History
Iroquois
The Iroquois were a group of Native American tribes in the northeastern United States, known for their confederacy called the Haudenosaunee. They were skilled in agriculture, hunting, and warfare, and their society was matrilineal, with women holding significant political power. The Iroquois played a key role in the early history of North America, particularly in their interactions with European colonizers.
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10 Key excerpts on "Iroquois"
eBook - PDF- David Kennedy, Lizabeth Cohen(Authors)
- 2019(Publication Date)
- Cengage Learning EMEA(Publisher)
Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. The Iroquois Makers of America ell before the crowned heads of Europe turned their eyes and their dreams of empire toward North America, a great military power had emerged in the Mohawk Valley of what is now New York State. The Haude-nosaunee League, known to outsiders as the Iroquois Confederacy or “Five Nations,” bound together five Indian nations—the Mohawks, the Oneidas, the Onondagas, the Cayugas, and the Senecas (see Map 2.5). According to Iroquois tradition, it was founded in the late 1500s by two leaders, Deganawidah and Hiawatha. This proud and po-tent league vied initially with neighboring Indians for territo-rial supremacy, then with the French, English, and Dutch for control of the fur trade. Ultimately, infected by the white man’s diseases, intoxicated by his whiskey, and intimidated by his muskets, the Iroquois struggled for their very survival as a people. The building block of Iroquois society was the long-house. This wooden structure deserved its descriptive name. Only twenty-five feet in breadth, the longhouse stretched from eight to two hundred feet in length. Each building contained three to five fireplaces, around which gathered two nuclear families consisting of parents and children. All families residing in the longhouse were re-lated, their connections of blood running exclusively through the maternal line. A single longhouse might shelter a woman’s family and those of her mother, sis-ters, and daughters—with the oldest woman being the honored matriarch. When a man married, he left his childhood hearth in the home of his mother to join the longhouse of his wife. Men dominated in Iroquois soci-ety, but they owed their positions of prominence to their mothers’ families. As if sharing one great longhouse, the five nations joined in the Iroquois Confederacy but kept their own sep-arate fires.
eBook - PDFUnconquered
The Iroquois League at War in Colonial America
- Daniel P. Barr(Author)
- 2006(Publication Date)
- Praeger(Publisher)
Iroquois ORIGINS The five Iroquois nations who would eventually join together to form the Great League of Peace and Power were part of a much larger group of Iroquoian-speaking people surrounding Lake Ontario and nestled along the upper St. Lawrence River in the east and the Susquehanna River in the south. The five peoples of the Iroquois League were centrally located within this culture area, occupying modern New York state from the Mohawk River valley in the east to the Genesee River and the Finger Lakes in the west. Farthest east along the river valley that today bears their name dwelled the Mohawks, who called themselves Ganienkeh, or "peo- ple of the place of the flint." To their immediate west resided the Oneidas, "the people of the standing stone," followed by the Onondagas, meaning "people of the mountain." Next came the Cayugas, "the people at the landing," and farthest west dwelled the Senecas, "the people of the great hill." Collectively they called themselves the Haudenosaunee, or "People of the Long House." It was a literal analogy to their principal dwelling, but also a metaphor for the framework and function of their league, which operated in many regards like an extended household. 1 Their homeland, generally referred to as Iroquoia, placed the five Iroquois nations in a strategically advantageous position in northeastern North America. The Iroquois sat astride several crucially important water- ways, vital avenues of transportation that provided access to networks of trade. The landscape of Iroquoia sloped upwards moderately from east to west, aiding the formation of a vast river network that allowed the Iroquois to travel almost anywhere they desired by canoe. Near the Mohawks in northeastern Iroquoia, Lakes George and Champlain provided northern access to the Richelieu River, which drained into the St.
