HISTORY OF THE MAHICAN

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HISTORY OF THE MAHICAN

Post by thelivyjr »

The Hoosic Matters: A Brief History of the Hoosac Valley

By Lauren R. Stevens

The Mahican: Colonial days

Europeans have spelled the river’s name, from the Algonquian language, various ways.

Hoosic is the usual spelling for the river itself.

It might mean “beyond place,” referring to Mahican territory “beyond the Hudson.”

The upper valley and mountains to the east are spelled Hoosac.

In New York State spelling is sometimes Hoosick, as in Hoosick Falls.

Mt. Greylock was once called Grand Hoosuck Mountain.

We use the word “Indian.”

While it is Columbus’s misnomer, it seems more satisfactory than alternatives such as “Native American” or “Amerindian.”

The Mahicans, often spelled Mohicans, have been confused with the Mohegans, an eastern Connecticut tribe.

James Fenimore Cooper named Uncas, “the last of the Mohicans,” after a Mohegan prince.

We use Mahican for clarity.


Algonquian refers to the language; Algonquin or Algonkin to the tribes.

We use Mohawk, perhaps originally a derogatory term (“flesh-eater”), because it is customary and locates them in their homeland, the Mohawk River Valley.

Mohawks were Iroquois.

The entire Hoosac Valley was Mahican territory.


Many archaeological sites for the valley have been listed, dating to Colonial times and earlier.

The segment between North Pownal and Hoosick Falls contains 10 known prehistoric sites.

Forty-three others have been found before the Hoosic enters the Hudson.

The Native American site at Schaghticoke is over 8,000 years old.

River Bend Farm in Williamstown is said to have been an Indian camping place where travelers and hunters enjoyed the nearby mineral springs.

Archeology is indebted to 19th century Pownal resident Alonzo Whipple and his 20th century Bennington successor Gordon Sweeney who, during his lifetime, uncovered some 400-500 points, pieces of pottery, and stone tools, mostly in the second terrace above the river in Pownal.

The Bennington area also contains important prehistory archaeological information revealed by two digs prior to the creation of the Bennington Bypass.

The Silk Road Site was located on two river terraces adjacent to the Walloomsac River.

The many discovered artifacts documented how the Walloomsac was used by prehistoric Indians in seasonal annual encampments sporadically for 7,000 years between 5,000 B.C. and 1,500 A.D.

The nearby Cloverleaf Site, a large archaeological location, preserved the remains of a prehistoric village dating almost exclusively to a brief span during the Late Archaic period, called the River Phase (ca. 1,000-1,800 B.C.).

As with all human history, what we know about the past often is defined by battles.

Although culturally similar to other woodland Algonquin, the Mahican were shaped — or at least our knowledge was — by their constant warfare with the neighboring Iroquois.

This is the story of the 200-year Mahican fall from dominance to subservience to dispersal, due to a combination of circumstances including Mohawk rivalry and manipulation — sometimes unwitting — by European powers and settlers.


TO BE CONTINUED ...
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Re: HISTORY OF THE MAHICAN

Post by thelivyjr »

The Hoosic Matters: A Brief History of the Hoosac Valley, continued ...

By Lauren R. Stevens

Dominance

The Mahican formed a confederacy of five tribes with as many as 40 villages, governed by hereditary sachems through matrilineal descent, advised by a council of the clan leaders.

They had three clans: bear, wolf, and turtle.

A general council of sachems met regularly at their capital of Shodac (Schodack) on the Hudson to decide important matters affecting the entire confederacy.

Warfare, however, required a higher degree of organization.

Then the Mahican council passed its authority to a war chief chosen for his proven ability.

For the duration of the conflict, he exercised almost dictatorial power.

Mahican villages usually consisted of 20 to 30 mid-sized longhouses, located on hills and heavily fortified.

Large cornfields were located nearby.


One may have been at the union of Washtub Brook and the Hoosic in North Pownal.

Most of the Mahican diet was corn and other agricultural products, supplemented by game, fish, and wild foods.

For reasons of safety, the Mahican did not always move to scattered hunting camps during the winter like other Algonquin, usually spending the colder months inside their "castles" (fortified villages).

They used copper, acquired from the Great Lakes through trade, extensively for ornaments and some of their arrowheads.

Once they began trade with the Dutch, the Mahican abandoned many of their traditional weapons, becoming expert with their new firearms.

