At the time of European contact, the Mohegan and Pequot were a unified tribal entity living in the southeastern Connecticut region, but the Mohegan gradually became independent as the hegemonic Pequot lost control over their trading empire and tributary groups. The name Pequot was given to the Mohegan by other tribes throughout the northeast and was eventually adopted by themselves. In 1637, English Puritan colonists destroyed a principal fortified village at Mistick with the help of their sachemUncas, the Christian convert and sagamoreWequash Cooke, and the Narragansetts during the Pequot War. This ended with the death of Uncas' cousin Sassacus near Albany, New York, where he had fled,[2] at the hands of the Mohawk, an Iroquois Confederacy nation from west of the Hudson River. Thereafter, the Mohegan became a separate tribal nation under the leadership of Uncas.[1][3]Uncas is a variant anglicized spelling of the Algonquian name Wonkus, which translates to "fox" in English. The word Mohegan (pronounced /ˈmoʊhiːɡæn/) translates in their respective Algonquindialects (Mohegan-Pequot language) as "People of the Wolf".[4][5]
Over time, the Mohegan gradually lost ownership of much of their tribal lands. In 1978, Chief Rolling Cloud Hamilton petitioned for federal recognition of the Mohegan. Descendants of his Mohegan band operate independently of the federally recognized nation.
In 1994, a majority group of Mohegan gained federal recognition as the Mohegan Tribe of Indians of Connecticut (MTIC).[6] They have been defined by the United States government as the "successor in interest to the aboriginal entity known as the Mohegan Indian Tribe."[7] The United States took land into trust the same year, under an act of Congress to serve as a reservation for the tribe.
The Mohegan Indian Tribe was historically based in central southern Connecticut, originally part of the Pequot people. It gradually became independent and served as allies of English colonists in the Pequot War of 1636, which broke the power of the formerly dominant Pequot tribe in the region. In reward, the Colonists gave Pequot captives to the Mohegan tribe.
The Mohegan homelands in Connecticut include landmarks such as Trading Cove on the Thames River, Cochegan Rock, Fort Shantok, and Mohegan Hill, where the Mohegan founded a Congregational church in the early 1800s. In 1931, the Tantaquidgeon family built the Tantaquidgeon Indian Museum on Mohegan Hill to house tribal artifacts and histories. Gladys Tantaquidgeon (1899–2005) served for years as the Tribe's medicine woman and unofficial historian. She studied anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania and worked for a decade with the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Returning to Connecticut, she operated this museum for six decades.[8] It was one of the first museums to be owned and operated by American Indians.[9]
In 1933, John E. Hamilton[10][11] (Chief Rolling Cloud) was appointed as a Grand Sachem by his mother Alice Storey through a traditional selection process based on heredity. She was a direct descendant of Uncas and of Tamaquashad, Sachem of the Pequot tribe. In Mohegan tradition, the position of tribal leadership was often hereditary through the maternal line.
Land claims and federal recognition
In the 1960s, during a period of rising activism among Native Americans, John Hamilton filed a number of land claims authorized by the "Council of Descendants of Mohegan Indians." The group had some 300 members at the time. In 1970 the Montville band of Mohegans expressed its dissatisfaction with land-claims litigation. When the Hamilton supporters left the meeting, this band elected Courtland Fowler as their new leader. Notes of that Council meeting referred to Hamilton as Sachem.[12]
The group led by John Hamilton (although opposed by the Fowlers) worked with the attorney Jerome Griner in federal land claims through the 1970s. During this time, a Kent, Connecticut, property owners' organization, with some Native and non-Native members, worked to oppose the Hamilton land claims and the recognition petition for federal recognition, out of fear that tribal nations would take private properties.
In 1978, in response to the desires of tribal nations across the country to gain federal recognition and recover tribal sovereignty, the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) established a formal administrative process. The process included specific criteria that BIA officials would judge as evidence of cultural continuity. In that same year, Hamilton's band submitted a petition for federal recognition for the Mohegan tribe.
The petition process stalled when John Hamilton died in 1988. The petition for federal recognition was revived in 1989, but the BIA's preliminary finding was that the Mohegan had not satisfied the criteria of documenting continuity in social community, and political authority and influence as a tribe through the twentieth century.
