Mohican People History, Culture & Facts | Who are the Mohican People?
Where are the Mohican people today?
The Native American tribe of the Mohican people lived in the northeastern portion of the U.S. in the pre-colonial era. The Mohican people began in the region we now identify as New England. As European colonizers continued to expand their settlements, the Mohican people were pushed out. Today they thrive in Wisconsin as the Stockbridge-Munsee Community.
What was the Mohawk-Mohican War?
The Dutch colonial presence, and trading competition, prompted the Mohawk-Mohican War. The Mohican tribe taxed a smaller Mohawk group for access to the Dutch market in the early 1600s, and when the Mohawk group grew strong enough, they overthrew the Mohican people. Eventually, the Mohican people were pushed to leave the Hudson River Valley and move to the Housatonic River in 1669.
What are the Mohican people known for?
In addition to their traditional arts and crafts, such as the shell beads and ornate wampum belts, the Mohican people are known for their resilience. The tribe survived centuries of attacks by outside forces and forced relocations. They now live in Wisconsin as the Stockbridge-Munsee Community, where they continue their ancestral traditions and fight to restore their land and heritage.
The Native American tribe of the Mohican people lived in the northeastern portion of the U.S. in the pre-colonial era. The Mohican people began in the region we now identify as New England. As European colonizers continued to expand their settlements, they pushed out the Mohican people. Today they thrive in Wisconsin as the Stockbridge-Munsee Community.
They initially crafted the name ''Muh-he-con-neok,'' which means the ''People of the Waters That Are Never Still.'' They chose Muh-he-conn-eok because it represented the nomadic nature of their group, as they had a habit of moving from east to west. When they permanently settled, they chose a beautiful valley with swiftly moving rivers, and they called this river Mahicannituck. Alternate names for this group include the ''Mahican tribe'' and the ''Mahikan tribe.''
Henry Hudson and his crew encountered the Mohican people in 1609 while on an exploratory mission. Hudson had sailed for the Dutch, whose goal was to find a Northwest Passage to Asia. This expedition encountered the Mohican people in modern-day New York and engaged in the fur trade. The Mohican people's reputation among the Europeans was positive; the Mohican people displayed hospitality and were keen to trade fur and establish an alliance. The Mohican people hoped that an alliance with the Europeans would bolster their strength in the face of enemy groups in the region.
The Haudenosaunee Confederacy
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The Mohawk tribe was the group that the Mohican people were most concerned with, as they were powerful enemies. Despite deals they made with native groups, Dutch leaders fomented conflict between them rather than pursuing an end to the fighting. The Mohawk people had also been a part of the formidable Haudenosaunee Confederacy with four other tribes: the Seneca tribe, Onondaga tribe, Oneida tribe, and Cayuga tribe.
Tensions heightened over economic competition between the Mohawk tribe and the Mohican tribe, and in the 1620s, that tension spilled into war. The Dutch colonial presence and trading competition prompted the Mohawk-Mohican War. The Mohican people taxed a smaller Mohawk group for access to the Dutch market in the early 1600s. This changed in 1624 when the Mohawk tribe made an alliance with French traders and purchased Dutch weapons. They used their newfound strength to launch an attack on the Mohican people, forcing them to relocate and then pay taxes to the Mohawk tribe.
After decades of attacks by the Mohawk tribe, the Mohican tribe migrated to the Housatonic River. By the 1700s, the Mohican people fled to Stockbridge, Massachusetts. The Mohican population suffered further losses fighting against the British in the American Revolution. After the 1783 Treaty of Paris formally ended the Revolution, the Mohican people saw their lands being further taken over by European Americans. They departed westward and joined their longtime allies, the Munsee people, in Wisconsin as the Stockbridge-Munsee Community.
The Moravian Church
The Reformed Unitas Fratrum, or the Moravian church, set up missions from 1734–1782 among native settlements. Primarily, Moravian missionaries went to Pennsylvania, New York, and Connecticut. The Moravian people were outliers among their Protestant peers, in part because of their doctrinal focus on the literal wounds and blood of Christ as central to salvation. Moravian people preached tolerance, learned native languages, and lived alongside Native Americans as they worked to convert them.
Their marginalization among other European religious communities and their teachings on suffering held a certain appeal for Native Americans and may have encouraged their cautious acceptance of the Moravian people. Their missions saw a higher number of conversions than other Protestant groups. They encountered the Mohican people in Shekomeko, New York when Moravian minister Christian Rauch began working there in 1740. Moravian teaching spread as the Mohican tribe invited other native people in the area to come to Shekomeko and be converted.
As the Mohican people were removed from their land, the Moravian congregation left by 1755. Other Protestant groups and colonial governments repeatedly tried to isolate the Moravians and Native American proselytes. To shield themselves from violence and ostracization, the Moravian Mohicans settled along the Muskingum River in Ohio. But Euro-American militia invaded and massacred nearly one hundred men, women, and children at this site in 1782. In 1818 they moved to Indiana and then later to Wisconsin.
