A Milestone - Algonkian Church History's 300th post

A lot of Algonkian Church History posts lead readers to other sites or to books or other resources.
But today - with our 300th post - Algonkian Church History is honoring itself!

According to Google, ACH has received over 80,000 page views since it began on November 5th, 2008. As the creator of almost all of the posts, I've been surprised when some posts are viewed by many - while others that I've worked hard on are seen by only a few.

Anyway, here's a list of some ACH posts that were popular, and others that deserve special mention:

Most Viewed Posts:

3rd Place: Occom's Short Narrative of My Life (1735 views to date)

2nd Place: Bury My Heart at the Monastery: The Menominee Takeover of the Novitiate
This well-illustrated post includes links to relevant sites. The standoff between a dissident faction of Menominees and the federal government was probably the most newsworthy event for Wisconsin Indians in the 1970's. The post now has 2039 views.

1st Place: The High Point of Stockbridge Calvinism
Don't get me wrong, this was not a bad post, but I suspect that it has received 2405 views partly by accident. Many web surfers undoubtedly came to this post by clicking on the symbol you see below on Google images:

Least Viewed Post:

NPR Asks Who Is an Indian? The once-broken link to the NPR segment now works. And, as before, this post is graced with a photo of a reader of this blog, Darren Kroenke.



Most Humorous Post:

Who Taught the Stockbridge Indians to Moon? This one needs no introduction.



Most Controversial Post:

Racial Identity Among the New York Indians: Chris Geherin Looks at "New Guinea"
I was thrown out of an online community after this post appeared. Even now, some people who self-identify as Indians are not willing to accept that they may also have some African blood. Get over it!



Most Viewed Series of Posts:

The New York Indian Removal Series Thanks to a link from the New York History blog, this series of twenty posts had a reasonably large audience.

Marker for Jacob Konkapot and Hendrick Aupaumut

About thirty Revolutionary War veterans were buried in what is now the state of Wisconsin. Most of them were white men buried in marked graves. Two of them - Captain Hendrick Aupaumut and Jacob Konkapot - were Stockbridge Indians buried in an unmarked site somewhere in present-day Kaukauna. In 1976, Aupaumut and Konkapot were memorialized on this marker.

As of October 11, 2013 - that is three days ago as I write - Melinda, a recent transplant to the state, completed her goal of visiting - and blogging on - all 537 Wisconsin Historical Society markers. As a matter of fact, Melinda went way beyond her goal and visited a grand total of 1754 Wisconsin historical sites!

Melinda has a late-stage cancer diagnosis, so it was that much more important to her to finish her tour within the roughly 18-month time-frame that she set for herself. Read her story here.

Melinda was only a few weeks into her project when she blogged on the marker that was erected on behalf of H. Aupaumut and J. Konkapot. This is what that post looks like.

Congratulations Melinda! Rest in Peace Captain Hendrick and Mr. Konkapot!

High Price for Hopkins' Historical Memoirs'

 

You can see that this book has a long title. 

 

Historical Memoirs, Relating to the Housatunnuk Indians: Or, An Account of the Methods Used, and Pains Taken, for the Propagation of the Gospel Among that Heathenish Tribe, and the Successes Thereof, Under the Ministry of the Late Reverned Mr. John Sergeant: Together, With the Character of that Eminently Worthy Missionary; and an Address to the People of this Country, Representing the very Great Importance of Attaching the Indians to their Interest, not only by Treating them Justly and Kindly, but by Using Proper Endeavors to Settle Christianity Among them. 

 

 

Perhaps you can see that it was published in 1753. That is four years after John Sergeant, the first missionary to the Housatonic Mohicans (eventually known as the Stockbridge Mohicans) died.

 

It is a very important book, partly because the author, Samuel Hopkins, had access to John Sergeant's journals which were later lost. The book also contains descriptions of things like maple syrup that white people don't seem to have been aware of before that point. The Indians boiled it down into a kind of sugar.

 

I got a chance to read a legitimate copy of this old book at the Wisconsin State Historical Society ten years ago. As I turned the pages it was literally falling apart - that is what happens with a book that is more than two hundred years old.

 

Anyway, a copy of this book brought $5,856 in a 2010 auction.

 

Sounds like an awful lot, until you realize that it was purchased for $10,500 in 2001! 

Who Taught the Stockbridge Indians to Moon?

Yes, you read that title correctly, if you were thinking of "Mooning" as the pulling down of one's pants to expose one's butt as an intended insult.

William Kellaway's book, The New England Company 1649-1776 , is a history of the mission society that went by that same name.

The New England Company was the London-based philanthropic organization that supported the mission town in Stockbridge, Massachusetts starting in the 1730's. I'm not completely cynical about organizations like The New England Company...

