52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks
Week 11 March 11-17, 2024
Achievement
Daniel Nimham last sachem of the Wappinger People
In keeping with the prompt this week, I chose my 7th great-grandfather on my maternal line, Daniel Nimham, a Wappinger Indian sachem from the Hudson Valley of New York, a spokesman for his people, and a soldier in the American Revolutionary War. This blog post will repeat much of the information that I previously discussed in my post "Where Is My Native American DNA?" This post will look at Daniel as an achiever in my maternal family tree relating to the prompt of "Achievement" in my 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge.
His name was Daniel Nimham, b.1724 - d. 1778. This given name was obviously his anglicized and Christian name. His mother is reported to have been a daughter of a Mohican woman and his father also a sachem of the Wappinger tribe. He was a member of the Wappinger tribe who lived in the Hudson Valley of New York and was born in the Fishkill Creek region near the town of Wiccopee.
Historic Marker about Daniel Nimham, New York State
Having probably learned how to speak English from his continental neighbors and that he may have taken part in the French and Indian Wars. He was chosen as a sachem of the Wappinger people in the 1760s, following in the footsteps of the Nimham sachems before him. A sachem, according to Merriam Webster Dictionary, was a North American Indian chief, especially the chief of a confederation of the Algonquin tribes of the North Atlantic coast. The Wappinger were an Eastern Algonquin Munsee-speaking Native American people from what is now southern New York and western Connecticut.
At the time of first contact in the 17th century, they were primarily based in what is now Dutchess County, New York, but their territory included the east bank of the Hudson River, in what became both Putnam and Winchester counties, south to the western Bronx and northern Manhattan Island. Like the Lenape, the Wappinger were highly decentralized as a people and formed loosely associated bands that had established geographical territories.
The original settlements having been decimated by wars with the colonists, wars with other Indian tribes, questionable land sales, waves of diseases brought by Europeans, and absorption into other tribes. Their last sachem, Daniel Ninham, and a heavily dwindled people were residing in the “prayer town” sanctuary of Stockbridge, Massachusetts. “Praying towns” were settlements established by English colonial governments in New England from 1646 to 1675 in an effort to convert local Native Americans to Christianity. Stockbridge was in one of those areas.
Daniel Nimham sculpture, by Michael Keropian in Fishkill, New York, USA
Chief Daniel Nimham was a stalwart spokesperson for Native American concerns and a valiant soldier. Daniel traveled to England in 1766 to argue for a return of tribal lands, having served in the both the French and Indian Wars (on behalf of the English) and the American Revolution (in support of the colonists). He died along with his son, Abraham, in the Stockbridge Massacre of the Stockbridge Militia at the Battle of Kingsbridge (now an area of the Bronx in New York City) on August 31, 1778.
And so, I proudly chose Daniel Nimham, my 7th great-grandfather as my representative ancestor of this week’s prompt of Achievement, having achieved the rank of Sachem of the Wappinger tribe, as a spokesman and champion for his people, and as a soldier fighting for the colonists during the Revolutionary War.
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