- Susan Sleeper-Smith, Juliana Barr, Jean M. O'Brien, Nancy Shoemaker, Scott Manning Stevens, Susan Sleeper-Smith, Juliana Barr, Jean M. O'Brien, Nancy Shoemaker, Scott Manning Stevens(Authors)
- 2015(Publication Date)
- The University of North Carolina Press(Publisher)
The Haudenosaunee, or people of the Great League of Peace and Power, had long been united diplomatically, centered in lands in what is now upstate New York. They were indeed powerful, though their enemies would not have described them as peaceful. They fought hard, especially against Algonquian enemies, in a series of “mourning wars” in the seventeenth century. In part, Iroquois people were seeking captives, mainly women and children, and their own matrons had an important role in deciding on war and peace, captivity and death. Women in these communities had long had the power to select chiefs, participate in councils, and wage war. 14 They were also central to the agricultural labor that provided resources, stability, and power. In 1763, Mohawks explained to an Indian agent that women were “the Truest Owners, being the persons who labour on the Lands.” 15 As one historian has it, “an Iroquois town was largely a female world.” 16 The Haudenosaunee people initially followed a policy of neutrality in the American Revolution. Most of the Iroquois Confederacy, long allied to the British, had little interest in joining in the patriot cause. However, a series of incidents led to a declaration of loyalty to the British side, by all but the Oneida and the Tuscarora. When this fateful resolution passed the council of warriors, records noted that “the mothers also consent,” indicating the continued political standing of Iroquois matrons. One of the best-known of these women, central to the revolution, is Konwatsitsiaienni, or Molly Brant, recognized in Iroquois communities as the widow of Sir William Johnson, the prerevolutionary British agent to the Indians. Her arguments were critical in persuading Mohawks and others to support the British, since “one word from her goes farther with them than a thous[an]d. from any White Man.” 17 Thanks to the efforts of Konwatsitsiaienni, her brother, and others, Mohawks and others began fighting with the British
eBook - PDF- Kurt A. Raaflaub(Author)
- 2008(Publication Date)
- Wiley-Blackwell(Publisher)
20 The Long Peace Among Iroquois Nations Neta C. Crawford For three centuries, five and later six Native American nations who had previously engaged in violent and costly conflict forged a peaceful relationship known as the Iroquois League. 1 From about 1450 to 1777 CE the League, located in what is now upstate New York, functioned to reduce conflict among its members and eliminate war among them. Even upon its dissolution during the United States War of Independence, Iroquois League members agreed to dismantle their organization non-violently. North America in this period was far from peaceful; there were ample opportunities for these Native nations to return to violent conflict. How did these peoples forge and maintain their long peace? The original five nations of the Iroquois League, whose members spoke dis-tinct but closely related languages, were the Cayuga, Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, and Seneca. In 1600 they comprised a total population of perhaps one hundred thousand. 2 The Tuscarora nation joined the Iroquois League in about 1720. Some argue that the Iroquois nations were at the least fierce warriors, and possibly an imperialist alliance; on the other hand, some view the Iroquois as an almost saintly group of peaceful nations. The evidence suggests a much more complicated picture than either of these, and indeed, there are startling contradictions in the prac-tices of Iroquois League members. The members of the Iroquois League and the League itself were genuinely democratic; on the other hand, individual members of the five nations were sometimes torturers and cannibals (they took war captives and sometimes ate those captives). In sum, the Iroquois League was both peace-ful and violent, egalitarian and characterized by firm gender roles, oriented to the dream world and simultaneously acutely aware of and pragmatic in its dealings with the Dutch, British, French, and other Native American nations.
eBook - PDFWars of the Iroquois
A Study in Intertribal Trade Relations
- George T. Hunt(Author)
- 2004(Publication Date)
- University of Wisconsin Press(Publisher)
Second, Radisson's Huron account shows that the Iroquois were recoiling from them upon the Susquehannah through necessity and not in any attempt at con- quest, and according to the account for those years in the Jesuit Relations they were "overthrown ... and their nation humili- ated" by the Susquehannah. 3 1 Albert Gallatin, "A Synopsis of the Indian Tribes of North America," in Ameri- can Antiquarian Society, TTlmsactions I17ld Collections, 2:22,75 (Cambridge, 1836); Garrick Mallery, "The Former and Present Number of Our Indians," in American Association for the Advancement of Science, Proceedings, 26:355 (1871); John Fiske, The Discovery of America (2 vols., Boston and New York, 1892), 1:46; Cadwallader Colden, The History of the Five Nations of Canada (2 vols., New York, 1904), xviii. I Smith, Historie of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles, 1:126, 127, 131. These references may also be found in Lyon G. Tyler, ed., Narratives of Early Vir- ginia, 1606-162) (Original Narratives of Early Americl17l History, New York, 1907). Further references are given by Nathaniell Poell and Anas Todkell, in The Proceedings of the English Colony in America (1612), reprinted ibid., 143-144, 150. 3 Radisson, Voyages, 92; Jesuit Relations, 14:2°5. THE Iroquois, 1609-1640 25 The Iroquois upon the Hudson River, 1609-1626 We tum now to the area in which the Iroquois were supposed to have been mighty. There are three bases for the claim that the Dutch recognized their power by treaty before the French made a treaty with them in 1624. The first is the statement made by four of the Iroquois tribes to Governor Slaughter in 1691. In the council of that year Slaughter urged the Iroquois to attack Canada, though the tribesmen were solely interested in obtaining better prices in trade.