I'm not starting the argument that they were ethnocentric; they were, we know that, this is about something else: Stockbridge, Massachusetts was a strategic location in the ongoing wars between Britain and France. If we can assume that the mission society gave the Indians something good (just for now, feel free to argue against that later), religion, "civilization," whatever, it certainly wasn't free, because the people of Great Britain got an excellent guerrilla warfare unit out of the deal.

During the American Revolution, the Continental warship Bonhomme Richard, commanded by John Paul Jones, won a hard-fought engagement against the British ships of war HMS Serapis and HMS Countess of Scarborough off the east coast of England. I figured it would be more appropriate to illustrate this entry with warships of that era than with a picture of a "moon."


By the 1770's Great Britain had become the enemy. The Stockbridges - lets remember they consisted of Mohicans and Wappingers and other Algonkian remnants - were the only Native nation to fully side with the thirteen colonies, that is, the Americans, for the whole Revolutionary War. At that point the officials of The New England Company had a chance to show that it was really about religion, that their support of the mission across the ocean was more than just a sort of inducement to support the British in war. And sure enough, the New England Company pulled through, paying John Sergeant Jr.'s salary as late as May of 1783 (Kellaway, page 278).

Things eventually broke down, however. There were logistical reasons for the breakdown, but there was also the realization that some of the New England Company's American commissioners were "among the prime leaders and first stirrers up of the rebellion."

The once-loyal British-allied Indians had been made 'treacherous' by the white Americans. (In other words, the Stockbridge Indians sided with the Americans, becoming "traitors" in British eyes.) This brings us to possibly the most remarkable incident in Kellaway's entire book:

[T]he Stockbridge Indians had been brought to Boston when British naval vessels were there on purpose to insult them, and were taught, by turning up their backsides, to express their defiance of them (Kellaway, 280).

So there you have it: One of the things the Stockbridge Indians learned before they left Massachusetts was how to insult people by "mooning."

An Indian Land Case in the Colony of New York, part 3 of 3

*Read part 1 of this series*
*Read part 2 of this series*

Henry Moore (below) was the Royal Governor of the Colony of New York from 1765 to 1769.

The remainder of Patrick Frazier's thirteenth chapter in The Mohicans of Stockbridge is impossible to summarize in the space of one blogpost. As is often the case, his research turns up a lot of details that can hardly be called insignificant. Nevertheless, for those of you who won't be reading Frazier's book soon, here's what happened next:

The four Stockbridge chiefs returned to the colony of Massachusetts full of optimism after having been treated so well in London. They were told that the earl of Shelburne would send instructions on their case to New York's Governor, Henry Moore, and there is no reason to doubt that those instructions were sent. On the other hand, Governor Moore's willingness to heed those instructions is another matter. It appears that just too much was riding on the case - I mean that Moore's cronies had a lot to lose if he ruled in favor of the Indians. For that reason he apparently managed to ignore any pressure that may have been applied from London.

Here's how the case was resolved according to Patrick Frazier (page 169):

At the end, Governor Moore asked [Wappinger Chief Daniel] Nimham's counsel if they thought they had had a fair trial. The lawyers avoided answering directly. The 'several exceptions' they had taken to the [contested] deed were, in their minds, rather fundamental legal points. Moore closed the proceedings without rendering a final decision. A few days later the decision suddenly appeared in the public press. The governor and the council declared that the [land] patent was good and the purchase valid, that the Wappingers had no right to the land, and that they had been induced to complain by squatters who wanted support for their own claims. The Wappingers' complaint was "vexatious and unjust, and...accordingly dismissed.

This decision was not only a shock to the Indians but it was also a shock to their schoolteacher, Timothy Woodbridge, who wrote a number of letters in a futile attempt to advocate for the Indians.

*-----*-----*-----*-----*-----*-----*-----*-----*-----*
A contemporary account of this "Indian Land Case" exists. Learn about it from this post.

Stockbridge Indians Appeal to the King

The Hudson Valley Land Case as told by Patrick Frazier, Part 2



















The 13th chapter of Patrick Frazier's The Mohicans of Stockbridge (pages 160-171) is called "Learning the King's Limitations." It begins with our Indian heroes of Stockbridge, Massachusetts - the Wappinger Chief Daniel Nimham, as well as the Mohican patriarchs Jacob Cheeksaunkun (believed to be the father of the Chicks family), Solomon Uhhaunauwaunmut (the father of Hendrick Aupaumut and the Hendricks family), and John Naunauphtaunk - striking a deal with "William Gregg, Jr., a well-to-do New Englander." Essentially, Gregg was paying the four Indians and their four wives to go to England, and paying them to reside there for three years while they appealed their land case (as discussed in the previous post) to the King. In return, Gregg would receive a twelve square-mile tract of land and, while in England, the three Mohicans (but not Chief Nimham) would "act as Gregg's servants" (page 160).

