Mahican

The Mahican, or Mohican, whose name means “people of the continually flowing waters,” were an Eastern Algonquian people of the Hudson River valley. They formed a confederacy of five related groups, ruled by hereditary sachems under a matrilineal clan system.

Henry Hudson met them in 1609, and the Dutch post of Fort Orange rose in their heartland in 1624, drawing them into the fur trade and wars with the Mohawk. Mohawk victories pushed many Mahican to Stockbridge after 1680. Their sachem Etow Oh Koam was one of four “Indian kings” presented to Queen Anne in 1710.

They fought for the patriots in the American Revolution, losing heavily at Kingsbridge in 1778. Afterward the community moved to the Oneida and then, under Indian Removal in the 1820s and 1830s, to Wisconsin.