In 1990, the Mohegan band led by Chief Courtland Fowler submitted a detailed response to meet the BIA's concerns. The tribe included compiled genealogies and other records, including records pertaining to the Mohegan Congregational Church in Montville. BIA researchers used records provided by the Hamilton band, records from the Mohegan Church, and records maintained by Gladys Tantaquidgeon, who had kept genealogy and vital statistics of tribal members for her anthropological research.[8][13]
In 1990, the Fowler group, identifying as the Mohegan Tribe of Indians of Connecticut (MTIC), decided that the tribe's membership would be restricted to documented descendants from a single family group, ca. 1860. This criterion excludes some of the Hamilton followers. By law, a Federally recognized tribe has the authority to determine its own rules for membership. The MTIC unsuccessfully attempted to stop other Mohegan people from using "Mohegan" as their tribal identity, in public records and in craftwork.[14]
In its 1994 "Final Determination", the BIA cited the vital statistics and genealogies as documents that were decisive in demonstrating "that the tribe did indeed have social and political continuity during the middle of the 20th century."[15] As a result, the Mohegan Tribe of Indians of Connecticut (MTIC) gained recognition as a sovereign tribal nation.
That same year, Congress passed the Mohegan Nation (Connecticut) Land Claim Settlement Act, which authorized the United States to take land into trust to establish a reservation for the Mohegan and settle their land claim. The final 1994 agreement between MTIC and the State in the settlement of land claims extinguished all pending land claims.[15] The MTIC adopted a written constitution. MTIC is governed by a chief, an elected chairman and an elected tribal council, all of whom serve for specific terms.
The Mohegan people associated with Sachem John Hamilton persist as an independent group today. In his will, Hamilton named his non-Mohegan wife, Eleanor Fortin as Sachem. She is now the leader of the "Hamilton group." Despite their contentious histories and disagreements, both groups continued to participate in tribal activities and to identify as members of the Mohegan people. The Hamilton band of Mohegans continues to function and govern themselves independently of the MTIC, holding periodic gatherings and activities in their traditional territory of south-central Connecticut.
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The Mohegan people have always had extensive knowledge of local flora and fauna, of hunting and fishing technologies, of seasonal adaptations, and of herbal medicine, as practices passed down through the generations. Gladys Tantaquidgeon was instrumental in recording herbal medicinal knowledge and folklore, and in comparing these plants and practices to those of other Algonquian peoples like the Lenni Lenape (Delaware) and Wampanoag,
For example, an infusion of bark removed from the south side of the silver maple tree is used by the Mohegan for cough medicine.[18] The Mohegan also use the inner bark of the sugar maple as a cough remedy, and the sap as a sweetening agent and to make maple syrup.[19]
Confusion with the Mohican people
Although similar in name, the Mohegan are a different tribe from the Mohican, who share similar Algonkian culture and the members of whom constitute another speech community with the greater Algonquian language family.
The Mohican (also called the Stockbridge Mohican) were historically based along the upper Hudson River in present-day eastern New York and along the upper Housatonic River in western Massachusetts. In the United States, both tribes have been referred to in various historic documents by the spelling "Mohican", based on mistakes in translation and location.[20] But, the Dutch colonist Adriaen Block, one of the first Europeans to record the names of both tribes, clearly distinguished between the "Morhicans" (now the Mohegans) and the "Mahicans, Mahikanders, Mohicans, [or] Maikens".[20][21]
In 1735, Housatonic Mohican leaders negotiated with Massachusetts Governor Jonathan Belcher to found the town of Stockbridge, Massachusetts, just to the west of the Berkshire Mountains, as a mission village. After the American Revolution, these Mohican people, along with New York Mohicans and members of the Wappinger of the east bank of the central and lower Hudson River,[22] relocated to central New York to live among the native Oneida people. In time the settlement became known as Stockbridge, New York. During the 1820s the majority of these people removed further west, eventually settling in Wisconsin, where today they constitute the Stockbridge Munsee Band of Mohican Indians. These removals inspired the myth of the "Last of the Mohicans."[citation needed]
Most of the descendants of the Mohegan tribe, by contrast, have continued to live in New England, and particularly in Connecticut, since the colonial era.
