Mahican, Mohecan, Mohican, Mohegan, Stockbridge-Munsee

A dialog on Native-L, May 1995

Both Mahican and Mohican (often Mohegan) were from the New England area. There is still a Mohican tribe in Conn. Stockbridge-Munsee is the name of the Mohican community that is in Wisconsin just south of the Menominee reservation.

The inter-relationships between the historical Stockbridge/Munsee, the Mahicans and the Mohicans are somewhat complex and I can never keep them straight. A good source on the topic is Handbook of North American Indians (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1978-) I think it's volume 9 that covers the Northeastern tribes.

A new book on the historical Mohicans which I would recommend is Shirley W. Dunn's The Mohicans and Their Land, 1609-1730 (Fleischmanns, NY: Purple Mountain Pr., 1994)

Ms. Dunn was a research resident here at the New York State Library while she was doing research for this book.

Billie Aul, Senior Librarian
Manuscripts and Special Collections, New York State Library Cultural Education Center
Albany, NY 12230
518-474-6281
baul@unix2.nysed.gov

Both Mahican and Mohican (often Mohegan) were from the New England area. There is still a Mohican tribe in Conn. Stockbridge-Munsee is the name of the Mohican

A clarification: the Mohegan and the Mahican are not the same nation. The Mohegan nation, chairman Ralph Sturges, have their office in Uncasville CT, and recently received federal recognition. The Mahican were originally in the Hudson River area, where some became the Christian Stockbridge. Later, many moved to New York—near the Oneida—and later to Wisconsin. The oral histories of the Mohegan in Connecticut say that they moved to CT from the Hudson area just before whites arrived, but archaeologists think they have been in the CT area a lot longer than that.

The spelling Mohican is most remembered from James Fenimore Cooper's Last of the Mohicans and confuses the independence of these nations by using historical names from the CT group in a story about the MA/NY folks. Remember that it is a story, and Cooper twisted it mightily for his books. Melissa Fawcett, tribal historian of the CT Mohegan, is at work on a book about her people called The Lasting of the Mohegans.

Ann McMullen

Actually, it is volume 15 of The Handbook of North American Indians that concerns the Northeast. You also might take a look at Patrick Frazier's The Mohicans of Stockbridge (Lincoln, 1992).

Brian Hosmer
University of Delaware

On May 1, Steve Smith (secsi003@sivm.si.edu) said

Both Mahican and Mohican (often Mohegan) were from the New England area. There is still a Mohican tribe in Conn. Stockbridge-Munsee is the name of the Mohican community that is in Wisconsin just south of the Menominee reservation.

According to a friend of mine who is an enrolled Stockbridge-Munsee (Mohican) tribal member and a cultural activist in this area, Mohican and Mahican refer to the same tribe from upper New York State. They are a distintly different tribe from the Mohegans in the Connecticut area. Stockbridge-Munsee is the name the tribe took after leaving their homeland and joining the mission in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. There is no Mohican tribe in Connecticut. The Stockbridge-Munsees do have a reservation in Shawano County, Wisconsin. They have recently decided to change the name of the tribe back to Mohican.

Debra Winchell
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