Stockbridge-Munsee Community

Last updated
Stockbridge-Munsee Community
Total population
1,565 [1]
Regions with significant populations
Flag of the United States.svg  United States (Shawano County, Wisconsin)
Languages
English, (originally Mahican and Munsee)
Religion
Moravian Church, Christian
Related ethnic groups
Lenape, Mahican, Pequot

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" (or Moravian Indians), descended from Christianized members of two distinct peoples: Mohicans from the praying town of Stockbridge, Massachusetts, and Munsees. Their land-base, the Stockbridge-Munsee Indian Reservation, is 22,000 acres located at 44°53′55″N88°51′42″W / 44.89861°N 88.86167°W / 44.89861; -88.86167 in Shawano County, Wisconsin. It encompasses the towns of Bartelme and Red Springs. [2] Among their enterprises is the North Star Mohican Resort and Casino.

Praying Indian is a 17th-century term referring to Native Americans of New England, New York, Ontario, and Quebec who converted to Christianity. Many groups are referred to by this term, but it is more commonly used for tribes that were organized into villages. These villages were known as praying towns and were established by missionaries such as Puritan leader John Eliot, and Jesuit missionaries St. Regis and Kahnawake and the missionaries among the Huron in western Ontario.

Praying towns were developed by the Puritans of New England from 1646 to 1675 in an effort to convert the local Native American tribes to Christianity. The Natives who moved into these towns were known as Praying Indians. Before 1674 the villages were the most ambitious Christianization experiment in English colonial America. John Eliot first preached to the Natives in their own tongue in 1646 at Nonantum, meaning "Place of Rejoicing," which is now Newton, Massachusetts. This sermon led to a friendship with Waban, who became the first Native American in Massachusetts to convert to Christianity.

Stockbridge, Massachusetts Town in Massachusetts, United States

Stockbridge is a town in Berkshire County in western Massachusetts, United States. It is part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts, Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 1,947 at the 2010 census. A year-round resort area, Stockbridge is home to the Norman Rockwell Museum, the Austen Riggs Center, and Chesterwood, home and studio of sculptor Daniel Chester French.

Contents

In settlement of a large land claim in New York, where the tribe had occupied land in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, in 2010 the state of New York agreed to give the tribe 330 acres in Sullivan County in the Catskills and two acres in Madison County (their former territory). This was in exchange for dropping their larger claim for 23,000 acres of land in Madison (near the city of Syracuse), which they had occupied in the early 19th century. The state granted the tribe the right to develop the Catskills property as a gaming casino. The deal is controversial and opposed by numerous interests, including other federally recognized tribes in New York. The tribe dropped their bid for a gaming casino in New York in June 2014, given a high level of competition from other developers for sites in Orange County, which is closer to the metropolitan market. Another land claim was dismissed by the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in June 2014.

New York (state) State of the United States of America

New York is a state in the Northeastern United States. New York was one of the original Thirteen Colonies that formed the United States. With an estimated 19.54 million residents in 2018, it is the fourth most populous state. To distinguish the state from the city in the state with the same name, it is sometimes called New York State.

Sullivan County, New York county in New York

Sullivan County is a county in the U.S. state of New York. As of the 2010 census, the population was 77,547. The county seat is Monticello. The county's name honors Major General John Sullivan, who was a hero in the American Revolutionary War.

Madison County, New York county in New York, United States

Madison County is a county located in the U.S. state of New York. As of the 2010 census, the population was 73,442. Its county seat is Wampsville. The county is named after James Madison, fourth President of the United States of America, and was first formed in 1806.

History

The Stockbridge-Munsee members are descendants of tribes historically located in the Hudson River valley, New England and the mid-Atlantic areas, respectively, at the time of European encounter. The Stockbridge were Mahican from the upper east Hudson area, who migrated into western Massachusetts in and near Stockbridge before the American Revolutionary War. They became Christianized Indians. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, they migrated west to central New York. The Oneida people allowed them to share a 22,000-acre portion of the Oneida Reservation south of Syracuse, New York.

