Mohegan
The Mohegan (own name Mu-he-con-neok people from the area where the water never stands still ) belong to the Algonquin language group (language family: Algisch), who spoke a Pequot dialect and are often confused with the Mahican .
In the early 17th century, the Mohegan and Pequot were run jointly by the Pequot-Sachem Sassacus until the tribe split up and the Mohegan achieved independence under their Sachem Uncas . After the crushing defeat in the Pequot War by the English in 1637, most of the survivors of the Pequot and their residential areas came under the control of the Mohegan.
Surname
Mohegan and Mahican means wolf in both tribal languages , but denote two different tribes. This often leads to confusion, although the Mohegan lived on the Thames River in eastern Connecticut, while the Mahican lived in the Hudson River valley in New York, 150 km away . Even the author of the novel The Last of the Mohicans , James Fenimore Cooper , confused some facts. Cooper lived in Cooperstown , New York, and his novel is mostly set in the neighboring Upper Hudson Valley. So one can assume that he wrote about the Mahican, but he chose the spelling Mohican and the Mohegan- Sachem Uncas plays a leading role, both of which caused further confusion. Other factors also contributed to the confusion. The Mohegan were the largest group within Connecticut's Brotherton Indians. After moving to the Oneida reservation in northern New York in 1788, they mingled with the Stockbridge from western Massachusetts, who were mostly Mahican. For this reason, today's Stockbridge Tribe is believed to be made up of descendants of both the Mahican and Mohegan. Synonyms for the Mohegan are Monhigg, Mohiggan, Monahegan and Uncas Indians.
Settlement area
Archaeological finds, artifacts and oral records indicate that the Mohegan-Pequot resided on the upper Thames River in Connecticut for an extended period of time . This contradicts the thesis that this group came from the Hudson Valley south of Lake Champlain . The Mohegan called their homeland Moheganeak and settled the upper and western Thames valley at the time of their first European contact, while the Pequot were to be found further south, closer to the coast.
Demographics
Before the Mohegan and Pequot separated in 1633, the two tribes had a total of around 6,000 members. Two years later, a devastating smallpox epidemic reduced them by at least 30 percent. A forced unification of the two tribes after the Pequot War brought about 1,500 Pequot and Western Niantic under Mohegan control, increasing the number of tribesmen to 3,000. In 1655 the Pequot came to separate reservations at the instigation of the English . The number of Mohegan continued to decline as a result of diseases introduced by Europeans, although over time many members of the neighboring Mattabesic , Nipmuck and Narraganset joined them. It can be assumed that the Mohegan, as allies of the colonists, were infected more quickly through closer contact with the whites.
The number of Mohegan was subsequently reduced to 1,200 members (1675) and around 1705 there were still 750. After that, some groups left the main Connecticut tribe. About 300 Mohegan joined the Brotherton Indians and went with them to the Oneida and Stockbridge Indians in upstate New York between 1775 and 1788 . They later moved west and were found in northern Wisconsin by 1834 . Descendants of these Mohegan are to be found west of Green Bay in Wisconsin at the Stockbridge and east of Lake Winnebago at the Brotherton.
In 1774 there were only 206 Mohegan remaining in Connecticut and in 1809 there were only 70 members. In 1832 this number had increased again to 360, presumably due to immigration from other tribes. The 1850 census found 125 Mohegan in Connecticut, most of whom were among the white population. 1994 Mohegan in Connecticut received the federal recognition (English: Federal recognition) under the name The Mohegan Tribe .
| year | number | annotation | source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1600 | 2,200 | estimated | James Mooney |
| 1643 | 2,250 | John R. Swanton | |
| 1700 | 1,000 | calculation | NAHDB * |
| 1705 | 750 | John R. Swanton | |
| 1774 | 206 | John R. Swanton | |
| 1800 | 100 | calculation | NAHDB * |
| 1804 | 84 | John R. Swanton | |
| 1809 | 69 | John R. Swanton | |
| 1900 | 50 | calculation | NAHDB * |
| 1910 | 22nd | census | |
| 1970 | 200 | census | |
| 2000 | 1,180 | census | |
| 2005 | 1,000 | The Mohegan Tribe (registered members) |
* Native American Historical Data Base
Culture and way of life
All of the tribes in southern New England spoke one of the five eastern Algonquin languages, which are Loup ( Western Abenaki ), Massachusett, Mohegan-Pequot-Montauk, Narraganset, and Quiripi-Unquachog. None of these languages are spoken today and no phonemic analysis exists .
