Many Stockbridge Indians, including Electa’s son Daniel, fought in the Civil War. But it was not their only fight in the 1860s.
There was also a big tribal fight going on. Just like the North and South in the Civil War, the Stockbridge-Munsee tribe became divided into 2 sides. But instead of guns and cannons, this battle was fought on paper and with words. Instead of generals, it was led by lawyers.
This fight went on for 50 years. It began in the 1840s, while Electa was living in Indian Territory, and ended in the 1890s, a few years after she died.
What did they fight about for so long? The Stockbridge-Munsee Indians disagreed on a question that was very important to the future of their tribe. Should they all remain members of the Stockbridge-Munsee tribe? Or should some of them leave the tribe and become citizens of the United States?
There would be consequences for those who left. They would no longer be allowed to live on the Stockbridge-Munsee reservation. They would no longer be allowed to vote in tribal elections. And those who left would no longer get a share of money paid to the tribe, as happened sometimes, such as when land on the reservation was sold. Were they willing to give all of that up?
But Stockbridge-Munsee men who became US citizens would be able to help choose the US president and vote in other important US elections. At the time, women could not vote in US elections. And living off the reservation might not be so bad, some Stockbridge-Munsee thought. On the reservation, land could only be sold with approval from the US government. But if they became US citizens and owned land off the reservation, they could sell that land whenever they wanted, without having to ask permission.
Those who wanted to remain in the tribe called themselves the Indian Party. Those who wanted to become US citizens called themselves the Citizens Party.
What the Indian and Citizens Parties disagreed about, really, was whether to live more like white people.
This was not a new question. Back in 1734, when John Sergeant visited the Mohican Indians in Massachusetts, the tribe had struggled with the same worry. Some Mohicans had disagreed then about letting John Sergeant teach them. They had feared that their Mohican culture would be lost. And as time went by, and the Stockbridge began speaking English instead of Mohican, living in log homes, working on farms, going to church, and dressing in nontraditional clothes, those fears came true. In the 1860s, some Stockbridge Indians said that what remained of their culture would disappear for good if they became US citizens.
Once again, Electa had to make a tough decision. She had to choose one group over the other. Did she agree with the Citizens Party and want to become a US citizen? Or did she agree with the Indian Party and want to stay a member of the tribe?
There was one last thing that complicated her choice. She was a Quinney. And the Quinneys were divided over what to do.
Electa’s nephew Jeremiah was a leader in the Indian Party. Many other Quinneys belonged to the Indian Party, so many in fact that it was often called the Quinney Party. But Electa’s son John was a leader in the Citizens Party.
Electa’s son John Clark Adams
Electa had many white friends who were US citizens. She valued what she had learned from white teachers. But her Stockbridge heritage was important to her, too. How could she possibly choose one side over the other?
We get one clue to Electa’s choice in 1867. That year, her name was on a list of Stockbridge and Munsee Indians who were thinking about leaving the tribe.
But this was just a list of people thinking about leaving. The people whose names were on this list remained in the tribe for a few more years.
A more important list came later, in 1871. Electa’s name was on this list, too. This time, everyone on the list became US citizens. They were no longer members of the Stockbridge-Munsee tribe.
“Have you been sorry yet that you put your name among those who separate [from the tribe]?” Electa’s nephew Jeremiah wrote to her in 1871.
This letter from Jeremiah makes it seem as though Electa made her own choice to become a US citizen in 1871. But did she really put her own name on the list? Some people who were on the 1871 list said later that they hadn’t added their names to it. They said their enemies, people who wanted to make their life hard, put their names there. They said it was a way of kicking them out of the Stockbridge-Munsee tribe.
Whether they listed themselves or someone else did it, there were consequences for Stockbridge-Munsee Indians who became US citizens in 1871.
Electa’s son John was also on the 1871 list and became a US citizen. At the time, John was studying to be a lawyer at Lawrence University in Appleton. The US government was paying some of his tuition.
In 1872, an Indian Party leader wrote a letter to the US government. He said the government should stop helping John pay his tuition. He said help like that should only be for Indians who belonged to a tribe, not for those who had become US citizens.
Lawrence University in 1860
In 1873, just a few months before he was going to graduate, John suddenly quit Lawrence University. It’s not clear why he quit, but it might be because the US government stopped paying his tuition. In 1874, John tried to go to a different university. The US government said in a letter then that it would not help pay his tuition. John never went back to college. He never earned a college degree.
But even though he was not officially a lawyer, John had learned enough about the law to help others. He especially helped people who said that their names should not have been on the 1871 list.
For the next 20 years, John traveled back and forth to Washington, DC. He asked the US Congress to force the tribe to let these Indians back in.
During these years, while John was often traveling, Electa grew old. On March 7, 1882, she died on her farm in the town of Stockbridge. She was about 75 years old. Electa was buried nearby, in a Stockbridge Indian cemetery.
A few weeks before she died, Electa wrote that she was still of “sound mind, memory and understanding.” “Blessed be Almighty God for the same,” she wrote.
John inherited her farm. And he continued his fight. Finally, in 1893, John won. The Stockbridge-Munsee had to let those people who wanted to rejoin the tribe back in. A new list was made of those who belonged to the tribe. Those who said they were wrongly put on the 1871 list could be tribal members once again.
But because Electa had died by this time, her name was not on the new list. So we’ll never know for sure whether she chose on her own to quit the tribe, or if someone else put her name down. After reading about Electa’s life, what do you think happened?
For John, the fight had another terrible consequence. It cost him Electa’s farm. His many trips to Washington, DC, were expensive. He ran out of money to pay the taxes and mortgage on the farm. In 1889, the bank took the farm away. It was sold at an auction for $286.
John moved to Antigo, Wisconsin. There, on January 27, 1896, he died suddenly after catching a cold.