Mahican Eastern Algonquian Native American tribe

The Mahican are an Eastern Algonquian Native American tribe that was Algonquian-speaking. As part of the Algonquian family of tribes, they were related to the abutting Lenape, who occupied territory to the south as far as the Atlantic coast. The Mahican occupied the upper Hudson River Valley and into western New England centered on present-day Pittsfield, Massachusetts, and lower Vermont. After 1680, due to conflicts with the Mohawk during the Beaver Wars, many were driven southeastward across the present-day Massachusetts western border and the Berkshires to Berkshire County around Stockbridge, Massachusetts.

American Revolutionary War 1775–1783 war between Great Britain and the Thirteen Colonies, which won independence as the United States of America

The American Revolutionary War (1775–1783), also known as the American War of Independence, was an 18th-century war between Great Britain and its Thirteen Colonies which declared independence as the United States of America.

Syracuse, New York City in New York, United States

Syracuse is a city in and the county seat of Onondaga County, New York, in the United States. It is the fifth-most populous city in the state of New York following New York City, Buffalo, Rochester, and Yonkers.

17th-19th Centuries

Map showing the aboriginal boundaries of Lenape territories divided by dialect with Munsee territory in the lightly shaded northernmost area Delaware01.png
Map showing the aboriginal boundaries of Lenape territories divided by dialect with Munsee territory in the lightly shaded northernmost area

The Munsee were Lenape who occupied the northern part of their total territory. As they spoke the Munsee dialect, one of the major three branches of the language, they were sometimes referred to by colonists and settlers by that term. They occupied coastal areas around present-day New York City, the western part of Long Island, and northern New Jersey. Lenape to the South spoke two other dialect variations.

Lenape indigenous people originally from Lenapehoking, now the Mid-Atlantic United States

The Lenape, also called the Leni Lenape, Lenni Lenape and Delaware people, are an indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands, who live in Canada and the United States. Their historical territory included present-day New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania along the Delaware River watershed, New York City, western Long Island, and the Lower Hudson Valley. Today, Lenape people belong to the Delaware Nation and Delaware Tribe of Indians in Oklahoma; the Stockbridge-Munsee Community in Wisconsin; and the Munsee-Delaware Nation, Moravian of the Thames First Nation, and Delaware of Six Nations in Ontario.

New York City Largest city in the United States

The City of New York, usually called either New York City (NYC) or simply New York (NY), is the most populous city in the United States and thus also in the state of New York. With an estimated 2017 population of 8,622,698 distributed over a land area of about 302.6 square miles (784 km2), New York is also the most densely populated major city in the United States. Located at the southern tip of the state of New York, the city is the center of the New York metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area in the world by urban landmass and one of the world's most populous megacities, with an estimated 20,320,876 people in its 2017 Metropolitan Statistical Area and 23,876,155 residents in its Combined Statistical Area. A global power city, New York City has been described as the cultural, financial, and media capital of the world, and exerts a significant impact upon commerce, entertainment, research, technology, education, politics, tourism, art, fashion, and sports. The city's fast pace has inspired the term New York minute. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy.

Long Island island in New York, United States of America

Long Island is a densely populated island off the East Coast of the United States, beginning at New York Harbor approximately 0.35 miles (0.56 km) from Manhattan Island and extending eastward into the Atlantic Ocean. The island comprises four counties in the U.S. state of New York. Kings and Queens Counties and Nassau County share the western third of the island, while Suffolk County occupies the eastern two-thirds. More than half of New York City's residents now live on Long Island, in Brooklyn and Queens. However, many people in the New York metropolitan area colloquially use the term Long Island to refer exclusively to Nassau and Suffolk Counties, which are mainly suburban in character, conversely employing the term the City to mean Manhattan alone.

Many Munsee-speaking Lenape had migrated from New Jersey to western Oneida County, New York by 1802 after the American Revolutionary War. They were joined there by Brothertown Indians of New Jersey (from a reservation in Burlington County, New Jersey), as well as by the Stockbridge Mahican. Although the Oneida allowed them to share some of their reservation, eventually the two groups agreed to removal together to present-day Wisconsin. Historically each of these tribes had spoken a distinct Algonquian language.