It can be proven that all of these languages were understood by the respective speakers. Other early reports emphasize linguistic differences and problems that speakers of the Martha's Vineyard dialect had in communicating with residents of the island of Nantucket and the nearby mainland of Massachusetts.
Livelihood
Archaeological finds from the early 17th century at a Mohegan archaeological site in Connecticut show that venison provided nearly 90 percent of the residents' meat needs. In autumn and early winter, the Mohegan men hunted deer and caught the animals in traps or with snares. There were community hunts in which up to three hundred people were involved.
There are relatively complete descriptions of Indian gardening by Giovanni da Verrazzano , who, like the other early explorers, was impressed by the extent of the cultivated fields. Corn, kidney beans, squash , artichokes and tobacco were grown . Groups of 50 or more men and women cleared the land by cutting the trees 3 feet above the ground and burning the branches and trunks. The seeds were then placed in the ground between the tree stumps. Champlain observed the planting of a field on the banks of the Saco River in July 1605:
“After digging the ground with hardwood spade tools, the shells of horseshoe crabs were used to pile up small mounds about 3 feet apart, each with 3 or 4 kernels of corn and an equal number of beans. Small fish were placed in every corn hill as fertilizer, a practice that could also come from Europe. The fields were necessarily left fallow to increase fertility and burned before they were replanted. Clamshell hoes were used for weeding in Massachusetts. "
Work in the fields, i.e. planting, weeding and harvesting, was considered women's work, although old men or young men sometimes helped out out of affection for their wives. The only exception was tobacco, which was grown exclusively by men. The dried corn was placed in woven hemp sacks or baskets and stored in mat-covered pits for consumption during autumn and winter. The first Pilgrim Fathers on Cape Cod found such storehouses, which they called "Indian barns", and used the contents for their own purposes by stealing from the Indians. The English colonists hated these pits because their free-range cattle would often fall in and break their legs.
Clothing and appearance
The headdress of the warriors consisted of a kind of comb made of red-colored porcupine bristles that reached from the forehead to the neck. Tobacco pouches hanging around the neck were made from the leather of small animals and served as containers for pipes and tobacco. Warriors shaved all of their heads except for a scalp lock on the top of the head, which was smeared with fat and stood straight up. Although this hair fashion is attributed to the Mohawk , it applied to most of the eastern tribes. Animal fat from bears or raccoons was generously distributed on the body and also in the hair to protect against the cold, sun rays and mosquitoes. In winter the clothes were made of furs, while in the warm season they consisted only of a leather loincloth. With increasing assimilation , they adopted European clothing and uniforms.
Tools and weapons
A way of life that required both frequent changes of location and a lack of simple land transport methods did not allow the possession of numerous obstructive tools. The Mohegan needed suitable tools that could easily be made on the spot and left behind after use. Long-lasting tools had to be as light as possible. There were a few exceptions, such as large ceramic jugs and heavy wooden mortars. These were usually left behind in the camp or village to be used again during the next visit in the migration cycle .
The basic equipment of weapons for both hunting and war was a bow and arrow. The bows, from the Cape Cod area, were made from hazelnut shoots and were about 1.50 to 1.80 meters long, painted black and yellow and strung with three twisted tendons. Three long black feathers were attached to wooden arrows about 0.90 meters long. They were transported in quivers made of rushes decorated with rhombus-shaped patterns in red and other colors. The Mohegan in eastern Massachusetts had elderberry arrows, which consisted of a loose-fitting front part in a matching main shaft so that the main shaft could be reused while the tip got stuck in the game.
