Brothertown Indians
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The Brothertown Indians (also Brotherton) are Native American descendants of the Pequot and Mohegan (Algonquian-speaking) tribes in southern New England. The Brothertown Indians were the first tribe of Native Americans in the United States to become United States citizens, which caused the tribe to relinquish their tribal sovereignty.
Tribe Forms in New England
The tribe was formed by Samson Occum, who was the most famous Christian Indian in New England. They became a tribe in 1769 when seven Christian and English-speaking communities organized and moved to land in upstate New York. In the 1770's, they settled there while under intense pressure to again move west. By the early 1800's, the State of New York had purchased most of the land that the Brothertown tribe owned (oftentimes through questionable methods).Treaties to move west
In 1821, numerous New York tribes signed a treaty with the federal government and acquired 860,000 acres in Wisconsin. In 1822, another delegation acquired an additional 6.72 million acres which consisted of almost the entire western shore of Lake Michigan. The Brothertown alone were to receive about 153,000 acres along the southeastern side of the Fox River near present-day Kaukauna and Wrightstown. Some of the other tribes in the 1821 treaty felt they were misled by the federal government. The treaty was hotly debated for 8 years, so it was never ratified by the United States Senate. The federal government mediated a settlement with 3 treaties in 1831 and 1832. The settlement consisted of exchanging the agreed upon lands for the 23,040 acres now referred to as the entire Brothertown Township in Calumet County along the east shore of Lake Winnebago.Tribe Moves West to Wisconsin
The Brothertown leadership led the move west so they could live in peace and Brotherhood (hence the name Brothertown). The Brothertown joined their neighbors, the Oneida tribe and the Stockbridge-Munsee tribe, and planned the move to Wisconsin. Five groups of Brothertown arrived in Wisconsin on ships at the port of Green Bay between 1831 and 1836. Upon arrival, the Brothertown cleared land and began farming after building a church near Jericho. The federal government almost immediately decided that the land in Wisconsin had fertile soil, so it decided to move the Brothertown west to Kansas. In 1834, Brothertown tribe members demanded individual titles to land (the land had been considered tribal property) so they could not be forced to move west again. In 1839, Congress agreed to this demand because they wanted the tribe members to become individual American citizens. The tribe gave up federal recognition and the tribal council was disbanded. In 1878, unclaimed land in the former Brothertown Indian Reservation was sold mainly to German immigrants.Today
The Brothertown Indians are currently petitioning the federal government to be federally recognized as a tribe — in effect, re-recognized. Federal recognition was initially stripped from the Brothertown people when they accepted US citizenship in an effort to avoid being displaced yet again. Since then, US policy has changed and Native American people are, quite obviously, both American citizens — as well as citizens of their respective Nations. However, the policy as implemented among the Brothertown Indians, the first Native Americans granted US citizenship, at the time stripped them of what we today call tribal sovereignty.The Brothertown remain a culturally distinct Indian community with the largest concentration residing in the Fond du Lac, Wisconsin area. There were about 2400 known living offspring in 1999. Union Cemetery, in the town of Brothertown, Wisconsin, is a resting place for some Brothertown Indians and Civil War veterans. “Members” hold a picnic every July and a homecoming every October.
External links
- [www.brothertownindians.org]
- [Brothertown History]
- [Additional Brothertown History]
- [Sketch of the Brothertown Indians by Thomas Commuck in 1859]
- [Tribal History, Focuses on Earlier Tribal Formation]
- [Appleton Post Crescent 2005 article on status of tribe federal application]
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