The Ordeal of the Longhouse: The Peoples of the Iroquois League in the Era of European Colonization 0807843946, 9780807843949

Citation preview

The Ordeal of the Longhouse

Published for the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, Williamsburg, Virginia, by the University of North Carolina Press Chapel Hill &t London

D A N I E L K. R I C H T E R

The Ordeal of

fnp 1 nYicrnnuisp IsiJCJ^/f I'YJJUIA'J C

The Peoples of the Iroquois League in the Era of European Colonization

The Omohundro Institute of Early American

The paper in this book meets the guidelines for

History and Culture is sponsored jointly by the

permanence and durability of the Committee on

College of William and Mary and the Colonial

Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of

Williamsburg Foundation.

the Council on Library Resources.

© 1992. The University of North Carolina Press

Maps drawn by Kimberley Nichols

All rights reserved

This volume received indirect support from an

Manufactured in the United States of America 07 06 05 04 03 9 8 7 6 5 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Richter, Daniel K. The ordeal of the longhouse : the peoples of the Iroquois League in the era of European colonization / Daniel K. Richter. p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8078-2.060-1 (cloth: alk. paper). — ISBN 0-8078-4394-6 (pbk.: alk. paper) i. Iroquois Indians—History. 2. Iroquois Indians—First contact with Europeans. 3. Iroquois Indians—Government relations. I. Institute of Early American History and Culture (Williamsburg, Va.) II. Title. E99.I7R53

1992

974.7^04975—dc20 92-53621 CIP

unrestricted book publication grant awarded to the Institute by the L. J. Skaggs and Mary C. Skaggs Foundation of Oakland, California.

To THOMAS AND MARY

This page intentionally left blank

PREFACE

I did not set out to write a book about the Iroquois. A dozen years before composing these words, as a graduate student at Columbia University I submitted a dissertation prospectus for a multiethnic study of the eighteenthcentury Mohawk Valley frontier in New York. My initial questions centered on the roles that ethnicity and a shared history of group interaction played in determining allegiances during the American Revolution. I envisioned a mosaic in which the vitally important native pieces could easily be assembled from the vast shelf of Iroquois studies already in the library. But I never made it to the Revolutionary era, nor did I ever dig very deeply into the Dutch, Scottish, English, and Palatine German experiences in the region. Instead, sitting alone at a campfire near Albany in 1981 (I was on a research trip and could not afford a motel room), I concluded that the really interesting questions lay in an earlier period and on the Indian side of the colonial frontier. The result—thanks to a thesis adviser who was either incredibly understanding or remarkably willing to see me hang myself with my own rope— was a too long, narrowly diplomatic, and archaeologically uninformed dissertation on Iroquois history in the seventeenth century. I was well aware of that work's limitations even as I somehow successfully defended it and persuaded the Institute of Early American History and Culture to give me two years of uninterrupted postdoctoral time to turn it into a book. The two years grew into eight that were increasingly interrupted by teaching and other scholarly projects, as I learned repeatedly just how enormous a task I had set for myself. The literature on specialized aspects of the history, culture, and archaeology of the peoples of the Longhouse was so vast and was growing so rapidly that it often seemed the height of presumption—even folly—to survey a subject to which scholars have devoted lifetimes of research and on which so much was already in print. From another direction too, warnings rang that the topic was beyond my ability. Native American activists were arguing that it was long past time for Euro-American scholars to cease their document grubbing and free Indian people to write their own history, on their own terms, in their own conceptual vocabulary, so that they might retrieve their past from the colonizers who stole it from them. Small wonder, then, that { vii }

when friends and colleagues asked about my project, I often turned the conversation to some small aspect of Iroquois history, to a remark on the questioner's own work, to baseball, or to anything else than the apparent audacity of what I was trying to do. The alarms continue to sound in my head, but I am more confident than I once was of the need for an overview of how the peoples of the Iroquois League, almost universally agreed to be the most significant native American power of the Northeast, fit into our picture of the continent during the period of European colonization. My primary audience is neither the scholarly specialists on the Five Nations nor the Iroquois themselves, although I trust each will find something worthwhile here. Instead, I hope to reach historians, students, and interested readers who still too often exclude native peoples from the narrative mainstream of North American development. This is a story of European colonization viewed from the Indian side of the frontier.

{

viii Preface

}

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Through the long course of researching and writing—which I have come to call "the Ordeal of The Ordeal of the Longhouse"—I have incurred many intellectual and personal debts. The living meaning of that financial cliche becomes apparent only as I begin to tally how little of this book I can actually claim as my own. Several institutions provided vital financial support. A predoctoral fellowship from the American Antiquarian Society allowed me to turn six weeks of funding into half a year at that Worcester, Massachusetts, treasure-house. A two-year postdoctoral fellowship from the Institute of Early American History and Culture, which was partially funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, gave an opportunity for research, writing, and intellectual networking very rarely enjoyed by someone so early in his scholarly career as I then was. Subsequently, a National Endowment for the Humanities Columbian Quincentennial Fellowship from the Hermon Dunlap Smith Center for the History of Cartography made possible two productive monthlong summer stints at the Newberry Library, with its unparalleled collection of secondary and primary sources on native American topics and the intellectual stimulation of the D'Arcy McNickle Center for the History of the American Indian. And, repeatedly, my colleagues on the Dickinson College Faculty Committee on Research and Development have been generous in funding various expenses. The staffs of many libraries and research centers have eased the burden of research. I particularly want to thank the special collections librarians at the American Antiquarian Society, the Library Company of Philadelphia, the Newberry Library, the New York State Archives, and the Van Pelt Library of the University of Pennsylvania for their care and patience. The Interlibrary Loan office of the Boyd Lee Spahr Library of Dickinson College cheerfully fulfilled a number of unusual requests. On several occasions I have been pleasantly surprised by the generosity of researchers who have opened their files and their calendars to share their unpublished findings with me. Richard Dunn and Marianne Wokeck, then of the Papers of William Penn project at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Charles Hayes, Lorraine Saunders, and Martha Sempowski of the Rochester Museum and Science Center, Charles Gehring of the New Netherland Proj{ ix }

ect at the New York State Library, and George Hamell of the New York State Museum all made me feel very much at home on my visits to their institutions and provided valuable pieces of the Iroquois puzzle. Richard Johnson, Gil Kelly, William Starna, and Fredrika Teute greatly improved this book by their reading of the entire manuscript; Bill, indeed, read parts of it twice and provided help and advice on numerous occasions. Drafts of several chapters benefited from the careful readings of James Axtell, William Fenton, Jay Miller, and Lorraine Saunders. The members (if that is not too strong a word for a group that prides itself on its nonorganization) of the Conference on Iroquois Research heard drafts of portions of the manuscript and annually entertained and enlightened me with their presentations and conversations in Rensselaerville, New York. Twice, Fred Hoxie invited me to try out my ideas on audiences at the McNickle Center. Similarly, participants in the Institute colloquium and in a conference, "The 'Imperial' Iroquois," held in Williamsburg in 1984 helped me hone my interpretations. Additional feedback came from the panelists and audiences of sessions at the meetings of the American Academy of Religion, 1983; the American Society for Ethnohistory, 1984; the Organization of American Historians, 1986; and the American Historical Association, 1988. To Syracuse University Press and the editors and peer reviewers of the Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, Ethnohistory, Journal of American History, and William and Mary Quarterly, I am grateful for permission to include material previously published in different forms and for the many ways in which they improved my interpretations and prose. Other help—intellectual and personal—came from Thomas Abler, Francis Bremer, Thomas Burke, Gladys Cashman, Denys Delage, John Demos, Mary Druke, Richard Haan, Alison Hirsch, Charles Jarvis, Jean Lee, Michael McGiffert, James Merrell, Philip Morgan, Peter and Kristin Onuf, Tina Reithmaier, Kim Rogers, Neal Salisbury, Dean Snow, Donna Swanson, Thad Tate, Christopher Vecsey, and my long-suffering students at Dickinson College. But special thanks go to two scholars who are not often mentioned favorably in the same paragraph. As my graduate adviser and later friend, Alden Vaughan gave me plenty of room to pursue my interests and none to engage my penchant for "Germanic" prose. And Francis Jennings has been a cherished thorn in my side; I will always have him to thank not only for his many intellectual contributions in print and in person but also for a December 1989 note demanding that I "stop frittering" and "get it done." As this section began with one cliche that deserves a new life, so it ends with another: to my family I owe the greatest thanks of all. My parents gave { x Acknowledgments

}

me unquestioning support at every step, even as they could not imagine why I kept revising and tinkering with the manuscript. Sharon Mead gracefully professed far more interest in the project than she must have felt after many years of critiquing my prose and enduring my fits of scholarly distraction— not to mention abandonment during long research trips when I left her too little time for her own work. More than she knows, she has been my modernday equivalent of the seventeenth-century native spouse who taught the fur trader the language; most of what I know about anthropology I have absorbed from living with her. Finally, I must thank my children, who only hindered my progress in research and writing. For that reason, this book is dedicated to them: they have reminded me that the present is more important than the past and that the future is our hope. Perhaps they and their generation will, unlike most of the people in the story told here, come to understand that the visions of the Iroquois' Peacemaker and of the Europeans' Prince of Peace have much in common.

{ Acknowledgments xi }

This page intentionally left blank

CONTENTS

Preface, vii Acknowledgments, ix Illustrations, xv Introduction, i Chapter One. The Iroquois in the World on the Turtle's Back, 8 Chapter Two. The Great League of Peace and Power, 30 Chapter Three. The Great League for War and Survival, 50 Chapter Four. The Economic Lifeline to the Dutch, 75 Chapter Five. The Ascendancy of the Francophiles, 105 Chapter Six. The Revolt of the Anglophiles, 133 Chapter Seven. The Last of the Beaver Wars, 162 Chapter Eight. The Political Crisis of the Iroquois Confederacy, 190 Chapter Nine. The Precarious Settlement Abroad and at Home, 214 Chapter Ten. The Neutralist Diplomacy of Peace and Balance, 2.36 Chapter Eleven. The Iroquois in a Euro-American World, 255 Methodological Comments, 281 Abbreviations Used in the Notes, 285 Notes, 287 Select Bibliography, 391 Index, 417

This page intentionally left blank

ILLUSTRATIONS

PLATES

i. An Iroquoian Longhouse, 19 2. The Bear and Turtle Clans in Council, 21 3. Antler Maskette, Clay Pipe, and Antler Comb, 26 4. A Huron War Chief, 34 5. A Victorious War Party, 37 6. A Belt and Strings of Wampum, 48 7. Iroquois Warriors Returning with a Captive, 67 8. Beaver-Hunting Techniques, 77 9. Brass and Shell Necklace, 78 10. Native Uses of Imported Clothing, 80 ii. A Comparison of Seneca Ornamental Combs, 82 12. An Iroquois Funeral, 84 13. An Iroquois Wampum Belt, 85 14. Kateri Tekakwitha, 127 15. A Native Record of Diplomacy, 142 16. A Euro-American Record of Diplomacy, 143 17. Otreouti's Speech at La Famine, 154 18. The Invasion of the Seneca Country, 157 19. The Four Indian Kings, 228

zo. An Iroquois Going to War, 242 21. Plan of Oswego, 253 22. Floor Plan of an Onondaga Longhouse, 261

MAPS i. The Emergence of Iroquoia, 10,500 B.C.—6000 B.C., 12 2. The Iroquois and Their Neighbors in the Mid-Sixteenth Century, 16 3. The Mid-Seventeenth-Century Wars, 63 4. The Iroquois and Their Neighbors in the Mid-i66os, 100 5. Iroquois Villages in the Mid-16705, 122 6. The Late-Seventeenth-Century Wars, 146 7. The Iroquois and Their Neighbors in the 17305, 258

{ xvi Illustrations

}

The Ordeal of the Longhouse

This page intentionally left blank

INTRODUCTION

The Iroquois League originally encompassed five groups of villagers who spoke related languages. In the land of Iroquoia—what is now the portion of Upstate New York between the Mohawk and Genesee River valleys—lived, from east to west, the Mohawks, or Ganienkeh, "the people of the flint" (the French called them Agniers and the Dutch Maquas), the Oneidas (in French Onneiouts), "the people of the standing stone"; the Onondagas (Onontagues), "the people on the mountain"; the Cayugas (Oiogouens), "the people at the landing"; and the Senecas (Tsonnontouans), "the people of the great hill." In the early eighteenth century they were joined by a sixth nation, the Tuscaroras (whose name probably means "those of the Indian hemp"), speakers of a distantly related Iroquoian language who emigrated from what is today North Carolina. In the era of colonization only the French regularly called these peoples Iroquois, a word of uncertain definition derived from one of the languages of the Algonquian family. The Dutch and English simply called them the Five or Six Nations or employed the words Mohawks, Maquas, or Senecas to encompass them all. Native neighbors used labels that have come down in English as Naudoways ("they speak a foreign language"), Menkwes, Maquas, or Mingos (the last three can only be translated roughly as "Iroquoianspeakers"). Within the League, the preferred collective self-descriptions were terms that meant "the extended house," "the whole house," or "the Longhouse," metaphorical usages that were based on the peoples' characteristic form of communal dwelling. In the Seneca language the word was Haudenosaunee; in Mohawk, Kanosoni.1 These peoples of the Longhouse are among the most studied of all North American Indians; indeed, many would argue that they are ot/erstudied. As the specialized literature has mushroomed, however, its producers have seldom paused to explain to a broader audience the ways in which their findings change the big picture. As a result, textbooks, writings in related fields, and popular understanding perpetuate interpretations that specialists have long since abandoned. Although most scholarly and many popular images of the colonial period no longer completely ignore the Indian presence, interpretations often stumble into what Vine Deloria aptly calls "the 'cameo' theory of history." That approach "takes a basic 'manifest destiny'

{ I }

white interpretation ... and lovingly plugs a few feathers, woolly heads, and sombreros into the famous events" without changing the basic plot. Thanks to the work of a growing body of investigators, many readers' understanding of colonial North America may have been revised in a multicultural direction, but for the most part they have not yet been re-visioned. I hope this book will help place both Iroquois and colonial North American history in fresher fields of view.2 In seeking to re-vision Iroquois history in the era of European colonization, I have considered the peoples of the Longhouse as neither noble or ignoble "savages" nor all-conquering militarists who kept their native neighbors "groaning under the hobnailed moccasin." Instead, I have tried to see them simply as peoples who, like those who came to colonial North America from Europe or Africa, often found themselves caught up by economic, political, and demographic forces over which they had little control. To stress the importance of those external forces is hardly to portray the Iroquois as passive victims of an imperialist tide. The story I tell stresses creative adaptation to a series of cultural ordeals stemming from the European invasion of the late sixteenth through early eighteenth centuries. The ordeals were many and recurring, yet fell under four broad, successive headings: first came massive depopulation from imported diseases; next, a slide into economic dependence on trade with Europeans; then ensnarement in the imperial struggles of powerful French and English colonial neighbors; finally, direct incursions on Iroquois territory and sovereignty.3 A double trio of geographic and cultural advantages helped to orchestrate the Iroquois' creative adaption to these ordeals. Few of the factors were unique to the Five Nations, but in northeastern North America only they appear to have possessed all for so long. As the chapters below explain in more detail, Iroquoia sat athwart most of the major trade routes of the native Northeast. That was the first of three geographical advantages, for it gave the Five Nations access both to multiple European colonial markets and to sources of the peltries Euro-American traders demanded. Yet many native peoples dwelled along trade routes and, despite even better access to both furs and markets than the Iroquois enjoyed, rapidly lost their economic and political independence: the Mahicans of the upper Hudson Valley and the Algonquins of the Ottawa River watershed are prime examples. Here a second, apparently contradictory, geographical advantage becomes crucial. An inland location placed the peoples of the Longhouse at sufficient distance from centers of European expansion to allow them to adapt to changed circumstances before being assailed by epidemics and overrun by colonists, {