Arrowheads were made of stone, antler tips, eagle toes, bone and horseshoe crab tails, or the Mohegan simply sharpened the wood of the arrows. Very early on after the first contact with Europeans, the Indians began to replace this original material with iron, copper and brass. Metal arrowheads are often mentioned in contemporary literature. Arrowheads made in Europe, such as those made by the Indians from used kettles and other metal objects, have been found many times during excavations at archaeological sites.
Social organization
Mohegan society was patrilineal. The basic socio-political unit was the village; one to several nuclear families of the same patrilinear line lived together in a long bark house. The daily management work was the sachem of the village. Early European reports characterize the Native American political system as monarchical , noting that a sachem wielded limited power and essentially guided its residents by persuasiveness. For important decisions there was a council meeting with the great men of the village.
The leaders of a village basically came from a recognized chief lineage and there is the following report about the rules of royal succession :
“With their kings it is customary to inherit, the son always taking over the kingdom after the death of his father. If there is no son, the queen follows; if there is no queen, the next comes of royal blood; if someone else comes he will be considered an unlawful intruder, and if his proper promotion does not prove him better, they will soon remove him from office. "
Squaw sachems existed in Massachusetts and Rhode Island in the 17th century . These were not sachem widows, but rather women whose origins gave them a leadership role. Women also inherited land rights, so their names appear on deeds in which that land is transferred to the English colonists.
Uncas traced his both matrilineal and patrilineal ancestry back to sachems of the Pequot, Narragansett and Long Island Indians and wanted to prove inheritance claims of each line. This is evident from Unca's genealogy , a unique document from 1679.
Marriages seem to have been concluded only within class boundaries. At least in the case of families in the leadership class, they were sometimes polygamous , possibly because they were related to the chief lineages of their neighboring villages. Bridal prices were common and often consisted of wampum .
history
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When the first Europeans entered southern New England in the early 17th century, the Pequot-Mohegan were a powerful, prosperous tribe who owed their prosperity to the lucrative wampum trade. Gradually, they had subjugated the smaller neighboring tribes to the west and north and required them to pay tribute, a common practice among the indigenous people in the region.
Fur trade
A permanently manned trading post of the Dutch built in 1622 and a small fort on the site of today's East Hartford served the purpose of further expanding the fur trade in lower Connecticut. The Pequot controlled the region's smaller Nipmuck and Mattabesic tribes and their access to the Dutch. In 1622 there was a confrontation and almost a war, in which the Europeans did not intervene. The Pequot imposed some sort of duty on the other tribes as they passed their country or acted as intermediaries in the fur and wampum trade with the Dutch on the Connecticut River.
In 1633, English traders from Boston built a trading post at Windsor , a few miles above the Dutch trading post on the Connecticut River. This location allowed the English to intercept the goods from the interior. In response, the Dutch bought land from the Pequot and built a fortified trading post they called the House of Good Hope. Of course the Dutch were not enthusiastic about the English competition, but the interests of the Pequot were hit even harder by this. In addition to the loss of customs and tribute payments, what was worse for them, the power and authority of the Pequot over the other tribes was severely weakened. At the same time, wampum as a generally accepted means of payment lost considerably in value, because the English colonists produced wampum industrially with steel drills and flooded the market with it. So the Dutch were certain that the Pequot would drive the English out.
But things turned out differently, as there was serious rivalry among the Pequot between residents inland on the Thames River and groups near the coast. From the point of view of the Inland-Pequot, the English trading post at Windsor was more accessible than that of the Dutch and paid higher prices, so they tried to negotiate a monopoly with the English similar to that with the Dutch.
Breakaway of Mohegan
In 1631 the Obersachem Wopigwooit died and both Sassacus and Uncas, between whom there was a personal rivalry, wanted to succeed him. The tribal council's decision fell on Sassacus, and although Uncas was married to Sassacus' daughter, he did not accept the decision. There were heated debates in the tribal council, because Sassacus favored trade with the Dutch, Uncas on the other hand with the English.