Below: The Salisbury Cathedral is just one of the remarkable sights seen by the delegation of eight Indians when they arrived in England in 1766.

Frazier's account of the visit - as you might imagine - is quite remarkable. Nevertheless, in the limited space I have, I'll stick to the appeal of the land case itself, the reason for the trip.

At the end of August [1766] the Lords of Trade reported their findings to the King, focusing on the Wappinger claim. In their opinion there were grounds for further investigation into the facts, especially since 'frauds and abuses in respect to Indian lands...have so notoriously prevailed and been complained of in the American colonies and in [the colony of New York] in particular' (page 163).

Frazier continues in the next paragraph:

The earl of Shelburne had taken [the Indians'] affairs under his wing. After consulting with the king, the earl informed the Indians that he would instruct Governor Moore to give their case serious consideration and to find a just and speedy solution.

My guess is that the delegation had hoped for more when they set off across the Atlantic. Nevertheless, the "Indian land case" was at least taken seriously in London and Daniel Nimham and the rest prepared to pursue the case with the Governor.

The Hudson Valley Land Case as told by Patrick Frazier, Part 1

Land conflicts (as well as military conflicts) were discussed at the Albany Congress of 1754. In this particular artist's conception, Benjamin Franklin appears to be ignoring the plea of a chief or is possibly just looking towards us because he is "easier to draw" that way.
In one of my first posts, I recommended that you read The Mohicans of Stockbridge, by Patrick Frazier. The book has merited mention in several posts since that time and needed to be kept out of my previous post so as not to upstage the remarkable document which is its topic. Having read that post, you're ready for a preview of that same legal case as told by Patrick Frazier on pages 155-170 of The Mohicans of Stockbridge.

The Highlands patent covered "about 200,000 acres" and Daniel Nimham's father and grandfather had "complained frequently to the patentee and his heirs about the patent"(page 155). In the wake of the Seven Years War (often called the "French and Indian War"), Chief Nimham, as you may know, moved his Wappinger remnant - roughly two hundred people - to Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Soon afterwards, the estate's heirs, Roger Morris, Beverly Robinson, and Philip Philipse, "asserted their claim and even extended it by nearly 5,000 acres" (pages 155-156). Sir William Johnson, an advocate for the Indians made appeals to the authorities which were "met with polite but evasive answers" (page 157).



Sir William Johnson ---->






However, a hearing was granted for the Indians before Lieutenant Governor Cadawaller Colden on March 5, 1765:

Daniel Nimham, speaking in English, presented the Wappinger claim to the territory based on the ancient tribal heritage. Then he interpreted the proceedings for the other Indians, while [Samuel] Munrow [a white ally of the Wappingers whose own self-interest was also at stake], and the representative of the patent heirs debated the issues. The Indians, somewhat intimidated by the imperious air of the council, were taken aback when Beverly Robinson produced a curious Indian deed for the area in question, dated 1702 and signed by several Indians. Although one of the old tribesmen recognized some of the names, he recollected no transaction that the deed described. Samuel Munrow was allowed to examine the deed only briefly, but he could see flaws and possible fraud even so.

Before they had to leave, Chief Nimham asked to hear a verdict from the Lieutenant Governor. Colden conferred with his council and declared the deed to be good and, Frazier also reports that Colden "told the Indians to trouble the government no more" (page 158).

An Indian Land Case in Colonial New York

A remarkable document was reprinted in the Summer, 1964 issue of Ethnohistory (volume 11, Number 3). This document, having been preserved in the British Museum, was introduced and edited by professors Oscar Handlin and Irving Mark under the title: "Chief Daniel Nimham v. Roger Morris, Beverly Robinson, and Philip Philipse - An Indian Land Case in Colonial New York, 1765-1767" (known hereafter as simply the Indian Land Case).

A portrait of Beverly Robinson.

At issue was a large tract of land in the Hudson River Valley, at least 20 miles long. British aristocrats from the Philipse family claimed to have made a legitimate purchase of it from certain Wappinger Indians. To this day, Philipse descendants do not acknowledge the illegitimacy of their ancestors' claim.

Patrick Frazier dealt with this land ownership controversy so very well in pages 155-170 of The Mohicans of Stockbridge (since the Google e-book omits some pages, you're much better off getting ahold of the print version). However, Frazier "cheated" by using many good sources. My job right now is to just tell you about the Indian Land Case as it appeared in Ethnohistory about 200 years after it was first written by an anonymous Connecticut lawyer sympathetic to the cause of the Indians.