2. Introduction

}

missionaries, and other interlopers. Still, the Hurons of the Georgian Bay region—who dwelt at a much greater distance from the colonials than did the Five Nations—by the mid-seventeenth century had been destroyed by imported diseases, economic dependence on French traders, political and cultural controversies spawned by resident French missionaries, and attacks by their Iroquois enemies. Their fate highlights the third important advantage geography gave the peoples of the Longhouse. From the early seventeenth century on they stood between at least two competing colonial centers: the French on the St. Lawrence and the Dutch on the Hudson, later replaced by the English of New York and, still later, joined by Pennsylvania. Access to alternative markets and imperial centers gave the Five Nations maneuvering room to preserve their independence and keep Europeans at a safe distance in ways many of their native neighbors could not.4 Culturally, too, the Iroquois were privileged in at least three ways as they weathered their ordeals; again it was the combination, rather than the individual factors, that set them apart. Like most of their immediate neighbors but unlike such far northern groups as the Montagnais, the Iroquois were horticultural villagers for whom the altered hunting patterns inspired by the trade with Europeans for furs did not immediately overturn traditional methods of subsistence.5 Also like most of their native neighbors, the families of Iroquoia adopted war captives, a practice they greatly elaborated in the seventeenth century as their principal response to depopulation from disease. Here, culture intersected with geography to grant the Iroquois the economic and political wherewithal to be, at least briefly, far more successful than many of their neighbors. For their final advantage was the Iroquois Great League of Peace and Power itself, which fostered the acceptance of diverse peoples of varying speech and customs while providing a rock of traditional rituals to which the peoples of the Longhouse could cling as they adapted to new ways of life. The League always provided more a spiritual than a political form of unity; as such, it proved both flexible and perdurable. These six cultural and geographic advantages prevailed for more than a century, but by the 17308 all but two had fallen away or become irrelevant. The Five Nations' position along major trade routes decreased in importance as the fur trade declined in significance for European colonial economies. Meanwhile, the buffer zones that had kept colonizers at arm's length disappeared, as Indian neighbors lost their homelands—ironically, at Iroquois hands—and colonists arrived at the doors of the Longhouse. Geographically, only Iroquoia's situation in the midst of the imperial competition between France and Great Britain remained an important factor, and even that would { Introduction 3 }

obtain for only one more generation until it too disappeared, in the British conquest of New France in the Seven Years' War. Culturally, decades of economic change, epidemic depopulation, and military defeats had by the 17305 eroded the fabric of Iroquois village life and left the taking of war captives a symbolic rather than demographically significant practice. Only the traditions of the League survived among the initial cultural advantages. As a result, by the 17305, although the nations of the Longhouse retained most of their homelands and their day-to-day political autonomy, there was no escaping the dominant power of Euro-Americans: the Iroquois were colonized peoples living in a world no longer entirely their own. As they moved from an environment controlled by themselves (or rather, as they saw it, by powerful spiritual forces) to one dominated by Europeans, Iroquois peoples reshaped their economics, their politics, and even their ethnic composition. Yet core traditional values embodied in the rituals of the League survived to sustain their spiritual and cultural, if not their political and economic, independence from the colonizers. This story of creative persistence amid wrenching change is every bit as inspiring as the Plymouth Rock tales that still too often echo in American classrooms and homes. But it also conveys a tragic lesson about the legacies of the form of European imperialism once confidently labeled the Progress of Western Civilization. In exploring that lesson and reconstructing that story, reified lists of geographic and cultural advantages are ultimately not very satisfactory. To reveal more, I try in this volume to look at events from Iroquoia outward, rather than from Albany, or Quebec, or Philadelphia inward. My stance is that of a historical visitor with anthropological leanings who, unfortunately, cannot ask his hosts any questions. I am, to twist a favorite phrase of my anthropologist friends, a wowparticipant observer, attempting to understand the viewpoint of sixteenth-, seventeenth-, and eighteenth-century Iroquois peoples but aware that my comprehension is always incomplete. Thus, my perspective must remain that of a cultural outsider, and my narrative must offer an interpretation of the evidence rather than the truth of the historical experience. As a Euro-American of the late twentieth century, I do not pretend to have plumbed the mind of seventeenth-century native Americans, for most of the mental world of the men and women who populate these pages is irrevocably lost. Neither historians who study documents produced by the colonizers, nor anthropologists who make inferences from their knowledge of later culture patterns, nor contemporary Iroquois who are heirs to a rich oral tradition but who live in profoundly changed material circumstances can do { 4 Introduction

}

more than partially recover it. Individual personalities and life stories, too, remain tantalizingly beyond reach. I have been able to report what leaders and sometimes followers said and the images they presented to the outside world, but only rarely to glimpse interpersonal conflicts, personal motives, and private lives. In more ways than one, we all must remain outsiders to a long-gone Iroquois world because of the inadequacies of the source materials available. With one major exception discussed at the end of Chapter 11, all documents surviving from the seventeenth and early eighteenth century were written by Europeans and Euro-Americans and preserve only an occasional isolated word in a native language. A few of the authors spent much of their lives among Indians, but most wrote comparatively little because they were not the bookish sort and their audiences were not much interested in the minutiae of native cultures. Many of those who produced more voluminous prose had little familiarity with Iroquoian languages or social structure and relied on inadequate translations by interpreters whose first European tongue was different from their own. Nearly all of the authors, too, were male; their gender biases combined with a lack of opportunity to witness the female side of Iroquois life to make women nearly invisible in the record.6 One partial antidote to these limitations is rigorous verification of historical evidence through the comparison of accounts in multiple sources. In itself, of course, that is no guarantee of validity, because writers shared stereotypes and often copied from one another. Still, particularly through comparison of documents originating with competing European powers or political factions, some flawed triangulation toward accuracy is possible. Additional insights come from the cautious use of the methodology called "upstreaming," that is, the interpretation of historical sources in light of ethnological and folkloric materials collected in later periods; one moves "up" the historical stream from a better to a less well documented era.7 In what might be called "side-streaming," I have also inferred a few conclusions about Iroquois culture from evidence on their more fully documented seventeenth-century linguistic, cultural, and geographic neighbors (and enemies), the Hurons. Finally, I have employed archaeological data wherever possible to illuminate the material side of Iroquois life. While employing the tools of historical, anthropological, and archaeological scholarship, I have given priority to methods that try to let the subjects speak for themselves. The most valuable clues to Iroquois perspectives come from the speeches native leaders made during diplomatic encounters with Euro-Americans. The documents cited in my notes as "treaty minutes" share { Introduction 5 }

the biases and inadequacies of other sources: all were recorded by Europeans rather than Iroquois, all were translated by amateur linguists who lost volumes of the meaning conveyed in the original, a few were deliberately altered to further colonizers' designs, and none preserves the body language and social context that were central to the native orators' messages. Yet the sheer bulk and variety of the documents partially remedies the difficulties, and the critical edge that frequently appears in the written record suggests that much of what the Indian speakers intended found its way to paper. Moreover, transcripts of speeches often contain snippets of Iroquois accounts of events already in the past. These and other oral traditions documented at various times from the seventeenth to twentieth centuries must be treated with the same critical care as other historical documents, but they are crucial troves of evidence. As the chapters below show, the seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century Iroquois spoke with, not one, but many voices. A rough and certainly incomplete count of headmen who participated in four hundred separate diplomatic encounters with the Dutch, French, and English during a seventyyear period beginning in 1663 yields 538 different names, of which only 2.0 appear more than five times. Those 2.0 include most of the men who figure prominently in the story told below—Garakontie, Onnucheranorum, Otreouti, Ourehouare, Sadekanaktie, Tahiadoris, Teganissorens—but many of the 86 who participated two to five times and even some of the 432 who made only a single recorded appearance spoke at least briefly for substantial followings and had major impacts on the course of events. One of the ordeals Iroquois peoples faced was that so many such men died from disease just as they were emerging as effective leaders.8 In the many-headed political culture from which such leaders came, localism, factionalism, voluntarism, and individualistic patterns of leadership operated paradoxically within a system that stressed consensus, but of a distinctly non-Western form. When historians speak of "the French" or "the English," they do not pretend that all the inhabitants of those nation-states acted or believed in lockstep, but they do assume that in international affairs governments generally spoke with a single voice and were able to force their viewpoints on domestic dissenters at the point of a gun. No such coercive diplomatic unity can be assumed for the Five Nations in the colonial period; losers of internal debates were nearly as likely as winners to engage in negotiations with outsiders. Nonetheless, the culture's stress on consensus combined with pressures from uncomprehending representatives of European states to make factional leaders claim to speak for all their compatriots. { 6 Introduction

}

Thus readers should always understand such phrases as "the Iroquois," "the Five Nations," or "the Mohawks" as references to the activities of a particular leader or group of leaders, rather than to the product of a unitary, state-organized form of decision making. In my view, the Iroquois Great League of Peace and Power was not, in essence, a device for exercising nation-state—style central political authority or devising unified diplomatic and military policies. Instead, it existed merely (or, better, sublimely) to keep the peace and preserve a spiritual unity among the many autonomous villages of the Five Nations. Those villages, and the various headmen and would-be headmen within each of them, often failed to agree and normally acted independently. Only in the late seventeenth century did a broader agency of political, diplomatic, and military unity that I have distinguished by the name of the Iroquois Confederacy emerge to parallel the cultural phenomenon of the Iroquois League. But even that new political entity was rooted in local quarrels among headmen of factions I call "anglophile," "francophile," and "neutralist" who were seeking alliances beyond the bounds of their own villages. Those leaders continued to act autonomously even as they found new ways to seek the prized but ever elusive consensus. In sum, seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Iroquois politics and diplomacy, like twentieth-century post-Einsteinian physics, was a confusing world of particles constantly in flux, combining and recombining in diverse configurations.9 I have sought not only to allow the many Iroquois voices to speak through the filters of European documentation but to keep my own quarrels with other scholars in the background, presenting a narrative uninterrupted by digressions into methodology, critiques of previous literature, or, after this Introduction, the author's "I."10 Here the narrative takes precedence. Most of the word history is, after all, story.

{

Introduction j

}

C H A P T E R

O N E

The Iroquois in the World on the Turtles Back

THE S T O R Y perhaps best begins in the beginning. According to Iroquois traditions, the world as we know it originated when a being fell from a realm that rests on top of the sky. On the back of a great Turtle floating in the primal waters, she and her descendants built the material world and everything in it. No texts of this Cosmogonic, or origins, Myth survive directly from the period before European contact with the Five Nations, and the only elaborate versions date from centuries later. Still, common themes found in numerous variants reflect cultural motifs that resonated throughout the ordeal of the Longhouse. Characteristics of village and home life, patterns of kinship and interpersonal connections, models of interaction among hu{ 8 }

mans, their environment, and the spirit world, and prototypes for relationships with people from beyond one's own village all appear in the story. By the usual standards of historical scholarship, precious little evidence testifies to the shape of Iroquois culture before Europeans arrived in North America; only mute material artifacts survive. Nonetheless, the Cosmogonic Myth— when read in light of archaeological studies of Iroquois origins and latesixteenth-century remains and when compared with the observations of later visitors—provides important clues to life in Iroquoia on the eve of the invasion.1 IN A H O U S E in the Sky World, native traditions say, a man and woman lived on opposite sides of a fireplace. The two had great spiritual power because each had been isolated from other people until the age of puberty. Every day after their housemates went out to work, the woman crossed to the other side to the fire to comb the man's hair. Through mysterious means, she became pregnant and bore a daughter. Shortly thereafter, the man fell ill and announced that he would soon die. Because no one in the Sky World knew what death was, he had to explain to the woman what would happen to him and instruct her how to preserve his body. After he died, the woman's growing daughter endured fits of weeping that, despite the best efforts of village neighbors to comfort her, could be relieved only by visits to the preserved corpse of the deceased, whose spirit told her that he was her father and taught her many things. When the daughter, whom the Iroquois called Sky Woman, reached adulthood, her father's spirit instructed her to take a dangerous journey to the village of a man destined to become her spouse. She brought her prospective husband loaves of bread baked with berries and then, enduring great travail, cooked him a potent soup that cured him of a long-troublesome ailment. In exchange, he sent her home with a burden of venison that nearly filled her family's house. After Sky Woman returned to her husband, the pair always slept on opposite sides of the fire and refrained from sexual intercourse. Nevertheless, she, like her mother before her, inexplicably became pregnant. Stricken by jealousy, the husband again became ill and dreamed that a great tree near his house must be uprooted so that he and his spouse could look down through the resulting hole to the world below. To cure his sickness, all the people of the village worked together to pull it up. When Sky Woman looked over the edge of the abyss, her husband pushed her down.2 As she fell toward the endless waters below, the spirit birds and animals of the sea held a council to decide how to rescue her. Ducks flew up to catch her { The World on the Turtle's Back 9 }

on their wings and bring her safely down, and the Turtle agreed to provide a place for her to rest on his Back. Meantime, various animals tried to dive to the bottom of the lake and bring up earth on which the woman could walk; only the Muskrat succeeded. The material he placed on the Turtle's Back grew, with Sky Woman's help, into the living dry land of North America. Soon the celestial visitor gave birth to a daughter, who in time became supernaturally pregnant by the spirit of the Turtle. In the younger woman's womb grew male twins, who began arguing over the best way to emerge from her body. The first, the Good Twin (Tharonhiawagon, Upholder of the Heavens, or Sky-Grasper), was born by the normal route. The second, the Evil Twin (Tawiskaron), burst forth from his mother's side and thus killed her. When Sky Woman asked which of her grandsons had slain her daughter, they blamed each other, but the Evil Twin was the more persistent and persuasive. The Grandmother cherished him, whom she loved; she turned the body and head of the boys' deceased mother into the sun and moon, respectively; and she threw the Good Twin out of her house, assuming he would die.3 But he did not perish. Instead, with the aid of his father the Turtle, the Good Twin improved Iroquoia, making various animals, learning the secrets of cultivating maize and other crops, and, finally, bringing into existence mortal human beings. All of these things he did not create from nothingness; rather, they grew through a process of transformation and infusion of supernatural power from the living earth and from prototypical spirit beings who dwelled in the Sky World and beneath the waters. At each step, Sky Woman and the Evil Twin partially undid the Good Twin's efforts in ways that forever after would make life difficult for humans. When the Good Twin constructed straight rivers that facilitated canoe travel by flowing both ways at once, the Evil Twin introduced rocks and hills to twist the streams and make their frequently obstructed waters fall in only one direction. When the Good Twin grew succulent ears of corn, Sky Woman threw ashes into his cooking pot and decreed that thenceforth maize must be parched and ground before it could be eaten. When the Good Twin made animals readily give themselves to humans as food, the Evil Twin sealed them all in a cave, from which SkyGrasper could rescue only a portion; the rest the Evil Twin turned into enemies of humans.4 Finally, the two brothers fought, and the Good Twin triumphed. He could not, however, undo all the evil that his brother and Grandmother had left in the world. Instead, he taught humans how to grow corn to support themselves and how to keep harm at bay through ceremonies of thanksgiving and {

10 The World on the Turtle's Back }

propitiation to the spirit world. To keep those ceremonies, Sky-Grasper assigned roles to various camps of people he arbitrarily designated as clans named after such animals as the Wolf, the Bear, and the Turtle. But he knew that mortals could never keep the rituals adequately. "The time will arrive when there will be divisions between individual minds," he announced in a late-nineteenth-century rendition of the myth. "There will be nothing but contentions,... they will continually dispute one with another;... and now also will they destroy one another." Having done his best to instruct and warn human beings, the Good Twin at last "departed for home." There he never dies; instead, explains another version of the story, "when ... his body becomes ancient normally, he then retransforms his body . . . and again recovers his youth."5 A shift in perspective from the realm of allegorical truth to the domain of the physically demonstrable reveals that the world the Good Twin shaped on the Turtle's Back indeed emerged from the waters. From the period of the arrival of the first humans in North America until approximately 10,500 B.C., Iroquoia was covered by glaciers. As the ice sheets began their slow retreat northward, the melt water collected in what geologists label Lake Iroquois, a body of water stretching from near present-day Rome, New York, to beyond the current western shore of Lake Ontario. To the east, encompassing today's Lakes George and Champlain and their environs, stretched a saltwater extension of the Gulf of St. Lawrence called the Champlain Sea. Only in the centuries between 8000 and 6000 B.C. did the climate begin to approximate current conditions and the dry land of Iroquoia emerge, bracketed by the Mohawk and Genesee rivers and punctuated by the Finger Lakes and countless smaller streams and bodies of water.6 The rivers that remained in the beds initially carved by the melting ice made Iroquoia the geographical heart of northeastern Indian North America. Spanning the country of the Five Nations, a modest east-west rise separated streams flowing north through the Great Lakes Lowland from those flowing south through the Allegheny Plateau. Given enough time and good enough canoes, therefore, one could travel literally almost anywhere from Iroquoia. To the northeast, an almost uninterrupted water corridor led from the upper Hudson River through Lakes George and Champlain toward the St. Lawrence River and, hundreds of miles later, the North Atlantic. To the east, the Mohawk River flowed into the Hudson and thence to the sea in what Europeans would later call New York Harbor. To the southeast, the headwaters of the Delaware River ran to the Atlantic coast via Delaware Bay. To the south, the Susquehanna and its tributaries provided a route to the { The World on the Turtle's Back 11 }

M A P I . The Emergence of Iroquoia, 10,500 B.C.—6000 B.C. Sources for maps are discussed in Methodological Comments.

