the agreement and subsequently led 65 of their Gnaddenhutten neighbors on a relocation trek up the Susquehanna River. Others refused to go. Gnadenhutten was thus a house divided, victims of political aims of the English, the Iroquois, and the Stockbridge Mohicans.
The next rivalry that surfaced was between William Johnson and Governor William Shirley. At issue was the question of who had authority over the Mohicans. Johnson claimed it was his jurisdiction since he had the expertise and was commander of the Iroquois recruits. Shirley countered that he was commander of all English forces and that Johnson's authority did not extend to the Mohicans who were not of the Six Nations and more importantly, resided within the boundaries of Massachusetts, not New York. Further disagreement arose over the structure of Mohican companies and pay rates. In the end, Stockbridge’s accompanied Shirley on his march to Niagara. The expedition proved fruitless from a military standpoint, eventually abandoned in September. It was, however, quite fortuitous for the Mohicans. Had they opted to follow William Johnson on his march up the Hudson Valley to construct an English fort and capture the French post at Crown Point, many of the Mohicans would probably have been killed. Johnson received news of a French detachment led by Baron de Dieskau, which was moving southward to interfere with the fort construction at the southern shore of Lake George (Fort William Henry). An English contingent was sent to engage the French force, but ran smack into an ambush. "The Battle of Lake George" followed the ambush.
It was won by the English but at a cost that begs an answer to the question ... what price victory? Losses were high, both for the colonial militia and the Mohawk; 200 colonials dead, about 40 Mohawk.... including the aged Hendrick.
The demoralizing effect the "victory" had on the militia and the Mohawk was tremendous and the tactical objective of the expedition was not even realized. Fort St. Frederic did not fall to the English, Dieskau did. The capture of the French commander, though at first glance may seem a great achievement, was really a most unfortunate gain for the English. In a rich twist of fate, the loss of Dieskau was a blessing in disguise for the French cause, for his replacement was none other than the Marquis de Montcalm; a skilled officer who would lead the French-Canadian army into 3 years of victories. The irony then was that the English victory at Lake George enabled the war to continue, and the French, by losing the battle nearly won the war.
The Mohicans continued in their service to the English crown throughout the war. In 1756, a company of Stockbridge Mohicans was raised under the captaincy of one of their own, plus a Mohican Lieutenant and ensign. Their orders were to busy themselves "... annoying the enemy, taking prisoners and scalps, intercepting enemy convoys, destroying their cattle, burning their barns and magazines, 5 pounds sterling to be given for any Indian or French prisoner or scalp."
Their abilities caught the eye of Robert Rogers, who it is said, "took a fancy" to the Mohicans. The resulting relationship brought the Mohicans into service as a Special Forces company, practitioners of guerilla warfare. The Stockbridge warriors became valued members of Rogers' Rangers. Though the Stockbridge Indians had been walking the path of Calvinistic domestication for quite some time, they had apparently not lost their touch when it came to matters of war.
Rogers sent a company of Mohicans to Fort William Henry in 1756; another group accompanied him to Fort Edward. From these two bases, the Mohicans frequently set out on reconnoitering missions, from Canada to the Hudson Valley. The activities and fighting prowess of the Mohicans during the war was vital to England's success. They were everywhere; scouting, raiding, harassing, and fighting. Mohican loyalty, though sorely tested, proved constant and reliable. They remained an important and lasting component of the British Army to the end.
A typical Stockbridge Indian during the French and Indian War was no ordinary soldier. He brought with him special skills that were wisely used by those officers and militia commanders who had sense enough to recognize their value. He was a frontier scout, a stealthy hunter, a trained warrior, and a furtive raider. He was used to reconnoiter, steal, harass, terrorize, and kill. His expertise made him a bounty hunter of captives and enemy scalps; a member of an elite fighting force; a mercenary. It was abilities such as these that earned the admiration and respect of men like Robert Rogers, and it was these very qualities that caused Rogers to push for the inclusion of Mohicans within his Ranger companies.
What a Mohican was not; he was not at all like the typical colonial enlistee. He lacked the discipline necessary to army life. His cultural background precluded him from accepting orders from officers in the manner they were issued to colonial soldiers. He abhorred work details, and proved unreliable on an open battlefield.
The same "faults" that proved to be thorns in the sides of missionaries were maddening to English officers. A Mohican warrior would no sooner engage himself in digging trenches than he would plow a field, which was in his mind women's work. Many an officer thought them lazy, insolent, unpredictable, worthless, petty, demanding, and idle. Of course, many a Mohican thought these same English officers to be stupid, arrogant, witless, and cowardly.
How does one reconcile these opposing opinions of the Stockbridge Indians as warriors, or even as men? As might be expected, the answer is found in that oft repeated arena.... cultural perceptions and misperceptions. A Mohican, for instance, looked upon thievery as an honorable accomplishment. If he could successfully take from another, he was proud of his deed. That was part of a cultural element that was rooted in no lesser an objective than survival. To a New England Calvinist, however, stealing was a loathsome sin, evidence of savage heathenism. And military demands? To an English officer the Mohicans' refusal to accept orders without question or reluctance to participate in grueling physical labor illustrated the Indians' laziness. It wasn't true, of course. Physical stamina, responsibility for other's well being, and generosity were in no way lacking among the Mohican population. It boiled down to a clash of mores. One man's virtue is another man's vice. Many European/Indian conflicts originated in this simple truth. While English officers found it difficult to comprehend, many frontier colonials, such as Robert Rogers, grasped the cultural aspects or qualities much better. The latter was then enabled to appreciate the skills and expertise of their Mohican allies. Conversely, a Mohican had great difficulty understanding what exactly made an Englishman tick. He found them perplexing, strange, and in many ways, silly. The Mohicans could not understand why the English carried on warfare in the manner they did; it was senseless, strange, and far too time consuming. Each was irritated and baffled by the ways of the other.