The Iroquois had organized into the Iroquois League, an alliance of five tribes (Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca; later, the Tuscarora became the sixth) thought to pre-figure the colonial confederacy, and were once again formidable.

After 50-years of warfare they had driven an unknown Algonquian-speaking enemy whom they called the Adirondack from the mountains in northern New York and were in the process of reclaiming the St. Lawrence Valley from the Algonkin, Montagnais, and Maliseet.

Thus the St. Lawrence River west of Quebec was a war zone blocking the expansion of the French fur trade to the west.


Mohawk war parties made the Algonkin and their Huron allies reluctant to bring their furs to Quebec so, to win their loyalty, the French decided to help them against the Iroquois.

In July of 1609, Samuel de Champlain and six other French accompanied a combined Algonkin, Montagnais, and Huron war party south into New York.

At the north end of Lake Champlain they encountered a large force of Mohawk warriors massing for battle.

French firearms broke the Mohawk formation killing several of their chiefs.

Confronting a new weapon, the Mohawk broke and ran.

Nevertheless the Iroquois were saved from technological annihilation by the beginning of Dutch trade on the Hudson River.

In order for the Mohawk to trade with the Dutch, however, they first had to cross Mahican territory.

Relations between these two tribes had apparently been hostile for many years.

A source of irritation appears to have been that the Mahican had better access to tribes in the wampum shell producing areas of Long Island Sound, which gave them control of the trade in this valuable commodity.


In any case, the Mahican were reluctant to allow Mohawk access to the Dutch, while the Mohawk needed to trade for steel weapons if they were to survive their war with their northern enemies.

Henry Hudson, employed by the Dutch East India Company to search for the Northwest Passage, sailed through the Verrazano Strait and entered the Hudson River in September 1609, just two months after Champlain’s visit.

The Wappinger Indians on the lower river proved hostile due to previous contact with European fishermen and slave traders, but Hudson continued upstream until stopped by shallow water near the Mahican villages just below Albany.

The Mahican were friendly and eager to trade.

Hudson exhausted his trade goods and returned to Holland with a cargo of valuable furs, which attracted Dutch fur traders the following year to trade with the Mahican.

Fur hats were all the style in Europe.

TO BE CONTINUED ...
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Re: HISTORY OF THE MAHICAN

Post by thelivyjr »

The Hoosic Matters: A Brief History of the Hoosac Valley, continued ...

By Lauren R. Stevens

Dominance, continued ...

By 1613 the fur trade on the Hudson River had grown sufficiently lucrative that the Staten Generaal granted a charter to the United Netherlands Company, a consortium of thirteen Dutch merchants.

The Dutch arranged a truce to the fighting, then built Fort Nassau on Castle Island just south of present-day Albany.

Prone to flooding, it was abandoned with the outbreak of another Mahican-Mohawk war in 1617.

Dutch traders were inclined to favor the Mahican, but they had also ingratiated themselves with the Mohawk by arming them against the Munsee and Susquehannock.

This gave the Dutch enough influence to negotiate another truce between the Mohawk and Mahican in 1618.


The Dutch then built a new Fort Nassau on higher ground near its former location.

The terms of the new agreement gave the Mohawk unlimited access to the Dutch but required them to pay tolls to cross Mahican territory.

The Mohawk endured this arrangement for six years.


Settlement had been secondary to the fur trade, but after the establishment of an English colony at Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1620, the Dutch West India Company, successor to the UNC, began to encourage greater immigration.

Thirty families under the direction of Willem Verhulst arrived from Holland in 1624.

Most settled near Fort Nassau at a place which they called Maeykans, "Home of the Mahican," and began to construct new trading post (Fort Orange) on the west side of the Hudson at present-day Albany.

After 14 years of supplying the Dutch with fur, both the Mahican and Iroquois had just about exhausted the beaver in their homelands, however, so the Dutch asked the Mahican to arrange trade for them with the Algonkin and Montagnais in the St. Lawrence Valley.

Subservience

Predictably, Mohawk would not tolerate trade with their northern enemies.

They attacked the Mahican in 1624.


To protect their trade, the Dutch tried unsuccessfully to arrange a truce.

The struggle between the Mahican and Mohawk during the next four years signaled the beginning of Mahican decline.

Since the Dutch lived near Mahican villages and often intermarried with them, they favored the Mahican.

So, in 1626, the commander at Fort Orange and six Dutch soldiers joined a Mahican war party against the Mohawk.

