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.]

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.

Was Umpachenee Chief Sachem?

Konkapot and Umpachenee were the leaders of the two Housatonic Mohican villages in 1734 when two ministers approached them with the offer of a mission. At that meeting, the ministers conferred British military commissions on the two men and they subsequently become known as Captain Konkapot and Lieutenant Umpachenee. Konkapot may have gotten the better title because he was older than Umpachenee, or maybe it was because they already knew Konkapot was interested in Christianity.

Konkapot said he wanted the mission so the children could learn to read and he asked John Sergeant to Baptize him and also asked for a Christian marriage. Furthermore, he was what the Calvinists really wanted, an "industrious" Indian (by the 1740's he owned his own barn).

Meanwhile, Umpachenee was one of a few, or maybe even the only Housatonic Mohican who chose not to attend John Sergeant's ordination ceremony. The binges or benders that he went on - it is suggested by Nancy Lurie, former curator at the Milwaukee Public Museum - may have been a form of protest against the British influence. Umpachenee was a Christian too, but he seems to have preferred Moravianism to Calvinism. Clearly, the whites of Stockbridge [MA] preferred to treat Konkapot as a leader instead of Umpachenee.

Patrick Frazier is one historian who suggests that Umpachenee was the Chief Sachem in Stockbridge's early days (see pages 9, 56, and 254 of The Mohicans of Stockbridge). He married the daughter of "King" Etowaukaum at a time when matrilineality was not observed like it once was, so being the son-in-law of a former Chief Sachem at least gave him some influence. But, of course, having the favor of whites in a time and place where whites were gaining in number and power gave Konkapot influence.

I once received a message from Lion Miles in which he asserted that Konkapot was the Mohican Chief Sachem while the tribe was in Massachusetts. Why? He didn't really say why, but rather said he was skeptical becuse it was the Moravians who wrote that Umpachenee was "King of the Mohicans"(see Frazier, p. 254, footnote 63).

So who was Chief Sachem of the Mohicans in the 1740's? I think it remains an open question.