The Mohican Nation, an Algonquian tribe of some 20,000 people, was the dominant Native American group along the Hudson River before the arrival of Europeans early in the seventeenth century. The government of Massachusetts granted a six-mile-square township to the tribe in 1736, comprising today’s towns of Stockbridge and West Stockbridge. From that time they were known as Stockbridge Indians, a number of whom adopted Christianity and received instruction from the Rev. Sergeant.
The tribe remained in Stockbridge for the next fifty years and acted as a buffer against French and Indian incursions from Canada. With a long warrior tradition, they provided two companies of men for service with Rogers Rangers in the French and Indian War. They were one of only two Native American tribes (with the Oneidas) to side with the colonists against the British in the Revolutionary War and served at the Siege of Boston, and the battles of Saratoga and Monmouth. In 1778 they lost fifteen warriors in a British ambush at the Bronx, New York, and later received a commendation from George Washington.
After the Revolution, certain white inhabitants of Stockbridge managed to gain control of the tribe’s land and, under pressure from increasing settlement, most of the Stockbridge Indians removed to Oneida County in New York State. Today they are known as the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of the Mohicans and inhabit a prosperous reservation in Wisconsin but they still look back to Berkshire County as a part of their ancient homeland.
