Hendrick Aupaumut (1757-1830) was a

Mohican The Mohican ( or , alternate spelling: Mahican) are an Eastern Algonquian Native American tribe that historically spoke an Algonquian language. As part of the Eastern Algonquian family of tribes, they are related to the neighboring Lenape, who ...

historian and diplomat, born among the

Stockbridge Indians Stockbridge may refer to: Places United Kingdom * Stockbridge, Edinburgh, a suburb of Edinburgh, Scotland * Stockbridge, Hampshire * Stockbridge, West Sussex * Stockbridge Anticline, one of a series of parallel east–west trending folds in th ...

Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut Massachusett_writing_systems.html" ;"title="nowiki/> məhswatʃəwiːsət.html" ;"title="Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət">Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət'' En ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

, who were originally from the Hudson River Valley. He was educated by Moravians and converted to Protestantism. Aupaumut was a soldier at the time of the American Revolutionary War, in which he served on the American side as a captain of Mohican warriors.

Revolutionary War

At the outbreak of hostilities, Aupaumut advocated for native tribes to declare for the American side. Traveling through the Ohio Country, he asked Stockbridge, Delaware, and Shawnee peoples to “to rise up against the Red Coats that they may not do as they please with this Big Island … let us humble them." He joined the Stockbridge Militia and served at the Battle of Orsikany and the Saratoga Campaign, rising to the rank of captain.

Later life

According to some sources, Aupaumut also fought against

Tecumseh's War Tecumseh's War or Tecumseh's Rebellion was a conflict between the United States and Tecumseh's Confederacy, led by the Shawnee leader Tecumseh in the Indiana Territory. Although the war is often considered to have climaxed with William Henry Ha ...

during the War of 1812. Concerned about cultural changes and the future of indigenous communities in the new United States, he strove to find common ground and adopt European practices to help his people integrate. He wrote a history of the Mohican people and defended them to President

Thomas Jefferson Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher, and Founding Father who served as the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. He was previously the natio ...

in a letter. He worked with the United States in its exchanges with tribes further west, hoping to negotiate peace, but was, ultimately, unsuccessful, because of powerful settler interests. With the other Stockbridge Indians, he moved westward to avoid increasing settler violence, until they relocated to their present reservation of Stockbridge-Munsee Community in Wisconsin. His notable works include a narrative of his diplomatic attempts in his embassy to the Western Indians.

External links

Papers of the War Department 1784-1800

Letter to Thomas Jefferson from Hendrick Aupaumut, 12 December 1808

History of the Muh-he-con-nuk Indians by Hendrick Aupaumut (ca. 1790) in American Indian Nonfiction: An Anthology of Writings, 1760s-1930s (pp. 63-74)

A Short Narration of My Last Journey to the Western Country by Hendrick Aupaumut (pp. 61-131) in Memoirs of the Pennsylvania Society (pub. 1826).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Aupaumut, Hendrick 1757 births 1830 deaths People of the Province of New York Native American people from Massachusetts Native American history of Massachusetts Colonial American Indian agents