"I was murdered by the Stockbridge Indians"

The words "I was murdered by the Stockbridge Indians" were carved upon Joseph Palmer's grave, the "oldest grave in the cemetery" according to Letters Home from the Brothertown Boys, written by former Brothertown genealogist Caroline Andler and Andrea Brucker.



Another book tells us the rather gory details of Mr. Palmer's last day:

The tragedy occurred July 3, 1837 [sic], at the house of Peter and Jacob Konkopot, two Stockbridge Indians. They had already reduced to small measure an immoderate supply of whiskey, when Joseph Palmer, a Brothertown Indian, in company with another of his tribe and a white man, entered their cabin. The latter party had just returned from the Fox River with a full jug, "fire-water" being then an unknown commodity of sale in Calumet County. They drank together several times, but with this fresh supply the Konkapots' loud demands for more continued and increased beyond the bounds of reason or considerate fellowship. Palmer, therefore, refused to be robbed further of his " Fourth of July," whereupon he and his comrades were assaulted by their crazed and unreasonable companions, one wielding an ax and the other a club. Being unarmed the former were unable to defend themselves. Palmer was liberally hacked and beaten to pieces. The other two escaped. Without going into details, the murderers were arrested, tried in October before a commission chosen from both tribes, and sentenced to be hanged near the dividing line between the two reservations. On the day preceding that fixed for the execution (October 24), they escaped across Lake Winnebago in a boat furnished by friends, and were never recaptured.

--The History of Northern Wisconsin, accessed from Ancestry.com

 

 Palmer's grave
This photo gives the correct date of Palmer's death as July 3, 1836 (not 1837 as the quote above asserts).

Somewhere - I cannot find it now, but somewhere - I read that Joseph Palmer's epitaph was symbolic of a period of tension between the Stockbridge and Brothertown Indians. And it makes a lot of sense too, I mean, they could have chosen other epitaphs:

Murdered in a drunken accident

Manslaughtered by the Stockbridge Indians

Killed by the Konkapots

 

Or they could have decided on something more generic:

Rest in Peace

Beloved Husband and Father

or add your own here.
I don't mean to make light of what happened. I was just trying to make the point that we should assume that the exact words of the epitaph should not be dismissed or disregarded. It said "Murdered by the Stockbridge Indians" because that is what his family wanted it to say.

Here are my own thoughts about the murder:

Alcohol was a factor in Joseph Palmer's death, that cannot be disputed and, in fact, the Stockbridge schoolteacher at that time, Chauncey Hall, wrote his employer (the ABCFM), that he felt the white trader who sold the whiskey should be brought to justice as an accomplice in the murder.

But the epitaph doesn't single out alcohol or the Konkapots, it really tries to lay the blame on "the Stockbridge Indians." Why exactly, we'll never know for certain.

But we do know that Peter and Jacob Konkapot's father, Robert, and Thomas Hendrick became the leaders of a party of Stockbridge Mohicans who didn't want the assailants to hang and somehow helped them to escape.

Roger Nichols was probably the first historian to note that this "Hendrick-Konkapot faction," later became the Emigrant Party, using the treaty of 1839 to leave Stockbridge, Wisconsin Territory for the Delaware Tract in what is now Kansas.

Again, we don't know all the details, but an overarching theme of conflict within tribes was the extent to which people wanted to adopt white ways.  The Hendrick-Konkapot faction are believed to have been more "traditional" than the elected leaders of the tribe that they left behind. Meanwhile, the Brothertown Indians, were farther along in the process of losing their Native culture. They were made up of remnants who spoke various languages, so they adopted English as their offical language early on. Maybe the fact that the Brothertown Indians were more "assimilated" or less "traditional" than many of the Stockbridge Indians was a key element in their conflict.

 
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