Mahican

"Mohican" redirects here. For other uses, see Mohican (disambiguation).

Not to be confused with the Mohegans, a different Algonquian-speaking tribe living in eastern (upper Thames valley) Connecticut.

Mahican
Muhhekunneuw

Historic territory of the Mahicans.
Regions with significant populations
United States (Shawano County, Wisconsin)
Languages
English, (originally Mahican)
Religion
Moravian Church
Related ethnic groups
Munsee

The Mahican (/məˈhikən/; also Mohican /moʊˈhikən/) are an Eastern Algonquian Native American tribe, originally settling in the Hudson River Valley (around Albany, NY). After 1680, many moved to Stockbridge, Massachusetts. During the early 1820s and 1830s, most of the Mahican descendants migrated westward to northeastern Wisconsin. The tribe's name for itself (autonym) was Muh-he-con-neok, or "People of the waters that are never still." Joining with the Munsee in Wisconsin, they have formed a federally recognized tribe known as the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohican Indians.

History

The Mahican were living in and around the Hudson Valley at the time of their first contact with Europeans after 1609, during the settlement of New Netherland. The Mahican were a confederacy rather than a single tribe, and at the time of contact, there were five main divisions: Mohican proper, Westenhuck, Wawayachtonoc, Mechkentowoon, and Wiekagjoc. Over the next hundred years, tensions between the Mahican and the Iroquois Mohawk, as well as Dutch and English settlers, caused the Mahican to migrate eastward across the Hudson River into western Massachusetts and Connecticut. Many settled in the town of Stockbridge, Massachusetts, where they gradually became known as the Stockbridge Indians.

The Stockbridge Indians allowed Protestant Christian missionaries, including Jonathan Edwards, to live among them. In the 18th century, many converted to Christianity, while keeping certain traditions of their own. Although they fought on the side of the American colonists in both the French and Indian War (North American part of the Seven Years' War) and the American Revolution, citizens of the new United States forced them off their land and westward. In the 1780s, groups of Stockbridge Indians moved from Massachusetts to a new location among the Oneida people in western New York, called New Stockbridge. Some individuals and families, mostly people who were old or those with special ties to the area, remained behind at Stockbridge.

The central figures of Mahican society, however, including the chief sachem and his counselors and relatives, were part of the move to New Stockbridge. At the new town, the Stockbridge emigrants controlled their own affairs and combined traditional ways with the new as they chose. After learning from the Christian missionaries, the Stockbridge Indians were experienced in English ways. At New Stockbridge they replicated their former town. While continuing as Christians, they retained their language and Mahican cultural traditions. Their evolving Mohican identity was still rooted in traditions of the past.

In the 1820s and 1830s, most of the Stockbridge moved to Shawano County, Wisconsin, where they were promised land by the US government under the policy of Indian removal. In Wisconsin, they settled on reservations with the Algonquian-speaking Munsee. Together, the two formed a band and are federally recognized as the Stockbridge-Munsee Community. Their reservation is known as that of the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohican Indians and is located in the towns of Bartelme and Red Springs.

Some of the Mohican developed strong ties with missionaries of the Moravian Church from Bethlehem in present-day Pennsylvania, who founded a mission at their village of Shekomeko in Dutchess County, New York. Henry Rauch, a Moravian Protestant missionary, spoke to two Mohican leaders, Maumauntissekun, also known as Shabash, and Wassamapah, who took him back to their village, Shekomeko. They named him the new religious teacher. At first, Rauch was unwelcome in Shekomeko. Over time, the promise in his sermons at Shekomeko won listeners, even as his affection for them and his frugality convinced the Mohican that he would never covet their land. Early in 1742, Shabash and two other Mohican set out with Rauch for Pennsylvania, where Rauch was to be ordained a deacon. After that, the three Mohican were baptized on February 11, 1742 in John de Turk’s barn at Oley, Pennsylvania. Shabash was the first Mohican of Shekomeko to adopt the Christian religion. The Moravians built a chapel for the Mohican people in 1743. They also defended the Mohican against European settlers' exploitation, trying to protect them against land encroachment and abuses of liquor. Native Americans were alcohol-intolerant and vulnerable to it.

