Enlarge

Samson Occom, 1766

Portrait of Mohegan minister and preacher Samson Occom, posed sitting with his finger on a Bible on a bookstand, with Indian implements visible on the wall. View the original source document: WHI 59460

The Brothertown Indian Nation is made of of descendants of the Christian, English-speaking Pequot, Niantic, Montauk and other coastal peoples of New York and New England who united in 1769. The tribe chose to be an amalgamation of many Algonquin tribes. White settlement on the east coast pressured the Brothertown Nation to seek a new home. Led by Brothertown preachers like Samson Occom, and later Joseph Johnson, they moved to land made available by the Oneidas in upstate New York. In the 1820s, as white settlers pushed further west, they were dispossessed and forced to move again. With their Oneida and Stockbridge neighbors, they came to Wisconsin in the 1820s and 1830s, settling along the eastern shore of Lake Winnebago in Calumet County.

After arriving in Wisconsin, pressure from white settlers again threatened the Brothertown way of life. The tribe decided to accept citizenship in 1839, believing it was the best way to retain lands. Unfortunately, allotment divided up the land as private property belonging to each tribal member and took away the right for the Brothertown Nation to govern their own land. This left Brothertown tribal members vulnerable to foreclosure and taxation, with many people losing their land by the end of allotment. These losses were compounded by lumber and farming industries stripping the landscape of forests, a problem shared by Mohican neighbors.     

The Brotherton Indian Nation does not yet have federal recognition, though the Brotherton Tribal Council has been working towards formal recognition since 1996 (and petitioning Congress since the 1870s). The benefits of “official” status include financial support and federal services, which could lead to further economic stability and give more opportunities to preserve Brotherton heritage and identity. Today, members of the Brothertown Indian Nation live all over Wisconsin and the U.S., with the largest concentration around Fond du Lac.

Learn More

Visit the Brothertown Indian Nation's web site

Source: Loew, Patty. Indian Nations of Wisconsin (Madison: Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2001).