Chesapeake. To the southwest, the waters of the Allegheny River fell into the Ohio and thence, ultimately, the Mississippi. To the west, the Niagara River offered a route to vast territories north of the Great Lakes. To the north, various streams emptied into Lake Ontario, on which canoes hugging the shore could travel either west to Niagara or east to the St. Lawrence Valley. And if water flowed away in all directions, so too did all routes lead to Iroquoia, although, thanks to the Evil Twin, one had to paddle upstream and portage around many obstacles to get there.7 But however crucial its geography, Iroquoia as a social construct did not yet exist. Throughout the postglacial period, Paleo-Indian hunters pursued game in the tundralike environment ringing the shores on the Turtle's Back. By approximately 4500 B.C., as the climate warmed and the land assumed its modern form, Archaic cultures evolved in adaption to local environments. In these societies, bands of a few dozen people migrated in seasonal cycles to exploit the food resources available in valleys and near streams and lakes. Whether any of the Archaic peoples were direct ancestors of the Five Nations Iroquois remains very much in doubt. Perhaps, however, the region's first speakers of a proto-Iroquoian language were the people of the Frost Island culture, who apparently migrated northward through the Susquehanna watershed in approximately 1600 B.C.8 By approximately 12,00 B.C., the Frost Island culture had evolved into a Meadowood phase that marked the beginning of the Early Woodland period in Iroquoia. Among the most notable innovations of this stage were semipermanent settlements and means for storing significant amounts of food in storage pits and ceramic pots; whereas their Late Archaic predecessors had used soapstone bowls and experimented with pottery, Early Woodland peoples were the first northeastern native Americans to make ceramics effectively. Apparently the food stored and cooked in these new vessels was not agriculturally produced, but their makers depended heavily on such semidomesticated vegetation as acorns and Chenopodium (the goosefoot), from which they made flour.9 The Meadowood culture developed an elaborate mortuary ceremonialism. Like Sky Woman's father in the Cosmogonic Myth, the deceased were apparently kept and venerated above ground for a time, later to be cremated and buried with gifts of food and other items, presumably for their use in the spirit world. Many of the burial offerings were acquired in long-distance trade—shell beads from the Atlantic coast, soapstone pots and pipes from Pennsylvania, copper from the Great Lakes, ritual items from the Adena "Moundbuilder" culture of the Ohio Valley—and trade seems to have been a {

The World on the Turtle's Back 13 }

communal activity carried on almost exclusively to acquire goods to be interred in funeral ceremonies. The supernatural associations of this commerce echo the spirit world exchange of foods between Sky Woman and her intended husband. The marital analogy in turn coincides with the archaeological and ethnographic argument that Meadowood communities were composed of several extended families grouped into a single exogamous fictive kin group—a clan—that sought marriage partners from other communities.10 By approximately A.D. 2.00, the Meadowood culture had given birth to a distinct Middle Woodland tradition known throughout the Great Lakes region as Point Peninsula and characterized in Iroquoia by three successive major phases: Canoe Point (which flourished in about A.D. 2.00), Kipp Island (about A.D. 700), and Hunter's Home (about A.D. 900). Large ceramic vessels created during the Middle Woodland period suggest both more substantial and more permanently settled communities than were typical of earlier phases. If agriculture was practiced at all (and no conclusive evidence indicates that it was), it made only a small and relatively unpredictable contribution to a varied diet gleaned from rich woodlands, lakes, and streams. The economy probably rested upon a sexual division of labor in which women gathered berries, nuts, and semiwild vegetables and grains while men hunted and fished. Reflecting the same cultural pattern, Sky Woman brought her husband bread baked with berries; his return gift was venison. During the Middle Woodland period, basketmaking and the weaving of fishnets and such other textile products as bags and burden straps from split twigs and Indian hemp flourished. Mortuary ceremonialism and its associated longdistance trade became ever more elaborate in the Canoe Point phase, including in the western part of Iroquoia even some small burial mounds similar to those characteristic of the contemporaneous Hopewellian people of the Ohio Valley. For unknown reasons, however, such practices declined significantly in the Hunter's Home era.11 The centuries around A.D. 1000 saw the appearance of the Late Woodland culture archaeologists label Owasco. The transition is dramatic enough to suggest the possibility that a new Iroquoian-speaking population entered the region from the south. For the purposes of this story, however, the question of whether the Owasco peoples were indigenous or immigrants is less significant than the conclusion that they created a basic way of life that would still prevail in Iroquoia during the period of early contact with Europeans. In particular, three aspects of that way of life are crucial. First, as part of an agricultural revolution sweeping the Northeast in this period, Owasco vil{

14 The World on the Turtle's Back }

lagers cultivated maize, beans, and squash on a scale that made horticulture central to their subsistence. Second, new mortuary rituals replaced the older two-stage process in favor of immediate burials which included a few material goods that were evidently personal belongings rather than grave offerings. Third, long-distance trade virtually ceased, at least as indicated by the archaeological record; in its place emerged greatly intensified warfare among communities. The origins of these conflicts remain controversial, but more important for understanding later developments is that once they began, a continual cycle of feuding made them very difficult to stop, and they took on a life of their own. As the Cosmogonic Myth relates, the Good Twin showed human beings how to plant corn, but feared they would forget the ceremonies he taught them and begin to "destroy one another."12 The new horticulture allowed much larger numbers of people to live together on a more permanent basis than in the Middle Woodland period. At the same time, warfare presumably impelled communities to combine resources—voluntarily for defensive purposes, or involuntarily through conquest. As a result, over a span of five hundred years, Owasco communities coalesced into ever fewer but ever larger agglomerations. It is likely that clans (or, more accurately, segments of clans) that had once constituted autonomous settlements now lived with analogous groups in socially and politically complex villages. At the same time, the isolation of warring communities was apparently one factor that caused an originally common proto-lroquois speech to develop after A.D. 1000 into the distinct languages of Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, Susquehannock, and perhaps several others. In the sixteenth century, as a final wave of village consolidations occurred, the speakers of the first five of these languages coalesced as the original members of the Iroquois League. The Susquehannocks became one of their inveterate enemies. In a southwest-to-northeast arc around the borders of the Five Nations lived speakers of related Iroquoian languages and practitioners of similar ways of life who also remained outside the League: Monongahelas, Eries, Wenros, Petuns, Neutrals, Hurons, Jefferson County Iroquoians, and St. Lawrence Iroquoians. To the east and southeast was the realm of the radically different Algonquian linguistic family, of which varying languages and dialects were used by the Algonquins, Western Abenakis, Mahicans, River Indians, New England Algonquians, Munsees, and Lenapes.13 In Iroquoia, the ancestors of the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas developed patterns of life consonant with the Cosmogonic Myth. Much of the story in the Sky World centers on communal life: villagers { The World on the Turtle's Back 15 }

M A p 2,. The Iroquois and Their Neighbors in the Mid-Sixteenth Century

gathered to comfort the weeping orphan child and labored together to uproot the great tree, and for Sky Woman the support and safety of her native community contrasted sharply with the long and dangerous voyage to her prospective husband's town. In late-sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century Iroquoia, much of life indeed centered on village communities, which included three basic types: camps, hamlets, and towns. Camps were occupied only seasonally for fishing, fowling, and other pursuits. Hamlets were small settlements almost invariably closely tied to a much larger town located a few miles away.14 Towns were bustling places of as many as two thousand people; with an average population of about two hundred per acre, they were the most densely settled places in the European or native Northeast before the nineteenth century.15 At the turn of the seventeenth century the Mohawks possessed three or four towns and several hamlets stretching in an east-west line south of the Mohawk River; the Oneidas a town and probably a hamlet near Oneida Creek in what is now Madison County, New York; the Onondagas a town and hamlet southeast of modern Syracuse; the Cayugas three towns (no evidence of hamlets has been discovered) clustered between Owasco and Cayuga lakes; and the Senecas two towns, each allied with at least one hamlet, east of the Genesee River and north of the Finger Lakes. The total population of the ten towns and several hamlets was probably between twenty thousand and thirty thousand.16 In contrast to their predecessors in the Early and Middle Woodland periods, Owasco and Iroquois towns were usually not located along waterways. Instead, perhaps in response to the frequent wars of the period, they gravitated toward defensible hilltops a mile or two back in the forest. Military concerns also dictated that most towns be heavily fortified, and residents of nearby hamlets, which usually had no defenses except perhaps a thin palisade designed to keep wild animals out and small children in, probably crowded into them when enemies threatened. All approachable sides of fortified towns were surrounded by two or three ranks of palisades reaching twelve to twenty feet in the air and angled to join at the top. The uprights were the trunks of hardwood saplings; the spaces between them were filled with smaller branches and sheets of bark intertwined horizontally and occasionally reinforced by piles of lumber and brush. In some cases, galleries joined portions of the palisade lines, providing platforms from which to hurl weapons at attackers; in others, ditches and earthworks provided additional defense. Sometimes a network of wooden troughs channeled water from nearby ponds or streams to sustain besieged inhabitants and quench fires set { The World on the Turtle's Back 17 }

by assailants. The one or two openings of three feet or so in width that provided the only access to the interior of a town could easily be closed off with logs during an attack.17 Completing the militant image, the main gate might feature two or more posts topped with carved figures of human heads crowned with the scalps of enemies. No wonder seventeenth-century Dutch and English visitors referred to Iroquois towns as "castles," and no wonder Sky Woman approached the village of her intended spouse with considerable trepidation. To mitigate the threat, welcome guests received a hearty reception from local leaders, who initiated ceremonies to calm their minds and rest their bodies, and from queues of enthusiastic villagers who flanked the town gate; these rituals survive today in traditional Iroquois culture as the At the Wood's Edge rite. A friendly visitor found the contrast between harsh facade and warm reception even more striking once inside the palisades, where throngs of women and children presented a busy but far more peaceful scene than that outside.18 Packed within the two to sixteen acres encompassed by the palisade were anywhere from 30 to 150 structures, the majority of which were longhouses. Standing side by side in parallel rows, they were a little more than 2.0 feet in width and varied in length from 40 to zoo feet; the average was about 100. Saplings twisted into the ground at close intervals provided the basic framework for their exterior walls and arched to frame a roof 15-10 feet tall. Large sheets of elm bark secured by tree fibers and small saplings enclosed the framework's sides and most of the rafters; movable panels covered doorways at each end and rooftop openings that let smoke out and daylight in. A central corridor, punctuated at roughly zo-foot intervals by fireplaces, dominated the interior. Against the walls on either side of the hearths stood platforms raised a foot or so off the ground that floored bark-enclosed sleeping compartments roughly 12, feet long, 6 deep, and 5 high. Storage space for food, firewood, and personal belongings was available in vestibules at either end of the longhouse, along the exterior walls in the intervals between compartments and above their ceilings, and (where local conditions permitted) in pits dug under the platforms and lined with bark. When no longer suitable for holding food, the pits became receptacles for household wastes. The length of the structure depended on the number of fires it contained, which in turn reflected the number of residents it sheltered. An existing house could be extended with additional sets of apartments and fires to accommodate growing families.19 The cultural significance of these dwellings for the peoples of the Longhouse rested on their interior spatial geography and the experiential legacy of {

18 The World on the Turtle's Back }

P L A T E i . An Iroquoian Longhouse. Detail from Plan du Fort Frontenac ou Cataraouy, circa 172.0. Courtesy of the Newberry Library, Chicago

countless hours spent confined within them during the snowy winters of Iroquoia. Each compartment was home to a nuclear family, which shared its fire, and thus its heating and cooking facilities, with the family on the opposite side. The organization of physical space thus embodied an ethic of sharing and reciprocity between kin groups who, although separated, "boile in one kettle, eat out of one dish, and with one spoon, and so be one." The same values prevailed when Sky Woman's mother daily crossed the house to comb the father's hair and when Sky Woman herself exchanged gifts of food with her husband on the other side of the fire. In seventeenth-century Iroquoia, would-be brides still brought presents of bread to their intendeds.20 Not only across the fire but on the same side of it reciprocity reigned. The efforts of both sexes provided a starchy but balanced diet whose low-in-redmeat virtues many Euro-Americans would come to appreciate only in the late twentieth century.21 As in the Sky World and in the lives of the terrestrial cultural predecessors of the Iroquois, males were responsible for procuring animal protein and females for vegetables. Thus, while younger men hunted and older ones fished, women retrieved and processed the game, tended the fields of corn, beans, and squash that stretched more than a mile outside the town palisades, gathered berries, nuts, and other wild food from the surrounding countryside, and provided pottery, baskets, and firewood with which to prepare and store the bounty. Together men and women filled family cooking pots and stuffed the storage pits and baskets that lined the { The World on the Turtle's Back 19 }

longhouse walls. "The houses in this castle," said a 1634 winter visitor to a Mohawk town, "are full of grain and beans." Yet, as the traveler's comments reveal, women's contributions to Iroquois subsistence were the greater: their beans, squash, and especially maize boiled in a ubiquitous soup or baked into breads were the mainstays of Iroquois cuisine, men's fish and red meat its spice of variety.22 Just as work reciprocally joined men and women and spatial patterns united groups across the fire, kinship bound all the residents of a longhouse. Each nuclear family belonged to the same ohwachira, a lineage traced through the female line. Dominant figures morally, economically, and to some degree politically within the longhouse were the women of the lineage's eldest living generation, the "matrons." Iroquois marriage was apparently ideally matrilocal—that is, a new husband went to live with his wife's family—but evidence on this point is contradictory, as is the story of Sky Woman's journey to live in her husband's village. It seems likely that many marriages were not matrilocal in practice. Instead, as sometimes happens in matrilineal societies where matrilocality is the ideal, many a husband probably brought his wife home to the house of his mother's brother. Much may have depended on the status of the marriage partners. A young husband being groomed for leadership in his ohwachira may have remained in the longhouse in which he was born, but one of lesser stature went to live with a wife more prominently placed in her own lineage.23 Despite its great ethnographic significance, the problem of the residence patterns of husbands and fathers is to some degree historically inconsequential. Iroquois marriages were often fragile, and divorce was frequent. Even if a father remained married, he apparently often spent most of his time in another longhouse than his wife and children's. Whatever practice prevailed in particular cases, the principal male role models and disciplinarians for children were their mother's brothers, who did dwell in their longhouse. Fathers were peripheral to the main lines of kinship and parenting that ran through mother and uncle, and thus the mysterious patrimonies and motherdominated families of the Cosmogonic Myth come more clearly into cultural focus. Nonetheless, children did owe particular obligations and respect to their father and his lineage, and fathers had the same kind of close relationships of tutelage and friendship toward their children that uncles frequently have toward favored nephews in patrilineal societies. Appropriately, the fathers of Sky Woman and the Good Twin gave them guidance at turning points in their lives when their maternal kin had failed them.24 Reciprocal obligations to one's father's kin stemmed in part from the fact { 2.0 The World on the Turtle's Back

}

P L A T E 2.. The Bear and Turtle Clans in Council. French copy oflroquois (probably Seneca) pictograph, circa 1666. Archives Nationales, Paris

that, according to later Iroquois tradition, incest rules dictated that husbands and wives be members not just of different lineages but of different clans. Each Iroquois village harbored segments of at least three of the clans the Good Twin had named: the Bear, the Wolf, and the Turtle. Village clan segments consisted of a number of lineages and thus several longhouses. Early European visitors reported that on the entrance of each dwelling was an image of its lineage's clan animal, announcing that food, shelter, and hospitality were available there to clan kin from other villages. Clans had reciprocal obligations centering on ceremonial gift giving and mutual ritual duties—particularly involving mourning and funerals—analogous to those of families on opposite sides of a longhouse. Indeed, among the Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas, the various clans were grouped into two moieties, or "sides," whose leaders metaphorically and physically sat across a fire from each other in village councils and exchanged ritual obligations.25 Reciprocity also infused Iroquois concepts about property. They "possess hardly anything except in common," a French missionary concluded. "A whole village must be without corn, before any individual can be obliged to endure privation." But Iroquois economic principles only superficially resembled European concepts of communalism, for ownership of private property certainly existed. Its definition, however, rested on need and use rather than mere possession. Food, clothing, tools, houses, land, and other forms of property belonged to those individuals and kin groups who needed and made active use of them. Conversely, excess or abandoned property was largely free for the taking, and in times of shortages all shared in the meager fare. { The World on the Turtle's Back zi }

Early seventeenth-century Dutch and French colonists rich in excess material possessions learned a lesson in Iroquois economics when they accused natives of "always seeking some advantage by thieving" and found them taking up residence in abandoned barns and houses. As the Indians saw it, unused items should be free for anyone who needed them, and hospitality required owners to yield them to those without.26 The principles of Iroquois "redistributive" economics embodied less a communal ethic than a sort of upside-down capitalism, in which the aim was, not to accumulate goods, but to be in a position to provide them to others. Status and authority went not simply to those who possessed the most but to those able to give the most away. "The chiefs are generally the poorest among them," marveled one Dutch traveler, "for instead of their receiving anything . . . , these Indian chiefs are made to give to the populace." Far from ensuring a Utopia of egalitarian bliss, the system encouraged rivalries for influence among headmen and would-be headmen, matrons and younger women, yet channeled those rivalries into benefits for kin groups and the community as a whole.27 In this political context, for leaders as for all Iroquois, economic exchanges generally took the form of gift giving rather than buying and selling. Reciprocal exchanges of presents sealed relationships—between the man who gave the meat he hunted and his wife's longhouse, between the longhouse matron who distributed that meat and "the other Persons in the Family according to their Age," and between the man and those who gave him gifts of tobacco, knives, or awls when he invited them to his lineage's feast. The principles of reciprocity, collection, and redistribution were illustrated in a Mohawk headman's house, where "three or four meals were eaten everyday" in the 16305. As a Dutch traveler noted, "Whatever was not cooked there was brought in from other houses in large kettles . . . ; and whosoever is in the house, receives a wooden bowl full of food." Competition for authority as well as its exercise rested on the effectiveness with which one could use such practices to build bonds of reciprocal obligation. To be able to do so in ways that built a consensus, or at least the appearance of one, embracing an entire clan or village made one an effective leader.28 Reciprocity and kinship ties, then, structured the Iroquois village community. So too did the prominence of women, for in many respects an Iroquois town was largely a female world. Almost by definition, the sexual division of labor and the isolated hilltop locations of Iroquois villages ensured that, for much of the year, towns and hamlets would be inhabited primarily by {