On a 1738 visit to New York, the Mohican spoke to the Governor concerning the sale of their land near Shekomeko. The Governor promised they would be paid as soon as the lands were surveyed. He suggested that for their own security, they should mark off their square mile of land they wished to keep, which the Mohican never did. In September 1743 the land was finally surveyed and divided into lots, one of which ran through the Indians' reserved land. With some help from the missionaries, on October 17, 1743 Shabash put together a petition of names of people who could attest that the land in which one of the lots was running through was theirs. Despite Shabash’s appeals, his persistence, and the missionaries' help, the Mohican lost the case. The lots were eventually bought up by European-American settlers and the Mohican were forced out of Shekomeko. Some who opposed the missionaries' work accused them of being secret Catholic Jesuits (who had been outlawed from the colony in 1700) and of working with the Mohican on the side of the French. The missionaries were summoned more than once before colonial government, but also had supporters. Finally the colonial government at Poughkeepsie expelled the missionaries from New York in the late 1740s, in part because of their advocacy of Mohican rights. Settlers soon took over the Mahican land.

The now extinct Mahican language belonged to the Eastern Algonquian branch of the Algonquian language family. It was an Algonquian N-dialect, as were Massachusett and Wampanoag. In many ways, it was similar to one of the L-dialects, such as that of the Lenape, and could be considered one.

The Last of the Mohicans

James Fenimore Cooper based his novel, The Last of the Mohicans, on the Mahican tribe. It also includes some cultural aspects of the Mohegan, a different Algonquian tribe which lived in eastern Connecticut. Cooper set his novel in the Hudson Valley, Mahican land, but used some Mohegan names for his characters, such as Uncas. The novel has been adapted for the cinema at least half a dozen times, the first time in 1920. The Michael Mann directed 1992 adaptation starred Daniel Day-Lewis. In British English the term "Mohican" is also used for the Mohawk hairstyle.

Notable members

• Shabash, leader of the Shekomeko village in the 18th century, took his people's case to the governor of the New York Colony
• Hendrick Aupaumut, a Revolutionary War hero
• James Apaumut Fall, actor and singer (voice of Kocoum in Disney's Pocahontas
• John Wannuaucon Quinney, diplomat
• Bill Miller, musician

Bibliography

• Brasser, T. J. (1978). "Mahican", in B. G. Trigger (Ed.), Northeast (pp. 198–212). Handbook of North American Indian languages (Vol. 15). Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution.
• Cappel, Constance, "The Smallpox Genocide of the Odawa Tribe at L'Arbre Croche, 1763", The History of a Native American People, Lewiston, NY: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2007.
• Conkey, Laura E.; Bolissevain, Ethel; & Goddard, Ives. (1978). "Indians of southern New England and Long Island: Late period", in B. G. Trigger (Ed.), Northeast (pp. 177–189). Handbook of North American Indian languages (Vol. 15). Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution.
• Salwen, Bert. (1978). "Indians of southern New England and Long Island: Early period", in B. G. Trigger (Ed.), Northeast (pp. 160–176). Handbook of North American Indian languages (Vol. 15). Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution.
• Simpson, J. A.; & Weiner, E. S. C. (1989). "Mohican", Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford: Clarendon Press. (Online version).
• Sturtevant, William C. (Ed.). (1978–present). Handbook of North American Indians (Vol. 1-20). Washington, D. C.: Smithsonian Institution.
• Trigger, Bruce G. (Ed.). (1978). Northeast, Handbook of North American Indians (Vol. 15). Washington, D. C.: Smithsonian Institution.

External links

• Stockbridge-Munsee community
• Mohican nation Stockbridge-Munsee band: Our history
• Mohican languages (Native Languages of the Americas)
• Hendrick Aupaumut (Mahican) (1757-1830)
• Stockbridge-Munsee History
• Mohican Indians
• Stockbridge Timeline
• Death In the Bronx The Stockbridge Indian Massacre in 1778 by Richard S. Walling-for reference only
• Poem Mahican translation by Carl Masthay (linguist, Algonquianist)