The Pequot split into two parties and attacks on Dutch or English fur traders ensued if they encountered the wrong Pequot group. The quarrel within the Pequot became more intense. Uncas refused allegiance to Sassacus and eventually left the Pequot villages with 50 warriors and their families. They settled in a new village on the Connecticut River north of what is now Lyme and now called themselves Mohegan. Uncas finally managed to enlarge his group to such an extent that Sassacus could no longer force them to return.
Few Native American leaders are judged as negatively in literature as the Mohegan Sachem Uncas. One reads there that he was insidious, faithless, cruel, greedy and hungry for power - probably the stark opposite of the noble savage in the imagination of many Europeans. Obviously, this is not a balanced judgment in view of the fact that Indian leaders were never absolute rulers, but instead acquired and maintained their leadership position through special achievements, courage, wise decisions and care for their tribal members.
In 1634 an incident occurred when the Boston captain and trader John Stone, known as a slave hunter, was killed by Western Niantic while attempting to capture Native American women and children. His death caused outrage among the colonists. Since the Niantic were allies of the Pequot, Sassacus set out for reconciliation talks. The Puritans, however, did not allow themselves to be appeased by furs and wampum, but demanded the extradition of the guilty. No agreement was reached, Sassacus and the Puritans parted in anger. In the summer of 1635, the new English Fort Saybrook was built at the mouth of the Connecticut River and the Dutch had to close their trading post at Hartford because they no longer had access to Long Island Sound . The Pequot lost their trading partner and the Narraganset seized the opportunity to attack their weakened western neighbor. They recaptured the hunting ground in southwestern Rhode Island that they had lost to the Pequot after the war in 1622.
Pequot war
English colonists began colonizing Connecticut in 1636 when the Dutch withdrew. They were greeted by the Mattabesic who lived here, on the one hand as trading partners, on the other hand as liberators from the yoke of the Pequot, who saw their power waning. Tension arose between the Puritan settlers and the Pequot and incidents increased. In contrast, Uncas and the Mohegan were friendly towards the British, who treated them with suspicion. The Mohegan soon had an opportunity to demonstrate their loyalty to the Alliance.
When another ship's captain named John Oldham was killed by some Niantic on Block Island in 1636 , the British leadership sent an expedition of 90 volunteers under John Endecott with orders to kill the Indian warriors on Block Island and to take the women and children prisoner and occupy the island. The expedition then drove back to the mainland, moved to Pequot Land and demanded the extradition of the murderers from Captain Stone and other Englishmen, plus 1,000 fathoms (1.83 m = 1 fathom) of wampum as reparation and some children as hostages. Sassacus refused, whereupon the British destroyed a Pequot village and returned to Boston.
The following winter, the Pequot asked the Mohegan and Narraganset for help in the impending war against the British, but both tribes not only refused, but sided with the colonists. Sassacus chose to fight the war alone. In April 1637, he retaliated against Wethersfield and Hartford, killing 30 colonists. On May 1, 1637, the leadership of the Connecticut Colony declared the offensive war against the Pequot. Despite the differences that existed, many Mohegan were unwilling to fight their Pequot relatives. Uncas left most of his supporters to protect the villages and moved to Hartford with only 70 of his most loyal warriors to reinforce the 90-man colonial force under John Mason . It was planned to destroy the heavily fortified Pequot Fort on the Mystic River . The small army was loaded into boats and drove down Connecticut to Fort Saybrook, where more troops were picked up. Then the path led along the coast to the vicinity of Mystic, a large, fortified village of the Pequot on the river of the same name.