A Stockbridge Indian, employed by the British army, was not seeking a free ride, unearned pay, or looking to shirk his duties. He was carrying on in a manner he was accustomed to. He fulfilled his obligations as he saw them, in a way he believed to be sensible. He was confident in who he was; a hunter, a warrior, a man. The same can be said for the English. They too were pursuing their objectives by the most reasonable course as they saw it. European perspectives hindered an acceptance of Mohican ways, and likewise, Mohican perspectives were obstacles to their ability to understand the English.
The lives of the Mohican people were drastically changed by the fur trade, European missionaries, disease and war. All of these worked together to cause a breakdown in their traditional Mohican life and beliefs. Their spiritual ceremonies were replaced by European customs. Fewer and fewer of the people spoke the Mohican language; thus their thought patterns about the natural world were altered. The ancient arts of basket- and pottery-making continued, but other seasonal occupations were abandoned. In order to survive, the Stockbridge Mohican adopted the trades and behaviors of their non-Indian neighbors: farming, lumbering, worshipping in church, sending their children to schools. But as the eighteenth century neared its last twenty years, their lives were to change even more drastically.
REMOVALS WESTWARD
It became apparent after the Revolutionary War, with their numbers greatly reduced and intruders (called “settlers”) using unscrupulous means to gain title to the land, that the Stockbridge Mohican people were not welcome in their own Christian village any longer. The Oneida, who had also fought for the colonists in the war, offered them a portion of their rich farmland and forest. The Stockbridge Mohican accepted the invitation and moved to New Stockbridge, near Oneida Lake, in the mid-1780’s. Again they cleared forests and built farms. A school, church, and sawmill were built. The tribe flourished under the leadership of Joseph Quinney and his counselors.
But land companies, desirous of making profits from the land, proposed that New York State remove all Indians from within its borders. The pressure for removal was great. John Sergeant recorded in his journal of August 1818, “About one-third of my church and one-fourth of the tribe (70 souls) started from this place for White River.” Their leader, John Metoxen, led the group to the White River area in what is now Indiana to settle among their relatives, the Miami and the Delaware. When they reached their destination, after about a year, they found that the Delaware had already been coerced into selling the land.
Meanwhile, missionaries, agents from the state of New York and commissioners from the War Department were negotiating with the Menominee and Ho- Chunk (Winnebago) for a large tract of land on which to relocate the New York Indians in what is now Wisconsin. A treaty was negotiated in 1822. The Stockbridge Mohicans were on the move again. The group that had traveled to Indiana with John Metoxen were the first to arrive, and they began to build a village on the Fox River at Grand Cackalin (Kaukauna), also called Statesburg. For the next several years, those who had remained in New York followed, traveling by foot, wagon or sometimes steamship on the Great Lakes.
Perhaps the first English-speaking people in the state were in the John Metoxen group. Electa Quinney, the first public school teacher in Wisconsin, was a Stockbridge Indian woman. The first Protestant minister, as well as the first Christian Temperance Union, came with the Stockbridge Mohican people. Again they established a church and a school.
But adopting the white man’s religion and education did not assure acceptance. As long as Native people held land, they were subject to removal. As soon as the Fox River was perceived to be a major waterway, forces prevailed upon the Menominee to reconsider their negotiations. After final negotiations, the Oneida settled in the Duck Creek area. The Stockbridge and Brotherton were moved to areas on the east shore of Lake Winnebago in 1834.
Meanwhile the federal government was forcing Indian nations to agree to land session treaties, often physically moving them to lands far distant and different from their original homelands. In 1832, Congress had enacted President Andrew Jackson’s Indian Removal Act by which all Indians from the east would be moved to lands west of the Mississippi River. A group of Stockbridge Mohicans, fearing the inevitable, moved to Indian territory in 1839. Many died while making this journey. Some reached Kansas and Oklahoma and married into other tribes. Most simply gave up and returned to Wisconsin, which had gained statehood in 1848.
During this period a group of Munsee joined the people at Stockbridge, Wisconsin, and were accepted into the community. Known at first as the Stockbridge and Munsee, eventually this community was simply called the “Stockbridge-Munsee.”
The federal removal policy caused dissension among the people who remained in Wisconsin, which led to political divisions in the tribe. Presented with the opportunity by government agents, some Stockbridge people relinquished their Indian status and became tax-paying citizens of the United States, while others chose to retain their tribal membership and form of government. New lands were explored, new moves considered. As a result of the Treaty of 1856, the Stockbridge and Munsee moved to the townships of Red Springs and Bartelme in Shawano County. But the conflict between the Citizen Party and Indian Party was to have repercussions for many years to come.
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