The story
The Stockbridge–Munsee members are descendants of tribes historically located in the Hudson River valley, New England and the mid-Atlantic areas, respectively, at the time of European encounter. The Stockbridge were Mohicans from the upper east Hudson area who migrated into western Massachusetts in and near Stockbridge before the American Revolutionary War. They became Christianized Indians. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, they migrated west to central New York. The Oneida people allowed them to share a 22,000-acre portion of the Oneida Reservation south of Syracuse, New York.
17th–19th centuries
The Munsee were Lenape who occupied the northern part of their total territory. As they spoke the Munsee dialect, one of the major three branches of the language, they were sometimes referred to by colonists and settlers by that term. They occupied coastal areas around present-day New York City, the western part of Long Island, and northern New Jersey. Lenape to the South spoke two other dialect variations.
After the 1778 Stockbridge Massacre of Stockbridge Militia during the American Revolutionary War, what was left of a combined Mohican and Wappinger community in Stockbridge, Massachusetts left for Oneida County in western New York to join the Oneida people there.
Many Munsee-speaking Lenape also migrated from New Jersey to there by 1802. They were joined there by Brothertown Indians of New Jersey (from a reservation in Indian Mills, New Jersey), as well as by the Stockbridge Indians, which included remnants of the once large Wappinger people and some Mohican. Although the Oneida allowed them to share some of their reservation, eventually the two groups agreed to removal together to present-day Wisconsin. Historically each of these tribes had spoken a distinct Algonquian language.
The Stockbridge–Munsee share a 22,000-acre reservation in Shawano County, Wisconsin. This land was initially assigned to the Menominee, whose homelands these were. Since the late twentieth century, the Stockbridge–Munsee Community has developed the successful North Star Mohican Resort and Casino to generate revenues for welfare and economic development of the tribe. The Brotherton Indians have a separate reservation.
Indian termination
As part of the Indian termination policy that was followed by the US government from the 1940s to the 1960s, several former New York tribes were targeted for termination. A 21 January 1954 memo by the Department of the Interior advised that a bill for termination was being prepared including "about 3,600 members of the Oneida Tribe residing in Wisconsin." Another memo of the Department of the Interior memo entitled Indian Claims Commission Awards Over $38.5 Million to Indian Tribes in 1964, states that the Emigrant Indians of New York are "(now known as the Oneidas, Stockbridge–Munsee, and Brotherton Indians of Wisconsin)".
In an effort to fight termination and force the government into recognizing their outstanding land claims from New York, the three tribes began filing litigation in the 1950s. As a result of a claim filed with the Indian Claims Commission, the group was awarded a settlement of $1,313,472.65 on August 11, 1964. To distribute the funds, Congress passed Public Law 90-93 81 Stat. 229 Emigrant New York Indians of Wisconsin Judgment Act and prepared separate rolls of persons in each of the three groups to determine which tribal members had at least one-quarter "Emigrant New York Indian blood." It further directed tribal governing bodies of the Oneida and Stockbridge–Munsee to apply to the Secretary of the Interior for approval of fund distributions, thereby ending termination efforts for these tribes.
The law did not specifically state that the Brothertown Indians were terminated; however, it authorized all payments to be made directly to each enrollee, with special provisions for minors to be handled by the Secretary. These payments were not subject to state or federal taxes.
From Wikipedia’s article on Stockbridge–Munsee Community, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4