The Mahicans (also Mohicans) are an Eastern Algonquian Native American tribe, originally settling in the Hudson River Valley (around Albany, NY), many then moving to Stockbridge, Massachusetts after 1780, before the remaining descendants moved to northeastern Wisconsin during the 1820s and 1830s.The tribe's name for itself was Muhhekunneuw, or "People of the River." Their current name is the name applied to the Wolf Clan division of the tribe, from the Mahican manhigan.

History

The Mahicans were living in and around the Hudson Valley at the time of their first contact with Europeans in 1609. Over the next hundred years, tensions between the Mahicans and the Mohawks, as well as the Europeans, caused the Mahicans to migrate eastward across the Hudson River into western Massachusetts and Connecticut. Many settled in the town of Stockbridge, Massachusetts, becoming known as the Stockbridge Indians.

The Stockbridge Indians allowed Protestant Christian missionaries, including Jonathan Edwards, to live among them and converted to Christianity in the 18th century. 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, they were dispossessed of their land and forced to move westward. First they settled in the 1780s at New Stockbridge, on land allocated for them by the Oneidas, and later in the 1820s and 1830s to Shawano County, Wisconsin. In Wisconsin, they settled on reservation with the Munsee; the two were jointly known as Stockbridge-Munsee. Today the reservation is known as that of the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohican Indians (Stockbridge-Munsee Community).

The first Christian Indian community in the present-day United States was established by Moravian Church missionaries at the Mahican village of Shekomeko in 1740. Their intent was to incorporate the Native American people into European society through Christianity. They were so successful in their efforts and so diligently defended the Indians against white exploitation that the missionaries were hounded and finally forced out by the government.

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 more similar to, and just as easily considered one of the L-dialects, such as that of the Lenape.

James Fenimore Cooper's novel The Last of the Mohicans is based on the Mahican tribe. It also includes some cultural aspects of the Mohegans, a different Algonquian tribe that lived in eastern Connecticut. The novel takes place in the Hudson Valley, Mahican land, but some characters' names, such as Uncas, are Mohegan.

Notable members

• John Wannuaucon Quinney, diplomat
• Bill Miller, musician

References

1. "Mohican" (history), Encyclopædia Britannica, 2007, webpage: EB-Mohicans.
2. "Mahican" (history), Encyclopædia Britannica, 2007, webpage: EB-Mahican.

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" entry]. 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)