It should come as little surprise that the Mohegan were one of the few New England tribes to support the English during the King Philip's War (1675-76). However, despite their many years of service, the number of supposed-loyal tribes who had joined the uprising had made the English suspect everyone. Uncas was ordered to report to Boston and surrender all of his people's firearms, but he was 87 years old by this time and sent three of his sons in his stead who turned in only part of their weapons. To insure the Mohegan were trustworthy, two of the sons were kept as hostages for the remainder of the war, while one of them, Oneko (Oweneco), was released to lead the warriors. The Mohegan fought initially as scouts for the army of Robert Treat and in September, 1675, rescued an English column near Hadley, Massachusetts on the verge of being wiped out. That December, 150 Mohegan and Pequot warriors joined the English army which destroyed the Narragansett fort at Kingston, Rhode Island (Great Swamp Fight). The following April, the Mohegan performed what was perhaps their greatest service during the war when they captured Canonchet, the last important Narragansett sachem. After refusing to help the English find Philip, Canonchet was executed at Stonington by a Mohegan firing squad. It should be noted that, because of the Mohegan, Connecticut suffered very little during the King Philip's War with only a few Podunk joining Philip's raids in western Massachusetts. At the end of the war, the Mohegan were the only important tribe remaining in southern New England, but even after they allowed some of the defeated Narragansett to settle among them, warfare and epidemic had reduced them to less than 1,000. They were enough that during the 50 years which followed, Connecticut was largely immune from the Abenaki raids which terrorized the rest of New England. So long as the Mohegan had enough warriors to form a decent-sized war party, Connecticut had a formidable security service. The Mohegan served as English scouts during the King William's War (1688-96), and during the Queen Anne's War (1701-13), they guided two expeditions into the upper Connecticut Valley against the Abenaki. During Grey Lock's War (1723-27), forty-two Mohegan volunteered as scouts, but by this time those forty-two warriors represented every able-bodied man the Mohegan had left. However, loyal service as allies failed to win them any special gratitude from the English colonists or protect them from the forces which had decimated the less accommodating tribes in New England. As their population declined, debts owed to English traders forced the Mohegan to sell land until by 1721 the 4,000 acres along the Thames was all that remained. Crowded into an ever-smaller space, groups of Mohegan began leaving Connecticut. When Ben Uncas, the last Mohegan sachem, died in 1769, what little that remained of their homeland and tribal unity passed with him. Before his death, Ben Uncas had assigned the protection of the Mohegan lands to the family of John Mason. Mason did something unexpected and tried hard to do a good job for the Mohegan which, of course, made him hated by his fellow colonists. Mason finally succumbed to the tremendous pressure in 1774 and surrendered the deed to the remaining Mohegan lands to the tender care of the government of Connecticut. Perhaps because they had found the Mohegan more useful the way they were, the English did not seriously attempt to convert them to Christianity until the efforts of Reverend James Fitch in 1671 at Norwich. However, the Mohegan were already beginning to feel victimized by this time, and Fitch did not find them receptive. One argument encountered was the Mohegan felt they already had a good religion, and if the English would practice their own, they would stop taking Mohegan land. Fitch's work was cut short by King Phillip's War, and the English were so bitter afterwards that organized missionary activity did not resume until 1711 when missions were established for the Mohegan at Groton, Stonington, and Niantic. However, the first truly effective missionary among the Mohegan was by one of their own people, the Mohegan minister, Samson Occum. During 1773 Occum preached to his tribesmen and organized them into the Brother Towns (later called Brotherton). He ultimately succeeded in converting about 300 of them (about half of the tribe), many of whom adopted English customs and dress and abandoned their traditional lifestyle. Occum preached with equal success to other tribes, and although the Brotherton Indians ultimately became a mix of Mohegan, Metoac, and Mattabesic, the Mohegan were by far the largest component. Conversion, however, did little to make Indians more welcome in Connecticut, and Occum urged his flock to accept the invitation of the Oneida (Iroquois) to join them in upstate New York. The first group left in 1775, and the move was complete by 1788. Occum died in 1792. In 1802 the Connecticut Brotherton were joined by a second Brotherton group of Unami Delaware from New Jersey. In 1822 the Brotherton sold their New York lands and by 1834 had moved with the Oneida and Stockbridge Indians (Mahican) to northern Wisconsin. Some of the Brotherton merged with the Stockbridge and their descendants are now part of the Stockbridge Indians west of Green Bay. The remaining Brotherton in Wisconsin (not federally recognized) still live in the vicinity of the eastern shore of Lake Winnebago. May Your Waters Run Gentle. Little Hawk.