Mahican << muh HEE kuhn >> are a Native American people who were important in the fur trade in North America during the 1600’s. They struggled violently with the Mohawk for control of the trade in the Hudson River Valley in New York. The Mahican lived along the Hudson, and the name Mahican refers to the tides of the river near Albany. The Mahican are often confused with the Mohican, a fictional tribe created by American writer James Fenimore Cooper in his novel The Last of the Mohicans.
The Mahican lived in villages that were built on hills near rivers. A village consisted of from 3 to 16 large rectangular dwellings called longhouses. Each longhouse sheltered several related families. A tall fence made of wooden stakes surrounded each village. The Mahican grew much of their food in gardens near their villages. They also fished, hunted, and gathered wild plants.
The struggle between the Mahican and the Mohawk began about 1600. It lasted until the 1670’s, when furbearing animals became so scarce in the valley that the fur trade no longer remained profitable. Increasing numbers of white farmers gradually forced the Mahican to move from their homelands. In 1736, many Mahican settled in Stockbridge, a community of Christian Native Americans in western Massachusetts. These groups moved to central New York in the 1780’s. In the 1820’s, the federal government set up the Stockbridge Reservation in northeastern Wisconsin. Most of the remaining Mahican still live there.
