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Date: 3/16/2022
OTIS – Last month, the Otis Preservation Trust invited Heather Bruegl of the Stockbridge Munsee Nation, director of education for the Forge Project, a Native-led initiative centered on de-colonial education, Indigenous art, culture, food security and land justice, to speak about Native culture and the history of the Berkshires for the “Notice Otis” series. Her talk was titled “Not the Last of the Mohicans.”
Bruegl introduced herself as an enrolled citizen of the Oneida Nation, a first-line descendent of the Stockbridge Munsee, and director of education for The Forge Project (forgeproject.com), a new Native-led initiative in the Hudson River Valley with a focus on arts, culture and history.
She said the Stockbridge Munsee, a band of the Mohican Nation, called the Berkshires home, adding that “Not the Last of the Mohicans” is a play on title of the famous book by James Fenimore Cooper, which she called, “a great book, but he got it wrong,” Bruegl said.
Bruegl said the Mohican Munsee Nation is often overlooked in history. Its territory extends from southwestern Vermont through the Hudson and Connecticut river valleys to New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The nation contains two groups, the Mohicans and the Munsee Lenape who joined them.
“When we say our area covers six states, it covers the Munsee [Lenape] as well,” she said.
Western Massachusetts and adjoining areas of Connecticut, New York and Vermont were Mohican land. The New York City area, and south through New Jersey, were Lenape land.
“When we talk about Stockbridge Munsee and our territories, we talk about both territories. The Berkshires is unequivocally Mohican land,” said Bruegl.
Bruegl said it is important to acknowledge the land which is “older than all of us,” and that the United States is built on the unceded lands of Indigenous nations. She said she feels lucky to move back to her homeland.
Settled along the Muh-he-con-ne-ok — the Mohicans do not refer to the Hudson River by its English name — “the Peoples of the Waters That Are Never Still” were a dominant tribe in this part of the continent, numbering at one point 25,000, with their center and council fire at Schodack Island, N.Y., about 8 miles south of present-day Albany.
Bruegl said the council fire now resides in Bowler, Wis. Early in the United States’ history, a series of agreements and treaties, usually one-sided, led to the removal of Indigenous people from their lands in the Northeast.
“That’s why it’s even more cool that I’m back in the homeland. We’re still here and we still exist,” she said.
Like any other Indigenous group, the Stockbridge Munsee had encounters with “explorers,” and eventually with “settlers” – terms used by the European-derived American culture for people who came to Native American land.
“It was new to them, not a ‘new world.’ They didn’t discover anything. We knew where we were, it was already our home,” Bruegl said.
The people first encountered Henry Hudson in 1609, a really early encounter with Muh-he-con-ne-ok. She said they were trading fur at Castle Island, a Dutch trading post, and started to form alliances with other native nations in the area. The Mohican, Lenape and Mohawk were very good at trading fur, which created a competition with Native nations, “fighting for dominance to make sure you get the most money because your way of life is changing,” she said.
The six nations of the Mohawk won the “Beaver Wars,” and the Mohicans had to pay penalties and move out of their ancestral lands. It also brought on a decline in the beaver population, which all but disappeared in the Hudson River valley. Traditional items were no longer being made. New items, such as cloth, guns and colorful glass beads, were traded. Bruegl said it also “created a paternalistic relationship between the U.S. government and Native nation[s], which is still in place today.”
The Mohicans in the early 1700s initially moved east, to the Housatonic River valley, where the English now replaced the Dutch and were set on “civilizing” the Native nations.
Bruegl said because the economic way of life was changing, with no trade goods, the people also had to give up their nomadic ways on the river and maple sugaring. She said the colonists forced a new way of life, dependent on trade with Europeans.
“It was an abusive relationship,” she said. “Smallpox, other diseases arrived, and they had no immunity. Hundreds of thousands were wiped out; sometimes [diseases were] inflicted on Native peoples on purpose.”
Bruegl said Stockbridge played a significant role in Mohican history, because in addition to the economic way of life changing, missionaries arrived there. She said Indigenous communities converted to survive, or for prosperity, because they thought the God of the colonists was more powerful.
John Sergeant, who preached to and baptized many Mohicans, in 1738 got permission to build a mission in their village. Located on the Housatonic River by a great meadow, it attracted more English settlers, and the Mohican village of Wnahktukook was renamed Stockbridge after a town in England. Several tribes merged together there with the Mohicans, and the group was dubbed the “Stockbridge Indians.”
Bruegl said she had recently visited and set up an exhibit in the Mission House in Stockbridge. She said when she went in, she was “struck by a huge heaviness … thinking about everything that happened in that house and in that area that my ancestors endured just to survive.” She said she was sad and happy that “because of their survival I was able to have that experience.”
“Stockbridge plays an extremely important role in our history, [but] not always one of happiness,” she said.
Bruegl said the wars of colonial powers in North America included the Indigenous peoples, and the Mohicans were caught up in every conflict, including the French and Indian War, depicted in “The Last of the Mohicans.”
“The American Revolution was about creating a new nation on that stolen land. In 1812, natives who fought on one side, now fought on the other,” Bruegl said.
Noting that in 2026, the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution is coming up, Bruegl said the Native history is often ignored. Mohicans and other native nations fought alongside colonists, and the Mohicans and Oneidas were instrumental to their victory.
“The Oneidas broke the famine at Valley Forge, by showing them how to make food out of corn,” she said.
At the end of the war, George Washington thanked the natives, but many of those who returned home found that their land was being stolen.
“Now they were being pushed out of the Berkshires,” Bruegl said, and in 1784, the Stockbridge Indians accepted an invitation to set up a new village on Oneida land, in New Stockbridge, N.Y.
There they thrived and attempted to form the United Indian Nations, but were forced to move again to White River, Ind., traveling for a year. When they got there, they discovered that the Oneida had been coerced into selling their land.
The Stockbridge Mohicans then moved to the Fox River in Wisconsin, until it became important for logging, and they were moved to an area outside of Lake Winnebago, which they called Stockbridge. The Munsee Lenape joined, and the nation became known as the Stockbridge Munsee Mohican.
Bruegl said the Stockbridge Munsee today is the largest employer in the area, with nearly 25,000 acres, and an enrolled population just under 1,500. Their symbol signifies many trails, strength, hope and endurance, with circles signifying council fires and how they’ve been moved, and a straight line.
Bruegl recommended several books about the Stockbridge Mohicans, including “A Nation of Statesmen,” by James W. Oberly; “The Mohicans of Stockbridge,” by Patrick Fraser; “The Mohicans and Their Land 1609-1730,” by Shirley W. Dunn; “An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States,” by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, which Bruegl recommended be in every person’s library; and “The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee,” by David Treuer.
The Otis Historical Commission is dedicated to the preservation of historic buildings, landmarks, trails, cemeteries and Native burial grounds, to protect and educate about these historic assets. The Otis Preservation Trust, a nonprofit organization, works with the Historical Commission to organize and preserve the history and heritage of Otis through efforts to preserve, restore, repurpose and educate about buildings, monuments, lands and memorabilia of Otis.
Bruegl’s presentation is available to view at otispreservationtrust.com, under “Notice Otis events.” The Mohican Nation can be visited online at www.mohican.com.