On May 25, 1637, John Mason had the Pequot fort surrounded and set on fire. Afterwards, his troops invaded the burning village and caused a bloodbath that would later become known as the Mystic Massacre . Most of the 700 or so residents tried to flee, were driven back into the flames and over 500 of them died a painful death. Captain Mason, who was to exterminate the Pequot according to orders, pursued the fled Indians with his command, killed them or put them in chains. The news of this massacre reached the other Pequot villages in no time at all, which then fled west in small groups. Sassacus fled west with a group along the Connecticut coast and tried to reach the Mohawk villages. With the help of Uncas and his Mohegan scouts, the British took up the chase and discovered the wanted Pequot near present-day Fairfield . The Pequot were surrounded in a swamp, but refused to give up without a fight. The women and children were then allowed to leave the swamp. In the ensuing battle, 180 Pequot were killed or captured. Sassacus fled with the survivors to the Mohawk in what is now New York State. However, they feared retaliation from the British, killed Sassacus and sent his head to Hartford , the capital of the young colony of Connecticut, as a token of loyalty . The Pequot War ended in a series of minor skirmishes when the English, Mohegan and Narraganset hunted down the remaining Pequot. Eventually the remaining Pequot sachems surrendered and asked for peace for their defeated people.
Consequences of war
Only about 1,500 Pequot, less than half, survived the war. The warriors were killed in action or later executed, and women and children were sold into slavery in the West Indies . On September 21, 1638, the victorious Indian allies signed a treaty with the colonists that came to be known as the First Hartford Treaty . Most of the approximately 1,500 remaining Pequot and Western Niantic were divided among the Mohegan, Narragansett and Metoac and were forbidden to ever call themselves Pequot again. Every tribe, including the Mohegan, who gave refuge to the Pequot, had to pay a heavy fine in the form of wampum to the British or give land to the colonists. The Pequot provided the Mohegan with a large number of additional warriors, and with a population of nearly 3,000 tribesmen and a formal alliance with the British in Massachusetts and Connecticut, they were among the most powerful tribes in southern New England.
The Indians of the area were appalled at the merciless warfare of the British, killing or enslaving many of the surviving Pequot, some of whom had volunteered to join the Narragansett in order to join their tribe. The total victory over the Pequot and the attempted extermination had a strong depressive effect on the other Indian peoples in southern New England. Because up to then, they had not known any destruction to the point of complete extermination of the enemy. After the Pequot War, there was a longer period of peace, as for a generation no tribe dared to rebel against the British. It was not until 1675 that the next war between English and Indians came with the King Philip's War .
The rivalry between the tribes continued. The Narraganset were the only competitor of the Mohegan left. In 1644 the Narraganset saw the time had come to attack the Mohegan without informing the English beforehand. Sachem Miantonomo led 900 Narraganset warriors in a surprise attack against the main Mohegan village, Shetucket, near what is now Norwich , where Uncas resided. The Mohegan were on the verge of defeat when they managed to catch Miantonomo. The loss of their sachem confused the Narraganset so much that they broke off the fight and fled. They later offered a large amount of wampum for his release, but Uncas had already handed over his prominent prisoner to the English in Hartford. After lengthy discussion and consultation with the government in Massachusetts, they decided that Miontonimo could return to his people. English soldiers and Mohegan escorted him to Shetucket when Miontonimo was killed from behind by Uncas' brother with a tomahawk . Few doubted that the execution was carried out without the express permission of the British authorities.
The supremacy of the Mohegan
The Mohegan were finally the most powerful tribe in southern New England and no longer had any serious Indian rivals in the region. They were loyal to the British, an alliance designed to be mutually beneficial. The Mohegan were able to extend their dominance north and west over the Nipmuck and Mattabesic, while the British colonists were able to appropriate the land of these tribes without resistance. Over the next 50 years, many of the small Nipmuck tribes would be absorbed by the Mohegan and lose their tribal identity, the same fate that awaited the neighboring eastern Mattabesic tribes.
Some Mattabesic in northern Connecticut wanted to free themselves from the supremacy of the Mohegan and therefore turned to the Pocumtuc for help . They welcomed the Mattabesic because they urgently needed young men for their own war against the Mohawk.
Above all else, the Mohegan brought peace to Connecticut and kept the tribes in check who wanted to resist British expansion. Today it is no longer understandable why the Mohegan helped the colonists acquire Indian land. Smaller tribes were put under pressure by them until they surrendered their land. This was the usual policy of Uncas and the British colonists, which after his death in 1687 was continued by his sons who followed him as Mohegan sachems.
