Indian Mills, New Jersey | |
---|---|
Coordinates: 39°47′38″N74°44′40″W / 39.79389°N 74.74444°W | |
Country | United States |
State | New Jersey |
County | Burlington |
Township | Shamong |
Elevation | 75 ft (23 m) |
GNIS feature ID | 877333 [1] |
Indian Mills, formerly known as Brotherton, is an unincorporated community located within Shamong Township in Burlington County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. [2] It was the site of Brotherton Indian Reservation, the only Indian reservation in New Jersey and the first in America, founded for the Lenni Lenape tribe, some of whom were native to New Jersey's Washington Valley. [3] [ dead link ] [4]
Before becoming a reservation, it was an industrial town, known for gristmills and sawmills. Brotherton was the first Native American reservation in New Jersey. [5]
The town was also historically known as Edgepillock [3] or Edgepelick. [6]
In 1756, the British colonial government appointed commissioners to resolve disputes between white settlers and the Munsee Lenape native to the Washington Valley. For 100 years prior, the groups had been on peaceful terms. [3]
In 1757, the "New Jersey Association for Helping the Indians" [7] wrote a constitution to expel Munsee Lenape native to the Washington Valley. Led by Reverend John Brainerd, colonists forcefully relocated 200 people to Indian Mills, then known as Brotherton. [4]
In 1777, Reverend John Brainerd abandoned the reservation, making circumstances increasingly difficult. [8] [ clarification needed ]
In 1780, Munsee Lenape community leaders of Brotherton, native to Washington Valley, wrote a community treaty [9] [8] to oppose selling any more land to white settlers:
Be it known by this, that it has been in our consideration of late about settling of White People on the Indian Lands, And we have concluded that it is a thing which ought not to be, & a thing that will not be allowed by us, that of Renting or giving Leases for said Lands, hereafter, no, not by the proprietors themselves without the consent of the rest much more by those who has no Claim or Rite here ...
We have come upon those resolutions we hope for our better living in friendship among one another, it may be that there is some which does not like white people for their Neighbours, for fear of their not agreeing as they ought to do. it might be about there children or about something they have about them we know not what, Again it may be the white Man may do something either upon Land, Timber or something else which some one of the proprietors would not like & from thence would come great deal of Disquietness, & many other ways which may plainly be seen into, by those that have any sense or reason—
We are exceeding glad when we see we are like to live in Quietness among one another without giving any offence to one another, & this of keeping white people from among us will be a great step towards it, & for this reason we intend to stand by or rather stand Hand in hand against any coming on the Indian Lands.
— Joseph Micty, Bartholomew Calvin, Jacob Skekit, Robert Skikkit, Derrick Quaquiuse, Benjamin Nicholus, Mary Calvin, Hezekiah Calvin
In 1796, the Oneidas of Stockbridge invited Brotherton's Lenape families to join their reservation. The initial Lenape response was negative; in 1798, Munsee Lenape community leaders Bartholomew Calvin, Jason Skekit, and 18 others signed a public statement of refusal to leave "our fine place in Jersey." [8] [10]
However, in 1801, many of the Munsee Lenape families agreed to relocate to New Stockbridge, New York to join the Oneidas. [4] [11] A few Munsee Lenapes stayed behind and assimilated with the white colonists. [8]
In 1822, the remaining families were forcefully displaced over 900 miles' travel away [12] to Green Bay, Wisconsin. [4]
The Mohicans are an Eastern Algonquian Native American tribe that historically spoke an Algonquian language. As part of the Eastern Algonquian family of tribes, they are related to the neighboring Lenape, whose indigenous territory was to the south as far as the Atlantic coast. The Mohican lived in the upper tidal Hudson River Valley, including the confluence of the Mohawk River and into western New England centered on the upper Housatonic River watershed. After 1680, due to conflicts with the powerful Mohawk to the west during the Beaver Wars, many were driven southeastward across the present-day Massachusetts western border and the Taconic Mountains to Berkshire County around Stockbridge, Massachusetts.
Shamong Township is a township in Burlington County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 United States census, the township's population was 6,460, a decrease of 30 (−0.5%) from the 2010 census count of 6,490, which in turn reflected an increase of 28 (+0.4%) from the 6,462 counted in the 2000 census. The township, and all of Burlington County, is a part of the Philadelphia-Reading-Camden combined statistical area and the Delaware Valley.
The Lenape, also called the Lenni Lenape and Delaware people, are an Indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands, who live in the United States and Canada.
Lenapehoking is widely translated as 'homelands of the Lenape', which in the 16th and 17th centuries, ranged along the Eastern seaboard from western Connecticut to Delaware, and encompassed the territory adjacent to the Delaware and lower Hudson river valleys, and the territory between them.
The Delaware languages, also known as the Lenape languages, are Munsee and Unami, two closely related languages of the Eastern Algonquian subgroup of the Algonquian language family. Munsee and Unami were spoken aboriginally by the Lenape people in the vicinity of the modern New York City area in the United States, including western Long Island, Manhattan Island, Staten Island, as well as adjacent areas on the mainland: southeastern New York State, eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Connecticut, Maryland, and Delaware.
Indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands include Native American tribes and First Nation bands residing in or originating from a cultural area encompassing the northeastern and Midwest United States and southeastern Canada. It is part of a broader grouping known as the Eastern Woodlands. The Northeastern Woodlands is divided into three major areas: the Coastal, Saint Lawrence Lowlands, and Great Lakes-Riverine zones.
The Christian Munsee are a group of Lenape, an Indigenous people in the United States, that primarily speak Munsee and have converted to Christianity, following the teachings of Moravian missionaries. The Christian Munsee are also known as the Moravian Munsee or the Moravian Indians, the Moravian Christian Indians or, in context, simply the Christian Indians. As the Moravian Church transferred some of their missions to other Christian denominations, such as the Methodists, Christian Munsee today belong to the Moravian Church, Methodist Church, United Church of Canada, among other Christian denominations.
The Brothertown Indians, located in Wisconsin, are a Native American tribe formed in the late 18th century from communities descended from Pequot, Narragansett, Montauk, Tunxis, Niantic, and Mohegan (Algonquian-speaking) tribes of southern New England and eastern Long Island, New York. In the 1780s after the American Revolutionary War, they migrated from New England into New York state, where they accepted land from the Iroquois Oneida Nation in Oneida County.
The Unalachtigo were a purported division of the Lenape, a Native American tribe whose homeland Lenapehoking was in what is today the Northeastern United States. They were part of the Forks Indians.
The Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape Tribal Nation is a tribal confederation of Nanticoke of the Delmarva Peninsula and the Lenape of southern New Jersey and northern Delaware. They are recognized by the state of New Jersey, having reorganized and maintained elected governments since the 1970s. They are not a federally recognized tribe.
The Wappinger were an Eastern Algonquian Munsee-speaking Native American people from what is now southern New York and western Connecticut.
The Stockbridge–Munsee Community, also known as the Mohican Nation Stockbridge–Munsee Band, is a federally recognized Native American tribe formed in the late eighteenth century from communities of so-called "praying Indians", descended from Christianized members of two distinct groups: Mohican and Wappinger from the praying town of Stockbridge, Massachusetts, and Munsee (Lenape), from the area where present-day New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey meet. Their land-base, the Stockbridge–Munsee Indian Reservation, consists of a checkerboard of 24.03 square miles (62.2 km2) in the towns of Bartelme and Red Springs in Shawano County, Wisconsin. Among their enterprises is the North Star Mohican Resort and Casino.
Mohican is a language of the Eastern Algonquian subgroup of the Algonquian language family, itself a member of the Algic language family. It was spoken in the territory of present-day eastern New York state and Vermont by the Mohican people but is believed to have been extinct since the 1930s. However, since the late 2010s, the language is being revived, with adults learning the language, and children being raised having Mohican as their first language.
The Esopus was a tribe of Lenape (Delaware) Native Americans who were native to the Catskill Mountains of what is now the Hudson Valley. Their lands included modern-day Ulster and Sullivan counties.
Morristown Green, most commonly referred to as the Green, is a historical park located in the center of Morristown, New Jersey, United States. It has an area of two and a half acres and has in the past served as a military base, a militia training ground, and an area for public executions. It is now a public park in which many community events are held. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places, listed as a contributing property of the Morristown District, on October 30, 1973.
The Loantaka Brook Reservation is a nature reserve and public park in the American state of New Jersey in Morris County. It consists of five miles of nature trails for jogging, hiking, and biking. Seaton Hackney Stables, owned and operated by the Morris County Park Commission, offers horseback riding at an adjacent property with trail riding along a long and narrow corridor near the Loantaka Brook. It has four distinct areas including the South Street recreation facilities, the Seaton Hackney Stables, the Loantaka Brook area at Kitchell Road, and the Loantaka Way Trail.
The Munsee are a subtribe and one of the three divisions of the Lenape. Historically, they lived along the upper portion of the Delaware River, the Minisink, and the adjacent country in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. They were prominent in the early history of New York and New Jersey, being among the first Indigenous peoples of that region to encounter European colonizers.
Coaxen Indian Village or Weekpink was named after Coaxen, the name of a local band of Lenape located in Burlington County, New Jersey, along the South Branch of the Rancocas Creek. It is also the name of both a nearby stream and one of two villages known during the historic period, residence of this native group, the other being Weekpink. Weekpink is also the name of a small run of water that empties into the South Branch of the Rancocas, and is also located within the historic bounds of the Coaxen Indian settlement. This settlement, and both streams, are now located in Southampton Township, New Jersey.
Washington Valley is an unincorporated community in the Whippany River valley within Morris Township in Morris County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey.
The Lenape Nation of Pennsylvania (LNPA) is one of more than a dozen cultural heritage organizations of individuals who identify as descendants of the Lenape people, also known as Lenni-Lenape or Delaware people. They are based in Easton, Pennsylvania.
In 1758, the Colonial Legislature purchased land in Burlington County for a reservation. It was the first Indian Reservation in America and was called Edgepelick. Governor Bernard called it Brotherton. Today the area is known as Indian Mills. In 1801, an act was passed directing the sale of Brotherton, with the proceeds used to send the remaining Lenni-Lenape to the Stockbridge Reservation near Oneida, N.Y. There they formed a settlement called Statesburg.7 November 2010