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WHERE DID ALL THE INDIANS GO?
Some of our New England Indians didn't go anywhere. They stayed right here where they have been for tens of thousands of years, and are still living here today. After the Civil War, the government decided to make them invisible by classifying all persons of color as black, and if they had light enough skin, they were called white. It was declared that there were no more full-blooded Indians in New England, and people started believing that and stopped noticing that they still existed. It's called "hiding in plain sight." But the majority did move on as they had lost their farm lands, their hunting and fishing grounds, and their families. Many of the southern New England Indians that survived the Indian Wars and the European diseases and the slavery eventually joined the tribes at the far western edge of New England, where they were pushed into New York and later to Michigan and Wisconsin. Thus it is very difficult for most of us to know which tribe our Indian ancestors originally belonged to. The most common trails generally led them to the Wappingers in western CT or the Stockbridge in western MA and from there to the Brothertons in upstate NY. The Mahican Nation was located along the Housatonic River in Litchfield County Connecticut and Berkshire County Massachusetts and the Hudson River in eastern New York State up to Lake Champlain. They were sometimes called the Canoe Indians or the River Indians. In Massachusetts they were called the Housatonic or Stockbridge Indians. After a war with the Mohawk in 1664, they moved their capital from Schodac near Albany to Stockbridge. In 1721 one band of them moved to Indiana, and in 1730 a large band of them went to Pennsylvania, where they later merged with the Delaware and Munsee tribes, becoming known as the Stockbridge-Muncee Tribe. Those in the Housatonic Valley became a Praying Town in 1734, and were called the Stockbridge Indians. The Mahican villages, with their leaders Konkapot and Umpachenee turned to Christianity because they felt that it protected the Europeans from the diseases that were killing their people. Several English families were sent to Stockbridge to become role models to help "civilize the savages." As always happened, the Indians lost all of their land to the civilized English, so resettled in Stockbridge NY, in what is now Madison County. When they lost that, too, some joined the Oneida Nation and others moved with the Brotherton Indians to Wisconsin.
For a more thorough account of the Christian Indian town of Stockbridge MA, there is a delightful artical called "A New England Village" which was printed in November, 1871 in the Harper's New Monthly Magazine. It includes some of the names of the original Stockbridge Indians, and it can be read at the following website: For a look at their subsequent history at Calumet County Wisconsin, I recommend the following website:
Treaty which sent the NY Indians to Wisconsin
Oct. 27, 1832. 7 Stat., 409. To all to whom these presents shall come, the undersigned, Chiefs and Headmen of the sundry tribes of New York Indians, (as set forth in the specifications annexed to their signatures) send greeting: WHEREAS a tedious, perplexing and harassing dispute and controversy have long existed between the Menominee nation of Indians and the New York Indians, more particularly known as the Stockbridge, Munsee and Brothertown tribes, the Six Nations and St. Regis tribe. The treaty made between the said Menominee nation, and the United States, and the conditional ratification thereof by the Senate of the United States, being stated and set forth in the within agreement, entered into between the chiefs and headmen of the said Menominees, and George B. Porter, Governor of Michigan, commissioner specially appointed, with instructions referred to in the said agreement. And whereas the undersigned are satisfied, and believe that the best efforts of the said commissioner were directed and used to procure, if practicable, the unconditional assent of the said Menominees to the change proposed by the Senate of the United States in the ratification of the said treaty: but without success. And whereas the undersigned further believe that the terms stated in the within agreement are the best practicable terms, short of those proposed by the Senate of the United States, which could be obtained from the said Menominees; and being asked to signify our acceptance of the modifications proposed as aforesaid by the Menominees, we are compelled, by a sense of duty and propriety to say that we do hereby accept of the same. So far as the tribes to which we belong are concerned, we are perfectly satisfied, that the treaty should be ratified on the terms proposed by the Menominees. We further believe that the tract of land which the Menominees in the within agreement, are willing to cede, in exchange for an equal quantity on the northeast side of the tract of five hundred thousand acres, contains a sufficient quantity of good land, favorably and advantageously situated, to answer all the wants of the New York Indians, and St. Regis tribe. For the purpose, then, of putting an end to strife, and that we may all sit down in peace and harmony, we thus signify our acceptance of the modifications proposed by the Menominees: and we most respectfully request that the treaty as now modified by the agreement this day entered into with the Menominees, may be ratified and approved by the President and Senate of the United States. In witness whereof, we have hereunto set our hands and seals, at the Agency House at Green Bay, this twenty-seventh day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eighteen hundred and thirty-two. G. B. Porter,commissioner on behalf of the United States, For, and on behalf of, the Stockbridges and Munsees: John Metoxen, For, and on behalf of, the Brothertowns: William Dick, For, and on behalf of, the Six Nations and St. Regis tribe: Daniel Bread, Sealed, and delivered, in the presence of George Boyd, United States Indian agent,
Source: Indian Affairs. Laws and Treaties. Vol. II. (Treaties.) Compiled and Edited by Charles J. Kappler, LL. M., Clerk to the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. Washington: Government Printing Office. 1904
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