Brothertown Indians
The Brother Town Indians (also: Brotherton ) was an "Indian tribe", which in the late 18th century Indians of the so-called " Praying Indians had formed" (Moravian Indians). Today the tribe has its official headquarters in Wisconsin .
The Indian tribe was formed in the late 18th century from groups of Christianized Pequot and Mohegan ( Algonquin ) from southern New England and eastern Long Island . In the 1780s, after the American Revolutionary War , she emigrated from New England to the hinterland of the New York State where they are among the Iroquois of Oneida in Oneida County settled.
Under pressure from the federal government , the Brothertown Indians, along with the Stockbridge-Munsee and some Oneida, moved on to Wisconsin by boat across the Great Lakes in the 1830s . In 1839 they were the first tribe in the United States to adopt American citizenship and allot their jointly administered land to individual households so as not to be pushed further west. Most of the neighboring Oneida and many Lenape (Delaware) were relocated to Indian Territory (in what is now Oklahoma ).
The Brothertown Indians filed a petition in 2005 for federal recognition as a tribe. However, the Bureau of Indian Affairs declined recognition. In September 2012, in the final decision on the Brothertown petition , the executive assistant secretary stated that the group previously had a relationship with the United States, but that their tribal status was finally terminated by the 1839 decree and only a new decree of the Congress, the status can be changed. The Brothertown Indians, however, continue to struggle for federal recognition.
They are one of the eleven tribes residing in Wisconsin, the only ones not having state recognition. In 2013 the tribe comprised around 4,000 members.
history
Made in New England
The Brothertown Indian Nation ( Eeyamquittoowauconnuck ) was founded by three Mohegan and Pequot leaders from New England and Long Island: Samson Occom (Mohegan), a Presbyterian clergyman of the New England Indians and fundraiser for Moor's Indian Charity School , his son-in-law Joseph Johnson (Mohegan) who had worked as a messenger for General George Washington during the American Revolution ; and Occom's brother-in-law, David Fowler (Montauk, Pequot). They founded a new tribe from groups of different Indians who had escaped destruction through disease, colonialism and war. The tribesmen then also included Narragansett and Montaukett .
The founding date is November 7th, 1785, when the remnants of the so-called "Christian Tribes" from Massachusetts , Connecticut , Rhode Island and Long Island united after the American Revolutionary War . The members were of the Mohegan, Pequot of Groton, Massachusetts; Pequot of Stonington, Connecticut; Narragansett, Niantic and Tunxis from Farmington, and the Montaukett (a Pequot clan) from Long Island. Under pressure from the victorious settlers pushing west, they began relocating to areas provided to them by the Oneida (Iroquois), near Waterville, New York , in Oneida County , where they were in the 1780s also constituted. As allies of the Patriots, the Oneida were allowed to stay on a small reservation in New York State, but because of hostilities from four of the Iroquois tribes who allied with the British during the war and because the settlers were claiming more and more land , forced the New York and federal governments to move west and settle west of the Mississippi River .
In the 1830s, the Brothertown Indian Nation sold their land to New York State and acquired land in Wisconsin. There the tribe thrived and grew to 3200 members in the 21st century.
Treaties and moving west
In 1821, several tribes from what is now New York State signed a treaty with the federal government and acquired land covering 860,000 acres (3,500 km²) in Wisconsin . In 1822 another delegation acquired an additional 6,720,000 acres (27,200 km²), an area that spanned almost the entire east coast of Lake Michigan . The Brothertown Indians received approximately 153,000 acres (620 km²) from this land along the southeast bank of the Fox River , near what is now the parishes of Kaukauna and Wrightstown . Some of the other tribes felt that the federal government had taken advantage of them. The treaty was hotly debated for eight years and was never ratified by the United States Senate .
The federal government reached an agreement through three treaties signed in 1831 and 1832. The settlement with the Brothertown Indians consisted of an exchange of the previously agreed land for an area of 23,040 acres (93 km²), which is now known as the Town of Brothertown in Calumet County on the east coast of Lake Winnebago .
Emigrated to Wisconsin
The leaders of the Brothertown Indians led the move west so that they could live peacefully away from European-American influences. They thus joined their neighbors, the Oneida and the Stockbridge-Munsee. Five groups of the Brothertown People came to Wisconsin by ship through Green Bay Harbor between 1831 and 1836, after a voyage across the Great Lakes . Immediately upon arrival, the Indians began clearing their communal land and farming, then they built a church near Jericho . Another settlement called Eeyamquittoowauconnuck , which was later renamed Brothertown . When it became clear that the land was fertile, the federal government soon proposed moving the Brothertown Indians further west into the Indian Territory in what is now Kansas , which was authorized by the Indian Removal Act .