The King Philip's War
The Mohegan were among the few tribes of New England who sided with the British in King Philip's War (1675–1676). The large number of tribes that were considered loyal before the war and had now joined the rebels unsettled the colonists. The British therefore asked Uncas to come to Boston and hand over all firearms. The 76-year-old Uncas did not appear himself, but sent three of his sons, who, however, only delivered some of the weapons. Two of the sons were taken hostage until the end of the war. The British released the third son, Oneko, so that he could lead the Mohegan warriors against the insurgents. The British were particularly angry about the many defectors from the ranks of the Christian Indians (English: Praying Indians). When the Puritan missionaries checked the number of converted Indians, they only found around 500 of them in the 14 prayer cities . The others had disappeared into the woods or joined Philip. Therefore, the remaining praying Indians were brought to an island in Boston harbor or other safe places to be on the safe side. Initially, the Mohegan were used as scouts in Robert Treat's army and in September 1675 they saved a British force at Hadley from complete annihilation.
In December 1675, a 1,000-strong colonial army, along with 150 Mohegan scouts, appeared to attack the Narraganset. After the Narraganset Sachem Canonchet had rejected the demand that the Wampanoag located in his village be surrendered, the besiegers attacked. The English under Captain Church managed to penetrate the village and set the huts on fire. Many Indians fled into the swamp and watched in impotent anger as women, children and old people burned alive. In this battle, which as Great Swamp Massacre (English: Great Swamp Massacre) became known, the Narragansett lost more than 600 tribal members and 20 sachems.
After a successful escape, Canochet led a group of Narraganset warriors west to reunite with King Philip in western Massachusetts. In February 1676 Canonchet was responsible for several raids on English settlements on the Connecticut River. In March he was able to lure the British Captain Wadsworth into an ambush and almost destroy his unit. Soon, however, hunger became a bigger enemy than the British. In April Canonchet returned to Rhode Island to bring Philip seeds from a secret hiding place. On the march back, Canonchet was caught by Mohegan, handed over to the colonists and later shot by a firing squad. Uncas died in 1682 at the age of 82, which was quite high for the time.
The Americans honored his services in 1847 with a memorial in Norwich , Connecticut, and a bronze statue at the Coopers home in Cooperstown .
The 18th and 19th centuries
The presence of the Mohegan largely protected the Connecticut colony from Native American attacks in King Philip's War. After the war, the Mohegan were the largest tribe in southern New England with around 1,000 members. The Wampanoag were almost exterminated and only about 400 members survived the war. The Narraganset and Nipmuck suffered similar losses. Although small groups lived on the Connecticut River until the 19th century, the Pocumtuc disappeared as an organized group. The war also brought heavy losses for the English: 600 colonists were killed, a total of 90 settlements were attacked and 13 of them were completely destroyed. Of the total Indian population in southern New England of around 15,000 members before the war, there were only around 4,000 survivors around 1680 and the harsh English peace conditions corresponded to complete submission.
The number of Mohegan that remained was sufficient to protect Connecticut from attacks by the Abenaki from the north, which ravaged the rest of New England , for the next 50 years . Connecticut had an Indian security service as long as there were Mohegan warriors in sufficient numbers. Mohegan also served the British as scouts in King William's War (1688–1696) and Queen Anne's War (1701–1713).
Despite their loyalty, the Mohegan could not count on the gratitude of the British in the long term. Debt with English merchants led to land sales until around 1721 only about 4,000 acres (16.2 km²) remained on the Thames River. In 1735 the Sachem Mahomet Weyonomon , a great-grandson of Uncas', traveled to London to ask King George II for fairer treatment of his people, as their lands would be overrun by English settlers. Huddled together in ever smaller spaces, many of the last Mohegan began to leave Connecticut. When Ben Uncas, the last Mohegan sachem, died in 1769, few were left on the remaining Mohegan land. Ben Uncas had transferred the protection of the land to the colonist John Mason during his lifetime. John Mason did his best to save the land for the Mohegan, which made him unpopular with the other colonists. In the end, Mason succumbed to court in 1774 and had to bow to the enormous pressure. He gave the remaining Mohegan land to the Connecticut government in trust.
