As America celebrates her 250th birthday this weekend, Stockbridge-Munsee Mohican Nation President Shannon Holsey is hoping people educate themselves on the role of her tribe in the founding of the U.S.
“America 250 presents an opportunity to move beyond incomplete narratives and toward a fuller understanding of this country’s history,” she writes. “It is a chance to recognize that Tribal Nations stood at its beginning and remain essential to its future.” |
The Mohicans were one of the few tribes to side with the Americans during the Revolutionary War and served alongside George Washington’s forces as soldiers, scouts and intelligence gatherers. |
“We carried knowledge that could not be mapped,” Holsey wrote. “We moved between worlds, providing intelligence, protection, and leadership at a time when the outcome of the war remained uncertain.” |
Many Mohicans also paid the ultimate sacrifice, such as in August, 1778, at Kingsbridge in present-day New York when about 40 warriors were killed in one of the most devastating losses suffered by Native forces supporting the U.S. during the war. |
After the war, General Washington visited the Mohicans in their hometown of Stockbridge, Massachusetts, and celebrated with an ox feast. |
A generation or two later the Mohicans would be forced from their homes in favor of new European immigrants. |
The tribe eventually settled in Wisconsin, where it still has a reservation today. |
“We were not observers to the founding of the United States. We were participants in it,” Holsey wrote. “But when the war ended, the promises we believed in did not materialize.” |
The tribe endured and governs itself as a sovereign nation maintaining and revitalizing its traditions and culture. |
“The ideals of liberty that defined the Revolution were not applied equally. The gap between principle and practice became a defining feature of federal Indian policy—and remains so today,” Holsey writes. “This is a truth that must be told alongside any commemoration of America’s founding: We helped secure freedom for a new nation while fighting to preserve our own existence.” |
She wrote the U.S. must remember the contributions of Mohicans in creating this country, and honor its treaty obligations. |
“A commemoration without accountability is incomplete,” Holsey writes. “Recognition without action is insufficient.” |
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