Migrations of Native Christian Communities Recorded by W. DeLoss Love

[caption id="attachment_9101" align="aligncenter" width="300"] The red dot is the location of the Brothertown Reservation in the 1830's.[/caption]

W. DeLoss Love's 1899 book, Samson Occom and the Christian Indians of New England, is, of course more than just a biography. It is still one of the best places to go for the history of the Brothertown Indians. Plus, chapter XIII is called "Indian Friends at Stockbridge." It bears repeating here that the Brothertown Indians had started their settlement in New York State prior to the Revolutionary War, but, finding that location to be unsafe, they retreated to West Stockbridge, Massachusetts for six years. According to Love (page 243), it was the friendships formed during those years that resulted in the Stockbridge Mohicans becoming neighbors with the Brothertown and  Oneida Indians in New York State starting in the 1780's. (As you may know, the move for the Stockbridges was necessary, because they had lost their land - much of it in fraudulent ways.)

Love correctly notes that some of the Stockbridge Mohicans moved to Indiana in 1818.

At this time they began to sell their lands, and this continued until they were all established again beside their friends, the Brothertown Indians, on the east side of Winnebago Lake, in Wisconsin (page 245).

Chapter XXVII, The Last Remove, discusses that in much more detail. On pages 316-317 Love describes the New York Indians' attempted move to Indiana's White River.

It had been determined at Brothertown in 1812 to begin a settlement at White River. [War] deterred them, and many of their number enlisted in the United States service. Some never returned. Finally, when peace had been restored, the town voted, January 13, 1817, to choose five men to go there "in pursuit of a tract of land heretofore sought for by their delegates sent there in the year 1809, and to get a title to it." The Stockbridge tribe also were preparing to remove. Two families went in 1817 and more the next season. On the twenty-fourth of July, 1818, Rev. John Sergeant assembled the tribe in anticipation of this pilgrimage. the old church then dismissed and formed into a new body eleven of their number, for whom he transcribed the Confession of Faith and Covenant in English, adding in their own language a Covenant especially adapted to their circumstances. On the fifteenth of August following, some having gone and more being then ready to depart, another meeting was held, at which the chief, Hendrick Aupaumut, in a "large speech" presented to them from the old church a copy of Scott's Bible "to read on Lord's Days and at other religious meetings." So they said farewell and were gone to return no more.

Love's Samson Occom and the Christian Indians of New England

The back cover of my copy of Samson Occom and the Christian Indians of New England is, of course, a pretty good introduction or teaser to what is on the inside. In bold letters it says "W. DeLoss Love's biography of Samson Occom is a work of its time."

It was reprinted in 2000 with an introduction by historian Margaret Connell Szasz. In the 100+ years between it's original publication and the reprint, nobody managed to write a better biography of Occom. Szasz's introduction, however, was needed because it brings needed perspective to today's readers - and she correctly pointed out the book's shortcomings vis-à-vis the reality that it was written by a white man in the 1890's.

In regards to Occom himself, Szasz notes that he was part of a tradition of Native Americans who converted to Christianity and then visited Britain. The first Indian to do so being Pocahontas in 1616. But Occom took it another step farther. Not only was he a Christian, but he was an educated and ordained Presbyterian minister. He raised over 12,000 pounds in a speaking tour. Only to see it go towards establishing a white institution (Dartmouth College) instead of the Indian school he intended the money to go to.

Use this link to read other posts about Samson Occom.

 

Dorothy Ripley's Mission to the New York Indians (part 2)

[caption id="attachment_9025" align="alignright" width="231"] Independent missionary Dorothy Ripley self-published her journal as "The Bank of Faith and Works United."[/caption]

As we saw in part 1, Englishwoman Dorothy Ripley's 1805 mission to the New York Indians included preaching to the Stockbridge Mohicans and the Oneidas.

After being put up in the home of a white Quaker, Ms. Ripley went on to minister to the Brothertown Indians. She found these Christian Indians - like Christian whites of that time - to be divided on the question of who can be saved.