The Indian Land Case tells of how the Wappingers occupied and held claim to the contested land when whites first discovered this country, how they fought and died for the British and how their remnant moved to "a place called Stockbridge" in 1756 (pages 196-197). (The issue of why the Stockbridge Indians, despite being made up of so many Wappingers and other non-Mohicans, are often called Mohicans is something that I won't make an issue of right now.)

The Land in question was in Dutchess and Westchester Counties on the New York side of the Hudson River.

By the 1760's, the purported lords of the land-in-question were Philip Philipse and his brothers-in-law, Beverly Robinson and Roger Morris. The three aristocrats sought to eject the Wappinger Indians and their salt-of-the-earth white tenants in 1765.

With just a few sentances, professors Handlin and Mark's introductory summary tells us exactly what happened over the course of about two years:

The Indians and their tenants, charging that the Philipse claim fraudulently deprived them of their land, petitioned Lietenant-Governor Cadawallader Colden and his Council who in 1765 rejected their plea... they appealed to the King's ministers who referred them back to the Governor, Sir Henry Moore, and his Council, with the same result as formerly (page 193)."

Cadawallader Colden -->



Why was the original plea, and in particular, the final appeal rejected? This quote from the Indian Land Controversy makes it quite clear:

They [the Indians and their attorneys(s)] also further intimated that inasmuch as it had been Suggested to them that most if not all the Gentlemen of the Council, were either Interested in the Lands in Controversy, or in other Lands which lay under Similar Circumstances and had perhaps once before Judged in this same Case; they were desirous that his Excellency [the Attorney General of the Colony of New York] should hear and determin the matter of said Complaint without his Council; or at least that None of those Gentlemen who were thus Interested or who had already once Judged in the Cause might sit in Council during the trial. But this being taken as an Impeachment of the Honor of the Council was not Granted (page 213).

To put it another way, there was no such thing as a conflict of interest back in those days. If you were an aristocrat or an oligarch, you were entitled to be interested in whatever you were already interested in.

Samson Occom's Last Days

While they lived in the Massachusetts mission town, all the Stockbridge Indians were members of a single congregation. Soon after their move to New York State, the falling out between their two legitimate ministers resulted in the tribe being split into two congregations.

After a few years of having two congregations, the Stockbridges held a council to discuss the situation. They decided that having their tribal church divided into two parties was a "stumbling block." Some felt that Rev. Occom (a Brothertown Indian) was "meddling too much with [their] civil government," and noted he had recently "fallen into the sin of intemperance[or drinking]" several times. They also felt he was "superannuated" or past his prime.

At that council, the Stockbridge Indians voted first to have one minister for the whole tribe and then chose John Sergeant [Jr.] to be that one minister by a twenty-two to eight margin. A committee was then formed to

inform Mr. Occom that it was not out of any ill will to him, that if he would leave us as minister of the Town...and as he had no support, if he would comply with our reasonable request and make us happy - we would unitedly do all we could to help him. But we are sorry to say he paid no regard to us. (Quoted from a letter from the Stockbridge Indians to Rev. Samuel Kirkland, June 22, 1792 in the Kirkland Papers at Hamilton College.)

Rev. Occom and his family had only moved to New Stockbridge a few months earlier. Politics may have been their reason for leaving Brothertown and the Stockbridges' letter suggests that politics had made the Occoms unwelcome at New Stockbridge. But they didn't leave.

Only a few weeks after the Stockbridge Indians wrote the letter referred to above, on July 14, 1792, Samson Occom suddenly died.

Gerald McDermott Looks at Jonathan Edwards Career as a Missionary

Lots of professors of religion and history consider Jonathan Edwards to be a hot topic right now. Mostly they are studying either his abstract thinking or his life in a white world. Nevertheless, his years as the missionary at Stockbridge, Massachusetts haven't been completely neglected. In an earlier post, I told you about Rachel Wheeler's recent book. In addition to Wheeler, Gerald McDermott (pictured), professor of religion at Roanoke College, has done research on what Edwards was like as a missionary and what he thought about Indians.

McDermott contributed the 17th chapter to The Princeton Companion to Jonathan Edwards. The chapter title is "Missions and Native Americans."

Here's what McDermott had to say:

Page 262-263: "Edwards' first sermon to the Indians at Stockbridge was on Acts 11:12-13, the story of the Roman Centurion Cornelius, a devout man who knew nothing about Jesus Christ. Edwards compared himself to Peter and the Indians to Cornelius."

Maybe it is no coincidence that Cornelius was a fairly common name among the Stockbridge Mohicans. (One of them, Cornelius Aaron from the Chicks family, was a minister in the first half of the 1900's.)

