Stockbridge-Munsee Community (Band of Mohican Indians)

What happened

The Stockbridge-Munsee Community describes itself as the Band of Mohican Indians, "People of the waters that are never still." Its website lists a Tribal Council, an Executive Team and a historical library and museum. Its president is Shannon Holsey, who is quoted in news reports on the Nation's land work.

In August 2023, WBUR reported that the Nation had received a $2.26 million state climate-resilience grant to buy a 351-acre property near Monument Mountain in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. In April 2025, Tribal Business News, citing the Berkshire Eagle, reported the tribe had finalized a $2.5 million purchase of 372 acres on the mountain's northern slope, including Fenn Farm and Sky Farm, largely funded by that state grant. The article says Mohican people were forced west to Wisconsin in the early 19th century.

Holsey called the purchase part of a landback movement and said it was about reclaiming kinship systems, governance, ceremony, language, culture and food and medicinal systems, which she said are all based on relationship to the land.

The 351- and 372-acre figures differ because the 2023 reports preceded the final acreage. The Nation's own pages do not describe the purchase. Reports give the closing date as 2024 or 2025.

Good to know. This was a purchase, mostly funded by a state grant, not a gift. The 351 acres in 2023 reports was the earlier plan; sources date the closing to 2024 or 2025.

Summarized with AI assistance from 4 sources and checked against their words; not yet reviewed by historians or by the nations. Report an error