Running into an ambush, four were killed.

The Mohawk warriors celebrated their victory by cooking and eating one of the dead.

Rather than retaliate, Governor Pieter Minuit ordered the other Dutch to remain neutral and evacuated the families near Fort Orange to Fort Amsterdam on Manhattan Island, thus freeing the Mohawk to defeat the Mahican.

By 1628 they had abandoned their villages west of the Hudson River.


The Dutch accepted this outcome.

The Mohawk became their dominant trading partner.

Peace not only bound the Mohawk and Mahican into an alliance, it required the Mahican to pay an annual tribute of wampum to the Iroquois.

The worm had turned.


The Dutch had become aware of the value that natives placed on wampum, so they began accepting it as a medium of exchange in the fur trade, greatly increasing its value.

Using the wampum they were receiving from the Mahican, the Mohawk could purchase what they needed from the Dutch.

The Mohawk still needed to find new sources of beaver, however, so they continued their wars against the Mahican allies in western New England: Pennacook, Pocumtuc, and Sokoki (western Abenaki), as well as tribes farther north.


TO BE CONTINUED ...
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Re: HISTORY OF THE MAHICAN

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The Hoosic Matters: A Brief History of the Hoosac Valley, continued ...

By Lauren R. Stevens

In 1629 a British fleet captured Quebec and, for the next three years, French trade goods (and weapons) were unavailable to the Algonkin and Montagnais.

The Iroquois seized this opportunity to attack their disadvantaged enemies.

By the time France regained Canada in 1632, the Algonkin and Montagnais had been forced to abandon most of the upper St. Lawrence, and the Mohawk were close to cutting the vital trade corridor through the Ottawa River Valley to the western Great Lakes.


To restore the previous military advantage, the French began selling their allies firearms for "hunting," which Dutch traders countered by similar sales to the Iroquois.

The result was seventy years of intertribal warfare to control the European fur trade, known as the Beaver Wars (1629-1701).

Efforts by the Dutch West India Company to increase immigration proved unsuccessful so, in 1629, they offered large land grants with feudal authority to wealthy investors (patroons) willing to transport, at their own expense, fifty adult settlers to New Netherlands.

The patroon would own the land on which the settlers were tenants or sharecroppers; as opposed to settlement in New England, where farmers owned their own land.

Five patroonships resulted, but since only the patroon profited, four ended in failure.

The exception was Rensselaerswyck, the Van Rensselaer Manor, in the Mahican homeland that straddled both sides of the Hudson.

Since Dutch law required the purchase of native lands, Kiliaen Van Rensselaer sent Sebastian Jansen Crol to Fort Orange in 1630 to negotiate the sale with the Mahican.

His timing could not have been better.

The Mahican still claimed their old lands west of the Hudson, but after their defeat by the Mohawk, they no longer maintained villages there.

Besides the Mahican probably felt more comfortable about their new Mohawk "allies" with a Dutch settlement near them.

Other purchases from the Mahican were added over the years, Rensselaerswyck eventually growing to nearly a million acres.

When Connecticut Valley English attempted to wean the Mohawks away from the Dutch with offers of firearms in 1640, the Dutch reacted by providing unlimited guns and ammunition to the Iroquois and Mahican.

While a brutal war raged to the north along the St. Lawrence between the Dutch supplied Iroquois League and the French allied Huron and Algonkin, the Mohawk and Mahican along the Hudson were at peace with each other.


Both tribes had become heavily armed, however.

The European presence in the Hudson Valley had also introduced a series of new epidemics that further destabilized the situation.

During 1624, smallpox started in New England and devastated the native population that had no immunity.

Measles, influenza, typhus, and a host of other diseases took a similar toll.

The Mahican and Mohawk needed additional hunting territory, but due to their loss of population they were forced to compensate by cooperating in warfare.

TO BE CONTINUED ...
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Re: HISTORY OF THE MAHICAN

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The Hoosic Matters: A Brief History of the Hoosac Valley, continued ...

By Lauren R. Stevens

Choosing sides

The Mahican and Mohawk respected each other as warriors.

They subjugated the weaker tribes to the south and demanded tribute in wampum.

While the Mohawk pressured the Munsee Delaware west of the river, the Mahican went after the Wappinger on the east side.

By the summer of 1645, more than 2,600 had been killed.