2.2. The World on the Turtle's Back

}

women and their children, who tended the fields while males dispersed to locales near and far. A seasonal cycle with its roots in the Archaic period took young men, sometimes accompanied by a few women, to far-flung fowling locations in the spring and hunting and trapping grounds in the fall and early winter, and older men traveled to fishing camps a day or more distant from the village in the spring and early summer. From spring through fall, warfare also drew young men away from the village to make raids on often distant enemies. Only in middle to late winter were most villagers of both sexes at home simultaneously for extended periods.29 That season's indoor life and the crowded leisure it afforded for rehearsing oral traditions no doubt account for much of the predominance of longhouse symbolism in Iroquois folklore. But male storytellers remained, in an important sense, mere visitors in dwellings that belonged to their female counterparts. In Iroquois villages a rough division of authority apparently existed, in which women took primary responsibility for not only their children but the village as a whole, with its structures, food supplies, and surrounding fields. Men, by extension from their economic roles, were primarily concerned with the outside world, including dealing with other peoples through trade, diplomacy, or warfare. The "clearing" was the woman's domain; the "forest" belonged to men.30 The shape of neither domain, however, was permanent. While town and hamlet communities with their lineages and clans endured for generations that can be traced clearly in the archaeological record, their locations shifted at intervals of approximately twelve to twenty years. Despite the natural fertilization that resulted from planting nitrogen-fixing legumes in the same hills as the corn on whose stalks the bean plants would entwine, and despite the natural weed control that proliferating squash vines provided the intermixed fields, the land gradually lost some of its productivity. The Iroquois practiced swidden (slash-and-burn) horticulture, which involved putting new plots into cultivation each spring as older fields declined; this clearing was the only horticultural chore in which men took a major role. After a number of years, women might have to travel well more than a mile from their towns or hamlets to tend some of their crops. But, perhaps more important, they had to walk still farther each day to collect wood for fires, bark and vegetable fibers for basketry and textiles, and wild plants for food, because the ever-spreading cornfields and the hefty timber consumption of an Iroquois community leveled most nearby forests. Finally, in the villages themselves, wood and bark construction materials steadily rotted, and long{ The World on the Turtle's Back 23 }

houses and their storage pits became infested with insects and other pests. The cumulative result was that communities simply could not stay in one place for more than two decades.31 Iroquois groups, therefore, required an extensive homeland that at any given time encompassed a current town and its associated hamlets, perhaps a new village being constructed and gradually occupied, several former sites in the process of natural reclamation marked by decaying palisades and cemeteries containing the remains of past generations, a variety of fishing and fowling camps, and various hunting territories. Ironically, of all these locales, the seasonal camps and the hunting grounds may have been the most permanent, for migrating fishes, birds, and animals returned predictably to the same venues each year, but towns and hamlets came and went. What looked to European eyes like empty countryside punctuated by widely scattered villages was an actively used and essential landscape.32 And, as befitted the flux in which all things existed, nearly everything in that landscape was alive with spiritual power. All things had retained direct links with prototypical spirit beings in the Sky World since the day the Good Twin had brought them into being from the living earth. To one degree or another, such other-than-human persons as game animals, trees, or the wind possessed spiritual power that could be turned to human advantage or human destruction. These beings could willingly aid people—animals might give themselves as food, trees might allow themselves to be carved into masks that helped cure disease, winds might keep lakes calm to allow one to cross in a canoe—but in return they demanded respect and favors in the form of the offering of tobacco sacrifices, the performance of ceremonies, or the giving of thanks. If humans neglected their reciprocal obligations and offended these beings, the results could be hunger, sickness, injury, or death.33 The lesson is illustrated in a story, which may or may not be apocryphal, about the fate of Arent van Curler ("Corlaer"), the Dutch colonist who played the most prominent role in New Netherland's mid-seventeenth-century diplomatic relations with the Five Nations. Natives canoeing on Lake George traditionally stopped to offer tobacco at a certain rock they believed to be the home of a spirit who controlled the winds. In 1667, when traveling with Mohawk companions, Van Curler mocked their ceremony "and in derision turn'd up his Back-side towards the Rock." Almost immediately, a storm came up, Van Curler's canoe capsized, and the blasphemer drowned. Other-than-human persons had powers not to be toyed with.34 Some supernaturally gifted or highly trained people were unusually adept at dealing with other-than-human persons and manipulating spiritual power. { 24 The World on the Turtle's Back }

These were shamans, and because of their knowledge of ceremonies and their access to power, they were characters to be not just respected but feared. Ideally, shamans used their skills for the benefit of individuals and the community—to heal the sick, to make crops grow, to assure a successful hunt—and thereby increased the spiritual power and the physical well-being of the kin group and village. But shamans could also use their talents in harmful ways—to cause plagues, to kill crops, to chase away game—and thus the line was fine between a revered religious figure and a detested sorcerer. For good or ill, shamans earned their status by their apparent success in tapping spiritual power. As was the case with other leaders, community attitudes depended on the redistributive uses to which they put the resources at their command. From the shamans' perspective, those uses in turn depended on the willingness of the community to follow their advice and reward their successes with respect and material goods.35 In human dealings with all beings who had access to spiritual power, then, the same principles of reciprocity characteristic of life in the longhouse and village prevailed. People thrived not only through reciprocity but through the unity that came from alliances with the other sex, across the fire, within the lineage and clan, and among other villagers. The same was true in dealing with other-than-human persons; only with the aid of his father the Turtle and the various prototypical beings from the Sky World could the Good Twin carry out his work of creation. Consequently, with or without the help of shamanic specialists, Iroquois sought by various means to ally themselves with the sources of spiritual power that pervaded their universe. Dreams were one source of such power, for, according to traditional beliefs, they communicated the deepest messages and wishes of one's soul, wishes that were the result of its travels to places and things in the spirit world. Desires expressed in dreams, once they were clearly interpreted, must be fulfilled; if they were frustrated, the soul's distress would bring mental or physical illness or even death. "The Iroquois have, properly speaking, only a single Divinity,—the dream," observed a mid-seventeenth-century French missionary with slight exaggeration. "To it they render their submission, and follow all its orders with the utmost exactness." Again, the Cosmogonic Myth provides an example: when Sky Woman's ill husband dreamed of uprooting the great tree, villagers joined in the effort to fulfill his soul's wishes and thus cure his disease. In later-seventeenth-century Iroquoia, wish fulfillments to treat physical or psychological ailments might occur at any time but were particularly significant as part of the most important of the annual rituals the Good Twin was believed to have instituted, the Midwinter {

The World on the Turtle's Back 2.5

}

P L A T E 3 . Antler Maskette, Clay Pipe, and Antler Comb. Permission of the Collection of the Rochester Museum and Science Center, Rochester, N.Y. These stylized Seneca human (or perhaps other-than-human) visages of the late sixteenth century reflect the preoccupation of Iroquois material culture with the spirit world.

Ceremonial of late January or early February. Villagers vied to fathom the meaning of each others' most cryptic messages of the soul and then assisted in the cathartic playing out of unconscious fantasies small and large, even ones that flouted usual sexual or other norms.36 If dreams provided one avenue to sources of spiritual power, particular material substances represented another. Tobacco, for example, induced a state of mind that opened one to supernatural forces; smoking, then, was not just a form of relaxation but, in appropriate ceremonial contexts, a religious act. Tobacco smoke, meanwhile, was a gift that pleased spirit beings as reciprocation for their blessings. Similar concepts of gift giving evidently infused Iroquois understandings of certain rare materials that originated in realms under the earth or beneath the water, where unusually potent spirits dwelled. Particularly prized as gifts from great sources of power were chunks or worked plates of copper originating in the Great Lakes region, beads made from seashells from the Atlantic coast, and exotic stones or volcanic materials from any distant locale. People carried such items with them during life as amulets and articles of personal adornment and often took them to their graves, presumably to aid them in their voyage to the next world. In this life, Iroquois craftspeople devoted their highest artistic and technical talents to materials that connected them to the spirit world: stone or ceramic tobacco pipes, often with animal or human effigies that faced the smoker; figurines carved from antler, bone, or shell evidently representing shamanic beings; ornamental antler combs (suggesting the grooming of Sky Woman's father's hair) bearing human or other-than-human images.37 Small-scale long-distance trade supplied many of these vital, spiritually powerful goods. In their more mundane material needs, however, Iroquois communities were almost entirely self-sufficient. Food, clothing, shelter—all the basic demands and even amenities of everyday life—women and men gleaned from the fertile fields and bountiful forests, lakes, and streams surrounding their towns and hamlets. Consequently, the villagers of the Five Nations had no need for, and evidently no tradition of, large-scale trading relationships with other peoples or even, before the fifteenth century, other Iroquois. In this they stood in sharp contrast to, for instance, the Hurons, a nearby group of Iroquoian-speakers whose culture was in most respects very similar to theirs. Apparently from time out of mind, those residents of the Georgian Bay peninsula had exchanged corn and other items for venison from their Algonquian-speaking hunter-gatherer neighbors to their north.38 The lack of any need for large-scale trade helps explain not just the isolationism of Five Nations villages from each other and outsiders but their {

2.8 The World on the Turtle's Back }

wars with such sixteenth-century neighbors as the Hurons, the Susquehannocks, the Algonquins, and the St. Lawrence Iroquoians. Because relationships among people rested on the alliances of spiritual power that came from reciprocity, a lack of reciprocity, as epitomized by the absence of trading relationships, could easily lead to a presumption of hostility. Just as a shaman or an other-than-human person could be expected to wreak havoc when denied respect and reciprocity, so too could people of another village with whom no exchange relationships existed.39 The opposite was true for peoples with whom a village did trade, as illustrated in the Cosmogonic Myth by the exchanges of gifts between the two villages of the Sky World: "The trade and the peace we take to be one thing," an eighteenth-century Iroquois leader would say. Significantly, among the few neighboring peoples with whom all of the autonomous villages of the Five Nations seem to have been regularly at peace during the period when Europeans first arrived on the Turtle's Back were the Neutrals and Wenros to the west and the Mahicans and River Indians to the east. Each sat astride routes to the sources of exotic commodities associated with spiritual power that were not available in the homelands of the Five Nations: Great Lakes copper and other minerals linked with spiritual power came from beyond the country of the Neutrals and Wenros, and shell beads arrived from the coast of Long Island Sound presumably by way of the Mahicans and River Indians. Neither of these exchange relationships can be proved on the basis of present archaeological evidence, and if they did exist they were evidently very small in scale, but the coincidental contrast with peoples who had no material goods to offer the Iroquois is striking.40 W H A T E V E R MAY have been the case, the geographic situation of Iroquoia, the lessons of the Cosmogonic Myth, and the principles of interactions with the spirit world and between human communities deliver a single message. For the Five Nations, themes of reciprocity and exchange, war and peace, and alliance and spiritual power entwined to define most relationships among persons, kin groups, and villages. They also were at the heart of the most significant of all connections between one village and another, the entity called the Great League of Peace and Power.

{ The World on the Turtle's Back 19

}

C H A P T E R

T W O

I hp (vYPat I *pfl&iJiP nt Peace and Power

Haudenosaunee means "the whole house"; metaphorically, the five national fires of the Five Nations stretched across Iroquoia like the central hearths of a communal dwelling, and reciprocity united their peoples like the families of an ohwachira. But this extended Longhouse has also traditionally been called the Great League of Peace and Power. To Iroquois at the turn of the seventeenth century, power meant the kind of spiritual and temporal force marshaled by alliances among the people, kin groups, and villages of the League. And peace, too, was more than a word. It not only united the Five Nations but exemplified relations among fellow villagers and permeated the political structures through which the Iroquois would respond to the Euro{ 30 }

pean invasion. Therein lies a paradox: the people who created the Great League were best known to others for their ferocity in war; power more than peace characterized their dealings with outsiders. The Iroquois "had, for several years, been in hostility with our neighbour Indians," wrote New Englander Daniel Gookin in 1674. "And in truth, they were in time of war, so great a terrour to all the Indians . . . , that the appearance of four or five Maquas [Mohawks] in the woods would frighten them from their habitations." Gookin overstated Iroquois might and wrote in a period in which warfare had assumed a larger role for the Five Nations than it had earlier, but he accurately captured their long-standing reputation among their native neighbors: the name Mohawk is derived from a New England Algonquian word meaning "eater of human flesh."1 As W I T H A T T E M P T S to reconstruct other aspects of Iroquois life at the turn of the seventeenth century, analysis of the Great League of Peace and its paradoxical connection to warfare must rely on a tenuous tripod of indirect evidence: archaeological data, observations by European visitors who arrived a generation or two later, and oral traditions not recorded in detail until the nineteenth century. Yet if the exact shape of the League on the eve of the European invasion cannot be satisfactorily recovered, its broad outlines can be traced with some confidence. Archaeological evidence of economic exchanges within Iroquoia and a homogenization of material culture among the five previously isolated nations suggest strongly that the Peace was established sometime late in the fifteenth century. Less ambiguity surrounds the archaeological evidence for Iroquois warfare: before, during, and after the period of the presumed establishment of the League, Iroquois village sites were heavily fortified against military attack, and their cemeteries contained the corpses of both friends and enemies clearly slain in combat or its accompanying rituals. By 1600 the cultural ideal of peace and the everyday reality of war had long been intertwined.2 Appropriately, the paradox of war and peace pervades Iroquois traditions about the League's founding. As with the Cosmogonic Myth, details vary in the many versions of the tradition, and no detailed texts of the story known as the Deganawidah Epic survive directly from the seventeenth (much less the fifteenth) century. Most variants agree, however, that the events described took place in a period of incessant warfare among the peoples of the Five Nations. "Everywhere there was peril and everywhere mourning," observes one version. "Feuds with outer nations, feuds with brother nations, feuds of sister towns and feuds of families and of clans made every warrior a stealthy { The Great League of Peace and Power 31 }

man who liked to kill." The continual cycle of warfare and death produced a particular pain for a man called Hiawatha. The demise of all his daughters in rapid succession robbed him of his reason; in his rage and depression, he wandered off into the forest, where he finally encountered a being of supernatural origins named Deganawidah, the Peacemaker. Born, like the principal figures in the Cosmogonic Myth, of a virgin, the Peacemaker—who was perhaps a reincarnation of the Good Twin—taught Hiawatha rituals that removed grief and eased the mind. Offering strings of the shell beads called wampum, he spoke several Words of Condolence: the first dried Hiawatha's weeping eyes, the second opened his ears, the third unstopped his throat, and so on until his sorrow was relieved and his reason restored. These Condolence ceremonies were at the core of a new gospel, the Good News of Peace and Power, that would make war unnecessary. "When men accept it," the Peacemaker said of his teachings, "they will stop killing, and bloodshed will cease from the land."3 To begin to appreciate the meaning of the Good News for both the legendary Hiawatha and his seventeenth-century successors one must first probe the role warfare played in their culture. "War is a necessary exercise for the Iroquois," observed early eighteenth-century missionary and ethnologist Joseph Francois Lafitau, "for, besides the usual motives which people have in declaring it against troublesome neighbours . . . , it is indispensable to them also because of one of their fundamental laws of being." Those "fundamental laws" defined a cultural pattern known as the "mourning-war," which the people of the Five Nations shared with many of their native neighbors. Through that pattern of intersocietal violence, Iroquois sought assurance of social continuity and consolation upon the deaths of loved ones.4 The connection between war and mourning rested on beliefs about the spiritual power that animated all things. Because an individual's death diminished the collective power of a lineage, clan, and village, Iroquois families conducted "Requickening" ceremonies in which the deceased's name, and with it the social role and duties it represented, was transferred to a successor. Such rites filled vacant positions in lineages and villages both literally and symbolically: they assured survivors that the social function and spiritual potency embodied in the departed's name had not disappeared and that the community would endure. In Requickenings, people of high status were usually replaced from within the lineage, clan, or village, but at some point lower in the social scale an external source of surrogates inevitably became necessary. Here warfare made its contribution, for those adopted "to help {

32. The Great League of Peace and Power }

strengthen the familye in lew of their deceased Freind" were often captives taken in battle.5 On a societal level, then, warfare (or, more specifically, the taking of war prisoners) helped Iroquois to deal with deaths in their ranks. On a personal, emotional level it performed similar functions. As the story of Hiawatha indicates, Iroquois believed that the grief inspired by a relative's death could plunge survivors into depths of despair that would rob them of their reason and dispose them to fits of rage harmful to themselves and the community. Accordingly, mourners' emotions were directed into ritualized channels. Members of the deceased's household, "after having the hair cut, smearing the face with earth or charcoal and gotten themselves up in the most frightful negligence," embarked on ten days of "deep mourning," during which they were "excused from every duty of civility and courtesy." For the next year the survivors engaged in less intense formalized grieving, beginning to resume their daily habits but continuing to disregard their personal appearance and many social amenities. While mourners of one lineage thus channeled their own emotions, the principles of interclan reciprocity required members of another kin group to "cover" the grief of the bereaved by conducting funeral rituals, providing feasts, and bestowing gifts—including the special variety of Condolence present often misleadingly described as blood payments or wergild. Social and personal needs converged at the culmination of the rites, the Requickening of the deceased in the person of a war captive or other individual. In addition to the symbolic acts of communal unity and spiritual power these acts of communal reciprocity represented, they were designed to cleanse sorrowing hearts and to ease the survivors' return to normal life.6 But if the grief of the bereaved remained unassuaged, women of the mourning household could demand the ultimate socially sanctioned release for their violent impulses: a raid to seek captives who, it was hoped, would ease their pain. The target of a mourning-war campaign was usually a people traditionally defined as enemies. Neither they nor anyone else need necessarily be held directly responsible for the death that provoked the attack, though most often the foes could be made to bear the blame.7 Members of the deceased person's household, lost in grief and "in some manner drunk with the blood lately shedd," did not ordinarily participate in such a raid; instead, young men who were related by marriage to the female survivors of the deceased but who lived in other longhouses were obliged to form a war party or face the women's public accusations of cowardice. The young fighters, eighteenth-century historian Cadwallader Golden explained, would "first { The Great League of Peace and Power 33 }

PLATE 4 .

