Town of Montville records

The records relating to the Mohegan Tribe consist primarily of copies of arguments, depositions, primary sources related to the history of the Mohegans, and a variety of secondary source materials in favor of and in opposition to federal acknowledgment. The records are generally arranged in chronological order and document the arduous struggle by the Mohegan to secure recognition through the process overseen by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The Mohegans are the only Connecticut tribal entity to have successfully navigated the standard acknowledgment process.

The materials gathered by opposing parties in federal acknowledgment are significant not only for the massive documentation they provide on the recognition process, but also for the detail they include on the history of the Mohegan Tribe, both from primary and secondary sources. Often the same documents were used by differing parties in an attempt to demonstrate opposite conclusions.

The depositions of eighteen men and women taken between 1980 and 1983 provide a particularly revealing glimpse of identity at the beginnings of the modern struggle by the tribe to secure federal acknowledgment. Also of interest are lists of persons claiming to be Mohegan (Box 1, folder 15), Mohegan Tribe membership in 1993 (Box 4, folder 23), a family scroll of descendants of Joshua Occum (Box 2, folder 23), and Fielding family genealogy (Box 2, folder 25). The largest single quantity of records, however, consists of exhibits, e.g., copies of primary and secondary sources used by the parties to try to prove their cases.

The first document in the collection is a 1976 petition to Governor Ella Grasso from Wounded Wolf (Rowland Bishop), Chairman and the last is a copy of an August 1, 1994 written statement of Wayne D. Scott, Mayor of Montville to the U.S. Senate's Committee on Indian Affairs concerning Mohegan land claims.

These records from the Town of Montville provide invaluable documentation to researchers interested in the history of the Mohegans. The records also include materials on the unsuccessful attempt by the Golden Hill Paugussetts of southwestern Connecticut to gain federal recognition, see Boxes 5-6. included is one folder of materials related to the Schaghticoke Indians (Box 2, folder 16).

For those with a more general interest in Native Americans in the state or in other tribal entities, these papers provide valuable leads to the locations of such materials.