The treaty signed at Fort Orange that August made the Wappinger subject to the Mahican and required the Metoac on the western end of Long Island to pay them an annual tribute in wampum.

Since the Mahican were required in turn to pay tribute to the Mohawk, they profited indirectly.

After Iroquois victories to the north, the French scrambled during 1650 to organize an alliance of the Pocumtuc, Sokoki, and Pennacook to oppose them.

The Mahican couldn’t resist the temptation.

They and their allies exchanged raids with the Mohawk and Oneida across northern and western New England during the next three years.

Following the murder of a Jesuit priest in 1658, war resumed along the St. Lawrence between the Iroquois and the French.


At the insistence of the Dutch, the Mahican deserted their alliance with the New England Algonquin that year and made a separate peace with the Mohawk.

Trading disputes continued, however.

After the Mahican ignored their warnings, the Mohawk attacked them in 1662.

The Mahican were forced to abandon almost all of the Hudson Valley, including their ancient capital at Shodac.

The fighting continued until 1672 but, after 1664, the Mahican council fire was at Westenhook (Wnahkutook or Stockbridge) on the upper Housatonic River in western Massachusetts.


In September of 1664, a British fleet arrived and captured New Netherlands.

Stuyvesant surrendered Fort Amsterdam on the 6th.

Fort Orange surrendered four days later.

New Amsterdam became New York.

Now it was the British turn to urge the Mahican and Mohawk to make peace.

They signed treaties of trade and friendship with both tribes on September 24th.

Although the Dutch briefly recaptured New York in 1673, the dominant role of the Dutch in the settlement of North America had ended.


The Treaty of Westminster returned New York to Great Britain in 1674.

Little changed for the Mohawk.

The British wisely allowed the same Dutch traders to continue trading with the Iroquois.

Mahican influence waned.

Pressed by the Mohawk, the Mahican entered into another alliance with the Pocumtuc, Pennacook, and Sokoki, but they had chosen the losing side.

While the British stood by, the Mohawk gathered support from the Oneida, Cayuga, and Onondaga and drove the allies from western New England.

The Mohawks crossed through Mahican territory, along the Hoosic and Deerfield rivers, to decimate the Pocumtucks in what’s now Deerfield, opening the area to inhabitation by those of British extraction.

Only the Mahican still opposed the Iroquois.


Because of the threat from the French, in April 1670 Governor Lovelace travelled to Albany to try to arrange peace once again between the Mohawk and Mahican.

The peace that the Mahican finally made with the Iroquois League in 1672 was actually a total surrender.

After 1675 the Iroquois League handled all Mahican negotiations with Europeans.


Two years later, the Mahican became the first members of the Iroquois "Covenant Chain."

Mahican warriors were recruited for Iroquois raids against tribes in Virginia and Carolina during 1681.

TO BE CONTINUED ...
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Re: HISTORY OF THE MAHICAN

Post by thelivyjr »

The Hoosic Matters: A Brief History of the Hoosac Valley, continued ...

By Lauren R. Stevens

Philip was the anglicized name for Metacomet, leader of the Wampanoag tribe, who fought back against the invasion of Europeans in New England.

When he came to Schaghticoke to recruit troops, Gov. Edmund Andros organized Mohawks to attack him.

Then Andros, hoping perhaps that an Indian presence would stave off attacks on Albany from Canada, invited Indians to a sanctuary — the Mahican village at Schaghticoke.


Two hundred fifty refugees from the King Philip's War (1675-76) arrived (to the displeasure of New Englanders) and others followed.

They planted what was later named the Witenagemot Oak, the English word referring to a council of the wise.

The peace did not last; the tree did.

After being propped up with cement and steel bars for years, a 1948 hurricane finally felled the tree.

By 1700 the number of refugees at Schaghticoke had grown to more to 1,000 — enough so that they agitated for a second tree to shelter them all.

With the approach of Queen Anne's War in 1703, Governor Edward Cornbury authorized the construction of a military outpost in the area.

Fort Schaghticoke soon became headquarters for the Mahican and Mohawk scouts who formed a vital element in the defense system at the outermost reaches of the colony of New York.

In 1709, Johannes Knickerbocker (Knickerbacker) I, son of Harmon Hans Knickerbocker, a Dutch emigrant, became commander of Fort Schaghticoke, obtained the first farmland in Schaghticoke, and initiated its settlement.

