ANANDAMOAKIN (Anondounoakum, Onondamokin; Long Coat, from his Iroquois name Atiaˀtawìˀtsheraˀ, a coat), a Munsee Delaware chief, probably a member of the turkey clan, possibly a son of the blind chief Allemewi (baptized Salomon); fl. 1756–72.

Having lost much of their former land to settlers and land speculators, the Munsees, also known as Minisinks, were living on the upper Susquehanna River at Tioga (near Athens, Pa) by the mid 1750s. The beginning of the Seven Years’ War heightened competition between the British and the French for the friendship of the native people; in an attempt to curb Indian support of the French, Sir William Johnson, superintendent of northern Indians, met on 9–11 July 1756 with Shawnee and Delaware leaders at Fort Johnson (near Amsterdam, N.Y.). Although unnamed in Johnson’s reports, the heads of these two delegations are commonly identified as Paxinosa and Nutimus respectively; however, Paxinosa’s son reported on 6 July that his father was accompanied by a “Chief of the Mennisink Nation whose name is Onondamokin.”

The Delaware leader returned to Johnson’s house late that month with some of his tribe, but on 18 April 1757 Governor Vaudreuil [Rigaud] reported that he had attracted the Delawares of Tioga to Fort Niagara (near Youngstown, N.Y.). Although in July the British heard of dissension between the French commandant at Niagara and “some Munsey Indians with the King of that tribe who went there this spring,” the commandant himself, Pierre Pouchot*, reported that “the principal Delaware chief of Théoga” had returned to Niagara on 12 June with 27 warriors. Four days later this chief, presumably Anandamoakin, and four others accepted an invitation to go to Montreal, where Vaudreuil received them in council in July. These Indians, the governor observed, “can extend their parties as far as New-York and in many other places where our Indians cannot conveniently go to strike.”

The effects of French attention were visible a year later when Moses (Tunda) Tatamy, a Delaware sent by the governor of New Jersey to invite the Munsees to a conference, arrived on 5 July 1758 at Aghsinsing (near Corning, N.Y.). There, in “the King’s House,” as Moses reported, “live Alamewhehum [Allemewi] an old Man and Anandamoakin a fat Man well dressed in French Cloaths as are almost all the Warriors. The Old Man is a friend of the English . . . but the fat man is for the French and . . . is going soon to pay them a Visit.” When the English invitation was delivered, “all the rest seemed much pleased . . . but the fat man hung his Head and made no answer or very little.” In the outcome, a third chief, Eghohund, headed the Munsee delegation to the treaty.

Anandamoakin headed the small Munsee delegation that in 1760 accompanied the Delaware chief Teedyuscung on a western journey which included attendance at a treaty with British authorities at Pittsburgh on 12–17 August. When Teedyuscung reported at Philadelphia on 15 September, his company included “Anondounoakom the Son of the Chief of the Minisinks.”

In 1763 discontent among the Senecas and western Indians resulted in an uprising against the British [see Pontiac*], and the Munsees were participants to such effect that in February 1764 Sir William Johnson offered a reward of $50 each for their chief warriors, Anandamoakin and Yaghkaposin (Squash Cutter). When Johnson’s raiders destroyed the Munsee towns, their residents took refuge with the Senecas, at whose insistence the two proscribed leaders came to Johnson Hall (Johnstown, N.Y.) in 1765 as reluctant delegates; on 8 May they accepted peace terms that required them to remain as hostages for their people’s compliance. On the following day the Munsees attempted to exculpate themselves by deposing Anandamoakin on the grounds that he had been the instigator of their hostile actions, but the Iroquois blocked this move. Squash Cutter died a month later of smallpox, but Anandamoakin was released in due time and apparently joined his people, who had resettled on the upper Allegheny River at Goshgoshing (midway between Warren and Franklin, Pa).

The chief at this place, Allemewi, became a Moravian convert in 1769, vacated his office, and moved with the mission Indians to the Beaver River near present Moravia, in western Pennsylvania. The mission diary at that place records a visit by Anandamoakin on 9–11 Oct. 1771 on his way to an Indian council on the Muskingum River (Ohio); on 10 Aug. 1772 the same diary reports the departure of Salomon’s (Allemewi’s) son, probably Anandamoakin, who was returning, to the upper Allegheny after a long visit. No further references to him are known.

William A. Hunter