Where Did the Mohawk Indians Live?

Native American history and culture has been featured in popular movies for years, making a lot of folks curious as to who the Mohawk Indians were and how they lived. Most modern Americans however, have no idea just how many Native American tribes there were or how much of the country they inhabited. The Mohawks were just one tribe, but they’re as good a place as any to start.

Before European settlers arrived in the New World, the Mohawk Indians lived in the Adirondack Mountains, in a large portion of what is now upstate New York. Very roughly, they lived in the area around the Great Sacandaga Lake, in most of the area that is now bordered on the north by US highway 11, on the west by US-11/I-81, on the south by I-88, and on the east by I-87. The modern-day cities of Utica, Schenectady and Albany would have been either in Mohawk territory or just outside of it, on land that belonged to the Oneida, Delaware or Mahican Indians.

Who Were the Mohawk Indians

“Mohawk” is actually an Algonquian word meaning “man-eaters.” We don’t know whether the Mohawks were truly cannibals, or whether their enemies just nicknamed them as such to indicate their fierceness.

In their own language, the Mohawks referred to themselves as Kanienkehaka, “people of the flint.” They are one of six tribes in the Iroquois Confederation.

Where the Mohawk Indians Live Now

In the 18th century, the Mohawk Indians began moving north. Many of them now live on the St. Regis Mohawk Reservation, or Akwesasne, as it is called in the Mohawk language. The reservation is located mostly in northern New York (Franklin County) along the Canadian border. Some of the reservation is actually on Canadian soil, in both Quebec and Ontario.

Although the reservation straddles an international border, the Mohawks who live there consider themselves to be part of one, unified community, and within the reservation, they are allowed to cross freely between the two countries.

The Mohawk Indians were some of the original New Yorkers, and to be sure, some of them still live in the Adirondacks where their ancestors lived before America was colonized. However, around 3000 of them now live even farther north, on the Canadian border, on the St. Regis Mohawk Reservation.