Page 268: "In her careful study of the Stockbridge sermons, Rachel Wheeler notes that Edwards spoke of salvation more to the Indians and spoke of judgement and wrath more to his 'English' auditors."

Page 269: "Edwards concluded that Indian hostility to whites in North America was God's judgement on Euro-Americans for their treatment of Native Americans: defrauding and killing them, poisoning them with alcohol, and depriving them of the gospel.... [Thus Edwards] acknowledged the humanity of Native Americans in a way that most of his compatriots did not."

The Stockbridge Bible Series: A Summary of 50 Years at the Massachusetts Mission Town

Here's a quote from my paper ("From Generation to Generation: The Story of the Stockbridge Bible") that was printed in the Spring, 2007 issue of The Book Collector. It summarizes the roughly fifty-year period in which the Stockbridge Mohicans lived at the mission town of Stockbridge, Massachusetts:

Although Stockbridge, Massachusetts was originally envisioned as a town for Indians with four English families to model 'civilized' Christian living, rules designed to protect the Indians from losing their land were bent by an increasing number of white settlers. Some of the land was taken by fraud. Trying to get their land back motivated the Stockbridges to fight against the British in the Revolutionary War. However, when many of them died and compensation from the United States was minimal, widows were left with no choice but to pay thier debts by selling more land. By the 1780's, the Indians felt compelled to leave the town that was set up for them. Although they had essentially been pushed out of their land and pushed out of their church, nobody at that time questioned their ownership of the Stockbridge Bible.

Sources:
1)Hopkins' Historical Memoirs (p.20)
2)Frazier's Mohicans of Stockbridge (p.18-19)
3) Thelma Putnam's Christian Religion (p.46-47)
4) Shirley Dunn's Mohican World (p. 206, 213).

From Generation to Generation

"From Generation to Generation" is the title of the paper I wrote about the Stockbridge Bible that appeared in the Spring, 2007 issue of The Book Collector. I introduced that paper in my previous post and described John Sergeant's ordination in a much earlier post. While I may have mentioned that Stockbridge, Massachusetts was established as a town in 1739, I haven't said a lot about education there. All you need to know as background for the Stockbridge Bible is that there was a "day" school for both boys and girls, taught by Timothy Woodbridge, and also a boarding school for boys in which one donor (Isaac Hollis from Britain) supported. It was the hope of John Sergeant [Sr.] to start a boarding school for girls that brought Thomas Coram [pictured], a retired sea captain, into the picture.


The rest of this post is quoted from the paper that appeared in The Book Collector:

Coram sought a donation for the Stockbridge boarding schools from the Prince of Wales, first making contact with Francis Ayscough, D.D., Clerk of the Closet, essentially the personal chaplain or spiritual advisor of the Prince. One hearing of the mission town across the Atlantic, Rev. Ayscough was moved to give the Indian congregation a magnificent two-volume Bible, the same edition that the Prince would later use in his coronation.

Ayscough ordered the 1717 edition of the Bible to be bound. On the cover he had lettered "The gift of the Rev. D. Francis Ayscough to the Indian Congregation at the Housatonnic in New England. MDCCXLV" in gold embossed letters. (The Roman numerals give 1745 as the date.) Captain Coram also wrote an inscription in each volume:

This with another volume, containing the Holy Bible, is the pious gift of the Reverend Doct. Francis Ayscough, Clerk of the Closet to his Royal Highness Frederick, Prince of Wales, To the use of the Congregation of Indians at or near Housatonic, in a vast wilderness, part of New England; who are, at present, in the voluntary Care, and instructon, of the Learned and Religious Mr. John Sergeant, and is to remain to the use of the Successors of those Indians from Generation to Generation; as a testimony of the said Doctor's Great Regard for the Salvation of their souls - and is over and above other Benefits, which he most cheerfully obtained for the encouragement of the said Mr. Sergeant, and in favor of the said Indians,
At the request of their hearty frined and well-wisher,
Thomas Coram
London. 31st day of December, 1745.

Descendants of King Ben

When I'm not blogging, I work as a librarian. As it is with other professions, we librarians share tips of the trade with each other over the internet. One librarian, Bob from the public library in Lincoln, Nebraska, told the group

"There's a lot of bad genealogy out there, and people need to be aware of the pitfalls.
When we lead people to a source, we need to tell them that there may be other sources they need to check, and that even the most authoritative sources may have errors."

That comment began an active thread of messages and everybody seemed to feel Bob had made an important point.

<---The gravesite of Hannah Chicks (Since there were two Hannah Chickses, the stone clarifies that this was the wife of John Chicks) Stockbridge Indian Cemetery, Stockbridge, WI.