In 1834, the Brothertown Indian Nation then requested US citizenship and the allotment of land to the individuals of the tribe (which was previously classified as tribal land) to prevent further relocation west. On March 3, 1839, Congress passed a decree granting citizenship to the Brothertown Indians. This made them the first Indians to officially accept them. One tribe member, William Fowler served in the Territorial Legislative Assembly for the Wisconsin Territory ; two others, Alonzo Dick and William H. Dick , were members of the Wisconsin State Assembly, the first non-Europeans to serve in this capacity. Several tribe members assumed offices in Calumet County even after the Brothertowners no longer held a majority in the county. Although William H. Dick was re-elected in 1871, Brothertowners were only politically active at the local level.
However, the tribe did not give up its sovereignty for citizenship. The Bureau of Indian Affairs has repeatedly affirmed that citizenship and sovereignty are not mutually exclusive. All Indians are now citizens and the federal government has recognized around 365 sovereign Indian tribes . In 1878 there was a meeting between the federal government and the Brothertowners. It stipulated that the tribe should release land that had not previously been given to tribal members, as the federal government wanted to sell the land to German immigrants in order to settle them in Wisconsin.
Federal recognition
Termination Policy
In the course of the Indian Termination Policy , which the US government began in the 1940s and continued into the 1960s, several former tribes from the New York area were designated for "termination". The federal government wanted to replace the special obligations towards the tribes. On January 21, 1954, a memo from the Department of the Interior announced that a termination bill was being prepared which would "affect approximately 3,600 members of the Oneida tribe in Wisconwin." Another Department of the Interior memo, titled "Indian Claims Commission Awards Over $ 38.5 Million to Indian Tribes in 1964," refers to the "Emigrant Indians of New York" as "Oneida Nation of Wisconsin", "Stockbridge-Munsee", and " Brotherton Indians of Wisconsin ".
In an effort to avert the termination and force the government to recognize the land rights in question, the three tribes began to appeal as early as the 1950s. As a result of litigation against the Indian Claims Commission , the group received $ 1,313,472.65 in compensation on August 11, 1964. To distribute the funds, Congress passed Public Law 90-93 81 Stat. 229 " Emigrant New York Indians of Wisconsin Judgment Act " and compiled lists of persons of the members of the three groups in order to determine which tribal members had at least a quarter of "Emigrant New York Indian blood". the law ordered the tribal officers of Oneida and Stockbridge-Munsee to contact the Secretary of the Interior to approve a distribution of the funds and thereby end the termination efforts for these tribes. With regard to the Brothertown Indians, however, the law made it possible, even if the law did not expressly state that they were "terminated", the direct, personal payment to all listed persons with special requirements for minors that had to be observed by the secretariat, even if the payments were not included in federal tax funds. A condition for the compensation payments was that the tribes should update their membership lists.
revival
In 1978, the federal government developed guidelines for tribes that had lost their recognition during the Termination Policy to give them the opportunity to regain their federal recognition. In the same year the Brothertowners submitted their first petition, in which they stated that they were equally trying to preserve historical records for their people and that they too had a cultural and social identity and had their own "government" ( Leadership).
In 1993, the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) recognized that the Brothertown Indians had been conditionally recognized by the federal government as a sovereign tribe in treaties of 1831 and 1832 and granted citizenship and land allocation in Wisconsin in the 1839 decree. The Department of Interior Legal Bureau confirmed in writing that the Brothertown Indian Nation tribe had the opportunity to apply to the BIA for federal recognition, which the tribe then did. If the granting of civil rights in 1839 had deprived the Brothertown Indian Nation of federal recognition, there would have been no option for this move (25 CFR sec. 83) and only a congressional decree could have regained the tribe's recognition. Based on this news, the Brothertown Indians spent several years compiling the data necessary for the petition for federal recognition, and in 2005 they submitted a detailed petition.
In 2009 you received a rejection on the grounds that you did not meet five of the seven criteria. More significantly, however, the BIA revised its 1993 memo and announced in a press release that the tribe had lost its federal status through the Congressional Act in 1839 :
Congress, in the act of 1839, brought federal recognition of the relationship with the Brothertown Indian tribe of Wisconsin to an end. By expressly denying the Brothertown of Wisconsin any federal recognition of a right to act as a tribal political entity, Congress has forbidden the federal government from acknowledging the Brothertown as a government and from having a government-to-government relationship with the Brothertown as an Indian tribe.
