It Happened Here -- The Mohicans and the Moravians

By 1740 the Mohican village of Shekomeko, in present day central Dutchess county, was hanging on--but its future seemed precarious. Alcoholism/binge drinking, poverty and a host of social problems were rife in the small community. Most of the Hudson Valley Mohican villages had been abandoned and the land sold off to white settlers or land speculators, and it seemed likely the same fate would befall Shekomeko.

Seneca Co. Rte 89, Canoga

In Bethlehem Pennsylvania a religious sect from south eastern Germany, and what is today the Czech Republic had established itself with a mission to bring Christianity to unconverted Native-Americans. The Moravians had already had some success with the Delawares, among whom they lived. They would, in the next decade, send missionaries among the Iroquois. One of their number, Christian Henry Rausch had just landed in New York City when he encountered two drunken Mohican sachems Maumauntissekun (aka. Shabash) and Wassamapah from Shekomeko.  Having spent time in Holland, he could converse with them in Dutch, a language the Indians had acquired from the white settlers living around them. When they sobered up they agreed to allow him to return to Shekomeko and teach them about his religion. The next few years were difficult and sometimes dangerous for Rausch, and as both his hosts and other clan members swung erratically between support and condemnation of this Christian amongst them.

Strever Farm Rd., off Co.Rte 82, Pine Plains

Wassamapah, who took the name Tschoop, or Job, was torn between Rausch and his wife's mother, a clan matron who was the keeper of an ancient leather talisman and defender of the old religion.  White traders spread rumors that he had come to enslave their children, and once a drunken Indian tried to kill Rausch with a tomahawk. For safety, Rausch moved out of the village to the farm of a nearby Palatine settler, but he continued visiting the village, gradually wining over the people and arranging the first baptisms. In 1742 he was joined by Moravians Gotlob Buettner and his wife and Martin Mack; the following year they built their first church in Shekomeko using poles and bark--materials, they felt, the Mohicans would feel comfortable in.

Gradually the missionaries had a positive impact on the village, restoring among the villagers a degree of self reliance, making inroads against binge-drinking habits, and encouraging the Mohicans to avoid the traders and work their way out of debt.

 In 1724 a group of investors called the "Little Nine Partners" had struck up a tentative deal with the Mohicans of Shekomeko for their land, excluding a one square mile tract the Mohicans were to set aside. The Partners applied for a title from Governor William Burnet and he agreed to a meeting with the Indians with payment, to work out the details in the town of Red Hook. With one of the partners, Richard Sackett, the Indians waited in vain for three weeks for the Governor or his agents, and the payment that never arrived.  Sackett supported the Indians while they waited, eventually buying his farm directly from them.


RICHARD SACKETT
FIRST SETTLER OF AMENIA,
ABOUT 1711, HAD FARM HERE                     An Original NYSHM  (missing)
AND IS BURIED ON HILL TO                          Location: NYS 22 AT S. AMENIA                       
NORTH. HE WAS COMMISSIONER
ON PALATINE SETTLEMENT.
 

Twenty years later the Mohicans of Shekomeko began to receive challenges to their title on the land from relatives of the original partners and from others claiming to have bought property from one or another of the partners.  The Moravians, while reluctant to get involved, helped the Indians obtain affidavits supporting their ownership. 

    Buettner's Memorial next to the Shekomeko
 Indian Cemetery--Bethel Cross Rd off Co.Rte 82

 
In 1743 rumors of war with the French, and Indian raids on New England settlements began to circulate. The kinship between Mohicans and the Algonquins of the St. Lawrence Valley made the Mohicans of Shekomeko suspect. The Moravians, too, as outsiders were subject to wild charges that they were in league with the "papist" French.*  And their pacifistic doctrines that prevented them from serving in any militia or swearing an oath of allegiance to King George seemed to confirm their disloyalty.  Fear escalated to a point that the townspeople of nearby Sharon, Connecticut contemplated a peremptory strike against Shekomeko, and the Governor of New York in June 1744 ordered a sheriff's posse to search Shekomeko for weapons and ammunition.  They found nothing, but the missionaries were brought in for questioning.  In November the legislature passed an act requiring 'Moravian and vagrant Teachers among the Indians' to cease preaching and to leave the Colony.**      Some stayed on and were arrested. Others left for the area around Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, encouraging their Mohican brethren to go with them. Emboldened by the new law, gangs of white settlers seized much of the Shekomeko Mohican's land.  Some Shekomeko Indians moved to Wequadnach, near Sharon, Connecticut but the colony of Connecticut was enacting similar legislation. While Sir William Johnson, on behalf of New York was actively courting its Iroquois Indians, only Massachusetts was solicitous of its Mohican population. Wnahktukook (Stockbridge) Indians had been evangelized by Congregational missionaries, so they didn't hold the pacifistic values of the Moravian Mohicans, and declared war on the French, providing scouts for Governor Shirley's expedition. Similarly, in the American Revolution, Stockbridge Indians scouted for and fought with distinction for American armies throughout the war. Upon returning from the war they discovered they were to be removed from their village. They found a home with the Oneida Indians,  but then were moved to Indiana in 1818 and then again to Wisconsin in 1822.    They were joined by displaced Mohicans and Munsees from Connecticut and New York.

Mohican Cemetery on  Co.Rte.56, Turkey Hill Rd.

This Week -- Is something of a milestone--the 100th post of  NYSHMs--It Happened Here.

Though I am finding it kind of difficult to keep up the pace of 1 post per week I look forward to continuing to research and write them. --Tom

 

*Ironically, as an early protestant sect in central Europe, the Moravians had suffered some of the worst persecution during the Counter-reformation.

**p.253 Shirley W. Dunn.  The Mohican World 1680-1750.  This and   Evan T. Pritchard. Native New Yorkers, The Legacy of the Algonquin Peoples of New York are the principal sources of material for this post.