A Huron War Chief. From [Samuel de Champlain], Les voyages de la Nouvelle France occidentale ... (Paris, 1632). Courtesy of the Robert Dechert Collection, Department of Special Collections, Van Pelt/ Dietrich Library Center, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. Retouched by Matthew C. Robbins. This early seventeenth-century equipage is similar to that used by the Iroquois.

communicate their Design to two or three of their most intimate Friends; and if they come into it, an Invitation is made, in their Names, to all the young Men of the Castle, to feast on Dog's Flesh . . . and all who eat of the Dog's Flesh, thereby inlist themselves."8 On occasion, grieving women or male leaders of the village might request that noted chiefs organize massive efforts involving warriors from several villages in or outside the League. "Two or three of the elders or valiant captains will undertake to lead such an expedition, and will go to the neighbouring villages to inform them of their intention, giving presents to those of the said villages to oblige them to go and accompany them," observed Frenchman Samuel de Champlain. Such large-scale campaigns seem frequently to have culminated in carefully planned, relatively bloodless, largely ceremonial confrontations between massed forces protected by wooden body armor and bedecked in elaborate headdresses.9 Large or small, the battles usually ended with the taking of a few captives by one side or the other. When the victors returned home, village leaders apportioned the prisoners to grieving lineages, whose elder women then chose either to adopt or to execute them. The matrons' decision, which often seemed capricious to Euro-American observers, apparently depended on the depth of the households' grief and the initial impression the captives made. "Their death is assured, as it were, if they fall into a lodge where many warriors or other persons, whoever they may be, have been lost, even a child at the breast for whom mourning is still recent," explained Lafitau. "They do not have the least chance [of living] if their age, air, physiognomy or character are not pleasing and make people fear that they will not get great service from them." The lives of women and children were much more likely to be spared than those of adult males. But in the end rational considerations seem to have mixed with an emotional calculus of whether the family's spiritual and temporal power would be better replenished by the literal replacement of the deceased—with all the material benefits of their labor and potential marital connections—or by a communal ritual of execution. The two choices seem to have been alternate forms of adoption, of acquiring the power the prisoners represented.10 Thus a captive slated for execution was nonetheless adopted into a family and subsequently addressed appropriately as "uncle" or "nephew." During the next few days the doomed man, his status marked by a distinctive red and black pattern of facial paint, gave a death feast, where his executioners saluted him and allowed him to recite his war honors. Then, on the appointed day, his captors tied him with a short rope to a stake, and villagers of { The Great League of Peace and Power 35 }

both sexes and all ages took turns wielding firebrands and various red-hot objects to burn him systematically from the feet up. The tormentors behaved with religious solemnity and spoke in symbolic language of "caressing" their adopted relative with their weapons. The victim was expected to endure his sufferings stoically and even to encourage his torturers, but this seems to have been ideal rather than typical behavior. Before the prisoner expired, someone scalped him, another threw hot sand on his exposed skull, and finally a knife to his chest or a hatchet to his neck ended his torments. Then women disarticulated the corpse and threw it into cooking kettles, from which the whole village feasted.11 For seventeenth-century Iroquois this meal carried great religious significance that probably in some way symbolized a complete absorption of the captive's spiritual power. But for historians its full meaning is irretrievable; most European observers were too shocked to probe its implications.12 The collective nature of these rites of execution suggests that the immediately bereaved were not the only ones to benefit from mourning-war practices. While grieving relatives vented their emotions, all villagers who joined in the rituals were able to participate directly in the defeat of their foes. Warfare thus promoted group cohesion and dramatized Iroquois superiority over their enemies. At the same time, youths learned valuable lessons in the way to behave bravely should they ever be captured. And the raiders who brought home captives profited as well. Missionary-explorer Louis Hennepin exaggerated when he claimed that "those amongst the Iroquoise who are not given to War, are had in great Contempt, and pass for Lazy and Effeminate People," but a good fighter did reap great social rewards rooted in the important functions that warfare performed for his society. Participation in a war party was a benchmark episode in an Iroquois youth's development, and later success in battle increased the young man's stature among his kin and fellow villagers while raising his prospects for an advantageous marriage.13 A warrior's success was measured not only by his bravery but by his ability to seize prisoners and bring them home alive for adoption or execution. Capturing enemies earned greater glory than killing them on the spot and taking their scalps, and none of the benefits that European combatants derived from war—territorial expansion, economic gain, plunder of the defeated—outranked the seizure of prisoners. Precombat rituals stressed the centrality of captives to the business of war: imagery focused on a boiling war kettle; the war feast presaged future anthropophagous rites; mourning women urged {

36 The Great League of Peace and Power }

P L A T E 5 . A Victorious War Party. Detail of French copy of Iroquois (probably Seneca) pictograph, circa 1666. Archives Nationales, Paris. The Small Snipe and the Hawk (names of Cayuga clans) carry weapons to denote their participation in an expedition. Their enemies are sketched upside-down to indicate that they are dead and are shown headless because they have been scalped.

young men to bring them prisoners to assuage their grief; and, if more than one village participated in the campaign, leaders agreed in advance on the share of captives that each town would receive. Later, pictographs enshrined on trees and sheets of bark the number and fate of the prisoners seized. As Iroquois warriors saw it, to forget the importance of captive taking or to ignore the rituals associated with it was to invite defeat. These considerations set native warfare strikingly apart from the Euro-American military experience. "We are not like you CHRISTIANS for when you have taken Prisoners of one another you send them home, by such means you can never rout one another," one early eighteenth-century Onondaga explained.14 The same factors that made captives so central to warfare produced strong sanctions against the loss of Iroquois lives in battle. A war party that, by European standards, seemed on the brink of triumph could be expected to { The Great League of Peace and Power 37 }

retreat if it suffered even a few fatalities. For the Five Nations and their native neighbors, such a campaign was no victory; casualties would subvert the purpose of warfare as a means of replacing the dead with captives. In contrast to European notions that to perish in combat was acceptable and even honorable, Iroquois beliefs as recorded in later eras made death in battle a frightful prospect, though one that must be faced bravely if necessary. The slain, like all who perished violently, were excluded from the villages of the dead, doomed to spend a roving eternity seeking vengeance. Both in capture and in the afterlife, a person taken in combat faced perpetual separation from his family and friends.15 Efforts to minimize fatalities accordingly underlay several tactics that contemporary Euro-Americans considered to be cowardly: fondness for ambushes and surprise attacks, unwillingness to fight when outnumbered, avoidance of frontal assaults on heavily fortified places, massed confrontations between armored men who could do each other little physical harm. Defensive strategies shared the emphasis. Spies in enemy villages and a network of scouts warned of invading war parties before they could harm Iroquois villagers. If intruders did enter Iroquoia, defenders attacked from ambush, but only if they felt confident of repulsing the enemy without too many losses of their own. The people retreated behind their town palisades or, if the enemy appeared too strong to resist, burned their own villages to prevent invaders from occupying the fortifications and fled into the woods or to neighboring communities. Houses and food supplies thus might be lost temporarily, but unless the invaders achieved complete surprise, the lives and much of the spiritual power of the people remained intact. In general, when Iroquois were at a disadvantage, they preferred flight or an insincerely negotiated truce to the costly last stands that earned glory for European warriors.16 That kind of glory and the militant way of life it reflected were not Iroquois ideals; people of the Five Nations prized peace far more than war. Yet Iroquois ideals, like those of most peoples in history, did not always conform to reality. War remained "a necessary exercise," a too-frequent exigency that was an integral part of individual and social mourning practices. These vital functions suggest that the ideal of peace could prevail only if mourning practices were reformed and Condolence found in other ways than through raids to seize captives. And that, as Hiawatha learned, was the point of the Peacemaker's message. With its stress on consolation for bereaved people, the Good News of Peace and Power addressed the same cultural needs served by armed conflict and promised to make violence unnecessary. {

38 The Great League of Peace and Power }

According to the Deganawidah Epic, as the Peacemaker and Hiawatha tried to spread their gospel to the people of the Five Nations, they encountered many obstacles. None was more formidable than the resistance offered by the principal chief of the Onondaga village, a dangerous sorcerer named Tadadaho. A fierce killer and inveterate enemy of all humankind, Tadadaho was so filled with rage that he had become insane; his twisted mind manifested itself in his hair, which was a writhing mass of snakes. Together with disciples from the Mohawks, Oneidas, Cayugas, and Senecas, the Peacemaker and Hiawatha (whose name means "he who combs") smoothed the tangle of Tadadaho's hair, cured his bodily deformities by rubbing them with wampum beads, and calmed his mind with the Words of Condolence. Warfare and killing had warped the hearts, minds, and bodies of both Hiawatha and Tadadaho—the first as a victim, the second as an aggressor. The Peacemaker's words and gifts set both aright.17 Cured and reformed, the two joined with the Peacemaker's followers throughout Iroquoia to establish the Great League of Peace and Power. In recognition of the Onondaga leader's prominent role, he and his people would thenceforth act as "firekeepers," or hosts and moderators, for a Grand Council of fifty Sachems from the clans of the major villages of the Five Nations. These League Sachems were divided into two moieties—the elder composed of the Mohawks, Onondagas, and Senecas and the younger of the Oneidas and Cayugas—that exchanged the ceremonial gifts and the Words of Condolence the Peacemaker prescribed. At the town of Onondaga "they hold every year a general assembly," explained Jesuit missionary Francois Le Mercier, who in 1668 produced one of the earliest European accounts of the Grand Council. "There all the Deputies from the different Nations are present, to make their complaints and receive the necessary satisfaction in mutual gifts,—by means of which they maintain a good understanding with one another."18 The most important League rites occurred when one of the fifty Sachems died. In an extension of the duties one clan owed another in village funeral rituals, members of the "clear-minded" moiety in the Grand Council recited the Deganawidah Epic, spoke the Words of Condolence to the mourning side, and requickened the deceased Sachem in the person of a kinsman chosen by the matrons of the dead leader's lineage. So were kept alive the fifty Sachems, the memories of the Peacemaker, Hiawatha, Tadadaho, and the other founders, the message of the Good News of Peace and Power, and, metaphorically, the League itself. Through these means, the Condolence rituals, ceremonial gifts, and Requickening rites symbolically addressed the { The Great League of Peace and Power 39 }

same demographic, social, and psychological needs served by the mourningwar, restoring the deficit of spiritual power caused by death. In short, the Good News of Peace and Power sought to replace the mourning-war with what might be termed the mourning-peace.19 Making and preserving peace, then, was the purpose of the League, and accordingly the Grand Council apparently did not undertake the kinds of political functions of decision making and diplomacy characteristic of stateorganized governments. In the early seventeenth century, the League possessed few statelike characteristics: the Five Nations had little in the way of common foreign policy, no effective means of devising unified strategies, and no central government in the sense that term is usually understood by EuroAmericans. Indeed, on various issues the ten or so autonomous towns of Iroquoia were as often at odds with one another as they were in consensus. The League was not designed to remedy the deficit—nor, apparently, did Iroquois people even perceive that there was any kind of deficit. The Grand Council operated on an entirely different plane: largely religious rather than political, its role was to preserve the Great Peace through ceremonial Words of Condolence and exchanges of ritual gifts. "Their Policy in this is very wise, and has nothing Barbarous in it," Le Mercier concluded, "since their preservation depends upon their union, and since it is hardly possible that among peoples where license reigns with all impunity . . . there should not happen some event capable of causing a rupture, and disuniting their minds."20 Beneath the missionary's ethnocentric language lie some penetrating insights about the nature of the League and its Grand Council. The Sachems' job was to prevent a "disuniting [of] their minds." In a nutshell that was what the Great Peace was all about, for to Indians of seventeenth-century eastern North America, peace was primarily a matter of the mind. As one student of eastern Indian legal cultures explains, " 'peace'... did not imply a negotiated agreement backed by the sanctions of international law and mutual selfinterest. It was a matter of 'good thoughts' between two nations, a feeling as much as a reality." In a noncoercive society, "where license ... [reigned] with all impunity," words and good thoughts were tremendously important, for only if everyone shared in the climate of good will could peace be preserved. Condolence rites eased grief and calmed troubled minds. The resulting emotional climate was "peace," not only for individuals but also for the lineage, clan, and village to which they belonged and for the outsiders against whom they might otherwise make war.21 A League Sachem, a man entrusted with preserving the Great Peace, had to be of a special sort. The chiefly virtues most prized in Iroquois folklore are { 40 The Great League of Peace and Power }

those associated with harmony and consensus: imperturbability, patience, good will, selflessness. "The thickness of their skin shall be seven spans— which is to say that they shall be proof against anger, offensive actions and criticism," the Peacemaker decreed of the League Sachems. "Neither anger nor fury shall find lodgement in their minds and all their actions shall be marked by calm deliberation." A character of such restraint—even passivity—is almost by definition unsuited to the kind of strong and decisive leadership that state-organized societies expect, for, should a League Sachem exercise such command and thus necessarily provoke political opposition, he would cease to be a man of peace. "And when it shall come to pass that the chiefs cannot agree," the Peacemaker prophesied, "then the people's heads will roll."22 Much the same principles and ceremonies of peace that sustained amicable relations among the Five Nations applied when leaders of Iroquois villages or nations dealt with peoples outside the League. Indeed, treaty making was essentially an extension of the Great Peace to a broader stage. The Condolence rituals, words of peace, and exchanges of gifts mandated by the Good News of Peace and Power provided the basic paradigm for diplomatic relations with outsiders. In treaty councils between villages and nations, ceremonial repetitions of oral traditions about the history of ties between the peoples paralleled the recitation of the Deganawidah Epic at League councils. Similarly, participants referred to each other in kinship terms analogous to the moiety divisions of the League Condolence Ritual; equals called each other "brothers," and those in relationships traditionally characterized by more deference used "father" and "son" or "uncle" and "nephew," in accordance with the respectively greater degrees of obligation those kinship connections entailed. Participants seldom spoke with complete frankness if they disagreed with each other; peace and unity of mind ideally prevailed. Throughout the process of external diplomacy the nature and status of peaceful relationships and good thoughts themselves, rather than the mundane business details of what seventeenth-century Europeans called international relations, counted most.23 The diplomacy of peace proceeded according to strict rules of protocol. Contacts between two peoples began with a formal invitation to a council. Released war captives might be sent home bearing the call, or an Iroquois leader might take it upon himself to deliver the message personally and explore the attitudes of the other party. If the invitation was accepted, those who issued it determined the agenda and the site for negotiations. The location might be anywhere but, especially when more than two villages { The Great League of Peace and Power 41 }

were involved, was often a traditional council fire at Onondaga or some other prominent town. The hosts met the visitors outside the village where the council was to take place and conducted an At the Wood's Edge ceremony designed to calm minds troubled from the perils of a long journey. With great fanfare, the ambassadors were then escorted into the village, treated to a feast, and made comfortable in their lodgings.24 After a night or two of rest for the travelers, the council began, with the parties sitting on opposite sides of the fire. Condolence rituals and recitations of traditional histories preceded substantive negotiations, in which a speaker for the party that called the council delivered several distinct propositions, each accompanied by a gift. An orator from the other side repeated each proposition after hearing it, to fix the message in the minds of all and ensure that it was fully understood. Although the participants might acknowledge speeches with polite affirmations or shouts of acclamation, formal answers usually waited until a later council session, after leaders had a chance to confer among themselves and with their followers; indeed, a hasty response indicated a lack of sincerity. In theory, only after the visitors had repeated and answered each original proposition with speeches and gifts could they introduce new business of their own. When the dialogues were complete, a final ceremonial feast in which all parties ate from a single pot reaffirmed the climate of peace.25 The peaceful thoughts and actions that were the goal of external diplomacy and that permeated the work of the League Sachems in their Grand Council were also the ideal, though not always the reality, for political life in the autonomous villages that composed the nations of the League. "In former times," adopted Mohawk John Norton reminded his fellow Iroquois in the early nineteenth century, "village Chiefs attended to the internal peace and welfare of the Nation and whenever animosity might arise between families attempted a reconciliation." As in the village social order, the basic building block of Iroquois local politics was the lineage, and women played a prominent role. One of the matrons in each ohwachira presided over her kin group and with counterparts from other longhouses constituted the female leadership of a clan segment. "In each clan," explained Lafitau, "each individual and distinct matrilineage has one person who acts as representative for it. The women choose them and are often in this position themselves." These women and men, whom the Mohawks called rotiyanehr and Europeans sometimes referred to as "nobles," were the core of town leadership.26 Many, but apparently not all, ohwachiras owned titles of office—those of { 42, The Great League of Peace and Power }