Notable Mohegans
Uncas (c. 1588 – c. 1683), famed sachem of the Mohegan
John E. Hamilton (1897-1988), Grand Sachem Chief Rolling Cloud, Indian rights activist[10]
Gladys Tantaquidgeon (1899–2005), anthropologist, herbalist, co-founder of the Tantaquidgeon Museum. Worked to preserve Mohegan culture through the 20th century.
The Pequot are a Native American people of Connecticut. The modern Pequot are members of the federally recognized Mashantucket Pequot Tribe, four other state-recognized groups in Connecticut including the Eastern Pequot Tribal Nation, or the Brothertown Indians of Wisconsin. They historically spoke Pequot, a dialect of the Mohegan-Pequot language, which became extinct by the early 20th century. Some tribal members are undertaking revival efforts.
The Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation is a federally recognized American Indian tribe in the state of Connecticut. They are descended from the Pequot people, an Algonquian-language tribe that dominated the southern New England coastal areas, and they own and operate Foxwoods Resort Casino within their reservation in Ledyard, Connecticut. As of 2018, Foxwoods Resort Casino is one of the largest casinos in the world in terms of square footage, casino floor size, and number of slot machines, and it was one of the most economically successful in the United States until 2007, but it became deeply in debt by 2012 due to its expansion and changing conditions.
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.
Uncasville is a village in the town of Montville, Connecticut, United States. It is located in southeastern Montville, at the mouth of the Oxoboxo River where it flows into the Thames River. The name is now applied more generally to all of the east end of Montville, which is the area served by the Uncasville ZIP Code.
Uncas was a sachem of the Mohegans who made the Mohegans the leading regional Indian tribe in lower Connecticut, through his alliance with the New England colonists against other Indian tribes.
The Narragansett people are an Algonquian American Indian tribe from Rhode Island. Today, Narragansett people are enrolled in the federally recognized Narragansett Indian Tribe. They gained federal recognition in 1983.
The Niantic are a tribe of Algonquian-speaking American Indians who lived in the area of Connecticut and Rhode Island during the early colonial period. They were divided into eastern and western groups due to intrusions by the more numerous and powerful Pequots. The Western Niantics were subject to the Pequots and lived just east of the mouth of the Connecticut River, while the Eastern Niantics became very close allies to the Narragansetts. It is likely that the name Nantucket is derived from the tribe's endonym, Nehantucket.
The Golden Hill Paugussett is a state-recognized Native American tribe in Connecticut. Granted reservations in a number of towns in the 17th century, their land base was whittled away until they were forced to reacquire a small amount of territory in the 19th century. Today they retain a state-recognized reservation in the town of Trumbull, and have an additional reservation acquired in 1978 and 1980 in Colchester, Connecticut.
Samson Occom was a member of the Mohegan nation, from near New London, Connecticut, who became a Presbyterian cleric. Occom was the second Native American to publish his writings in English, the first Native American to write down his autobiography, and also helped found several settlements, including what ultimately became known as the Brothertown Indians. Together with the missionary John Eliot, Occom became one of the foremost missionaries who cross-fertilised Native American communities with Christianized European culture.
The Schaghticoke are a Native American tribe of the Eastern Woodlands who historically consisted of Mahican, Potatuck, Weantinock, Tunxis, Podunk, and their descendants, peoples indigenous to what is now New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. The remnant tribes amalgamated in the area near the Connecticut-New York border after many losses, including the sale of some Schaghticoke and members of neighboring tribes into slavery in the Caribbean in the 1600s.
The Eastern Pequot Tribal Nation is an American Indian tribe in southeastern Connecticut descended from the Pequot people who dominated southeastern New England in the seventeenth century. It is one of five tribes recognized by the state of Connecticut.
The Brothertown Indians, located in Wisconsin, are a possible Native American tribe formed in the late 18th century from communities of so-called "praying Indians", descended from Christianized 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.
