Ethnogenesis: Another Comparison between the Stockbridge and Brothertown Indians

I hadn't heard of the term "ethnogenesis" before I found Craig Cipolla's new book at my public library.

The title of the book is
Becoming Brothertown: Native American Ethnogenesis and Endurance in the Modern World

I've only read part of it so far, but based on the table of contents and the opportunity I've had to read Cipolla's PhD dissertation (which the book is based on) it is largely an analysis of gavesites and other above-ground types of archealogical data. Not the kind of book you'd expect to see in your local public library, but I live in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, the home-in-exile of the Brothertown Indians.

Anyway, this blogpost is about ethnogenesis. Cipolla defines it on page 23:

Ethnogenesis is the process by which new ethnic identities emerge.

If you know anything about the Brothertown Indians, you can understand the relevance of ethnogenesis to their history. The Brothertown community was formed out of Indians from the following tribes: Narragansetts, Pequots, Mohegans, Montauketts, Niantics and Tunxis (an inexact list, based on page 5 of Cipolla's Becoming Brothertown).

Every Native nation went through big changes when Europeans arrived on the scene.

But evolutionary changes are experienced by all ethnic groups. A lot of tribes were at least able to stick together and keep their old names. For example, the pre-white contact tribe known as the Lakota Sioux are - despite the very tough times they are experiencing - still known as Lakota Sioux today. While the Lakota Sioux have gone through many changes as a people, today's Lakota Sioux "evolved" from the pre-contact Lakota Sioux. So it follows that social scientists don't speak of a Lakota ethnogenesis.

Can you tell where I'm going with this?

Like I often do here, I'm going to relate the concept of ethnogenesis to the Stockbridge Mohicans.

Did an ethnogenesis occur which "created" the Stockbridge Mohicans?

You're entitled to your own opinion on that, but I feel pretty strongly that the answer is yes.

Some may argue that the Mohicans (or any variation of that name: Mahican, Muhhecunnuk, Mohheconnew, and possibly others) existed prior to white contact. And in a very real sense they did - because there was a group of Indians that used that name.

Again, some may argue that although Indians from other tribes were added over the years, that was nothing different from what every other tribe did - they married Indians from other tribes and sometimes a village added to it's numbers by means of raids on other tribes.

But I'm arguing the other side.
Based on my research, the Indians that got together at Stockbridge, Massachusetts underwent an ethnogenesis.
 
Starting with people from two Mohican villages on the Housatonic, the community grew... and in the first few years it grew largely from the appeal of John Sergeant's preaching (Patrick Frazier covers this well in The Mohicans of Stockbridge).
 
At a time when baptism was a relatively exclusive rite among Calvinists, many Indians pressured Sergeant to baptize them. Between 1735 and his death in 1749, Sergeant baptized 182 Indians (source: Hopkins, 1753). And they came from a number of different tribes.

Then in the 1750's, the last remnant of Wappingers came to town. Numbering over 200, they were probably more numerous than the "Mohicans," but the name "Mohican" stuck, nonetheless.

I won't belabor the point. There may be some who disagree with me and I'd like to hear their (your) arguments.

 
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