The Stockbridge Militia was a
Native American military unit from
Stockbridge, Massachusetts
Stockbridge is a town in Berkshire County in Western Massachusetts, United States. It is part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts, Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 2,018 at the 2020 census. A year-round resort area, Stockbridge is h ...
which served in the
Continental Army
The Continental Army was the army of the United Colonies (the Thirteen Colonies) in the Revolutionary-era United States. It was formed by the Second Continental Congress after the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War, and was establis ...
during the
American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...
. The militia unit was composed mostly of
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 ...
,
Wappinger
The Wappinger () were an Eastern Algonquian Munsee-speaking Native American people from what is now southern New York and western Connecticut.
At the time of first contact in the 17th century they were primarily based in what is now Dutches ...
, and
Munsee
The Munsee (or Minsi or Muncee) or mə́n'si·w ( del, Monsiyok)Online Lenape Talking Dictionary, "Munsee Indians"Link/ref> are a subtribe of the Lenape, originally constituting one of the three great divisions of that nation and dwelling along t ...
from the Stockbridge area. While most northeastern tribes, such as
Joseph Brant
Thayendanegea or Joseph Brant (March 1743 – November 24, 1807) was a Mohawk people, Mohawk military and political leader, based in present-day New York (state), New York, who was closely associated with Kingdom of Great Britain, Great B ...
's
Mohawks, aligned themselves with the
British
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies.
** Britishness, the British identity and common culture
* British English, ...
, the Stockbridge tribes allied with the
American Patriots
Patriots, also known as Revolutionaries, Continentals, Rebels, or American Whigs, were the colonists of the Thirteen Colonies who rejected British rule during the American Revolution, and declared the United States of America an independent n ...
. Led by Jehoiaikim Mtohksin and Abraham Nimham, they were the first group of Native Americans to fight for the cause of American independence during the Revolutionary War.
[
]
Early military service in Continental Army
In 1774, as the revolution began to get under way in , members of the Stockbridge tribes met at the Red Lion Inn to pledge their loyalty to the American cause:Wherever your armies go, there we will go; you shall always find us by your side; and if providence calls us to sacrifice our Lives in the field of battle, we will fall where you fall, and lay our bones by yours. Nor shall peace ever be made between our nation and the Red-Coats until our brothers -the white people- lead the way.
This first incarnation of the militia served at the Siege of Boston
The siege of Boston (April 19, 1775 – March 17, 1776) was the opening phase of the American Revolutionary War. New England militiamen prevented the movement by land of the British Army, which was garrisoned in what was then the peninsular town ...
and the Capture of Fort Ticonderoga
The capture of Fort Ticonderoga occurred during the American Revolutionary War on May 10, 1775, when a small force of Green Mountain Boys led by Ethan Allen and Colonel Benedict Arnold surprised and captured the fort's small British garrison. ...
in 1775. This militia disbanded soon thereafter, with some Indians returning to their homes and others continuing to serve as scouts for various units.
In 1777, a new militia was gradually formed as Stockbridge men from the 8th Massachusetts Regiment
The 8th Massachusetts Regiment also known as 16th Continental Regiment and Sargent's Regiment, was raised on April 23, 1775, under Colonel Paul Dudley Sargent at Cambridge, Massachusetts. The regiment would see action at the Battle of Bunker Hill ...
, Nixon's Brigade, and other units gathered under the command of Major General Horatio Gates
Horatio Lloyd Gates (July 26, 1727April 10, 1806) was a British-born American army officer who served as a general in the Continental Army during the early years of the Revolutionary War. He took credit for the American victory in the Battl ...
. This new, loosely organized Stockbridge Militia, now part of the Continental Army
The Continental Army was the army of the United Colonies (the Thirteen Colonies) in the Revolutionary-era United States. It was formed by the Second Continental Congress after the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War, and was establis ...
, was led by Jehoiaikim Mtohksin. Abraham Nimham, the son of famed Wappinger
The Wappinger () were an Eastern Algonquian Munsee-speaking Native American people from what is now southern New York and western Connecticut.