I went to Brothertown to collect the Indians there together, in the school-house.... Those Indians were Baptists, divided into two classes, one part believed in election, and the other in free salvation. Where I was, they had refused their minister, because they said "They would not worship such a cruel God as he served, as He only took care of a part of his creatures," and drew this comparison, by asking a question concerning their women: "Would not she be a cruel mother, who having two children, took one and nursed it; and left the other to perish? So we will worship a God who takes care of all His children;" which I think was an excellent conclusion and a sound argument was advanced to show how far an Indian is capable of believing in the Living and True God.

A couple days later Dorothy Ripley was back in New Stockbridge, New York.

A meeting was held again in Stockbridge, for the instruction of the poor Natives, who are dear to me. There are some of the [Delaware] Jersey Indians among this tribe, and the whole number here, are rising three hundred... This day two of the missionaries, and a young clergyman were present, while my soul was earnestly engaged for the good of the Indians; but I verily believe by their proceedings it was their opinion that a woman ought not to preach: for one of them said afterwards, had I "come to teach them to knit and sew it would be very well."

At the moment of her departure, the women of the tribe presented Dorothy Ripley with an address, which had actually been written by Captain Hendrick, the Mohican chief that was serving as her interpreter:

Dear Sister,
We the poor women of the Muhheconnuk nation, wish to speak [a] few words to you to inform you that while our forefathers were sitting by the side of their ancient fireplace, about eighty years ago, our father, Rev. Mr. Sergeant's father, came amongst them with the message of the Great and Good Spirit, which he then began to deliver to them. He was the first minister of the gospel that ever preached to our fathers, and the Great and Good Spirit blessed his labors, by which means many of our poor natives were turned from darkness to light....

You can continue reading this on page 111 of The Bank of Faith and Works United.

In Colonial Times, Native Americans Looked at Things in Two Different Ways

It might be a hard concept for some of us modern people to grasp (or at least hard for some to accept), nevertheless, it explains everything in terms of the belief systems of Natives in early America.

Bear with me for a few moments here and just forget all the things that you already know about Indians. Now we are going to place all the Indians from early America in one of two categories. If you understand those categories well enough, you should be able to explain why some Indians became Christians and others pursued forms of revitalization of traditional systems of belief and action.

The two groups are nativists and accommodationists.

Katy Chiles describes the Nativists on page 13 of her book, Transformable Race..

[They believed] that Natives, whites, and Africans were created separately. They also became aware that they should practice entirely discrete religions: Christianity was for Europeans exclusively, since God did not give the Bible to the Indian or to the black man.

The Nativists, of course, are the type that us moderns readily understand, because we are aware of the importance of one's own culture. It is healthy to observe your own culture and be proud of it, right, I mean, isn't that just obvious?

It is obvious to most of us now, but there is another group of Native Americans in early America. Just because they are known as accommodationists does not mean that they didn't have integrity. They just looked at things in a different way. As Samson Occom, one of the leaders of the Brothertown Indians once put it (quoted by Chiles on page 14):

[There is] but one, Great ^good^ Supream and Indepentent Spirit above, he is the only Living and True God [who created] this World.

Chiles also brings Captain Hendrick Aupaumut of the Stockbridge Mohicans into her discussion, noting that

Both Occom and Aupaumut endorsed the biblical creation story, the idea that all races descended...from this single creation, and that, therefore, Indians should be seen as equals and "brothers" with the white man.

So the case is made that becoming a Christian did not mean that one stopped being an Indian. If one God created all people, then all races could practice the same religion.
 

 

The Name of Brothertown, Wisconsin

Isn't it obvious that Brothertown, Wisconsin was named after the Brothertown Indians, the first "civilized" people to settle there?

Most of us who are around now take it for granted. Nevertheless, the town had a number of names over the years.

Eeyamqittoowauconnuck was the name of Brothertown, New York in the Native language. Of course, the Brothertown Indians, being made up of a number of Algonquian-speaking tribes spoke varying dialects which resulted in a decision to make English their official language early on. By the 1830's the word Eeyamqittoowauconnuck might no longer have been used at all.