Fidelia Ann Hoscott Fielding, also known as Dji'ts Bud dnaca, daughter of Bartholomew Valentine Smith and Sarah A. Wyyougs (1804–1868), and granddaughter of Martha Shantup Uncas (1761–1859), was the last-known speaker of the traditional Mohegan Pequot language.
Fort Shantok, in Montville, Connecticut, United States, was the site of the principal Mohegan settlement between 1636 and 1682 and the sacred ground of Uncas, one of the most prominent and influential Mohegan leaders and statesmen of his era. Originally part of Mohegan reservation lands, the property was taken by the state of Connecticut in the 20th century and Fort Shantok State Park was established. In 1995, following legal action by the tribe to recover its lands, the state returned the park to Mohegan control. The tribe now operates the area, part of its reservation, as a local park. The grounds were declared a National Historic Landmark in 1993.
Gladys Iola Tantaquidgeon was a Mohegan medicine woman, anthropologist, author, tribal council member, and elder based in Connecticut.
Mohegan Indians v. Connecticut (1705–1773) was the first indigenous land rights litigation in history in a common law jurisdiction. James Youngblood Henderson, professor of law, calls the case "the first major legal test of indigenous tenure." Robert Clinton calls it the "first formal litigation of North American Indian rights."
The Connecticut Indian Land Claims Settlement was an Indian Land Claims Settlement passed by the United States Congress in 1983. The settlement act ended a lawsuit by the Mashantucket Pequot Tribe to recover 800 acres of their 1666 reservation in Ledyard, Connecticut. The state sold this property in 1855 without gaining ratification by the Senate. In a federal land claims suit, the Mashantucket Pequot charged that the sale was in violation of the Nonintercourse Act that regulates commerce between Native Americans and non-Indians.
The Mohegan Tribe is a federally recognized tribe and sovereign tribal nation of the Mohegan people. Their reservation is the Mohegan Indian Reservation, located on the Thames River in Uncasville, Connecticut.
Melissa Tantaquidgeon Zobel is a Mohegan author, historian, and storyteller who serves as both the Medicine Woman and Tribal Historian for the Mohegan Tribe. In addition, she is executive director of the tribe's cultural and community programs department. Also a prolific writer, Zobel has published many books including the historical biography, Medicine Trail: The Life and Lessons of Gladys Tantaquidgeon, and the futuristic novel Oracles. Some publications appear under her maiden name of Melissa Jayne Fawcett.
Emma Tyler Fielding Baker Dec. 5, 1828 - Jan. 20, 1916) was a member of the Mohegan Pequot Indian tribe and was posthumously awarded the title of Mohegan medicine woman in 1992. Medicine women were culture-bearers and required to have an in-depth knowledge of tribal customs and possess good leadership qualities. She was also a tribal historian and ceremonial leader of the Mohegan Tribe.
↑ Jaap Van Marle, ed. (1993). Historical linguistics 1991: papers from the 10th international conference on historical linguistics, Amsterdam, 12-16 August 1991. Amsterdam: J. Benjamins. ISBN9789027236098.
↑ "25 USC § 1775 - Findings and purposes", Mohegan Nation (Connecticut) Land Claim Settlement Act (1994), Legal Information Institute, Cornell University Law School, accessed 12 January 2013
↑ Tantaquidgeon, Gladys 1972 Folk Medicine of the Delaware and Related Algonkian Indians. Harrisburg. Pennsylvania Historical Commission Anthropological Papers #3 (p. 69, 128)
1 2 William C. Sturtevant (General Editor), Bruce G. Trigger (Volume Editor). Handbook of North American Indians, Volume 15, Northeast. Smithsonian Institution, Washington (1978).{{cite book}}: |author= has generic name (help)
↑ Campbell, Lyle (1997). American Indian languages: the historical linguistics of native America ([Online-Ausg.].ed.). New York, NY: Oxford Univ. Press. ISBN978-0195094275.
↑ "The Road to Kingsbridge: Daniel Nimham and the Stockbridge Indian Company in the American Revolution", Laurence M. Hauptman, American Indian, Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian, 2017
↑ Melissa Jane Fawcett. Medicine Trail: The Life and Lessons of Gladys Tantaquidgeon. University of Arizona Press (2000),
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