2020 | Bronze edition: 50 | Height: 11″
Particularly notable among those Mohawks who decided to migrate from their traditional homeland in the Mohawk valley to the Jesuit missionary settlements near Montreal in the 1660’s-1670’s, was a chief known to the French as Joseph Togouiroui and as the Great Mohawk. To the Dutch at Albany he was known as Kryn. In 1673 he led 40 Mohawks to the St. Lawrence missionary settlement called La Praririe among whom was Kateri Tekakwitha who was canonized as the first Native American saint in the Catholic Church. The settlement ultimately became known as Caughnawaga after their village in the Mohawk valley. In the winter of 1690 Kryn led 210 French and Caughnawagas on the devastating raid on Schenectady. These same Caughnawaga’s were an important auxiliary to the French in numerous raids against such New England towns as Deerfield (1704) and Groton (1707).
This sculpture is a study for the sculpture called Nightwatch, depicting the 1704 raid on Schenectady.