Munsee language Algonquian language

Munsee is an endangered language of the Eastern Algonquian subgroup of the Algonquian language family, itself a branch of the Algic language family. Munsee is one of the two Delaware languages. It is very closely related to the extinct Unami Delaware, but the two are sufficiently different that they are considered separate languages. Munsee was spoken aboriginally 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, the northern third of New Jersey, and northeastern Pennsylvania.

Oneida County, New York county in New York, United States

Oneida County is a county located in the state of New York, in the United States. As of the 2010 census, the population was 234,878. The county seat is Utica. The name is in honor of the Oneida, one of the Five Nations of the Iroquois League or Haudenosaunee, which had long occupied this territory at the time of European encounter and colonization. The federally recognized Oneida Indian Nation has had a reservation in the region since the late 18th century, after the American Revolutionary War.

The Brothertown Indians, located in Wisconsin, are a Native American tribe formed in the late 18th century from communities so-called "praying Indians", descended from Christianized Pequot 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 Stockbridge-Munsee share a 22,000-acre reservation in Shawano County, Wisconsin. This land was initially assigned to the Menominee, whose homelands these were. Since the late twentieth century, the Stockbridge-Munsee Community has developed the successful North Star Mohican Resort and Casino to generate revenues for welfare and economic development of the tribe. The Brotherton Indians have a separate reservation.

Shawano County, Wisconsin county in Wisconsin, United States

Shawano County is a county located in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. As of the 2010 census, the population was 41,949. Its county seat is Shawano.

Menominee Indian tribe in Wisconsin, USA

The Menominee are a federally recognized nation of Native Americans, with a 353.894 sq mi (916.581 km2) reservation in Wisconsin. Their historic territory originally included an estimated 10 million acres (40,000 km2) in present-day Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The tribe currently has about 8,700 members.

Indian Termination

As part of the Indian termination policy that was followed by the US government from the 1940s to the 1960s, several former New York tribes were targeted for termination. A 21 January 1954 memo by the Department of the Interior advised that a bill for termination was being prepared including "about 3,600 members of the Oneida Tribe residing in Wisconsin. [3] Another memo of the Department of the Interior memo entitled Indian Claims Commission Awards Over $38.5 Million to Indian Tribes in 1964, states that the Emigrant Indians of New York are "(now known as the Oneidas, Stockbridge-Munsee, and Brotherton Indians of Wisconsin)". [4]

In an effort to fight termination and force the government into recognizing their outstanding land claims from New York, the three tribes began filing litigation in the 1950s. [5] As a result of a claim filed with the Indian Claims Commission, the group was awarded a settlement of $1,313,472.65 on 11 August 1964. [4] To distribute the funds, Congress passed Public Law 90-93 81 Stat. 229 Emigrant New York Indians of Wisconsin Judgment Act and prepared separate rolls of persons in each of the three groups to determine which tribal members had at least one-quarter "Emigrant New York Indian blood." It further directed tribal governing bodies of the Oneida and Stockbridge-Munsee to apply to the Secretary of the Interior for approval of fund distributions, thereby ending termination efforts for these tribes. With regard to the Brothertown Indians, however, though the law did not specifically state they were terminated, it authorized all payments to be made directly to each enrollee, with special provisions for minors to be handled by the Secretary, though the payments were not subject to state or federal taxes. [6]

Land issues and claims

The Stockbridge-Munsee have continued to negotiate with local and state governments over land and tax issues. For instance, in 2012 they were working with the Tribal Affairs Committee of Shawano County on issues related to the potential impact of their converting purchased land to trust lands. They thought they had reached agreement to pay the towns and county $140,000 annually for ten years in exchange for the county's support for their land-to-trust deals in Red Springs or Bartelme, which had been part of the reservation in the 1850s. While the Committee had reached agreement with the tribe, the County Board did not approve the deal. [7]

In the late twentieth century, the Stockbridge-Munsee were among tribes filing land claims against New York, which had been ruled to have unconstitutionally acquired land from Native Americans in the post-American Revolutionary War years without United States Senate ratification. The Stockbridge-Munsee filed a land claim against New York state for 23,000 acres in Madison County, the location of its former homelands. [8]

