Mahican
The Mahicans ( or Mohicans ) are an Eastern Algonquian Native American tribe, originally settled in the Hudson River Valley (around Albany, New York) and western New England. After 1680, due to conflicts with the Mohawk, many moved to Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Since the 1830s, most descendants of the Mahican are located in Shawano County, Wisconsin, where they formed the federally recognized Stockbridge-Munsee Community with the Lenape people and have a 22,000-acre (8,900 ha) reservation.
Following the disruption of the American Revolutionary War, most of the Mahican descendants first migrated westward to join the Iroquois Oneida on their reservation in central New York. The Oneida gave them about 22,000 acres for their use. After more than two decades, in the 1820s and 1830s, the Oneida and the Stockbridge moved again, pressured to relocate to northeastern Wisconsin under the federal Indian Removal program. The tribe's name came from where they lived: "Muh-he-ka-neew" (or "People of the continually flowing waters.") The word Muh-he-kan refers to a great sea or body of water and the Hudson River reminded them of their place of origin, so they named the Hudson River "Seepow Mahecaniittuck," or the river where there are people from the continually flowing waters. Therefore, they, along with tribes also living along the Hudson River (like the Munsee and Wappinger), were called "the River Indians" by the Dutch and English. The Dutch heard and wrote the term for the people of the area variously as: Mahigan, Mahikander, Mahinganak, Maikan and Mawhickon, which the English simplified later to Mahican or Mohican. The French, through their Indian allies in Canada, called the Mahicans Loups (or wolves) just as they called the Iroquois the "Snake People," (or "Five Nations.") Like the Munsee and Wippingers, the Mahicans were related to the Lenape People of the Delaware River valley.