I know a member of the Chicks family who has done some really good genealogical work. However, he has shared his family tree only with people he knows and not publicized it.

On the other hand, my acquaintance from the Chicks family met with another genealogist who was doing Stockbridge Mohican genealogy poorly. The other man's family tree had already been circulating over the internet by the time "Mr. Chicks" told me about their meeting. He said that the other fellow was doing an ambitious tribal genealogy by getting names and dates of the ancestors of people that he came in contact with. Apparently he was accepting input from a number of people and adding it to his database or family tree uncritically.

Since I have two printouts of that family tree, and since it has circulated over the internet, misleading who knows how many people, I feel no qualms about criticizing it now.


Several years after the town of Stockbridge, Massachusetts was established, the Chief Sachem of the Mohican nation came to town and made Stockbridge the main council fire or capital city of the once-mighty nation. That Chief Sachem was Benjamin Kokhkewenaunaunt, or King Ben for short. Patrick Frazier tells us that King Ben was David Naunauneekanuk's father (see pages 55 and 254). Naunauneekanuk was John W. Quinney's grandfather (Quinney said so in front of the United States Congress).

Another one of King Ben's sons was Joseph Shauquethquet. According to Lion Miles, his descendants took on the the surname of "Pye," which was certainly easier to pronounce than Shauquethquet. In the 1800's there were three Benjamin Pyes. (Duplicate names are another thing about Stockbridge genealogy that is problematic. There were also three Levi Konkapots.)


The gravesite of Lucy Pye. Stockbridge Indian Cemetery, Stockbridge, WI. ----->


The document that I somehow got ahold of a few years ago is called
"The Descendants of Benjamin Kokhkewenaunaunt."

Although I noticed a number of (arguably) relatively minor errors in this family tree, I will focus on one particularly significant error. This error is the kind of thing that sometimes results when people who speak only English may run into when they read names in another language. The genealogist who circulated his family tree on the internet listed one person as "Mary Waunquauwasquoh Naukhaunuhoshuoh." Maybe "Waunquauwaquoh" and "Naukhaunuhoshuoh" seem to be quite similar to us, but a big mistake was made in assuming that this was one person.

Based on that assumption, The Quinneys are related to the Chickses. If that were true, it would give new significance to the Citizen vs. Indian conflict. (For a number of years, the Citizen party was commonly known as the "Chicks party," and the Indian party was commonly known as the "Quinney party.") If the author of "The Descendants of King Ben" was correct, the longstanding intertribal feud would have been a feud within one extended family.

The member of the Chicks family who does good genealogy talked to Lion Miles, a current resident of Stockbridge, Massachusetts who has studied the Mohican language. According to Miles, Mary Waunquauwasquoh and Mary Naukhaunuhoshuoh are two diferent people, and, as a result, it cannot be said that the Chicks family and the Quinney family are closely related.

To Live Upon Hope

The seventh post in Algonkian Church History was about Rachel Wheeler's PhD. thesis, Living Upon Hope. This, my 107th post, is about her 2008 book with a slightly different title.

To Live Upon Hope: Mohicans and Missionaries in the Eighteenth Century Northeast (Cornell University Press), is written for a more academic audience than this blog, but if you like Algonkian Church History, there's a good chance that you'll also like Wheeler's book.

Wheeler succeeds in showing the contrast between the Moravian Mohicans and their neighboring tribesmen, the Calvinist Mohicans at Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Remarkably, the two types of mission communities were so different that the nature of what was recorded for posterity didn't allow Wheeler to make direct comparisons.

The Moravian Mohicans at Shekomeko practiced a syncretic religion, as Wheeler states on page 95:

Delaware, Shawnee, and Seneca prophets inspired new religious movements that often blended rejection of European goods and the creation of a pan-Indian identity. Adaptation of European-style agriculture and Christianity was another option, as exemplified by the Mohicans of Stockbridge. Somewhere in between was the path chosen by Abraham and Johannes and other Indians of Shekomeko, who found in the blood of Jesus a new source of spiritual power, or manitou, which could be deployed to address the problems brought with colonialism.

Sergeant's Ordination

We've already seen

1. The Housatonics Accept a Mission

2. Sergeant Meets the Indians

and

3. The Mission is Approved by the Mohicans


What Comes Next?


Massachusetts Governor Jonathan Belcher was the leader of the Commissioners of Indian Affairs in Boston and it was he who first suggested the idea of an integrated mission town in 1730 (see Frazier, 39). Since Governor Belcher was planning to meet with some Roman Catholic Mohawks at Deerfield in August of 1735, that would also be a good opportunity to "announce the dedication of an English missionary's life to the service of Indians"(as Frazier put it on pages 31-32). So the Housatonic Mohicans, forty-three in all, headed for Deerfield. Umpachenee, however, chose not to make the trip. It is likely this was a passive protest against the mission or against the English in general.