In November 2010, the outgoing New York governor David Paterson announced having reached a deal with the tribe. They would be given nearly 2 acres in Madison County and give up their larger claim in exchange for the state's giving them 330 acres of land in Sullivan County in the Catskill Mountains, where the government was trying to encourage economic development. The federal government had agreed to take the land in trust, making it eligible for development as a gaming casino, and the state would allow gaming, an increasingly important source of revenue for American Indians. The state believed this would help stimulate other development in the region. Race track and casinos, private interests and other federally recognized tribes opposed the deal. [8]

The state in 2013 passed legislation to license four gaming casinos in three regions as a spur to economic development, and to keep revenues in the state that some residents were spending at other casinos. The Albany-Saratoga area, the Southern Tier-Finger Lakes region, and the Catskills and mid-Hudson River Valley were designated for resort gaming facilities and the state accepted proposals. Learning that several groups were bidding on an Orange County, New York site (this county was added to the legislation) located closer to New York, the Stockbridge-Munsee and their developer withdrew their bid in June 2014. They are investigating other uses of the property. Sullivan County, which had previously supported their plan, was also concerned that a casino in Orange County could siphon off too much business, as it is closer to the metropolitan New York market. [9]

That year New York approved three resort casino licenses, with a fourth proposal under review in the Southern Tier. The new casinos were expected to open in 2017. [10]

Other land claims cases

The tribe was unsuccessful in another land claims case. A case filed in 1986 against New York and the Oneida Nation was dismissed on June 21, 2014 by the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals. It has also dismissed other tribal claims since the US Supreme Court decision in city of Sherrill v. Oneida Nation of New York (2005). In a unanimous decision, the court said that the tribe had taken too long to press its land claim and could not recover land lost in 'early American history.' [11] It ruled:

[I]t is now well‐established that Indian land claims asserted generations after an alleged dispossession are inherently disruptive of state and local governance and the settled expectations of current landowners, and are subject to dismissal on the basis of laches, acquiescence, and impossibility," the decision stated. [11]

In this case, the tribe was suing the state of New York and the Oneida Nation; the court ruled that the Oneida were protected by sovereign immunity. [11]

While the tribe discussed appealing the case to the US Supreme Court, analysts believe it is unlikely the court will hear it. The US Supreme Court has declined to hear appeals of similar land claims from the Oneida Nation, the Cayuga Nation and Onondaga Nation. [12]

Notable tribal members

See also

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References

  1. ↑ "Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohican Indians", Wisconsin Tribes, official state website
  2. ↑ Wisconsin Department of Transportation-Shawano County map Archived 2014-11-29 at the Wayback Machine .
  3. ↑ "Legislation Terminating Federal Controls over Eight Indian Groups Submitted to Congress, 21 January, 1954" (PDF). Retrieved 29 December 2014.
  4. 1 2 http://www.bia.gov/cs/groups/public/documents/text/idc017133.pdf
  5. ↑ http://www.iwantthenews.com/main.asp?Search=1&ArticleID=21652&SectionID=1&SubSectionID=74&S=1
  6. ↑ "Public Law 90-93". Archived from the original on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 29 December 2014.
  7. ↑ Lee Pulaski, "County, tribe relationship on the rocks: Tribal council miffed over perceived rejection of land-to-trust deal" Archived 2013-02-02 at Archive.is , Shawano Leader, 6 June 2012
  8. 1 2 Gale Courey Toensing, "Seneca Upset Over N.Y. Casino Agreement", Indian Country Today, 26 January 2011
  9. ↑ Associated Press, "Stockbridge-Munsee tribe drops N.Y. casino bid", Green Bay Press-Gazette, 5 June 2014; accessed 11 June 2016
  10. ↑ Gregory Bresiger, "Rolling Snake Eyes in Albany and Trenton", GregoryBresiger Blog, April 2016; accessed 11 June 2016
  11. 1 2 3 "Appeals court dismisses Stockbridge-Munsee Band's land claim", Indianz.com, 20 June 2014; accessed 11 June 2016
  12. ↑ "2nd Circuit won't rehear Stockbridge-Munsee land claim lawsuit", Indianz.com, 14 August 2014; accessed 11 June 2016
  13. ↑ Reese, Ronnie (22 March 2012). "Robert Hall, 1927-2012". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 9 January 2016.
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