What is the Difference between the Stockbridge and the Brothertown Indians?

What is the difference between the Stockbridge and Brothertown Indians?

Admittedly, that is a complicated question, going back to a time before either of those amalgamated tribes was formed, but it seems that the biggest difference came to me in a flash while I was at the Calumet County courthouse yesterday.



Stockbridge, Wisconsin and Brothertown, Wisconsin are Calumet County villages that were once populated by the "civilized" New York Indian tribes bearing those names. Today the Stockbridges (also known as "Mohicans" or the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohican Indians), have a federally recognized tribal government and reservation in Shawano County, Wisconsin. But the Brothertowns are just doing their best to stay organized. They aren't recognized by the federal government,  but, thanks to their efforts, they have a relationship with Calumet County (see Darren Kroenke's comment below).

The Calumet County Courthouse holds two record books. One for the Brothertowns from 1839 and one for the Stockbridge Mohicans from 1843. Each record book does the same thing for its respective Native nation: it allots their reservation, that is, each record book documents the dividing up of what had been a reservation into individually-owned plots of land. With these record books, each tribe was giving up their tribal government and becoming citizens of the United States.



The two record books, of course, establish that both tribes went through the process of allotment at roughly the same time.

So what was different?

The whole time the allotment process was happening, the Stockbridges had an "Indian Party," made up of some of their leading men: John W. Quinney, Austin E. Quinney, and John Metoxen. Although the Stockbridge record book of 1843 makes no mention of any objections to what the elected commissioners (members of the Stockbridge "Citizen Party") were doing, John W. Quinney had contacts in Washington D.C. and that is where he took his fight - and won. In 1846 new legislation was enacted that re-created the Stockbridge nation and reservation.

There would be more challenges ahead for the Stockbridge Mohicans, but they dodged an awfully big bullet in the 1840's.

In my opinion, Congress' Act of 1846 - and the Stockbridge Indian Party's ability to make it happen - is, more than anything else, the big difference between the Stockbridge Indians and the Brothertown Indians.

"Mohicans" is the title of a new video with music by Leo Rojas

No description was available on YouTube.

The Three Marriages of Walter Wilber

I recently acquired an index book of Shawano County marriages from 1848 to 1907.

Each marriage gets a line for all the information: names, birthplaces and parents of both the bride and the groom, and, of course, the date and the location of the wedding.

That is helpful information, but in some cases, I'd like more. For example, I'd like to know more about a Stockbridge Indian named Walter Wilber.



As this map indicates, Shawano County included the Menominee Reservation during most of the time that is covered in my marriage index.

 

Walter Wilber married Maud Mohawk in 1896. Then he married Sadie Brushel in 1899. And, according to the records, he married Sadie Brushel again in 1903.

I tried to reconstruct the life of Walter Wilber based on the limited information that I have. Although I could very well be wrong - here goes: Walter married Maud and they decided they weren't right for each other and got divorced. Then Walter married Sadie and this marriage went the same way: it was a quick one, ending in divorce. However, although Walter thought that he couldn't live with Sadie, he also learned that he couldn't live without her and they got married a second time.

I've learned that people with "Mohawk" as a last name are Munsees and probably don't have any Mohawk blood at all. Sadie Brushel's mother was from the Chicks family and Walter Wilber's parents were Lucinda Gardner and Jed Wilber. So it appears that they were all Citizen Party Stockbridges.

By the way, I've been told that an excellent genealogical source for the Citizen Party is the Jed Wilber family Bible. I don't know who has it, but i'd sure like to see it.

 
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