We do know that Umpachenee never was a big supporter of the Calvinist mission. Konkapot, however, was, and he thanked Governor Belcher in a formal speech (see Frazier, page 33) for sending John Sergeant and the schoolteacher, Timothy Woodbridge.

Sergeant's ordination ceremony must have been a huge event. High civil and military officers of the colony of Massachusetts, clergy, gentlemen and many Indians were present. After Nathaniel Appleton's sermon (see illustration at left) and the ceremonial laying on of hands, Rev. Stephen Williams turned to the Housatonic Mohicans who were sitting together in a place of honor and, through an interpreter, asked them to indicate if they would receive Sergeant as their missionary. All forty-three of them rose to their feet to show their approval.

The Mission is Approved by the Mohicans

A map of Massachusetts. Berkshire County is in red.

Here's what we've covered so far in regards to the establishment of a mission in what would become Stockbridge, Massachusetts:
1. The Housatonics Accept a Mission
and
2. Sergeant Meets the Indians

And our story continues:


The local council of July, 1734 wouldn't be the final word on Christianity for the Mohican nation. Being regional leaders, Umpachenee and Konkapot understood the mission should be approved by the national leaders, including Mtohksin, who was Chief Sachem at the time. Umpachenee hosted a council in February, 1735 that was attended by nearly 200 Mohicans and featured a sermon by Stephen Williams. Following the sermon, the national leaders discussed many of the same pros and cons of accepting the mission as the Housatonics had in their council. The verdict, as Samuel Hopkins (34-35, quoted in Frazier, 29) understood it, was that the Mohicans would "as a nation submit to instruction." However, another account of what was decided at the council was more nuanced. This account was passed along orally and eventually written down by Captain Hendrick Aupaumut and published in the Massachusetts Historical Society Collections in 1804. According to Aupaumut's account, the Christian gospel should "be preached in one certain village and let every man and woman go to hear it and embrace it; if they think best."

The "one certain village," of course, eventually became known as Stockbridge. Its success or failure in the short run, depended on how receptive individuals would be to what was preached there. For that reason, I don't believe that the Stockbridge Mohicans - as we know them - would exist today, if not for Rev. John Sergeant [Sr.]

Sergeant Meets the Indians

(Western Massachusetts) The Berkshires in autumn


The Commissioners of Indian Affairs, a group that included Rev. Samuel Hopkins, Rev.Stephen Williams, and Massachusetts Governor Jonathan Belcher, picked John Sergeant, a twenty-four year-old Yale tutor, to be the first Missionary on the Housatonic. In October, 1734, Rev. Nehemiah Bull, another one of the commissioners, traveled to the Housatonic River with Sergeant and introduced him to the Indians.

I'm a big fan of the first few chapters of The Mohicans of Stockbridge by Patrick Frazier. His description of John Sergeant's first trip to the Housatonic is on page 20:

They met the Indians midway between [their] two villages at what is now Great Barrington. There must have been quiet apprehension as the Indians encountered Sergeant. The man who had been sent to save them was small and frail and had a dead hand. His pale, solemn visage and somber clothes contrasted sharply with those of his hosts and with the brilliant hues of a New England autumn. The young man gazed on a group of natives, some tattooed darkly with totemic signs or marks of past deeds, their ears and noses pierced with baubles and their bodies draped with a mixture of Indian and European fashion.

A Housatonic who spoke English acted as an interpreter. Sergeant adapted his short talk on Christianity 'as well as I could to their capacities and manner of thinking.' There were no words in Mohican to express the finer points of Christian theology. Whatever he said must have made an impression, for the interpreter later told him that one Indian who had been unreceptive to the whole idea of a mission was moved and wanted to learn more.

You can read some of Frazier's book for free on Google Books, but some pages, including page 20, are omitted. If you're interested in Algonkian Church history, you may want to buy it. To my way of thinking, it seems like Frazier describes one remarkable event after another in his first few chapters. In the last 3/5 or so of the book, military history becomes prominent. Maybe that is why I'm much less enthused about that part.

The Housatonics Accept a Mission

The photo below was taken at the Institute for American Indian Studies in Washington, CT.
The Mohicans were once a mighty Native nation inhabiting the Muhhecunnituk Valley, or what we now call the Hudson River Valley. The coming of Europeans changed things, of course. Not only was there death from European diseases that Indians had no immunity over, but there was also a dependence upon goods obtained from white traders, and, another aspect of the fur trade: the problems associated with firewater, especially rum. Furthermore, as European powers established themselves and made alliances with Native tribes, there was greater competition between those nations or tribes. Wars against the Mohawks forced the Mohicans to retreat from the western side of the Hudson and some of them moved farther eastward into the Housatonic River Valley in what is now western Massachusetts.