Dispersal

The Mahican continued to have difficulty protecting themselves and their lands from the colonists of New England, who began to settle in the upper Housatonic shortly after the King Philip's War, and from New Yorkers.

The Mahican had sold their lands west of the Hudson to the Van Rensselaer Manor.

In 1687 they parted with even more.

Soon they sold other lands along the Hudson to Robert Livingston, followed by the surrender of their claims in northwest Connecticut.

Europeans usually took the lands in between these tracts.

Smallpox during 1690 reduced the Mahican to fewer than 800.

During the King William's War (1689-96) between Britain and France, French attacks dispersed the Mohawk from their homeland.

Faced with a possible French invasion from Canada, the governor of New York recruited Mahican, Wappinger, and Munsee warriors to join the Mohawk fighters.

The Mohawk are said to have lost half of their warriors in this conflict; two-thirds of the Mahican and Wappinger who entered British service never returned.


Simultaneous with the Dutch or perhaps Walloon founding of the Fort St. Croix (Sancoick) colony in 1724, at the junction of White Creek and the Walloomsac River, tenants from Fort Half Moon (located at the junction of St. Anthony Kill with the Hudson River at Stillwater) and Fort Schaghticoke colonies pushed up the three branches of the Wanepimoseck Creek, leading towards Rensselaer’s plateau, from Hart’s Falls in Schaghticoke Village, Valley Falls, and Eagle Bridge.

Philip Van Ness founded the Tiashoke Colony on the north bank of the Hoosic, below the junction of the Owl Kill, about this time, and later built a sawmill and gristmill.

Walloons were French-speaking Belgians historians often lump together with Dutch.

It is tempting to think that the name of the Walloomsac River owes something to them, although it is usually thought to be Algonquian.

TO BE CONTINUED ...
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Re: HISTORY OF THE MAHICAN

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The Hoosic Matters: A Brief History of the Hoosac Valley, continued ...

By Lauren R. Stevens

As their land and number dwindled, the Mahican began to scatter.

More and more English colonists moved into western Massachusetts.

The Mahican began to sell their lands on the Housatonic River.

Konkapot, their chief sachem, sold one large section in 1724 for £460, three barrels of cider, and three quarts of rum.

After the sale, the only Massachusetts land that the Mahican had left was a small area along the Housatonic River between Sheffield (Skatekook) and Stockbridge (Wnahkutook).

After European settlement, game became increasingly scarce and alcohol a serious problem.

Keepedo (known later as “Mohican Abraham”) abandoned his lands and left Massachusetts with his people in 1730 to settle among the Unami and Munsee Delaware in Wyoming Valley in northern Pennsylvania.

The departure of these Mahican left only 400 at Wnahkutook, the last official Mahican capital.

Most of these were converted to Christianity by missionary work begun in 1707, most notably by John Sargeant (Sergeant) who arrived in western Massachusetts in 1734 and, the following year, built a mission at Stockbridge.

Mahican from Schaghticoke and Potick (New York); Munsee; Wappinger; and several other New England tribes joined Sargeant's growing congregation during 1736.

Although the population remained predominately Mahican, tribal identity became increasingly blurred and the native community became known as Stockbridge Indians.

Most of them abandoned their traditional wigwams for frame houses, attended church on Sunday, sent their children to British schools, and resembled their white neighbors in other ways.

This was, however, insufficient to protect them from the colonists who continued to encroach on their lands.

Meanwhile Mahicans from Stockbridge had been providing invaluable military service in the defense of British settlements.

They garrisoned Fort Dummer (Vermont) to protect settlements in western New England against Abenaki raids during Grey Lock's War (1724-27).

They also served as British scouts during the King George's War (1744-48), but their white neighbors grew increasingly hostile.

Turning the other cheek as required by their new faith, the Stockbridge chose to not to retaliate for the unprovoked murder of a Mahican in 1753 by two whites, even when their punishment by a Massachusetts court was exceptionally lenient.

At the outbreak of the French and Indian War in 1755, a war party from St. Francis came to Schaghticoke in August and took its people back to Canada with them.

The defection of the Schaghticoke made the British suspect the loyalty of all of their native allies.

Distrust increased when some of the Schaghticoke returned and killed five colonists near Stockbridge.


Yet 45 Stockbridge warriors joined Major Robert Roger's Rangers in 1756.

Because of them, Abenaki and Schaghticoke raiders avoided English settlements along the Housatonic.

