"It is enough ... the pale faces are masters of the Earth, and the time of the red men has not yet come again. My day has been too long ... before the night has come, have I lived to see the last warrior of the wise race of the Mohicans." So spoke Tamenund, the Delaware chieftain whose words close the world-famous novel "The Last of the Mohicans."
However, as an enrolled member of the real-life, federally recognized Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohican Indians, I must object to the above characterization of my people in this book, which has never been out of print since its first publication in 1826. We are far from extinct; in fact, as one of our elders says, we are still making history every day.
The Mohican Indians are the "original people" of east-central New York, including the upper Hudson Valley, and were the people who greeted Henry Hudson on his 1609 voyage up the river subsequently named for him. As semi-coastal people, the Mohican and related tribes held the most economically rich lands prior to the European invasion. Ironically, at the time of contact, the best lands became the worst in that the Mohican were forced to bear the initial shock of the alien and powerful Dutch.
Inland tribes were able to observe the harm done to the Mohican and make their plans accordingly. It was then the formerly powerful Mohican began to lose their influence and public identity, while the Mohawk Tribe's star rose. So profound has been that loss that today many people consider the Mohican to be "storybook Indians" and even school textbooks refer to generic "Indians" when they should be speaking of the very specific Mohican.
The Mohican Tribe is still extant, with a current reservation in east-central Wisconsin, and they have never been known to give their land away to other tribes. Unfortunately, the Brookfield Renewable Power company is now in the process of giving Cohoes Falls, which has always been Mohican country, to the inland-dwelling Mohawks ("Sacred site will have Iroquois homecoming," Oct. 4). This land deal is occurring even though documentary evidence notes the Mohican sold the falls to the Dutch Van Rensselaers in 1670 (Shirley Dunn, "The Mohicans and Their Land, 1609-1730," Page 290). Further evidence demonstrates the Dutch had to make a two- to three-day trip (over 24 miles) west to the nearest Mohawk village, near present-day Amsterdam (Charles Gehring and William Starna, "A Journey Into Mohawk and Oneida Country, 1634-1635," Page 29).
If Brookfield gives Cohoes Falls and the surrounding area to the Mohawks, a grave injustice, based on no facts, will have occurred.
Steve Comer is a local historian and an enrolled member of the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohican Indians.