The Brothertown Indians (also Brotherton), located in Wisconsin, are a Native American tribe formed in the late 18th century from communities descended from Pequot, Narragansett, Montauk, Tunxis, Niantic, and Mohegan (Algonquian-speaking) tribes of southern New England and eastern Long Island, New York.

The Brothertown Indian Nation (Eeyamquittoowauconnuck) was formed by three leaders of the Mohegan and Pequot tribes of New England and eastern Long Island: Samson Occom (Mohegan/Brothertown), a notable Presbyterian minister to New England Indians and fundraiser for Moor's Indian Charity School—although funds Occom raised for this school were used by Wheelock to found Dartmouth College;[7] his son-in-law Joseph Johnson (Mohegan), who was a messenger for General George Washington during the American Revolution; and Occom's brother-in-law David Fowler (Montauk, Pequot).

They organized as a new tribe the numerous remnant peoples who had survived the disruption of disease, colonialism and warfare,[8] including some Narragansett and Montauk.

Due to hostilities aroused by four of the Iroquois nations having allied with the British during the war, and continuing land hunger by new settlers, New York and the United States governments pressured the tribes to remove west of the Mississippi River.

They were accompanied to the treaty negotiations by Thomas Dean, a manager of Indian affairs in Oneida County, New York.

[citation needed] In 1821, numerous New York tribes signed a treaty with the federal government and acquired 860,000 acres (3,500 km2) in Wisconsin.

The Brothertown Indians were to receive about 153,000 acres (620 km2) along the southeastern side of the Fox River near present-day Kaukauna and Wrightstown.

Five groups of Brothertown people arrived in Wisconsin on ships at the port of Green Bay between 1831 and 1836, after having traveled across the Great Lakes.

Although William H. Dick was elected to the State legislature again in 1871, after that year Brothertown Indians were active in politics only at the local civil township level.

It proposed that the tribe should release land in the former reservation that had not been allocated to individual households; the federal government intended to sell it to German immigrants settling in Wisconsin.

A January 21, 1954 memo by the Department of the Interior advised that a bill for termination was being prepared including "about 3,600 members of the Oneida Tribe residing in Wisconsin.

[16][17] In an effort to fight termination and force the government into recognizing their outstanding land claims from New York, the three tribes began filing litigation in the 1950s.

It directed tribal governing bodies of the Oneida and Stockbridge-Munsee to apply to the Secretary of the Interior for approval of fund distributions, thereby ending termination efforts for these tribes.

[22] More importantly, the BIA reinterpreted its 1993 policy memo, and said in a press release that the tribe lost its federal status by the 1839 Congressional act: Congress, in the act of 1839, brought federal recognition of the relationship with the Brothertown Indian tribe of Wisconsin to an end.

The acting Assistant Secretary noted that only Congress may restore the tribal status of Brothertown and thus its government-to-government relationship with the United States.

[4] The Brothertown Council and Recognition/Restoration committee have developed a strategic plan to lobby politicians from the local town level up through Congress to regain tribal status.

[1] In an ongoing effort to regain recognition, the tribe asked the Town Board of Brothertown, Wisconsin for support.

The tribe recently purchased a renovated one-room school house on a plot of land located near existing Brothertown, Wisconsin.