League Sachems and others—which, while they descended in particular lineages, were not bestowed strictly in accordance with heredity. From kinsmen of the appropriate age-grade, the matrons of the ohwachira, perhaps in consultation with other women of the clan, selected one in whom to requicken the name of the previous leader. Tradition holds that if no suitable candidate could be found in the lineage, the title might be lent for a generation to some other lineage or clan. The bestowal of an office was not irrevocable; the women retained the right to replace a leader who failed to meet their expectations.27 In addition to their power to choose male village leaders, women's economic importance and their ownership of food supplies and housing gave them considerable political influence. Women rotiyanehr, missionary Claude Dablon concluded, "are much respected; they hold councils, and the Elders decide no important affair without their advice." Male European observers took little notice of the workings of female clan and village councils, which they were probably not permitted to attend. There appears, however, to have been a form of gender division of political labor corresponding to the economic and social categories that made women dominant within the village and its surrounding fields while men dealt with the outside world. As Lafitau observed: "The women are always the first to deliberate . . . on private or community matters. They hold their councils apart and, as a result of their decisions, advise the chiefs . . ., so that the latter may deliberate on them in their turn."28 The male "elders," whom most Europeans assumed to be the sole locus of power in Iroquois villages, sat in a village council that apparently met almost daily, even when few men were at home, around a fire in the residence of a principal ohwachira. Those eligible to participate were League Sachems, male rotiyanehr, "Pine Tree Chiefs" (those who owed their office to merit rather than to hereditary titles), war leaders, wise old men, and others who spoke for significant numbers of followers within the village. "The number of these senators is not fixed," Lafitau explained. "Each person has the right to enter the Council to vote when he has reached the age of maturity which has (attributed to it) as a prerogative, wisdom and understanding of affairs." Iroquois leaders, eighteenth-century New York Governor Robert Hunter agreed, could not "be confined to any certain number[,] there being no other election or nomination of such but the impression that the experience of their life and behaviour makes on the minds of the generality." Because, despite differences in status and ceremonial roles among their members, councils { The Great League of Peace and Power 43 }

functioned as bodies of equals, because European observers seldom recognized distinctions between various kinds of chiefs, and because the men most visible to Europeans were not necessarily those most venerated by the Iroquois themselves, it is nearly useless for a historian to try to reconstruct the exact status of leaders who appear in the Euro-American record. Henceforth in this book, therefore, the deliberately vague and inclusive term headman will be employed to describe them all.29 Whatever his roles and status, to a large degree, each headman or potential headman built his influence both outside and inside village councils through the mechanisms of kinship obligations, personal persuasion, and reciprocity for gifts and favors bestowed. Even within his own lineage, a headman had to lead primarily by example, by proving to his kin and followers that his ways most benefited them. "Authority and Power," wrote Golden, "is gain'd by and consists wholly in the Opinion the rest of the Nation have of their Wisdom and Integrity." The personal qualities traditionally prized in a headman centered on an ideal of "autonomous responsibility" in the service of kin and village. "If they should once be suspected of Selfishness" Golden noted, "they would grow mean in the Opinion of their Country-men, and would consequently loose their Authority." A headman proved his unselfishness by being a good provider—as hunter, fisher, fighter, or shaman—and through such acts of conspicuous generosity as the hosting of feasts and the bestowal of presents. The latter acts, of course, substantially depended upon the women of the headman's longhouse, who owned all the food and many of the other items that constituted his largess. In return, the leader's acts had to produce appropriate reciprocal rewards in goods or prestige for his ohwachira. Just as in individuals' interactions with the spirit world of otherthan-human persons, in Iroquois politics strength came through reciprocal alliances of powerful forces.30 Within this framework of reciprocity among autonomous forces, one mechanism headmen could not use with much success was coercion. "Bretheren you know that we have no forcing rules or laws amongst us," a lateseventeenth-century Mohawk leader proudly declared to officials at Albany who wielded influence of quite a different sort from his. And the same form of democratic near-anarchy that governed relationships between a given headman and his followers applied to interactions among leaders in village councils. In a nonstate society, neither the village majority nor those who held hereditary office had any power to force a leader who spoke for a substantial following to abide by collective decisions. Issues of war and peace therefore became extraordinarily complex, with at least the potential that { 44 The Great League of Peace and Power }

arrangements painstakingly crafted by one group of village headmen might be undone by another, as each leader sought by his own lights to forge alliances with forces that might bring spiritual and material power to his kin, followers, and community. Each headman and war chief was free, to the extent he could mobilize resources and followers, to pursue his own policies both at home and in dealings with other peoples.31 What kept the universe of political particles generally in orbit around a common nucleus was a shared belief in the ideal of consensus and in the spiritual power that comes from alliance with others. Indeed, the same qualities that allowed a headman to build an independent following fostered a search for consensus with other leaders that could broaden his circle of alliances; at a deep level, Iroquois political values were essentially noncompetitive. Within a village, the real work of consensus building often took place, not at the council fire itself, but "in the bushes" before and during the proceedings, as leaders strove to focus, articulate, and reconcile the views of their followers and cement alliances with one another. In the formal council, the headmen apparently deliberated within a framework of ceremonial roles assigned to their kin groups, but each had ample opportunity to express the views of his followers. Tradition holds that among the Senecas, Cayugas, and Onondagas the clans were divided into two moieties that addressed each other alternately much as did the parties in a diplomatic treaty council. Among the Mohawks and Oneidas, who had only three clans, a similar moiety division apparently prevailed in practice. One clan served as firekeeper and presented issues for discussion in turn by the other two.32 Proceedings at any political level were long, wordy affairs that to Europeans seemed interminable and often inconclusive. The Iroquois "have ... a piece of Civility peculiar to themselves," observed Hennepin. "A man would be accounted very impertinent, if he contradicted any thing that is said in their Council, and if he does not approve even the greatest Absurdities therein propos'd; and therefore they always answer, Niaoua; that is to say, Thou art in the right, Brother; that is well." This politeness was not just "Civility"; it was essential in a society where the coercive exercise of authority was virtually unknown. Through the application of high standards of respect and dignity for each other's positions, the headmen—whose council encompassed spokesmen for each village lineage, most men who possessed any personal following, and the collective wisdom of the village's older residents—could reach, in their patient way, decisions to which the entire community would willingly assent.33 Of course, consensus did not always prevail. Clans or lineages frequently { The Great League of Peace and Power 45 }

lined up on opposite sides of various issues, constituting more or less permanent political factions. In such cases the amiable insistence that, no matter what one said, it was "m the right" allowed councils to avert arguments between the factions and, if possible, to bring dissenters gently around to the viewpoint of the majority; more often, however, the result seems to have been political paralysis. When inaction would not do and decisions could not be postponed, the losing faction might in extreme cases leave the village to settle elsewhere rather than perpetuate a disruption of community peace. More often, dissidents retired silently from the political fray, ready to assume leadership should their viewpoint be proven right. "I must do them the justice of saying that their quarrels are rare," commented Lafitau. "When they do occur, they come to an end shortly, [being settled] either by reason, to which they yield as soon as it is made clear to them, or through deference to the persons who intervene to settle them; or, they even prefer to yield their rights willingly rather than to be obstinate at the wrong time."34 The talents necessary to preserve peace in the consensual politics of the council defined the standards by which women judged those they chose as their headmen and by which men earned leadership roles in their own right. Generosity, responsibility, imperturbability, and an ability to compromise were all necessary characteristics. So too, in a system dependent upon voluntary compliance, was skillful oratory. "The People of the Five Nations are much given to Speech-making, ever the natural Consequence of a perfect Republican Government," wrote Golden. "Where no single Person has a Power to compel, the Arts of Persuasion alone must prevail." Not every headman, of course, was a great public speaker. Moreover, there was an inherent conflict between the serene character of a man of peace and the powers of persuasion needed to convert others to one's cause. "Political expediency obliges them to talk little and listen to others' opinions rather than express their own," Lafitau concluded. A headman therefore often kept "at hand a man who is a kind of incendiary, as it were, and who, being without concern for his person, dares to say quite freely all that he thinks a propos, as he has agreed with the chief for whom he speaks before entering the council session."35 These spokesmen, rather than the often silent headmen for whom they acted, were the figures Europeans frequently singled out as the principal "chiefs." Yet despite the misperception, there was some truth to that assumption. As Lafitau observed, "When the orators have wit and savoir faire they gain a great deal of credit and authority" among their people. This was especially true of the talented and highly trained orators whose specialty was { 46 The Great League of Peace and Power }

P L A T E 5 . A Victorious War Party. Detail of French copy of Iroquois (probably Seneca) pictograph, circa 1666. Archives Nationales, Paris. The Small Snipe and the Hawk (names of Cayuga clans) carry weapons to denote their participation in an expedition. Their enemies are sketched upside-down to indicate that they are dead and are shown headless because they have been scalped.

young men to bring them prisoners to assuage their grief; and, if more than one village participated in the campaign, leaders agreed in advance on the share of captives that each town would receive. Later, pictographs enshrined on trees and sheets of bark the number and fate of the prisoners seized. As Iroquois warriors saw it, to forget the importance of captive taking or to ignore the rituals associated with it was to invite defeat. These considerations set native warfare strikingly apart from the Euro-American military experience. "We are not like you CHRISTIANS for when you have taken Prisoners of one another you send them home, by such means you can never rout one another," one early eighteenth-century Onondaga explained.14 The same factors that made captives so central to warfare produced strong sanctions against the loss of Iroquois lives in battle. A war party that, by European standards, seemed on the brink of triumph could be expected to { The Great League of Peace and Power 37 }

P L A T E 6 . A Belt and Strings of Wampum. From [Claude Charles Le Roy] Bacqueville de La Potherie, Histoire de PAmerique septentrionale . . . (Paris, 1722). Courtesy of the Robert Dechert Collection, Department of Special Collections, Van Pelt/Dietrich Library Center, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia

pum] beads and the collars," a French missionary to the Oneidas reported. "When it is intended to send an embassy to other nations, the families first meet, each in private, and collect all the porcelain beads that they can give." In addition to these family stores, each village had a "public treasury" of valuables that could be drawn upon to demonstrate the support of the entire town. Words of peace and gifts of peace, then, were inseparable; together they demonstrated and symbolized the shared climate of good thoughts upon which good relations and powerful alliances depended.38 What Europeans called diplomacy and what they called trade therefore tended, at least on one level, to be identical for people of the Five Nations. Indeed much, if not most, of the Five Nations' traditional foreign commerce seems to have taken the form of ceremonial exchanges of gifts between individuals and groups. Highly prized commodities acquired in this way included such rare gifts of the spirit world as shells from the Atlantic coast and copper from the Great Lakes. Trade, in this context, was a function of diplomacy. Although commerce was not limited to headmen or to ceremonial occasions, interchanges with particular representatives of other peoples seem to have been considered a virtual monopoly of the man who personally established or maintained peaceful relations with them. Most presents delivered during treaty councils belonged to the lineages of these headmen, who could then raise their status by distributing coveted items in the community. Apparently, for example, when early to mid-seventeenth{ 48 The Great League of Peace and Power }

century leaders received belts and strings of wampum, they usually broke them up for redistribution to their followers.39 E X C H A N G E S OF gifts in diplomacy and politics thus repeated the themes of reciprocity that applied throughout the Iroquois social order. Conversely, the lack of reciprocity that implied hostility might make villages and nations candidates for mourning-war raids. Both themes bring the paradox of Iroquois war and peace into closer focus: the exchanges of words and gifts that defined the Great Peace and the seizure of captives that characterized Iroquois warfare fit the same cultural niche. The mourning-peace and the mourning-war coexisted in an uneasy and potentially explosive mixture. When Europeans arrived on the scene, they introduced two sparks that would ignite the brew. The first was a host of highly desirable items that a few native neighbors acquired sooner than did the Five Nations: some of the exotic goods seemed to be substances bearing spiritual power; others simply made life easier; still others made warfare much more deadly. The second was an army of microbes; these would kill Iroquois people in almost unimaginable numbers. Both the failure to exchange valued items and the death of loved ones were traditional imperatives for war. As a result, the Peacemaker's values yielded to the grim realities of violence with which the seventeenthcentury Five Nations became identified.

{ The Great League of Peace and Power 49 }

C H A P T E R

T H R E E

The Great League for War and Survival

D I R E C T AND I N D I R E C T contact with European explorers, traders, and colonists transformed Iroquois relationships with their Indian neighbors. At the same time, traditional patterns of warfare experienced a profound mutation. Initially, the changes occurred in small increments that heightened regional hostilities and elaborated upon the familiar ways of the mourningwar. By the 16405, however, rivalries over trade with a rapidly expanding European population and catastrophic mortality from the diseases the newcomers brought produced conflicts of unprecedented scale. For the next two decades the Five Nations lashed out at an ever-widening circle of foes in conflicts that combined economic and demographic motives. As the violence { 50 }

spiraled in what historians have labeled the Beaver Wars, the Great League of Peace might better have been described as a Great League for War. THE T R A N S F O R M A T I O N S were already under way in the first decade of the seventeenth century, when, almost simultaneously from three directions and three competing homelands, Europeans took up positions around the margins of Iroquoia. In 1603 Samuel de Champlain commanded the first of several voyages that Pierre de Gua, sieur de Monts, sent to lands the French crown had granted him on the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the St. Lawrence River. By 1608 he had established what would prove to be a permanent French post at Quebec, on the site of a former St. Lawrence Iroquoian town called Stadacona. The same year, a party led by John Smith sailed from the recently established Jamestown colony to the head of Chesapeake Bay. There the English met a group of Susquehannocks who complained cryptically about "the Massawomekes their mortall enimies," by which they may have meant one or another of the Five Nations. A year later, Henry Hudson, sailing under the flag of the Netherlands, led his crew up the Hudson River to the site of present-day Albany, where he traded with the Mahican and River Indian neighbors of the Five Nations. A few months earlier in 1609, Champlain and a handful of French musketeers accompanied an army of Algonquins and Montagnais to somewhere near Ticonderoga, north of present-day Albany, to do battle with his native allies' enemies, the Mohawks. That hostile encounter was perhaps the first time an Iroquois had laid eyes on a European, but it certainly would not be the last. By the early 162.05, French, English, and Dutch colonists were firmly established in the St. Lawrence, Chesapeake-Susquehanna, and Hudson River corridors respectively, and they had been joined by new outposts of the Dutch on the Delaware and the English on Cape Cod.1 In a vast arc surrounding the eastern half of Iroquoia, Europeans were gaining command of the waters flowing away from the Five Nations, but in each locale, at least one native group lay between the Iroquois and the colonizers. From a perspective looking outward from Iroquoia rather than inward from Europe, therefore, the dramatic early seventeenth-century increase in European activity in northeastern North America represents, not the beginning of a new stage of face-to-face cultural contact, but rather the culmination of a long period of indirect influences stretching back more than a century. The European presence in the Northeast, after all, began, not in 1603 or 1609, hut, probably, in the 14805, when fishers from Bristol located the rich schools of cod swimming the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. Those { The Great League for War and Survival 51 }

misty initial forays were succeeded by the better-documented voyages of John Cabot to Newfoundland and elsewhere in 1497 and 1498, of Giovanni de Verrazano to the mid-Atlantic and New England coasts in 1524, of Jacques Carder to the St. Lawrence and its Iroquoian villages between 1534 and 1543, and of many others to points on the eastern seaboard. In the process, the newcomers discovered the profits to be gained in trading iron tools, glass beads, and other exotica to natives in exchange for beaver and other species of furs.2 Inevitably, the Indian diplomatic culture of exchange brought to Iroquoia some of the goods the Europeans traded with coastal peoples or lost in shipwrecks. Archaeological data demonstrate that small quantities of imported items reached the Five Nations at least by the middle of the sixteenth century. The new materials were similar to those traditionally exchanged by native leaders and strongly resembled the spiritually powerful substances Iroquois had long prized: glass beads joined traditional wampum and other seashells, and pieces of brass and wrought iron accompanied familiar chunks of native copper as raw material for amulets and jewelry. That the Iroquois valued such items primarily for their spiritual, rather than utilitarian, significance is indicated by two forms of evidence. First, the earliest glass beads apparently reached the Five Nations in ones, two, or small handfuls rather than as wearable necklaces, as, with only a few exceptions, did fragments of brass and iron instead of whole kettles or axheads. Second, sixteenth-century Iroquois must have deemed these materials valuable and spiritually significant enough to send them into the next world with the dead. At a pair of latesixteenth-century Seneca archaeological sites, for example, roughly 2,0 percent of the graves studied included brass items, more than 6 percent iron, and as many as 12. percent glass. Most of these things were interred along with marine shells originating on the coast of the Carolinas, suggesting that European goods most likely came to Iroquoia through the ChesapeakeSusquehanna watershed.3 That route, like other possible avenues for the sixteenth-century indirect trade in European goods, put the Five Nations at a considerable disadvantage with respect to their native neighbors. If, from one perspective, geography made Iroquoia the heart of northeastern North America because rivers flowed away from it in all directions, from another standpoint, the same factors placed it at the end of the line. Because Europeans had stationed themselves near the mouths of the streams whose headwaters lay in the country of the Five Nations, the Iroquois were almost certain to receive considerably fewer of the prized exotic commodities than neighbors placed {