eBook - PDFThe Valley of the Six Nations
A Collection of Documents on the Indian Lands of the Grand River
- Charles M. Johnston(Author)
- 2019(Publication Date)
- University of Toronto Press(Publisher)
Immediately adjacent to the Mohawk tract were those of the Onondagas and Tuscaroras, on the eastern and western banks of the river respectively. The latter's nearest Indian neighbours were the Sénecas and the Oneidas who occupied corresponding locations, and the Cayugas who had taken up their allotted land near the mouth of the Grand. There were, in addition, representatives of other tribes who had attached themselves to the Six Nations and accompanied them to the west after 1783, notably contingents of Delawares—the most numerous of these allies, Tutelos (or Tutelies), and Nanticokes. Their number, negligible when contrasted with the population of the Six Nations, relegated these tribes to a minor role in the politics and the economy of the area (B 19, G 11). With respect to the Confederacy itself—though statistics must be viewed with great caution—there is no question that the Mohawks were the numerically significant as well as politically paramount group. Of the approximately 1,600 Iroquois who actually settled on the Grand, there were about 450 Mohawks, 14 380 Cayugas, 200 Onondagas, 125 Tuscaroras, 75 Sénecas, and a handful of loyal Oneidas (B 19). These rough figures starkly reflected the misfor-tunes that had recently befallen the Six Nations and disrupted their political organization. Most of the Sénecas—though many of that tribe's warriors had championed the British cause after 1776—had 14 A missionary of the Church of England reported in the summer of 1788 that there were 399 Mohawks at Brant's Ford: 120 men, 154 women, and 125 children. P.A.C., Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (S.P.G.), Journals, XXV, 120-1. INTRODUCTION xli an access of homesickness and elected to remain on their tribal lands in western New York and seek, if possible, a working agreement with the United States. 16 In 1790 a scheme to attract them to the Grand was proposed, but was vetoed by Lord Dorchester (B 25).
eBook - PDFMohawk Interruptus
Political Life Across the Borders of Settler States
- Audra Simpson(Author)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Duke University Press Books(Publisher)
kAhnAwà:ke In addition to the social and territorial past described above, Kahnawà:ke’s history includes the larger matrix of Iroquois history in the northeastern United States as well as its experience as a reserve (“reservation”) commu-nity in what is now southern Quebec. Kahnawà:ke’s history also includes the particular constraints that the Indian Act placed on Indigenous action in Canada. As a reserve community, Kahnawà:ke embodies the intersect-ing processes of colonialism, traditionalism, and nationalism that shape LAND , MEANING , AND MEMBERSHIP 39 colonial and postcolonial societies around the world. The “Oka Crisis” of 1990 forcefully brought to public attention the fact that the Mohawks of Kahnawà:ke, with the Mohawks of neighboring Kanehsatà:ke, under-stand themselves as a nation and deign to act as a sovereign entity. Yet this sovereignty often exists more in consciousness than in practice, as the community confronts the competing claims to sovereignty of materially dominant state(s) that sit atop their land and administer their populations. The founders of Kahnawà:ke left the traditional territory of the Six Nations Confederacy in the late seventeenth century, moving from the Mohawk Valley in what is now upstate New York to the south shore near Montreal, in search of trade, temperance, and freedom from political trou-bles within the Confederacy. The historical and political experiences of this Mohawk community share an Iroquois past that is well documented for New York State (Trigger 1985; Richter 1992; Snow 1994) but less so in southwestern Quebec (Voget 1951, 1953; Ghobashy 1961). For some anthropologists and historians, Kahnawà:ke and Kahnawa’keh-ró:non occupy a position of nominal importance in the larger picture of anthropological and, in particular, Iroquois studies.
eBook - PDFSettlers in Indian Country
Sovereignty and Indigenous Power in Early America
- Charles W. A. Prior(Author)
- 2020(Publication Date)
- Cambridge University Press(Publisher)
8, p. 479. 114 NYCD, vol. 7, pp. 782–3. 115 NYCD, vol. 7, p. 783. 116 William Johnson to Thomas Gage, 3 January 1765, in The Papers of Sir William Johnson, ed. Milton W. Hamilton, 14 vols. (Albany, 1921–65), vol. 11, p. 521. 25 Settlers in Indian Country spoke on black and white wampum belts, and buried the hatchet beneath the tree of peace, ‘So that the Axe may no more be found’. 117 Iroquoian political language was comprised of a coherent set of metaphors and accompanying rituals and reached back to the origins of the League of the Iroquois as a sovereign political formation. It was the cultural conduit by which the sovereign capacities of war, peace, and alliances were preserved and transmitted. Anglophone colonial officials and diplomats were themselves products of a culture that expressed its politics in the form of metaphor, albeit at a lower level of complexity and frequency in comparison to the Iroquois. Unable to mould the language of diplomacy exclusively around their own registers of political speech, colonial diplomats worked within and adopted the language that structured the ancient norms of Indigenous diplomacy. In the process, they were drawn into a model of sovereignty that was not associated with a state or a particular body of law, but rather expressed through a set of rituals, obligations, and stories. 3 History and Sovereignty When Europeans disembarked on the Atlantic coast, their assumptions about Indian ‘savagery’ – articulated in profusion by elite intellectuals with little experience of Indigenous America – blinded them to the fact that, in reality, they were entering a Continental network of empires that operated according to a complex and ritualised processes of diplomacy. 118 English settlers were part of a larger European population that, for the most part, remained confined to a coastal strip of perhaps 250 miles in width.