The primary Mohican reservation is in Wisconsin, where most of the original Mohican people's descendants live. There are roughly 1500 tribal members today in the Stockbridge-Munsee Mohican tribe, and their reservation includes 40,000 acres. The tribal government has seven leaders: president, vice president, treasurer, secretary, and four council people. The tribe holds elections every October. Much of the revenue for the modern-day Mohican tribe derives from recreational establishments like golf courses and RV parks, dining facilities, casinos, the logging industry, and convenience stores.
Following disastrous events, such as the General Allotment Act of 1887 and the Great Depression in the 1930s, the Mohican people lost significant portions of their land. The General Allotment Act of 1887 opened sections of reservation land to private ownership, patents, and taxation, which allowed the land to eventually leave the community's control after being sold for lumber. During the Depression era, the Stockbridge-Munsee tribe began the fight to restore their stolen land. In the book and film adaptations of The Last of the Mohicans, native people are depicted in extremes: either barbarous and harsh or noble and brave. Among other inaccuracies, the book conflated the Mohegan tribe with the Mohican tribe, as reflected by the Mohegan names given to supposedly Mohican characters.
In November 2010, the Mohican people signed a land-claim settlement agreement for approximately 23,000 acres of land in New York. This landmark settlement was a historically significant victory for many reasons, not the least of which is that it forced an acknowledgment that the Mohican people inhabited the Hudson River Valley before Henry Hudson's 1609 expedition. Additionally, an untold number of ancestral remains still rest in New York and have been desecrated by European Americans for years. This victory in 2010 restored some of the Mohican tribe's ancestral territory and access to their cultural heritage. Five years later, the tribe set up a system of oversight for historic preservation and archaeological projects to ensure that their cultural heritage is handled with care.
Mohican culture is abundant and fascinating, and they have been able to preserve their history despite wars, persecution, and forced migration. While there are many different elements of Mohican culture, the next subsections will highlight a few key parts, such as the following:
- Matrilineal inheritance
- Governmental structure
- Language
- Food
- Spirituality and storytelling
- Crafts and apparel
Culture and Government
The Mohican tribe had a matrilineal culture, which means that inheritances were passed down through the mother's lineage rather than the father's. Women took on traditionally gendered roles of running the home and raising their children while men hunted, fished, and trained for war. Hereditary chiefs, called sachems, led the Mohican clans. They presided over council members who were elected by the people.
Language and Food
The closely related languages spoken by the Mohican people, known as Mahican and Mohegan, were branches of the Algonquian tongue. Today, the Mohican people primarily speak English. Unfortunately, the Mohican language went out of use in the 1930s. There are still some uses of the language that appear in communal activities, such as religious meetings and idioms.
The Mohican diet consisted of meat, fish, dried berries, and vegetables from their home gardens. Other staple crops included beans, squash, sunflowers, and corn. When the season turned to winter, the Mohican people prepared for the following year by making clothing, pottery, baskets, and various utensils. They also took the opportunity to repair any equipment that had been damaged or worn down so they could continue to trap, hunt, and fish when the seasons changed again.
Arts and Religion
Another important winter activity for the Mohican people was passing on cultural stories to the younger generations. They taught skills that were vital for the tribe's survival, and they shared folklore and creation stories. Mohican religion included a belief in the spiritual realm created and led by a Creator. This supernal spiritual being existed in every element of life, death, and the cosmos, and this divinity could communicate with mankind through shamans.
In addition to fur trading, the Mohican people used shells to create ornamental wampum beads and ornate baskets. They also created intricately patterned and beaded wampum belts that depicted stories. Traditional Mohican clothing included leggings for both men and women, to be worn along with skirts (for women) and breechcloths (for men). For shoes, they wore moccasins. They dyed porcupine quills in various colors and attached them to the clothing for decoration. Mohican children also played with corn husk dolls adorned in colorful clothing. Typical hairstyles included long braids with a beaded and feathered headband, or if one was a warrior, then a mohawk haircut was customary.
The Mohican tribe originally lived in pre-colonial New England, and as European colonizers expanded their settlements, the Mohican people were pushed out; today, they mainly reside in Wisconsin as the Stockbridge-Munsee Community. Their name derives from ''Muh-he-con-neok,'' a term that means the ''People of the Waters That Are Never Still'' and represents their predilection for living near rivers. The Mohican people had their religion, but in the 1700s, some were converted by the Moravian Christians. The Moravian people preached tolerance, learned native languages, and lived alongside the Mohican people. The Mohican tribe was a matrilineal culture led by hereditary chiefs, called sachems, and elected councils. Mohican religion included a belief in an omnipresent creator that could communicate with humans through shamans. The Mohican people crafted many materials, such as wampum beads and ornate baskets and belts.
The Mohican people dealt with many challenges over the centuries. They faced conflict with the Mohawk tribe, who had also been a part of the formidable Haudenosaunee Confederacy with four other tribes. This alliance, and one with French tradesmen, helped the Mohawk people win the Mohawk-Mohican War. This war resulted in the Mohican tribe's loss of power and influence in the region, eventually causing the Mohican people to move to the Housatonic River. The Mohican people lost a significant amount of land due to the General Allotment Act of 1887 because it allowed reservation land to be sold to private owners and businesses. In the 21st century, the Stockbridge-Munsee Community has successfully restored some of its lost lands and control over their cultural heritage. They won a landmark case in 2010 in which they regained 23,000 acres in modern-day New York.
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