5 2. The Great League for War and Survival

}

closer to emerging colonial centers. In the early seventeenth century, as the pace of European activities in the region quickened, that disparity—or, as Iroquois probably understood it, lack of reciprocity—provided an important backdrop for the Five Nations' already often violent relations with their native neighbors. Although the undocumented details are irrevocably lost, before 1600 three significant developments had already transformed Iroquois interactions with nearby peoples. First, sometime after 1550, the large and powerful St. Lawrence Iroquoian towns that Cartier had visited, along with the closely related Jefferson County Iroquoians, disappeared. Theories about their demise are legion, but it seems likely that they succumbed to a combination of possible European diseases brought by Carrier's crew, famine produced by cold temperatures that reduced growing seasons late in the century, and attacks by their Huron and Five Nations enemies. Whatever the case, the power vacuum they left in the St. Lawrence Valley was quickly filled by the Algonquins, Montagnais, and Hurons. All of these nations were at war with at least some of the Five Nations by the first decade of the seventeenth century; the conflicts greatly intensified, if they did not begin, with the population movements along the St. Lawrence.4 Second, during roughly the same period, the Susquehannocks left their traditional homes near the Oneida, Onondaga, and Cayuga countries for new locations well to the south. Most apparently settled first in two sequentially occupied towns along the South Branch of the Potomac River in present-day West Virginia. Early in the last quarter of the sixteenth century they relocated to a site in what is now Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, where they displaced or absorbed a lower Susquehanna River valley society known to archaeologists as the Shenk's Ferry people. In part the Susquehannocks were probably fleeing their Iroquois enemies, but the new homes they chose suggest that their principal motive was to gain easier access to the European goods entering North America through the Chesapeake corridor.5 Perhaps related to the first two developments was a third revealed by archaeological evidence: at the turn of the seventeenth century, Iroquois access to sacred marine shell nearly ceased. Wampum and other forms of shell beads, for instance, which were earlier present in nearly 2.0 percent of all Seneca interments, dropped to less than 2. percent.6 For whatever reasons and by whatever means, then, during the period when Europeans were beginning to move aggressively into northeastern North America, the Five Nations were being cut off from sources of materials they highly prized by hostile foes who stood between them and two of the { The Great League for War and Survival 53 }

main foci of European activity. Only on the Hudson, where the Mohawks and Mahicans maintained amicable relations as Dutch traders set up shop in the i6ios, did access to European goods remain open. Even there, however, it depended on the willingness of Mahicans to allow Mohawks to pass through their country (and the willingness of Mohawks to extend the same courtesy to members of the four more westerly nations of the League). As the pace of trade between the newcomers and the Iroquois' enemies quickened, not only did the potential for hostility between the Five Nations and the native neighbors who stood between them and the emerging markets increase, but the kind of warfare waged among Indian peoples began to change in significant ways that further revealed the Five Nations' geo-economic disadvantages. An early casualty of the new military realities was the traditional ritualized confrontation between large armies wearing wooden armor. One of the last of these battles was the Algonquin and Montagnais foray against the Mohawks that Champlain and his soldiers joined in 1609. Both sides hastily erected fortifications, from which they hurled taunts at each other through the night. At daybreak, as some two hundred armored Mohawks filed from their fort, Champlain's native allies parted ranks so that he could move to the fore. "I marched on," wrote the Frenchman, "until I was within some thirty yards of the enemy, who as soon as they caught sight of me halted and gazed at me and I at them. When I saw them make a move to draw their bows upon us, I took aim with my arquebus [an early matchlock musket] and shot straight at one of the three chiefs, and with this shot two fell to the ground and one of .their companions was wounded who died thereof a little later." As the Mohawks took flight, Champlain and his allies "killed several and took ten or twelve prisoners." By mourning-war standards it was a glorious Algonquin and Montagnais victory.7 Although Champlain's lucky shot introduced Mohawks to the dangers and value of firearms, its importance should not be overestimated. By the time his musketeers aided their Indian allies in another victory a year later, Mohawks had learned to "throw themselves upon the ground when they heard the report" of match igniting powder. Initially more important than firearms in modifying the style of Iroquois fighting were other new weapons that native foes began to use against the Five Nations. As flint arrowheads gave way to more efficient iron and brass points that could pierce wooden armor, the chances that warriors would die in combat increased greatly. Massed confrontations became suicidal folly, and Indian repugnance for battle fatalities led quickly to the abandonment of such tactics in favor of small-scale raids and ambushes. In that sort of fighting, armor was useless {

54 The Great League for War and Survival }

and cumbersome. Iroquois warriors would now gird themselves only with war paint. Wooden armor was relegated to use in friendly combat games waged between young men.8 The introduction of metal weapons was a severe threat to peoples like the Five Nations who had no secure direct source of European goods. Most Iroquois still had to use projectiles like the one "tipped with a very sharp bit of stone" that wounded Champlain in the 1610 campaign against them. Meanwhile, what few iron axes Mohawks possessed, the Frenchman reported, were those "which they sometimes win in war." As a result, the looting of metal hatchets (and of such items as brass pots, which could be turned into arrowheads) gradually seems to have become a major determinant of the timing and location of Iroquois campaigns. By the i6ios, when warriors of the Five Nations responded to the demands of their female kin for a mourning-war raid, they were likely to choose a target that would yield valuable booty. It is no accident, therefore, that most of the recorded early seventeenth-century fighting between Mohawks and their northern neighbors occurred in the uninhabited region surrounding the junction of the Richelieu and St. Lawrence rivers. There Iroquois warriors, who could easily travel from the Mohawk country to the Richelieu by way of Lakes George and Champlain, lay in wait for Algonquian and Huron traders who were bringing home goods purchased from the French at Quebec. In the same region, northern peoples almost annually massed forces for retaliatory raids against members of the Five Nations.9 In the late i6ios the battles occurred less frequently, though they did not cease altogether. The likelihood that French musketeers would fight alongside their enemies was only a minor factor; the Mohawks eased their assaults on Indians leaving the Quebec markets primarily because newly arrived Dutch traders on the upper Hudson were a more plentiful source of European goods. Access to that source was hardly secure, however. In 1623 and 162.4, Dutch officials at Fort Orange (present-day Albany) began to court trade with the Mahicans' Algonquin allies, who had access to furs of higher quality than those available south of the Great Lakes. Mohawks could well have found themselves entirely cut off from commerce with Europeans if their Algonquin foes, their sometime Mahican friends, and their now uncertain Dutch trading partners became allied against them. To forestall this fate, Mohawk headmen secured a truce with the French and Algonquins on their northern flank so that their warriors could devote their full attention to opening a route to Fort Orange. By 162.8 four years of fighting achieved that goal when the Mohawks' "former friends and neighbors," the Mahicans, { The Great League for War and Survival 5 5 }

abandoned all their lands on the west side of the Hudson River and concentrated their villages to the north and east of Fort Orange. Thereafter, the Mohawks—militarily "stronger than" the Dutch—defended their trade route by forbidding the Algonquian peoples to their north and west to bring their "many furs . . . through their territory" to Fort Orange.10 The conduct of the Mohawk-Mahican war not only demonstrates that economic motives were becoming paramount in native warfare but illustrates some ways in which Iroquois politics was evolving to meet new diplomatic and military challenges. Traditionally, war had been the business of women and young men. Most raids were organized on the level of extended families, and forces larger than any single set of kinship ties could muster were raised through the personal or collective influence of respected military leaders. Strictly speaking, then, warfare lay outside the realm of the ceremonial and political institutions that united people across kinship lines in Iroquois villages; the Grand Council of the League and the village meetings of headmen were places of peace, not war. The diplomatic and military sides of the Mohawk-Mahican conflict seem to have grown separately out of these two distinct spheres. Mohawk headmen, operating independently of the Grand Council or leaders from any of the other four nations, exercised their customary peace functions in negotiating truces with the French and Algonquins, but they could enforce the arrangement only so long as the Mohawk war chiefs, and presumably the women for whom they spoke, agreed to channel all of their martial energies on Mahican foes.11 The independence of Mohawk warriors from their headmen became clear in 162.8, when Fort Orange leader Daniel van Krieckenbeeck and three other Dutch colonists who accompanied a Mahican expedition against the Mohawks were killed. Iroquois warriors "well roasted" one of the Dutch, and then "carried a leg and an arm home to be divided among their families, as a sign that they had conquered their enemies." If the headmen had been able to control their young men, the prisoners surely would have been spared and exchanged. To say the least, war with the traders of Fort Orange ran counter to Mohawk diplomatic purposes. But when Dutchman Peter Barentsen visited the Mohawk country a few days later, all that the headmen could do was to offer Condolence rituals and try to reestablish a peaceful climate of thoughts. They could give no guarantee against similar incidents in the future, as Mohawk relations with Algonquins would soon demonstrate.12 In the fall of 1628, almost immediately after the defeat of the Mahicans, Mohawk warriors attacked some Algonquins, killed a man, and took a few women and children prisoner. All this occurred despite the peace in the {

56 The Great League for War and Survival }

North that headmen had so carefully arranged and continued to try to preserve. Although leaders saved the lives of the captives and sent them back to their homes in an attempt to reestablish peace, by the early 16308 Mohawks again were sporadically blockading the St. Lawrence and pillaging Algonquin traders. Fighters from the other four Iroquois nations soon joined them and began conducting their own expeditions that mixed economic and mourning-war motives. However novel this Iroquois piracy might have been in intent, the raids conformed to familiar patterns of mourning-wars and intertribal diplomacy. Warriors attacked spasmodically and took captives and scalps as well as furs, and headmen negotiated sporadically with the Algonquins, Hurons, and French and occasionally produced a brief truce. In all these activities fighters and headmen of each nation—indeed, each village—acted independently of one another.13 Economic motives were unquestionably important in the campaigns. Thanks to the Dutch of Fort Orange and to the Mohawk defeat of the Mahicans, the Iroquois had no shortage of vital trade goods, but they did face a scarcity of furs to barter for them. Scholars have argued endlessly whether and when the beaver became extinct in Iroquoia, but the whole debate is somewhat beside the point. Because the most marketable pelts came from cold regions far to the north of Iroquoia, by the 16405 the Five Nations simply could not obtain enough beavers of the right kind on their own lands.14 They could get them in only three ways: by acting as intermediaries in trade between northern Indian hunters and the Europeans, by encroaching on the hunting territories of other nations, or by stealing furs from natives who had trapped them in colder climes. There is virtually no evidence that, before about 1670, peoples of the Five Nations systematically pursued an intermediary's role; "the Iroquois," observed French colonist Pierre Boucher, "never go to trade with the other Indian nations, because they are detested by all." Nor before the final quarter of the century was there any concerted effort to occupy and exploit the hunting territories of nations the Five Nations defeated. Instead, most of the evidence points to the third alternative. Beginning in the late i6zos, Iroquois raids on the St. Lawrence focused primarily on traffic moving downriver with furs rather than on canoes paddling upriver with French wares. Many if not most of the pelts that Iroquois sold at Fort Orange were probably hijacked in these expeditions.15 But the Iroquois' seventeenth-century wars with their native neighbors cannot be explained solely or even primarily in terms of piracy and the economics of the fur trade. Shortly after economic motives began to play a { The Great League for War and Survival 57 }

large role in Iroquois wars with their neighbors, the traditional demographic and sociological functions of the mourning-war also assumed vastly increased significance. Like native Americans throughout the hemisphere, Iroquois were "virgin soil" for the major endemic viral diseases of Europe— smallpox, measles, influenza, and others. Compounding the impact were secondary respiratory infections that, particularly in the case of measles, were usually the actual cause of death. When such diseases struck Indian communities, the results were catastrophic. Infection rates were probably almost 100 percent, and the mortality figures incomprehensibly great. The best scholarly estimates are that, in any given area, initial epidemics typically reduced native numbers by half or more and that populations did not stabilize until successive waves of disease had reduced them by a factor of 90-95 percent. Thus Dutch colonizer Adriaen van der Donck was not exaggerating when he reported in the 16508 that "the Indians [of the Hudson Valley] . . . affirm, that before the arrival of the Christians, and before the small pox broke out amongst them, they were ten times as numerous as they now are." It seems likely, however, that Europeans microbes reached Iroquoia relatively late; initially the Five Nations were apparently spared as an ironic benefit of their difficulties in establishing easy direct contact with the French, Dutch, or English.16 In the i6zos and 16308 the isolation that had kept viruses from Iroquoia broke down, and only partly because the Mohawk-Mahican war opened the route to Albany. The three rival European nation-states competing to exploit the potentialities of North America each chartered well-financed and wellorganized new trading companies in this period: the Dutch West India Company (162.1), the Company of New France (the Hundred Associates, 16x7), and the Massachusetts Bay Company (1629). Under their sponsorship, substantial new trading centers and settlements grew on the eastern and northern fringes of Iroquoia at New Amsterdam on Manhattan Island (founded in 162,6), Rensselaerswyck surrounding Fort Orange (1630), TroisRivieres (1634) and Montreal (1642) in the contested territory along the St. Lawrence, and Springfield (1636) on the Connecticut River. To these and other locations, European colonists—including for the first time substantial numbers of the children prone to carry viruses to which most surviving European adults had developed immunity during their own youthful illnesses—arrived by the thousands to join the few traders who had previously inhabited New Netherland, New France, and New England.17 Where children went, so did microbes. The first documented epidemics in Iroquoia were massive smallpox outbreaks among the Mohawks and proba{

58 The Great League for War and Survival }

bly other nations in 1633 and the Senecas and perhaps additional Iroquois in 1640—1641. By the early 16408 these plagues had more than halved the population of the Five Nations, to approximately ten thousand; Mohawk population alone may have plunged by as much as 75 percent.18 Disease would continue to levy a grim toll throughout the next few decades. A partial list of the epidemics includes "a general malady" among the Mohawks in 1647; "a great mortality" among the Onondagas in 1656-1657; a smallpox outbreak among the Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas in 1661— 1663; "a kind of contagion" among the Senecas in 1668; "a fever of ... malignant character" among the Mohawks in 1673; and "a general Influenza" among the Senecas in 1676. The death toll was appalling: an estimated one thousand died in the 1661—1663 epidemic alone, and in those years one Frenchman believed that "at least two-thirds" of Onondaga children were doomed to "die before they have the use of reason."19 The devastation struck not just children but all ages with brutal force. Modern studies of virgin soil epidemics demonstrate that the most severe reactions and the highest mortality rates directly attributable to viral infection occur among those in the prime of life. As any present-day adult who has belatedly caught mumps, chicken pox, or measles knows, the violent reactions of their own immune systems make those between fifteen and forty years old suffer the most. By contrast, when given appropriate care, children above the age of one are likely to recover fairly quickly with no lasting effects. So, for reasons that remain obscure, are adults over forty. But in seventeenthcentury Iroquoia, no one received appropriate care. Communal curing rituals in crowded longhouses were likely only to disseminate viruses further, and the Indian use of sweating, purging, and fasting as universal treatments were precisely the worst remedy for a disease like smallpox, which is best treated by keeping the victim dry and well nourished.20 Yet the problem was not simply or even primarily inappropriate treatment. When virtually everyone was sick, and the able-bodied adults more so than the rest, the everyday work of raising crops, gathering wild plants, fetching water and firewood, hunting meat, and harvesting fish must have almost ceased. As a result, old and young victims who might have survived probably received little fresh food and next to no nursing care; opportunistic secondary infections therefore killed them just as surely as the principal viruses slew others. With no one able to help anyone else adequately, death attacked equally the generations representing the present, the past, and the future: the young adults who did most of the community's work, the elderly who provided political leadership and were repositories of native tradition, and { The Great League for War and Survival 59 }

the children, who represented hopes that those traditions would survive. Further tending to undermine those traditions was the powerlessness with which the surviving shamans and headmen faced the crisis.21 Initially, Iroquois probably interpreted the causes of their epidemiological disaster in traditional ways: diseases were either the result of souls denied the wishes expressed in dreams or the work of malefic wielders of spiritual power. In either case, long-standing enemy peoples may have been considered the culprits, as villains who denied souls access to highly valued European goods or as direct agents of death. No documentary evidence supports such a casting of blame, however, nor need there have been any, for the mourning-war pattern contained within it all the motives necessary for a dramatic outburst of violence against the neighbors of the Iroquois—and reciprocally by those neighbors against the Five Nations. The thousands of deaths from disease led women to demand continual mourning-wars and inspired young men to seize ever more captives to requicken the dead.22 The explosive new mixture first appeared in 1634, the year after the initial documented smallpox epidemic in Iroquoia, when first Senecas and later Oneidas, Onondagas, and Cayugas intensified attacks on their old enemies, the Iroquoian nations of the Huron Confederacy. The mourning-war nature of the campaigns i$ indicated by a major battle between Hurons and Senecas that year, in which the Senecas captured more than one hundred prisoners. As with the simultaneous raids by Mohawks and other Iroquois on the St. Lawrence, however, the timing, location, and scale of the conflicts with the Hurons seem largely determined by economics. Senecas, who as the westernmost of the Five Nations were farthest removed from a European market, had particularly strong motives to raid their neighbors for imported booty and northern furs. They no doubt obtained metal items in their battles with the French-connected Hurons, and, while their relations with their other Iroquoian neighbors in the 16305 are virtually undocumented, they may also have plundered trade goods from the Susquehannocks and Wenros with whom they struggled.23 By the 16408, wars that mixed demographic and economic motives had achieved an apparently unprecedented scale, duration, and persistence. A turning point came in 1642., when Senecas and probably warriors from other western Iroquois nations attacked a geographically exposed village of the Arendaronon nation of the Huron Confederacy. Rather than simply take a few captives and seize some plunder, the Iroquois "spared neither sex, not even the children, and destroyed all by fire, except a score of persons" who escaped to carry the news to other Hurons. Evidently the goal was to secure { 60 The Great League for War and Survival }

in one major strike a large supply of furs, trade goods, and captives. From 1643 to x ^47 t n e western Iroquois and the Hurons engaged in annual battles that cost each side dearly in lives. Meanwhile, the eastern nations of the Mohawks and Oneidas were abandoning their former practice of sporadic raids on the St. Lawrence in favor of annual, systematically organized, summer-long blockades. "So far as I can divine," wrote Jesuit priest Isaac Jogues, who was captured in one of those blockades, "it is the design of the Iroquois to capture all the Hurons, if it is possible; to put the chiefs and a great part of the nation to death, and with the rest to form one nation and one country." The sequel confirmed his analysis.24 The new strategies were quite productive, as an ambush that occurred near Montreal in June 1643 illustrates. When a flotilla of Hurons drifted past, forty Mohawks sprang from behind trees to "fall upon them, frighten them with their Arquebuses, put them to flight, and take twenty-three of them prisoners, with their canoes and the peltry." As some forty remaining Hurons scurried to reach the nearby French fortifications, the Iroquois divided into three parties. One remained behind to guard the prisoners. The second, pursuing those who fled, discharged a hail of shots at the Montreal palisade in order to pin the French inside. The third attacked some French carpenters working outside the fort. Next morning, the warriors executed thirteen of their Huron prisoners and gathered up "robes of Beaver without number"— so many that they could not carry them all. Then, "triumphant with joy, and laden with rich spoils," they led their captives across the river as the helpless French looked on.25 During 1648 and 1649, such scenes on the St. Lawrence temporarily ceased, as warriors from all five nations united their forces in a systematic campaign to pick off villages of the Huron Confederacy. By 1647 the Arendaronon nation of Hurons had already abandoned its remaining towns and sought refuge elsewhere. Then, in 1648, a combined Iroquois force led by Mohawks and Senecas attacked two villages of the Attigneenongnahac nation. From the approximately four hundred families who lived in these two locales, perhaps seven hundred people were captured or killed; the rest fled to other Huron towns. A year later, a thousand Iroquois warriors stormed the Attigneenongnahac town that Jesuit missionaries called Saint-Ignace, the Ataronchronon community known as Saint-Louis, and the fortified Jesuit mission station of Sainte-Marie. The invaders lost perhaps a third of their forces, but they killed hundreds of Hurons, took an unknown number captive, and, most important, so demoralized the rest that virtually all fled Huronia. "In consequence of the losses incurred," wrote missionary Paul { The Great League for War and Survival 61 }