Rather than receiving gratitude, the Stockbridge found themselves increasingly unwelcome in New England.

The Hoosic River provided a significant Indian trail, both for canoes and, on the side, for a footpath, as the Mohawks had found.

Along with the Deerfield River, it joined the Connecticut and Hudson valleys; and the route up the Hoosic tributary Owl Kill was a major pathway to and from Canada.

It was the universal warpath of colonial days.


The English built Fort Massachusetts on the trail, in what’s now North Adams, in 1745, to prevent the French from invading the area and as a warning to the Dutch not to encroach from the west.

At the same time, entrepreneurs widened the trail to Schaghticoke for carting supplies to the fort.

In 1746, 900 French and Canadian Indians captured the fort, flew the French flag above it briefly, and then burned it, taking its defenders over the trail to Canada.

On the way, Captivity Smead was born in Pownal.

The fort was rebuilt and successfully defended in August 1748.

With Peace of Aix-La-Chappele in October, the garrison dwindled.

In 1753, the year of the first settlement in Williamstown, Elisha Hawley followed the trail to create a rough route over the Hoosacs to Charlemont.

The next year Indians descended on Dutch Hoosac (Petersburgh), burning and scalping, including the Brimmer family on what is now called Indian Massacre Road; and the next day hit a settlement on the Walloomsac.

The French and Indian War had begun — or, begun again.


Both communities had previously been destroyed in the raid on Fort Massachusetts.

Then, in June on 1756, soldiers from the fort were ambushed and the subsidiary Fort West Hoosac (Williamstown) was attacked in July.

Ephraim Williams, Jr., commander of a string of Forts along what Massachusetts took to be its northern boundary, volunteered to fight the French at Lake George.

He was killed September 8, 1756, although the British won the engagement.

TO BE CONTINUED ...
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Re: HISTORY OF THE MAHICAN

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The Hoosic Matters: A Brief History of the Hoosac Valley, continued ...

By Lauren R. Stevens

Of more lasting importance in terms of the feelings of settlers to the Indians, was the Marquis de Montcalm’s siege of the undermanned British Fort William Henry, on Lake George.

The day after signing an honorable peace, on August 10, 1757, the retreating British column was attacked by Indians from 33 different tribes, mostly from Canada, attached to Montcalm’s troops, massacring soldiers, women, and children.


The Peace of Paris, signed in 1763, largely ended France’s claims in North America.

Although Konkapot and a few families refused to leave, many Stockbridge sold their Massachusetts lands in 1756 and, accepting the invitation of the Oneida, moved to upstate New York.

After the fall of Quebec in September 1759, there was no doubt about the outcome of the war with the French, so a new wave of British settlers poured into western Massachusetts.

To pay debts owed to white traders, Konkapot was forced to sell more land in 1763.

By the start of the American Revolution in 1775 the Stockbridge holdings in Massachusetts had been reduced to fewer than 1,200 acres.

Other than the lands provided to them by the Oneida, these were all the Mahican had left after years of loyal service to the Dutch and the British.

As the Revolutionary War approached, both the Mahican and Wappinger sent wampum belts to other tribes advising neutrality.

However, after a meeting with the Patriots at Boston in April 1774, Captain Hendrick Aupamut changed his mind and decided to throw in with the rebels, and the Wappinger followed suit.

The Stockbridge were one of the few tribes to support the American cause during the war.

They participated in the siege of Boston and fought at Bunker Hill that June; saw service at White Plains in 1776; fought as a company-sized unit at the Battle of Bennington in 1777; served as scouts for the army of Horatio Gates at Saratoga; and were at Barren Hill in 1778.


Whatever the gratitude of their white neighbors, it did not last after the war and certainly did not include citizenship.

With most of their lands gone, the Stockbridge left western Massachusetts for New York, the last group in 1786.

Occasionally Mahicans visit this area, as did Stockbridge-Munsee from Wisconsin in 1975.

In 1990 The Trustees of Reservations, which owns the Mission House in Stockbridge, returned a Bible given to the Indians in 1745.

A few Mahican descendents have returned to live in the Hoosac Valley.
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Re: HISTORY OF THE MAHICAN

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MAHICAN HISTORY

Lee Sultzman

Mahican Location

The original Mahican homeland was the Hudson River Valley from the Catskill Mountains north to the southern end of Lake Champlain.

