The Brothertown Indians (also Brotherton) are Native American descendants of the Pequot and Mohegan (Algonquian-speaking) tribes in southern New England.[1][2] The Brothertown Indians were the first tribe of Native Americans in the United States to become United States citizens and relinquish their tribal sovereignty.
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The Brothertown Indian Nation (Eeyamquittoowauconnuck) was formed by Samson Occom (famed Presbyterian minister, member of the Mohegan tribe of Connecticut, and fundraiser for Dartmouth College), Joseph Johnson (Mohegan, messenger for General George Washington during the American Revolution, and Occom's son-in-law), and David Fowler (Montauk and Occom's brother-in-law).[3] The tribe formally formed on November 7, 1785, when the so-called Christian remnants of the Mohegan, Pequots at Groton, Pequots at Stonington, Narragansett, Montauk, Niantic, and Tunxis (Farmington) tribes organized into a body politic and began to move to land provided to them by the Oneida Nation near Waterville, New York, in Oneida Country. In the 1780s, they settled there while under intense pressure to again move west. By the 1830s, the Brothertown Indian Nation had sold its land to the state of New York and purchased land in Wisconsin, where the 3200-member tribe thrives in twenty-first century America.[4]
In 1821, numerous New York tribes signed a treaty with the federal government and acquired 860,000 acres (3,500 km2) in Wisconsin. In 1822, another delegation acquired an additional 6,720,000 acres (27,200 km2) which consisted of almost the entire western shore of Lake Michigan. The Brothertown alone were to receive about 153,000 acres (620 km2) along the southeastern side of the Fox River near present-day Kaukauna and Wrightstown. Some of the other tribes in the 1821 treaty felt they were misled by the federal government. The treaty was hotly debated for eight years, so it was never ratified by the United States Senate. The federal government mediated a settlement with three treaties in 1831 and 1832. The settlement consisted of exchanging the agreed upon lands for the 23,040 acres (93 km2) now referred to as the entire town of Brothertown in Calumet County along the east shore of Lake Winnebago.
The Brothertown leadership led the move west so they could live in peace and brotherhood away from non-Indian influences. The Brothertown joined their neighbors, the Oneida tribe and the Stockbridge-Munsee tribe, and planned the move to Wisconsin. Five groups of Brothertown arrived in Wisconsin on ships at the port of Green Bay between 1831 and 1836. Upon arrival, the Brothertown cleared land and began farming after building a church near Jericho. The federal government almost immediately decided that the land in Wisconsin had fertile soil, so it decided to move the Brothertown west to Kansas. In 1834, the Brothertown Indian Nation requested U.S. citizenship and individual titles to land for tribal members (the land had been considered tribal property) so they could not be forced to move west again. On March 3, 1839, Congress passed an act granting the Brothertown Indians U.S. citizenship, making them the first Indians with U.S. citizenship. Despite popular misunderstanding of federal Indian law and Brothertown tribal history, there is no question as to whether or not the tribe gave up their sovereignty for citizenship. The Bureau of Indian Affairs has repeatedly confirmed that U.S. citizenship and sovereignty are not mutually exclusive. This is clear when considering the fact that all American Indians are now U.S. citizens, yet there are approximately 365 federally acknowledged sovereign Indian tribes. In 1878, the federal government met with the Brothertown leaders and allowed unclaimed land in the former Brothertown Indian Reservation to be sold mainly to German immigrants.[5]
The Brothertown have been petitioning the federal government since 1981 to once again be federally acknowledged as a tribe — in effect, re-recognized. Federal acknowledgment was initially stripped from the Brothertown people in the late 1970s at a time when many other tribes lost their government-to-government relationship with the U.S. federal government, i.e., federal acknowledgment. It is a popular misconception that the Brothertown lost their federal acknowledgment when they requested and were granted United States citizenship on March 3, 1839, in an effort to avoid being removed by the federal government. However, the Bureau of Indian Affairs has confirmed in writing to the tribe that this was not the case and that their status as the first American Indians granted United States citizenship did not strip them of their tribal sovereignty or government-to-government relationship with the U.S. federal government. Due to this decision by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Brothertown Indian Nation was eligible to petition the BIA for federal acknowledgment, a process that the tribe is currently in the middle of. Had Congress's granting of citizenship status stripped the Brothertown Indian Nation of its federal acknowledgment in 1839, the tribe would have been deemed ineligible for the BIA's federal acknowledgment process (25 CFR sec. 83), and only an act of Congress could give the tribe federal acknowledgment.[6][7]
The Brothertown Indian Nation enrolled members elect a tribal officers and a tribal council that meets monthly. They have bought back a small portion of their former reservation, and continue to function as a nation in the state of Wisconsin. There are certain rights and assistance available to the Brothertown as individual Indian descendants, but these are greatly limited due to a lack of federal acknowledgment.
The Brothertown remain a culturally distinct Indian community with the largest concentration residing in the Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, area. There were about 2400 enrolled members in 1999.[8] Union Cemetery in the town of Brothertown, and Quinney Cemetery located just outside the former reservation boundary are resting places for many Brothertown Indians. Many Brothertown return to these grave sites yearly to honor their ancestors and tend to the burial sites. Brothertown members hold a picnic every July and a homecoming every October.
University of Pennsylvania archaeologist Craig Cipolla has begun an archaeological project on historic Brothertown sites. He hopes to get community involvement from Brothertown members and local landowners. The project is supported by the Brothertown Indian Nation. The goal of the project is to locate, map and explore sites in need of preservation.[9][10]