page_title: Brothertown Indians
section_title: Tribe forms in New England
hierarchical_section_title: Brothertown Indians / History / Tribe forms in New England
context_page_description: The Brothertown Indians, located in Wisconsin, are a Native American tribe formed in the late 18th century from communities so-called "praying Indians", descended from Christianized Pequot and Mohegan tribes of southern New England and eastern Long Island, New York. In the 1780s after the American Revolutionary War, they migrated from New England into New York state, where they accepted land from the Iroquois Oneida Nation in Oneida County.
  Under pressure from the United States government, the Brothertown Indians, together with the Stockbridge-Munsee and some Oneida, removed to Wisconsin in the 1830s, taking ships through the Great Lakes. In 1839 they were the first tribe of Native Americans in the United States to accept United States citizenship and allotment of their communal land to individual households, in order to prevent another removal further west. Most of the neighboring Oneida and many of the Lenape were removed to Indian Territory in this period.
  Seeking to regain federal recognition, the Brothertown Indians filed a documented petition in 2005.
context_section_description: The Brothertown Indian Nation (Eeyawquittoowauconnuck) was formed by three leaders of the Mohegan and Pequot tribes of New England and eastern Long Island: Samson Occom (Mohegan/Brothertown), a notable Presbyterian minister to New England Indians and fundraiser for Moor's Indian Charity School—although funds Occom raised for this school were used by Wheelock to found Dartmouth College; his son-in-law Joseph Johnson (Mohegan), who was a messenger for General George Washington during the American Revolution; and Occom's brother-in-law David Fowler (Montauk, Pequot). They organized as a new tribe the numerous remnant peoples who had survived the disruption of disease, colonialism and warfare, including some Narragansett and Montauk.
  After the American Revolutionary War, the tribe formally organized on November 7, 1785 and included members of the so-called Christian tribes of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Long Island, New York. These included people of Mohegan, Pequot at Groton, Connecticut; Pequot at Stonington, Connecticut; Narragansett, Niantic, and Tunxis (Farmington) tribes on New England, and the Montauk (also a Pequot band) of Long Island though other members of these communities chose to remain as intact Nations. Under pressure from the victorious American settlers to move west, they began to migrate in the 1780s to land provided to them by the Oneida Nation of the Iroquois in Marshall, New York (near Waterville, in Oneida County), where they formalized their new status. As allies to the Patriots, the Oneida were allowed to stay in New York on a small reservation. Due to hostilities aroused by four of the Iroquois nations having allied with the British during the war, and continuing land hunger by new settlers, New York and the United States governments pressured the tribes to remove west of the Mississippi River.
  By the 1830s, the Brothertown Indian Nation sold its land to the state of New York and purchased land in Wisconsin. The 3200-member tribe thrives in twenty-first century America.
caption: The Reverend Samson Occom, founder of the Brothertown Indian Nation
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