According to Orrin Meyer's booklet Se Souvenir (page 5), the Brothertown Indians originally named their settlement on the east shore of Lake Winnebago "Deansborough," after Thomas Dean, who served as both their agent and schoolmaster. (My memory is telling me that Dean was the only white person to go through Moor's Charity School as run by Eleazar Wheelock, but I haven't been able to verify that.) Anyway, the name "Deansborough" didn't get much traction. Meyer tells us (page 6) - and I've heard it said elsewhere - that the village got the name "Manchester" because it was the last name of a (pompous in my opinion) surveyor who decided to honor himself by giving it his own name. At the same time, the post office (Meyer, 6) referred to the area as "Pequot" after the Native nation that contributed a significant percentage of it's descendants to the Brothertown Indians.

Those name changes take up only about twenty or thirty years of history. Over the course of the 1850's the current name of Brothertown became recognized, and for good reason. It is the most accurate (and least confusing) name of the first "civilized" people to settle there.

A Brief and Somewhat Politically Incorrect History of Calumet County, Wisconsin

[caption id="attachment_5470" align="aligncenter" width="241"] The Calumet County seal, or insignia, as copied from Orrin W. Meyer's booklet, Se Souvenir.[/caption]

On the east shore of Lake Winnebago, Calumet County was home to the Stockbridge and Brothertown Indians both before and after Wisconsin became a state. Of course, before those "New York Indians" came on the scene, people were already living in what is now Calumet County, Wisconsin.

In 1964, Orrin W. Meyer, the Calumet County Agricultural agent (he may have already been retired by that time), typed up a history of Calumet County.  Se Souvenir was the title of his booklet. On the first page, Meyer tells us about the original Natives in the area.

What is Calumet County now was,  at various times, the home of six Indian Nations. These were the Menominee, Chippewa, Sac, Fox, Potawatomi and Winnebago. All were of eastern Algonquian stock except the Winnebagoes [now known as Ho-Chunk]. The Winnebagoes [Ho-Chunk] migrated from the west and were of the Dakotas, tracing their lineage to the Sioux. the Algonquians were peaceful and easy going....

Not so with the Winnebagoes [Ho-Chunk]. They were war-like, treacherous and scheming.

I don't know enough about the Ho-Chunk to comment directly on that authoritatively (but my gut reaction is that it is a harsh judgment). Maybe Meyer should have left that part out of his history. However, I should point out that Meyer probably wasn't just taking a jab at the Ho-Chunk for absolutely no reason. At least in his mind, he was setting up his explanation for the naming of Calumet County.

The coming of the white man plus the six Indian Nations took some doing to get along. Many councils were held on the east shore of Lake Winnebago. Many times the pipe of peace was passed from chief to chief as he made a solemn pledge and puffed on the calumet, a reed pipe. The French would likewise council with the Indians and it was they who called the peace pipe the calumet. It is by this derivation that Calumet County gets its name (pages 1-2).

In future posts I'll have more from Se Souvenir by Orrin Meyer.

Some More Thoughts about the Pre-contact Religion of Algonquian-Speaking Peoples

[caption id="attachment_4010" align="aligncenter" width="800"] Pictured above is the calumet or ceremonial pipe used by the Sac and Fox chief, Black Hawk.[/caption]

Caroline Andler, the former tribal genealogist of the Brothertown Indian Nation of Wisconsin, has created some pages on genealogy.com, related to the Brothertown people.

These pages include "The Spirituality of the New England Indians pre Samson Occom's Conversion to Chritianity," an article in which Andler quotes Rudi Ottery. Ottery, Andler tells us, wrote a Master's thesis on "the spirituality of early New England Indians and their conversion to Christianity." I'm going to try to get access to that thesis if possible, but the quotes that Andler provides in her article will do just fine for this blogpost.

Andler starts off by asserting that "Our ancient ancestors used the pipe and tobacco to pray to their gods."

Then she introduces Rudi Ottery and the following quote comes from Ottery:

...a belief in spiritual forces and a powerful religion ordered Indian lives...
...the Indians percieved all of life as a series of interactions with spiritual powers and they were conscious of these forces regulating their daily lives. All of nature was sacred, created by a spirit... There was no desire to subdue or dominate any living thing.

What are your thoughts?

Feel free to leave a comment below.



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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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"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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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.