eBook - PDFEncyclopedia of American Indian History
[4 volumes]
- Bruce E. Johansen, Barry M. Pritzker, Bruce E. Johansen, Barry M. Pritzker(Authors)
- 2007(Publication Date)
- ABC-CLIO(Publisher)
Land title is passed down through the women, because one always knows for certain who the mother is. Iroquois social structure is matri- lineal and land title is passed down through the women. The women nominate men for leadership posi- tions based on the following qualities: “The Chief Statesmen shall be mentors of the people for all time. . . . Their hearts shall be full of peace and good will, 413 Katsinas and their minds filled with a yearning for the welfare of the people. . . . With endless patience they shall carry out their duty, and their firmness shall be tem- pered with a tenderness for their people. Neither anger nor fury shall find lodgment in their minds, and all their words and actions shall be marked by calm deliberation” (Schaaf, 2004, 22–23). The clan mothers explained why warriors and war chiefs were forbidden from being civil leaders: If you choose a war leader to be a leader in your civil government and your country is constantly at war, whom do you have to blame but yourselves? Gregory Schaaf See also Albany Congress, Native Precedents; Deganawidah; Haudenosaunee Confederacy, Political System; Hiawatha. References and Further Reading Barnes, Barbara Kawenehe, ed. 1984. Traditional Teachings. Cornwall Island, ON: North American Indian Travelling College. Congressional Record–Senate. 1987. Senate Concurrent Resolution 76, To Acknowledge the Contribution of the Iroquois Confederacy, 100th Cong. 1st Sess.133 Cong Rec S 12214. September 16. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. Fadden, John Kahionhes. 1999. Kaianerekowa Hotinonsionne: The Great Law of Peace of the Longhouse People. Berkeley, CA: Oyate. Fenton, William Nelson. 1998. The Great Law and the Longhouse: A Political History of the Iroquois Confederacy. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. Franklin, Benjamin. 1855. “Albany Plan of Union” (Albany, NY, July 10, 1754). Queen’s State Papers Office, British Museum, London, “New York Papers,” Bundle Kk, No.
eBook - ePubImperial Entanglements
Iroquois Change and Persistence on the Frontiers of Empire
- Gail D. MacLeitch(Author)
- 2012(Publication Date)
- University of Pennsylvania Press(Publisher)
In 1764 Oneida headmen from Oquaga asked the superintendent to provide them with paper passports so that they could control the movements of younger men. By assuming the right to dispense passes they could compel warriors to obtain “the Consent of their Councellors” before they left their village. Headmen called on Johnson in 1770 to deter warriors from going to war with the Cherokees, causing warriors to be “not well pleased.” Older men were also drawn to Christianity as a means to augment their authority over unruly warriors, particularly with its message of temperance, submission, and restraint. Through preaching and practicing the gospel, they hoped to regain the respect of warriors, thus bringing them back into their fold. In a noted act of deference, Oquaga warriors in 1764 told their headmen, “Your Example of Piety has entirely, reclaimed us, insomuch, that we are to assure you we shall quit the immoderate use of Liquor, and other Vices, and be entirely directed by your Councils.” 52 Yet such statements often lacked substance as warriors continued to resist constraints. This generational conflict between warriors and chiefs was not simply about the right of younger men to wage war when they wanted but pointed to much larger issues about how power was to be attained, distributed, and exercised along gendered lines in Iroquois society. As Iroquois men and women—to varying degrees—renegotiated gendered roles and relations, they were also involved in the no less complex task of reconceptualizing their ethnic identity and relations with non-Iroquoians. The Iroquois had long applied kinship terms to describe their connection with European settlers. Through fictive and actual adoption they incorporated outsiders into their lineages. Dependent on Iroquois neighbors as economic partners and martial allies, frontier settlers had responded in kind. Consequently, for decades the imperial frontier was characterized by a high degree of cultural fluidity
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