Everything about The Christian Munsee totally explained
The
Christian Munsee were a group of
Lenape native
American Indians, primarily Munsee, who converted to Christianity, following the teachings of the
Moravian missionaries. The Christian Munsee were also known as the
Moravian Munsee or the
Moravian Indians or, in context, simply the
Christian Indians.
History
Pennsylvania
The Munsee were the Wolf clan of the Lenape, occupying the area where present-day
Pennsylvania,
New Jersey, and
New York meet. The first recorded European contact occurred in 1609, when
Henry Hudson sailed up the river that would bear his name. Like most native peoples of the Atlantic coast, the Munsee were quickly devastated by European diseases such as
smallpox,
malaria, and
influenza, and those who survived were forced inland. By the mid-1700s, one group of Lenape people began to follow the teachings of the Moravian missionaries. The
Moravians, a German Protestant denomination based in
Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, sought to protect their converts by creating separate mission villages in the frontier, apart from both European settlers and from other native people. The most prominent missionary among the Munsee was
David Zeisberger. In 1772, he led his group of Christian Munsee to the
Ohio Territory, which he hoped would isolate them from the hostilities of the
American Revolution. However, in 1782, a force of Pennsylvania militiamen, in search of Indians who had been raiding settlers in western Pennsylvania, happened upon a group of ninety of Zeisberger's Christian Munsee and rounded them up in the village of
Gnadenhütten. Although the Munsee truthfully pled their innocence, the militia took a vote and decided to execute all of them, including women and children.
Ontario
After ten more years of strife, most of the Christian Munsee followed Zeisberger to
Ontario,
Canada, where they established a new home at Fairfield, commonly known as Moraviantown, along the
Thames River. There they lived in relative peace for twenty years, supporting themselves with their farming and industry. However, once again they became unwitting victims of war, when American soldiers burned their village to the ground during the
War of 1812,
Battle of the Thames. The battle is known historically as a victory for General
William Henry Harrison, and for the death of the
Shawnee chief
Tecumseh, but the utter destruction of Moraviantown is little more than a footnote. The Munsee fled into the wilderness for safe haven until hostilities ceased, then returned to build a New Fairfield.
Wisconsin
By the 1830s, a faction of the Christian Munsee favored a move to the American West. In 1837, some of the Munsee from Fairfield journeyed to
Wisconsin to join another Christian band of Indians, the Stockbridge Mahican, where the two tribes became known collectively as the
Stockbridge-Munsee; it's now the
Stockbridge-Munsee Community in
Shawano County, Wisconsin. However, most of the Munsee eventually decided to return to Canada. The Christian Munsee in southern Ontario remain today as the
Moravian of the Thames and the
Munsee-Delaware Nation.
Kansas Territory
A small band of Christian Munsee decided to migrate again, this time to Kansas Territory, to join their Delaware kinsman. They first settled in
Wyandotte County, then
Leavenworth County. A few other families settled near
Fort Scott in
Bourbon County. By 1857, most of the other
Delaware Indians (of Kansas) left for
Indian Territory. The Christian Munsee, who now numbered less than one hundred, chose instead to purchase a new reservation in
Franklin County from a small band of
Ojibwa.
The Treaty of 1859 officially combined the Swan Creek and Black River Band Chippewa and the Christian Munsee on a reservation of twelve square miles along the
Marais des Cygnes River near the town of
Ottawa. Signing the treaty for the Munsee were Henry Donohoe, Ignatius Caleb, and John Williams.
Although the two tribes shared a reservation and were considered one tribe by the United States government in all dealings, the two groups maintained their separate identities in cultural and religious practices. The Moravian church continued to send missionaries to the Munsee.
Over time, the Chippewa-Munsee reservation was
allotted to the members and descendants of the tribes, and they eventually accepted
assimilation. In 1900, the final disbursement of federal funds was paid and all benefits and recognition as Native Americans were dissolved.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Christian Munsee'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://christian_munsee.totallyexplained.com">Christian Munsee Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