In 1734, there were two Mohican villages on the Housatonic. Konkapot was the leader of four or five families that made up the village of Wnahktukuk, and Umpachenee was the leader of a village roughly the same size called Skatekook. The two men and their interpreter, Joachim Van Valkenberg, met two ministers in Springfield, Massachusetts who were commissioners representing the New England Company, a philanthropic society based in London. They conferred the British military titles of Captain and Lieutenant upon the two Housatonics and proposed that they accept a Christian mission. The two Indians explained that such a decision must be made in council.

Rev. Stephen Williams, one of the commissioners the two chiefs had met in Springfield, and Rev. Nehemiah Bull took the trouble to travel to the Housatonic where the Indians from the two villages were gathered together. Religious matters were discussed and the proposal for a Christian presence was made again. The response to the ministers was that they would have their answer in four days.

And so, over a four-day period in July of 1734, the Housatonic Mohicans held a council to decide whether or not to accept the proposed mission. The council, of course, was conducted in the Mohican language, so minutes or notes of the council were not recorded. However, what appears to be the winning argument, was later reported to Stephen Williams and the interpretation of that statement made it into the preface of a sermon that was preached at John Sergeant's ordination.

[S]ince my remembrance there were Ten Indians, where there is now One: But the Christians greatly increase and multiply and spread out over the Land; Let us therefore leave our former courses and become Christians.

It sounds like a decision based more on economics than religion.

So are my critics correct in saying that Indian converts never actually bought into Christianity, that instead they just cooperated with missionaries who supplied them with material things? No, of course not. In those days, if a farmer's livestock and crops were doing well, he would give credit to God for blessing him and his family with worldly success. So the Indians were thinking in the same vein when they lamented that their religion no longer provided powerful enough medicine to keep them healthy and prosperous.

Anyway, what you have read is the local politics behind the Housatonics' decision to accept a mission. That "foot in the door" opened the way to a later council of the leaders of the entire Mohican nation and initiated the contact with Christianity that led to individual conversions.

Sources:
*The Mohicans of Stockbridge by Patrick Frazier.
*The Mohican World,by Shirley Dunn.
*Gospel Ministers Must be Fit for the Master's Use, a Sermon preached by Nathaniel Appleton on August 31, 1735.

Red Man Dispossessed

How did the Indians at Stockbridge, Massachusetts lose their land? That question is addressed by Lion Miles in an article that appeared in the New England Quarterly in 1994 and was later re-printed as part of a book called "New England Encounters." The title of his article, "The Red Man Dispossessed: The Williams Family and the Alienation of Indian Land in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, 1736-1818," reveals who the true villians were in the process.

The article is largely summed up when Miles states "Ephraim Williams, his son Elijah, and designing European traders cheated the Indians out of their land"(on page 75). The period of time which Miles refers to as "the great land grab" didn't begin until after Jonathan Edwards was no longer the missionary. John Sergeant [Sr.], Edwards and Timothy Woodbridge, the schoolteacher, advocated for the Indians, ensuring that the great land grab didn't begin until the end of the 1759. (But, as you may also read in Miles' article and elsewhere, Edwards, Woodbridge, and John Sergeant each also received sizable parcels of land when the mission town was being set up.)

There was a court system in place that was supposed to protect the Indians from fraud, but unfortunately, Miles explains, as the Sheriff of Berkshire County, Elijah Williams, had a conflict of interest. His purchases of Indian land made him "a very wealthy man"(page 70).

Church of the Wilderness

A phrase in a poem written by John Greenleaf Whittier (a Massachusetts Quaker) in the 1800's has stayed with the Stockbridge Mohicans to this day. "The Preacher" was the name of the poem and J.N. Davidson used the phrase "church of the wilderness" as the title of the first chapter of his history of the Stockbridge Nation. Here's part of the poem:

In the church of the wilderness Edwards wrought,
Shaping his creed at the forge of thought;
And with Thor's own hammer welded and bent
The iron links of his argument,
Which strove to grasp in its mighty span
The purpose of God and the fate of man!
Yet faithful still, in his daily round
To the weak, and the poor, and sin-sick found,
The schoolman's lore and the casuist's art
Drew warmth and life from his fervent heart.

Today the Lutheran Church of the Wilderness is one of two active Lutheran churches on the small Stockbridge-Munsee reservation.