In September 2012, the tribal status with reference to the Act of Congress of 1839 was revoked in a final decision . Only the Congress can thus restore the tribal status.
The Brothertown Council and the Recognition / Restoration Committee have drawn up a strategic plan to lobby from local level to Congress to regain tribal status. On December 27, 2013, the city of Brothertown decided against supporting the tribe.
organization
Registered members of the Brothertown Indian Nation elect tribal officers and the tribal council meets monthly. It was possible to regain a small part of the former reservation and to acquire some self-administration in Wisconsin. As individual Native Americans , members who can demonstrate certain federal Blood Quantum Rules can enjoy various privileges, such as federal grants. The lack of federal recognition excludes access to certain programs.
Culture
The Brothertowners are a culturally diverse Indian community with the largest concentration of members in the Fond du Lac, Wisconsin area . In 1999 there were about 2400 members of the tribe. The tribal councilwoman Dr. Faith Ottery estimates that in 2013 the tribe had approximately 4,000 members. About 1,800 of them live in Wisconsin and 50% are within 50 miles of the original reservation and about 80% are within a 130 miles radius. Some tribe members still own land within the original reservation limits of 1842–45.
The tribe holds a picnic and homecoming annually in October. Many tribal members were buried in Union Cemetery in Brothertown and in Quinney Cemetery on the old reservation line. Many Brothertowners return to these graves every year to honor their ancestors and to maintain the graves. The tribe would like to buy more land in the original reserve area and set up a museum.
Archeology project
In 2007, the Brothertown Indian Nation assisted archaeologist Craig Cipolla of the University of Pennsylvania with an archaeological survey project and excavations at historic Brothertown sites in Wisconsin. The aim of the project is to locate, map and study places that need to be placed under protection.
literature
- Craig N. Cipolla: Becoming Brothertown: Native American Ethnogenesis and Endurance in the Modern World , University of Arizona Press, 2013. ISBN 978-0-81653030-4 .
- Patty Loew: Indian Nations of Wisconsin: Histories of Endurance and Renewal , 2013.
Individual evidence
- ^ " Brothertown Indians "
- ↑ Brothertown History, Life in New York ( Memento of the original from October 3, 1999 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Indian Country
- ↑ a b Archived copy ( memento of the original dated May 2, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ a b c d e f g h Faye Burg: Ottery fosters tribe's identity. In: I want the news, Tri-County News , Kiel, Wisconsin October 24, 2013.
- ↑ Thomas Commuck, "Sketch of the Town Brother Indians" (1859) , Wisconsin Historical Collections
- ^ "Brothertown Indians," Wisconsin History.
- ↑ United States Bureau of Indian Affairs. Proposed Finding Against Acknowledgment of The Brothertown Indian Nation (Petitioner # 67): Prepared in Response to the Petition Submitted to the Assistant Secretary - Indian Affairs for Federal Acknowledgment as an Indian Tribe, August 17, 2009: 74-75 ( Memento of the original dated September 21, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ INDIAN AFFAIRS: LAWS AND TREATIES , Compiled and edited by Charles J. Kappler. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1904, online in the Oklahoma State University Digital Library. October 2017.
- ↑ "about 3,600 members of the Oneida Tribe residing in Wisconsin. Legislation Terminating Federal Controls over Eight Indian Groups Submitted to Congress, January 21, 1954. ( Memento of the original from June 10, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice .
- ↑ a b PDF ( Memento of the original from June 10, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. "(now known as the Oneidas , Stockbridge-Munsee , and Brotherton Indians of Wisconsin)".
- ↑ iwantthenews.com
- ^ Public Law 90-93 .
- ↑ a b Faye Burg: Efforts have gone on for years to get Brothertown recognition. In: Tri-County News , Kiel, Wisconsin October 10, 2013.
- ↑ Pamela Hughes: Brothertown Indians' recognition efforts take step forward. In: Indian Country Today. September 26, 2008.
- ↑ a b c d Gale Courey Toensing: BIA denies Brothertown federal acknowledgment. In: Indian Country Today. September 11, 2009.
- ↑ "Brothertown Indians" ( Memento of the original from October 10, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Federal Reporter , Sept. 18, 2008.
- ^ Faye Burg: Town action surprises tribe, county. In: I want the news, Tri-County News , Kiel, Wisconsin, January 13, 2014.
- ^ Brothertown archaeological project planned. In: Tri-County News (Kiel, Wisconsin) May 24, 2007: 3.
