The Mohegan people are the focus of this portion of our guide to American Indians and First Nations people.

Most contemporary Mohegan people are part of the Mohegan Indian Tribe. This tribe is recognized by the United States government and has a reservation in the eastern part of the Thames River Valley in south-central Connecticut.

The Mohegans' status as a sovereign nation is documented by treaties and laws for more than three hundred and fifty years. Nevertheless, over a period of years after the United States became a country, the Mohegan people lost ownership of much of their tribal lands. The tribe reorganized in the late 20th century and gained federal recognition in 1994, granting the cleaned-up United Nuclear site as reservation land.

Today, the tribe owns and operates several casinos and resorts in the United States, Canada, and Northern Asia. The tribe is part owner of the New England Black Wolves National Lacrosse League franchise, and full owner of the WNBA's Connecticut Sun, a professional women's basketball team.

Due to the tribe's prosperity, it has made contributions to several charities, and both contributions and loans to other American Indian tribes, in its own community and throughout the continent.

Unlike several other American Indian people who were forced by encroaching Europeans and European-Americans to move west, or who were eliminated through genocide, the Mohegans were able to hold onto their cultural identity and a part of their original land base, along the Thames River.

However, some Mohegans voluntarily moved west as part of the Brothertown Christian community, ending up in Wisconsin. Consisting of descendants of the Brothertown Indians, who descended from Mohegan, Pequot, Narragansett, Montauk, Tunxis, and Niantic people, the Brothertown Indians are currently seeking federal recognition. The Brothertown Indians have about 4,000 enrolled members.

The larger group of Mohegans remained in the East and were able to retain their integrity as a tribe, largely through cooperation and diplomacy, dating back to Uncas, a 17th-century sachem and founding father.

The Mohegan people had once been part of the Pequot. However, during the 1637 Pequot War, Uncas broke with the Pequots and was allied with the New England colonists. He led his Mohegans in an attack against the Pequots, defeating them and incorporating much of the remaining Pequot people and their land. In the 1638 Treaty of Hartford, Uncas made the Mohegans a tributary of the Connecticut River Colony. Later, he took control over the Hamonassets by marriage, absorbing that tribe.

The Mohegans were in frequent conflict with the Narragansetts over control of the former Pequot land. The first of several conflicts occurred in 1643 when a Narragansett sachem, Miantonomi, was accused of hiring a Pequot to assassinate Uncas. As a result, Miantonomi was summoned to Boston to answer to colonial authorities. He agreed to turn the assassin over to Uncas for punishment, but, instead, he had him killed. Around that time, another attempt on the life of Uncas was attributed to another sachem who was allied with the Narragansetts. While the English tried to arrange a compromise, this led to war between the Mohegans and the Narragansetts. The Mohegans defeated a Narragansett invasion force of around 1,000 men, capturing Miantonomo. Under the terms of the 1638 treaty, he turned Miantonomo over to the New England colonists. The colonists held a trial in which he was found guilty. Uncas was given the authority to put Miantonomo to death, providing the execution was done by Indian hands in Indian territory. Miantonomo escaped from the Mohegan village where he was being held and jumped Yantic Falls in an attempt to escape the pursuing Mohegans. This site became known as Indian Leap. Uncas' brother, Wawequa, caught up to Miantonomo, killing him with a tomahawk. The author, James Fenimore Cooper, wrote a fictional account of the story, portraying Uncas as having made the leap over the falls in his 1826 book, The Last of the Mohicans, although the Mohicans were a separate tribe, distinct from the Mohegans.

During King Phillip's War, which began in 1675, the Mohegans were again allied with the New England colonists.

During the American Revolution, the Mohegans, as a tribe, were neutral, although individual Mohegans fought on both sides.

The tribe's land base in Connecticut was greatly reduced after the American Revolution. Much of its tribal lands were placed in private hands, subject to sale or taking. In 1783, the Connecticut government empowered the tribe's white overseers to divide sequestered lands, except for that rented out to whites, into separate allotments for each Indian family. In 1790, the land was divided a second time. By 1827, only 2,700 acres were left in the reservation, with 2,400 of those having been divided, and the rest rented to whites.

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