At the time of first contact in the 17th century they were primarily based in what is now Dutches ...
sachem
Sachems and sagamores are paramount chiefs among the Algonquians or other Native American tribes of northeastern North America, including the Iroquois. The two words are anglicizations of cognate terms (c. 1622) from different Eastern Al ...
Daniel Nimham
Daniel Nimham (also Ninham) (1726–1778) was the last sachem of the Wappinger people and an American Revolutionary War combat veteran. He was the most prominent Native American of his time in the lower Hudson Valley.
Background
Prior to Henry H ...
, joined the unit as Mtohksin's second-in-command. From 1777 to 1778 they participated in the Siege of Ticonderoga, the Battle of Saratoga
The Battles of Saratoga (September 19 and October 7, 1777) marked the climax of the Saratoga campaign, giving a decisive victory to the Americans over the British in the American Revolutionary War. British General John Burgoyne led an invasion ...
, and the Battle of Monmouth
The Battle of Monmouth, also known as the Battle of Monmouth Court House, was fought near Monmouth Court House in modern-day Freehold Borough, New Jersey on June 28, 1778, during the American Revolutionary War. It pitted the Continental Army, co ...
.
The Stockbridge Massacre
In August 1778, the Stockbridge Militia was stationed at an outpost in what is now the Bronx
The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New Y ...
, just north of Manhattan
Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
.["Death In the Bronx, The Stockbridge Indian Massacre August, 1778"]
Richard S. Walling, americanrevolution.org They were attached to a newly formed Light Infantry Corps commanded by Continental Army
The Continental Army was the army of the United Colonies (the Thirteen Colonies) in the Revolutionary-era United States. It was formed by the Second Continental Congress after the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War, and was establis ...
general Mordecai Gist
Mordecai Gist (1743–1792) was a member of a prominent Maryland family who became a brigadier general in command of the Maryland Line in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War.
Life
Gist was born in Baltimore, Maryland (on ...
. The Queen's Rangers
The Queen's Rangers, also known as the Queen's American Rangers, and later Simcoe's Rangers, were a Loyalist military unit of the American Revolutionary War. Formed in 1776, they were named for Queen Charlotte, consort of George III. The Queen' ...
, a Loyalist
Loyalism, in the United Kingdom, its overseas territories and its former colonies, refers to the allegiance to the British crown or the United Kingdom. In North America, the most common usage of the term refers to loyalty to the British Cro ...
military unit under the command of Lieutenant Colonel John Graves Simcoe
John Graves Simcoe (25 February 1752 – 26 October 1806) was a British Army general and the first lieutenant governor of Upper Canada from 1791 until 1796 in southern Ontario and the Drainage basin, watersheds of Georgian Bay and Lake Superior. ...
, led an attack on the Stockbridge Militia in what became known as the Battle of Kingsbridge Cortlandt Ridge, Van Cortlandt's Woods, or The Stockbridge Massacre.[ The Queen's Rangers were developed from ]Rogers' Rangers
Rogers' Rangers was a company of soldiers from the Province of New Hampshire raised by Major Robert Rogers and attached to the British Army during the Seven Years' War (French and Indian War). The unit was quickly adopted into the British army as ...
, a provincial unit in which many Stockbridge Indians had served during the French and Indian War
The French and Indian War (1754–1763) was a theater of the Seven Years' War, which pitted the North American colonies of the British Empire against those of the French, each side being supported by various Native American tribes. At the ...
.
The battle took place in the northeast of today's Van Cortlandt Park
Van Cortlandt Park is a park located in the borough of the Bronx in New York City. Owned by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, it is managed with assistance from the Van Cortlandt Park Alliance. The park, the city's third-lar ...
, in an area known today as "Indian Field" about one mile north of Kingsbridge
Kingsbridge is a market town and tourist hub in the South Hams district of Devon, England, with a population of 6,116 at the 2011 census. Two electoral wards bear the name of ''Kingsbridge'' (East & North). Their combined population at the abo ...
in today's Bronx
The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New Y ...