Bounded by the Schoharie River in the west, it extended east to the crest of the Berkshire Mountains in western Massachusetts from northwest Connecticut north to the Green Mountains in southern Vermont.

Population

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.

Names

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.

Language

Algonquin. N-dialect, but in many ways more closely related to the L-dialect of the Munsee and Unami Delaware than the N-dialect spoken in eastern Massachusetts by the Wampanoag, Massachuset, and Nauset.

Sub-Nations

Divisions:

Mahican, Mechkentowoon, Wawyachtonoc, Westenhuck, and Wiekagjoc.

Villages

New York State unless otherwise noted.

The name of (another tribe) indicates the village had a mixed population.

Aepjin's Castle, Chaghnet (Chugnut) (Iroquois), Hoosac (Hoosick) (Abenaki), Horicon (Horikan), Housatonic, Kaunaumeek, Kenunckpacook, Kaunaumeek, Maringoman Castle, Mohican John's Town (OH), Monemius (Cohoes, Monnemen's Castle), Nepaug, Nutimys Town (Shawnee-Delaware) (PA), Oswego (Iroquois), Otsiningo (Iroquois-Nanticoke-Delaware), Paanpaack, Peantam, Potick, Potie, Schaghticoke (Scatacook, Scaticook, Shachcook, Skachcook - NOT to be confused with the Schaghticoke in Connecticut), Shekomeko, Shodac (Shotak), Shakehook (Skatekook, Sheffield), Tioga (Munsee-Nanticoke-Saponi-Tutelo) (PA), Tullihas (Delaware-Caughnawaga) (OH), Unawat's Castle, Utfonango (Iroquois), Wechquadnach (Wukhquatenauk), Wequadnack, Westenhuck (Wnahktakook), Wiatiae, Wiltmeet, Winooskeek (Winooski), Wyeck, and Wyoming (Munsee-Shawnee-Iroquois-Nanticoke) (PA).

Christian Villages:

Brotherton, Shekomeko (Shecomeco, Moravian), and Stockbridge (Wnahkutook).

TO BE CONTINUED ...
thelivyjr
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Re: HISTORY OF THE MAHICAN

Post by thelivyjr »

MAHICAN HISTORY, continued ...

Lee Sultzman

Culture

When James Fenimore Cooper wrote "Last of the Mohicans" in 1826, he made the Mahican famous.

Unfortunately, he also made them extinct in the minds of many people and also confused their name and history with the Mohegan from eastern Connecticut.

Unfortunately, this misconception has persisted, and most Americans today would be surprised to learn the Mahican are very much alive and living in Wisconsin under an assumed name ...Stockbridge Indians.

With a similar language and name, the Mahican (Mohican) and the Mohegan may have been members of the same tribe before contact.

The Mohegan, however, migrated east as part of the Pequot and settled in eastern Connecticut sometime around 1500, while the Mahican stayed in the Hudson Valley.

Afterwards, these two tribes followed separate paths.

Although culturally similar to other woodland Algonquin, the Mahican were shaped by their constant warfare with the neighboring Iroquois.


Politically, the Mahican were a confederacy of five tribes with as many 40 villages.

In keeping with other eastern Algonkin, civil authority was not strong.

Mahican villages were governed by hereditary sachems (matrilineal descent) advised by a council of the clan leaders.

The Mahican had three clans: bear, wolf, and turtle.

However, warfare required a higher degree of organization.

A general council of sachems met regularly at their capital of Shodac (east of present-day Albany) to decide important matters affecting the entire confederacy.

In times of war, the Mahican council passed its authority to a war chief chosen for his proven ability.

For the duration of the conflict, the war leader exercised almost dictatorial power.

Mahican villages were fairly large.

Usually consisting of 20 to 30 mid-sized longhouses, they were located on hills and heavily fortified.


Large cornfields were located nearby.

Agriculture provided most of their diet but was supplemented by game, fish, and wild foods.

For reasons of safety, the Mahican did not move to scattered hunting camps during the winter like other Algonquin and usually spent the colder months inside their "castles" (fortified villages).

Copper, gotten from the Great Lakes through trade, was used extensively for ornaments and some of their arrowheads.

Once they began trade with the Dutch, the Mahican abandoned many of their traditional weapons and quickly became very expert with their new firearms.

Contrary to the usual stereotype, most Mahican warriors were deadly marksmen.

The mother of the famous Miami chief Little Turtle was a Mahican.

TO BE CONTINUED ...
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