Mahican
- A one time powerful Algonquian tribe that occupied both sides of the
upper Hudson River, extending north almost to lake Champlain. Their
name means "wolf." They are not to be confused with the Mohegan Indians
of Connecticut.
James Fenimore Cooper made this tribe famous
by his book, Last of the Mohicans. The hero, Uncas, however,
was a Mohegan in real life.
With the coming of the colonists the Mahicans
gradually began to lose their territory and shortly after the Revolutionary
War most of them dropped from sight.
But the Mahican did not entirely disappear.
One band was gathered into a mission near Stockbridge, Massachusetts, and
became known as the Stockbridge Indians.
later, for one reason or another
they lived in various places, and finally settled in Wisconsin, where today
on the Stockbridge Reservation, west of Shawano, these "last of the Mohicans"
number with the Munsee Indians around 500. There is a Mohican River
and town in Ohio.
Related Information
within this Site
[ Cooper
][ Mohegan ][ Uncas
]