Mohican History Walking Tour of Stockbridge (Stop Four)
Captain Naunauphtaunk Home
Earlier Posts in this Series
Stop One (Town Offices) is here and has a discussion of the timeframe covered in this walk.
Stop Two (Chief Konkapot’s Property) can be found here, in which I discuss Native naming conventions and explain why there were two Sachems when Stockbridge was created.
Stop Three (Library and Archives) is here and has some information on gender roles and other topics.
Stop Nine (Town Cemetery) is here — in addition to Native burials, I mention the gravestone of Mumbet, and tell about the ceremonial use of tobacco.
much more information is available at
https://www.nativeamericantrail.org/
Reminder
Berkshire OLLI will again be sponsoring “Footprints of Our Ancestors” tours during the Housatonic Heritage walk month in 2025. Kate Kidd and I will be offering the walks on most weekends in September as well as the first weekend in October. Details have now appeared on the Housatonic Heritage website (although their list is chronological, and not by topic or location), and sign-ups will later be offered on the OLLI website.
In this series of posts, I am describing some of the topics that have been covered in these walks. Many of my comments are in addition to the material in the brochure and short videos, all of which are linked to in my posts.
Even if you have absorbed all of the material in these posts, please join us in person, if you can. Each walk is different because we mold our conversation around the comments and questions from those on the walk. It’s a wonderful way to spend a couple of hours on a crisp autumn day.
Stop Four Video and Text
From the brochure:
39 Main Street: Captain Naunauphtaunk Home
You are standing at the former farm of Jacob Naunauphtaunk, a community leader and celebrated veteran of the French & Indian War. He held various positions including serving as Selectman (1746), constable (1749-50), Surveyor of Highways (1753) and again as Selectman (1754). He had four sons. He became a principal hero during the French & Indian Wars, forming an all-Mohican company of Rogers’ Rangers, which would scout and scour the woods. The partnership with Rogers’ Rangers soon became a popular guerilla force, creating the basis for characters later romanticized by James Fenimore Cooper.
47 Stockbridge Mohicans served in French & Indian War and 59 in the Revolutionary War. The first two patriot Native American deaths in Revolutionary War are Stockbridge Indians. The Stockbridge-Munsee Community continues to have a strong record of military valor. Members of the tribe have served in every American war from the Revolutionary War to the present day. American Indians constitute the highest number of service personnel per capita. For the Stockbridge-Munsee Community, the Mohican Veterans is an active community association that honors this legacy.
My Comments
The pride shown here in service to the Colonists is a poignant reminder of the dilemma faced by Natives in this area.
In the middle of the continent, beyond what the Colonists called “the frontier”, it took the Colonists (ultimately in the form of the US Army) four hundred years to defeat the Natives militarily.
Here in the Northeast, the conquest came much sooner, in about half that time. By 1700, there were more English than Natives in New England. As the Natives saw their population being decimated by disease, and their homelands being overrun by the Newcomers, they were forced to choose between trying to save their land by resisting the Colonists or by cooperating and begging for merciful treatment.
Those who resisted were often slaughtered or scattered. Those who cooperated were “given” (i.e. confined to a small portion of their own) land. Hence, “the Indian Town of the Housatonicks” came into being, eventually to be named Stockbridge. Umpachene and Konkapot had worried, when they agreed the English proposal, that they might not have the support of their people. They risked being replaced as Sachems if their villages did not want to go along with giving up large areas of land in exchange for a permanent place to live.
The communities would also be compelled to accept a missionary, a schoolteacher, and two other families, all of whom would teach them how to be “civilized” in the English fashion. In 1650, Irish Archbishop James Ussher had calculated the age of the earth to be 6,000 years. In reality, there were people living in New England before there were people living in Ireland. But it never occurred to the English that indigenous Americans had been here long enough to develop a more sophisticated culture than that of Europe.
In the end the people of Wnahktukook (Konkapot’s village) and Skatekook (Umpachene’s) supported the bargain that had been reached in Deerfield in 1735. Not all of the Mohicans agreed, however. The so-called River Indians (those who lived along what is now called the Hudson River) refused to accept the arrangement. As a result, the English drove them out. Many of the River Indians moved south to Pennsylvania, some as far away as Canada or Indian Territory (Oklahoma). The Council Fire of the Mohicans came to Stockbridge, and that band has endured to the present day as the keepers of Mohican culture.
Captain Jacob Naunauphtaunk and many other Mohicans from Stockbridge served in the French and Indian War (known in Europe as the Seven Years’ War). The Paris Treaty (1763) that ended the War included France giving up all of New France (Canada) to the British. The cost of the War, however, left England broke. She needed revenue, and began to impose new taxes, both at home and in her colonies. These taxes, along with many other complaints, led to the Declaration of Independence in 1776.
Next Up
We will go to Stop Five: The Red Lion Inn