. The Queen's Rangers led a cavalry charge against the Stockbridge Militia, scattering the unit. By most accounts roughly 40 Stockbridge Militia were killed in the battle, while the Queen's Rangers suffered comparatively light casualties, with 1 cavalryman killed and 3 wounded. Due to the chaos of the battle, the Stockbridge Militia did not bury their casualties, though local residents quickly combed over the battlefield and buried any bodies they found.[
]
Physical appearance of Stockbridge soldier
After the fighting, Hessian
A Hessian is an inhabitant of the German state of Hesse.
Hessian may also refer to:
Named from the toponym
*Hessian (soldier), eighteenth-century German regiments in service with the British Empire
**Hessian (boot), a style of boot
**Hessian f ...
captain Johann Von Ewald sketched a Stockbridge warrior based on one of the dead who had been left behind. The picture is the only known contemporary depiction of a Revolutionary-era Stockbridge militiaman. Von Ewald described the Indian casualties after his examination:
Their costume was a shirt of coarse linen
Linen () is a textile made from the fibers of the flax plant.
Linen is very strong, absorbent, and dries faster than cotton. Because of these properties, linen is comfortable to wear in hot weather and is valued for use in garments. It also ...
down to the knees, long trousers also of linen down to the feet, on which they wore shoes of deerskin, and the head was covered with a hat made of bast. Their weapons were a rifle or musket, a quiver with some twenty arrows, and a short battle-axe
A battle axe (also battle-axe, battle ax, or battle-ax) is an axe specifically designed for combat. Battle axes were specialized versions of utility axes. Many were suitable for use in one hand, while others were larger and were deployed two-h ...
, which they know how to throw very skillfully. Through the nose and in the ears they wore rings, and on their heads only the hair of the crown remained standing in a circle the size of a dollar-piece, the remainder being shaved off bare. They pull out with pincers all the hairs of the beard, as well as those on all other parts of the body.
The bodies of the Indians were left on the battlefield. Soon after, local residents discovered the corpses being scavenged by dogs, and they buried them in a mass grave. By the 19th century the spirit of their sachem
Sachems and sagamores are paramount chiefs among the Algonquians or other Native American tribes of northeastern North America, including the Iroquois. The two words are anglicizations of cognate terms (c. 1622) from different Eastern Al ...
was said to haunt the land of "Indian Field".
Heavy losses and end of military service
That engagement was the last of the war for the militia; Abraham's father, Daniel Nimham, was a man of great standing among the Wappinger, and the other casualties represented a significant loss to the total population of the tribe back in Massachusetts. Requesting leave to return home to help the families of the dead, the company was paid $1,000.00 for their service and discharged by order of George Washington
George Washington (February 22, 1732, 1799) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797. Appointed by the Continental Congress as commander of th ...
in September 1778.
Post war years of Stockbridge veterans
Shays' Rebellion, tribal suffrage, and tribal removal
By the time of Shays's Rebellion much of the Indian community at Stockbridge had left for the Brothertown community in New York. According to the historian Patrick Frazier, "The remaining Stockbridges appear not to have participated in the agrarian fray; if they had, it is hard to say which side they would have taken, since they had friends on both."
It has been suggested that their service during the American Revolution created strong support for Indian suffrage
Suffrage, political franchise, or simply franchise, is the right to vote in representative democracy, public, political elections and referendums (although the term is sometimes used for any right to vote). In some languages, and occasionally i ...
, in the new ; although article five of the first draft, of the state's new constitution, excluded Indians, as eligible voters, it was soundly defeated and the second draft gave all men the right to vote.[
Most of the Indian survivors eventually settled in ]Oneida County, New York
Oneida County is a county in the state of New York, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 232,125. The county seat is Utica. The name is in honor of the Oneida, one of the Five Nations of the Iroquois League or ''Haudenos ...
and were later moved to Wisconsin
Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...
, forming the Stockbridge-Munsee tribal reservation.
References
{{reflist
External links
Death in the Bronx: The Stockbridge Indian Massacre
Stockbridges - Patriot Mahican Continental Army Troops in the American Revolution (video)
Massachusetts militia
Native American history of Massachusetts
Native American military personnel
Native Americans in the American Revolution
Stockbridge, Massachusetts