Who Are the Stockbridge-Munsee?
The Stockbridge-Munsee Community (federally recognized) comprises descendants of the Mahican (Mohican) of the Hudson Valley and Munsee Delaware of the upper Delaware Valley, with approximately 1,600 enrolled members. They speak Munsee, an Algonquian language with very few remaining speakers. The name "Stockbridge" comes from a colonial mission town in Massachusetts; "Munsee" from a Delaware group that joined them. This community formed through colonial displacement—pushed from New York to Massachusetts to New York to Wisconsin through repeated removals. Their reservation in Shawano County, Wisconsin, is far from ancestral homelands, testament to the distances some eastern tribes traveled under colonial pressure.
Repeated Removals
The Stockbridge-Munsee story is one of repeated displacement. The Mahican, James Fenimore Cooper's "Last of the Mohicans" (a romanticized misrepresentation), originally occupied the Hudson Valley. Displaced by Dutch and English colonization, they moved to Stockbridge, Massachusetts, where they became a "Praying Indian" community and served as American allies in the Revolution. Despite this service, they were pushed to New York, then Wisconsin—where they finally received a reservation in 1856. The Munsee Delaware, separately displaced from the Delaware Valley, merged with Stockbridge in the 1830s. This combined history reflects how multiple dispossessed peoples found strength in unity.
Termination and Restoration
The Stockbridge-Munsee were terminated in 1910—decades before the official termination era—when their reservation was allotted and their federal status ended. They became one of the first tribes to successfully fight for restoration, regaining federal recognition in 1934 under the Indian Reorganization Act. This early termination and restoration experience informed later termination resistance. The tribe rebuilt from severely diminished land base; today's reservation is much smaller than the original. Their survival through termination demonstrated that federal policy could be reversed through persistent advocacy.
Contemporary Stockbridge-Munsee
Modern Stockbridge-Munsee have achieved stability after centuries of displacement. The tribe operates the North Star Mohican Casino Resort, providing economic foundation. Cultural programs maintain connections to distant Mahican and Munsee heritage—the Arvid E. Miller Library-Museum preserves tribal history. Language revitalization works with limited materials; Munsee is severely endangered. The tribe has purchased land to expand the reservation. Connections to Hudson Valley homeland include cultural exchanges and consultation on development affecting ancestral sites. How the Stockbridge-Munsee maintain identity rooted in distant eastern homelands while building community in Wisconsin shapes this much-traveled people's future.
References
- Frazier, P. (1992). The Mohicans of Stockbridge
- Miller, A. E. (1996). The Many Waters People: Stockbridge-Munsee History
- Goddard, I. (1978). \"Delaware\" (Handbook of North American Indians, Vol. 15)