The British initially made no serious attempts to convert the Mohegan to Christianity. The first truly successful missionary to the Mohegan was one of their own people named Samson Occom . In 1773 Occom preached to his tribe members and organized them in so-called Brother Towns, later called Brothertown. Eventually he converted over 300 of his people, more than half of his tribe. Many of them adopted British customs and clothing and gave up their traditional lifestyle. Occom also converted other tribes with similar success and, although Brothertown was soon a mix of Mohegan, Metoac, and Mattabesic, the Mohegan were by far the largest group. Conversion to Christianity made the Indians little more popular in Connecticut, however, and Occum urged his people to accept the Oneida’s invitation to live with them in upstate New York. The first group left Connecticut in 1775 and the remainder followed around 1788. Occum died in 1792. In 1802 the Connecticut-Brothertown merged with a second Brothertown group consisting of Unami-Delaware of New Jersey . In 1822 the Brothertown sold their land in New York and were to be found in northern Wisconsin with the Oneida and Stockbridge Indians by 1834 . Some Brotherton intermingled with the Stockbridge, and their descendants are now part of the Stockbridge Indians who live west of Green Bay in Wisconsin. The remaining Brotherton in Wisconsin can be found on the east bank of Lake Winnebago today.
In Connecticut, the American Revolutionary War interrupted the ongoing expropriation of Mohegan land. But even after that, the State of Connecticut continued what the colony had started. In 1790, only about 200 Mohegan lived in eastern Connecticut when the last 2,300 acres (9.3 km²) were divided into individual parcels. The remainder was leased to whites, and in 1861 Connecticut sold that land without the Mohegan's consent.
Todays situation
Over time, the Mohegan in Connecticut had integrated so well that of the descendants of the 400 Mohegan from the 1850 census, only 22 could be found in 1910. More Mohegan lived in Connecticut, of course, because most of them had stayed there and were in touch with one another. In the 1970s, the tribe was reorganized and in 1994 received federal recognition under the leadership of Ralph W. Sturges. The Mohegan received under the name The Mohegan Tribe a reserve in Uncasville , today in which it is a casino and a hotel, the Mohegan Sun operate.
With the death of Fidelia Fielding in the early 20th century, the last female speaker of the Mohegan language died. The Mohegan Language Restoration Project aims to collect words of the Mohegan language on data carriers and to teach them to interested tribal members. For this purpose, old people are interviewed in order to pass their knowledge on to the younger generation. In the census of the year 2000 1.180 Mohegan were counted.
See also
literature
- Bruce G. Trigger (Ed.): Handbook of North American Indians . Volume 15. Northeast. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington DC 1978 ISBN 0-16-004575-4 .
- Alvin M. Josephy Jr.: 500 Nations. Frederking & Thaler GmbH, Munich 1996 ISBN 3-89405-356-9 .
- Alvin M. Josephy Jr.: The world of the Indians. Frederking & Thaler GmbH, Munich 1994 ISBN 3-89405-331-3 .
Web links
This article is based on the article Mohegan ( memento of July 1, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) from the free encyclopedia Indianer Wiki ( memento of March 18, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) and is under Creative Commons by-sa 3.0 . A list of the authors was available in the Indian Wiki ( Memento from July 1, 2007 in the Internet Archive ).
References and comments
- ↑ Almost everyone in German-speaking countries knows the novel The Last Mohican . However, the author James Fenimore Cooper probably meant the Mahican tribe , who lived about 150 km away from the Mohegan and were called Mohican in Cooper's time .
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i Mohegan History
- ↑ a b c d e f g Handbook of North American Indians. - Chapter: Indians of Southern New England and Long Island: Early Period. P. 160 ff.
- ↑ Mohegan
- ↑ Alvin M. Josephy Jr.: 500 Nations. Frederking & Thaler, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-89405-356-9
- ^ Mohegan Language Project