Ragueneau, "fifteen villages have been abandoned, the people of each scattering where they could,—in the woods and forests, on the lakes and rivers, and among the Islands most unknown to the enemy. Others have taken refuge in the neighboring Nations."26 For most of the next decade, Iroquois warriors pursued the Huron refugees relentlessly and overran in turn each of the Iroquoian peoples that sheltered bands of them. The Petuns were dispersed by 1650, the Neutrals by 1651, and the Eries by 165 7. The conquest of each followed the pattern set in Huronia: Iroquois justified their wars in the name of long-standing feuds and in traditional mourning-war terms; then they ruthlessly attacked successive villages, forcing those they captured to carry plundered furs and trade goods to Iroquoia. Those who eluded attack sought refuge and military allies among neighboring peoples. Many of the Iroquoian-speaking survivors eventually coalesced to form the Great Lakes nation known as Wyandots.27 The wars in the West and on the St. Lawrence (the latter resumed after the Huron dispersal) soon merged into a single conflict that pitted the Five Nations against virtually every Indian people in the Northeast. One series of raids during 1661—1662, for example, struck Abenakis of New England, Algonquians of the Subarctic, Siouans of the Upper Mississippi, and various Indians near Virginia, as well as enemies closer to home. Meantime, grand alliances of warriors from dispersed nations attempted to strike back. In 1651, some one thousand Hurons, Nipissings, Ottawas, Petuns, Ojibwas, and Susquehannocks reportedly plotted an expedition against the Five Nations.28 The campaigns took on an additionally deadly character when combatants began to use firearms. Mohawks were among the earliest native peoples of their region to acquire significant numbers of guns; according to Jogues, by 1643 they possessed "nearly three hundred arquebuses." A year later an official Dutch report alleged that traders had sold "fire-arms to the Mohawks for full 400 men, with powder and lead."29 Initially, these weapons probably gave Mohawks few practical advantages over their enemies. At best, as in the ambush of the Hurons on the St. Lawrence in 1643, Iroquois warriors could "frighten them." But later in the 16405, as Mohawk musketeers gained experience and western Iroquois also amassed arsenals, warriors of the Five Nations developed skills the European manufacturers of guns could barely have imagined. In the small-scale raids and ambushes that characterized early seventeenth-century native warfare, Indians learned far sooner than Europeans how to aim cumbersome muskets accurately at individual targets. Those targets not only suffered much more devastating injuries when struck, { 62. The Great League for War and Survival }

M A P 3 . The Mid-Seventeenth-Century Wars

but, more significantly, could not dodge a musket ball in the way they could an arrow fired on a long, arcing path. Temporarily, plentiful supplies and dexterous use of firearms gave Iroquois a considerable advantage over their Indian enemies and once again made large armies a part of their strategy. This was especially true in battles with less well armed Hurons and poorly armed Neutrals, Petuns, and Eries.30 Almost inevitably, the colony of New France fell ever more deeply into the Indian conflicts because of its trading ties to enemies of the Five Nations. In the early 16405 Mohawks killed or took prisoner several French traveling with the natives they attacked, most notably Jogues in 1642 and his fellow Jesuit Francois-Joseph Bressani in 1644. In 1649, the invaders of Huronia tortured and killed Fathers Gabriel Lalemant and Jean de Brebeuf. Yet the small, internally divided, unstable combination of a Jesuit New Jerusalem and a fur trader's paradise that was New France under the Company of the Hundred Associates posed only a slight military threat to the Five Nations, and at times the colonists believed that their very existence was imperiled. "If we do not go to humiliate these barbarians," concluded Marie de L'lncarnation in 1660, "they will destroy the country and drive us all away by their warlike and carnivorous nature."31 L'Incarnation and her compatriots overestimated the danger, and her colony suffered more from the dispersal of its Huron trading partners than from direct Iroquois attacks. Only 153 French lost their lives in conflict with the Five Nations between 1608 and 1666. The toll was no higher primarily because the Iroquois had more important foes and no motive to obliterate the French; as a magnet to attract the Indian trappers Iroquois warriors plundered, the St. Lawrence outposts were useful indeed. The extent to which the Five Nations held the upper hand in their relations with New France is illustrated by a truce that prevailed from 1653 to 1658. "It is the Iroquois that have made peace. Or, rather, let us say it is God," exclaimed a French missionary well aware of how little capacity his people had to shape events. "This stroke is so sudden, this change so unexpected, these tendencies in Barbarian minds so surprising, that it must be admitted, a genius more exalted than that of men guided this work." Inexplicably to French colonists convinced of their own superiority, war and peace proceeded largely on Iroquois terms, and the colonists huddled at Quebec, Montreal, and TroisRivieres could do little about it. It is only a slight exaggeration to conclude that the French were merely pesky interlopers in a quarrel among Indians— and interlopers whom fighters from the Five Nations could chastise or spare virtually at will.32 { 64 The Great League for War and Survival }

The main targets in the midcentury campaigns were native peoples who could satisfy an insatiable demand for captives to replace the mounting numbers of dead in the Five Nations. Although the quest for furs was vital, only an overriding, even desperate, demand for prisoners can explain much of Iroquois behavior. The archetypal Beaver War, the Five Nations—Huron conflict, proves the rule. During the early 16505, after Huronia had been overrun, Iroquois war parties killed or took captive every starving (and usually peltryless) band of refugees they could find. One target was provided by several hundred Hurons who had been converted to Christianity by Jesuit priests stationed in their country during the 16405 and who had settled under French protection at Lorette, near Quebec, in 1651. They continually heard the threats, entreaties, and promises of Iroquois ambassadors and warriors who hoped to make them join captive relatives in one or another of the Five Nations. In the process, Mohawks, Senecas, and Onondagas shed each other's blood in arguments over the human spoils—clear evidence that, while warriors from the Five Nations usually pursued much the same goals and frequently acted in concert, they were not under the control of any centralized government.33 The number of prisoners taken during the Five Nations' wars with their other Iroquoian neighbors—Neutrals, Petuns, Fries, Susquehannocks— shows that in those conflicts too captive taking blended with and often overwhelmed economic motives. Like the Hurons, each of these nations shared with the Iroquois mixed horticultural and hunting and fishing economies, related languages, and similar beliefs, making their people ideal candidates for adoption. But they could not satisfy the spiraling Iroquois demand for furs and captives; war parties had to range ever farther in their quest. In 1658, after the final defeat of the Fries, missionary Simon Le Moyne reported that "our poor Algonquins . . . are to-day running the risk of total destruction, unless God interpose. For the Iroquois is playing his last stake, having left his country in order to go and exterminate them." Algonquins were not the only ones in danger. Indians and French alike came to assume that if a war party from the Five Nations failed to attack, it must already have its "store of prisoners and booty."34 The fruits of the midcentury campaigns are recorded in the French missionary publications known as the Jesuit Relations, the pages of which are filled with descriptions of Iroquois torture and execution of captives and accounts of enormous numbers of adoptions. The Five Nations absorbed so many prisoners that in 1657 missionary Paul Le Jeune believed that "more Foreigners than natives of the country" resided in Iroquoia. By the mid-i66os { The Great League for War and Survival 65 }

several observers estimated that two-thirds or more of the people in some Iroquois villages were adoptees. Each newcomer was vitally important. Even with the huge influxes of captives, Iroquois populations barely remained at their initial postepidemic level of about ten thousand people.35 Nearly two centuries later, an ethnologist recorded an Onondaga traditional history of the Beaver Wars. His informant explained that before the establishment of the Great League of Peace, the Five Nations had been not only at war among themselves, but had been driven by other enemies. After it, they carried their wars out of their own country, and began to bring home prisoners. Their plan was to select for adoption from the prisoners, and captives, and fragments of tribes whom they conquered. These captives were equally divided among each of the tribes, were adopted and incorporated with them, and served to make good their losses. They used the term, WE-HAIT-WAT-SHA, in relation to these captives. This term means a body cut into parts and scattered around. In this manner, they figuratively scattered their prisoners, and sunk and destroyed their nationality, and built up their own.36 Efforts to assimilate that "body cut into parts and scattered around" began with the captivity experience itself. At the moment a prospective adoptee was seized, he or she began a grueling trial crucial to the exchange of a former group identity for an Iroquois one. When the captors had safely eluded pursuit, they stripped a male prisoner of his clothes and moccasins and thus of the outward signs of his former life. Then they gave him a few blows with cudgels, pulled out several of his fingernails, and perhaps cut off a finger or two; among other things, the last two acts prevented him from wielding a weapon and marked him thereafter as a captive. Before he could recover from these assaults, the warriors burdened him with plunder and began the trip to Iroquoia. If the prisoner tried to escape or was unable to carry the burden placed on his back, his captors would, as one European wrote, "give him a Blow on the Head with their Ax, and there leave him after they have pulled off all the Skin with the Hair of his Head." To those who survived the first day's journey, night brought little rest: naked to the chills of winter snow or the torments of summer mosquitoes, prisoners lay fitfully with their legs secured by stakes placed in the ground. The next day the journey resumed, and, if the entourage met another Iroquois war party or a friendly band of travelers, captives could expect further abuse. As New Yorker Wentworth Greenhalgh reported of his encounter with a victorious war party in the Seneca country in 1677, "When the souldiers saw us they stopped each his { 66 The Great League for War and Survival }

P L A T E 7 . Iroquois Warriors Returning with a Captive. French copy of Iroquois (probably Seneca) pictograph, circa 1666. Archives Nationales, Paris

prisoner and made him sing, and cutt off their fingers, and slasht their bodys with a knife."37 Most women and children escaped the worst physical torments of the trek to Iroquoia. So did a few adolescent males. In the early 16508, for example, the young Frenchman Pierre Esprit Radisson had an easy time of it when a warrior protected him and he did what he was told. Still, the journey was only slightly more pleasant for these captives than for adult men. Women and children witnessed the torments of their male kin and might be forced to watch as their loved ones' scalps were turned into trophies. And they, like men, faced death if they tried to escape or impeded the group's progress. Even captives who were initially well treated could not be certain of their fate. All prisoners lived in constant fear of death.38 Torments en route to Iroquoia were only the beginning. When the war party reached its hometown, villagers holding clubs, sticks, and other weapons stood in two rows outside the palisade entrance to meet the victors and to make the prisoners endure the gantlet, an experience that occurred at far too agonizing a pace to be described as "running." Warriors might slowly lead prisoners by a rope between the lines of men, women, and children, or they might use the technique described by Jogues: "The Hiroquois . . . placed themselves between us and the [captives taken from the] Hurons, in order to moderate our pace, for the sake of giving time to any one who struck us." { The Great League for War and Survival 67 }

Although captive women and children were usually spared the gantlet, they did have to observe their kinsmen's humiliation, and some, like the pampered Radisson, might be snatched from the line only in time to evade the first blow.39 Inside the village, further afflictions awaited nearly every prisoner, male or female, young or old. When a group of Algonquin captives arrived at a Mohawk village in 1647, for example, "there had been set up two great scaffolds,—one for the men, and the other for the women, who were all exposed, naked, to the derision of small and great." While to a woman the scaffold often brought only "derision," to a man it bequeathed additional suffering, as older women led the community in tearing out fingernails and assaulting sensitive body parts with sticks, knives, and firebrands. After several hours, prisoners were allowed to rest and eat; later they had to dance for their captors. Such treatment might recur for several days, interspersed with humiliating nights when village children tormented bound victims. Throughout, the overriding agony was the long wait for village headmen and clan matrons to determine whether the captives should live or die.40 A positive decision brought radical change, as the abuse of previous days yielded to a shower of affection from adoptive relatives. A prisoner "who is brought in is sometimes ill-treated," explained an Iroquois headman. "But, when he is told that his life is spared, he forgets The past; he recovers his Spirits, which were at his feet, and his face becomes calm." The dramatic break began with arrival in the adopting household, where new kinswomen immediately conducted a Requickening ceremony to integrate the adoptee into their lineage. When the rituals ended, the women lavished their attention on the beneficiary, bathing and dressing wounds, providing garments of Iroquois style, and combing their new relative's hair in imitation of Hiawatha and Sky Woman's mother. Missionary Joseph Poncet, who was captured by Mohawks in 1653, found it all quite distasteful. The women dressed an amputated finger with "I know not what roots or barks, previously boiled, which they wrapped in a linen rag that was greasier than a kitchencloth," and presented him with fresh moccasins, half a trade blanket, and "an old and very greasy shirt," which was probably someone's prize possession. The priest had to admit, however, that he was shown "much savage kindness"; moreover, the poultice healed his hand.41 Radisson, who escaped and then was retaken with the full treatment of gantlet and torture, described the adoption experience in a more positive, if less grammatical, fashion. "Now I see myselfe free from death. Their care att this was to give me meate. I have not eaten a bitt all that day, and for the great { 68 The Great League for War and Survival }

joy I had conceaved, caused me to have a good stomach, so that I did eat lustily. Then my [adoptive] mother begins to cure my sores and wounds.... The meanwhile my father goes to seek rootes, and my sister chaws them, and my mother applyes them to my sores as a plaster." In "lesse than a fortnight," the "sores were healed, saving my feete, that kept [me] more than a whole month in my Cabban. During this time my [finger] nailes grewed a pace. I remained onely lame of my midle finger."42 As their injuries healed, captives embarked on a period of probation—it might end months or years later or never—during which new relatives and fellow villagers judged whether they had truly become Iroquois. If an adoptee made every effort to assimilate, life could be good indeed, and nothing available to any other family member would be withheld. If he or she failed the test, however, existence could be unpleasant and even short; a recalcitrant captive could expect a quick and unceremonious death. When an Iroquois "has split the head of his slave with a hatchet," observed Le Jeune, "they say: 'It is a dead dog; there is nothing to be done but to cast it upon the dunghill.'" Like Le Jeune, many seventeenth-century Euro-Americans referred to the captives as "slaves," a word they used generally to describe all prisoners of war, whether perpetual servants or not. Like all villagers, adoptees performed labor from which others reciprocally profited. And, like slaves throughout human history, adoptees had experienced the "social death" that ended their former lives and left their continued existence utterly dependent on the will of their captors. It seems unlikely, however, that servitude in the sense familiar elsewhere in colonial North America existed in the relatively egalitarian economies of the Five Nations. More plausibly, "slaves" were adoptees who were not measuring up and whose relatives assigned them the most menial tasks as punishments and as inducements to imitate their captors' ways in the future. "Those whose Lives they spare, live amongst them, and serve them as Servants and Slaves," explained priest-explorer Louis Hennepin, "but in process of time they recover their Liberty, and are held in the same Esteem as if they were of their own Nation."43 The entire process, from capture to the probationary period of "slavery" that followed adoption, forcefully ushered captives into their new lives. Apparently neither the Iroquois nor their prisoners considered the procedure inordinately cruel or excessively painful. From the victims' perspective, torture was at once a reminder of the captors' dominance, a test of perseverance (reflected in songs and in taunts hurled at torturers), and an altered state of consciousness similar to a vision quest or a dream that provided contact with sources of spiritual power and paved the way for a new life. For Iroquois, { The Great League for War and Survival 69 }

meanwhile, the process should be seen less as an exercise in ingenious varieties of cruelty than as a ritual humiliation of enemies and a controlled release of mourners' emotions. Preliminary tortures, brutal as they were, carefully averted serious injury. Heavy blows to the body inflicted pain and produced an occasional broken bone but seldom were fatal. Bloodier assaults focused on such extremities as hands and feet, where, though permanent scars and deformities might result, death almost never would. For both captives and captors, these trials reduced prisoners to depths of humiliation that broke ties to former lives and then smothered them with a kindness meant to create lasting emotional bonds to new relatives. Thereafter it was up to the beneficiaries to prove that they deserved to live as Iroquois.44 Not all passed the final test, nor did all thoroughly absorb Iroquois values, yet an astonishing number became substantially integrated into the villages of the Five Nations. These were "no prisoners but Free and given over to them that receive them as there Children," a Mohawk leader explained of some Christian New England Algonquian adoptees. It would be "very hard to deliver them back againe" to their former people, he continued, "being it is Soe hard from [sic] any man to part from Flesh and blud." Some such adult children became utterly devoted to their new relatives. One man was so loyal that he escaped from Canadian captivity in order to warn his captors of a rumored French plot. Several others served as Iroquois war chiefs; if they could inspire young men to follow them, they must have been almost wholly assimilated. Still others earned enough trust to act as emissaries to the French. And at least one captive Huron who in his former life had been a headman became an Onondaga leader. Though it is always dangerous to attempt to probe the minds of people who left no record of their own thoughts, there can be little doubt that such thorough assimilations were facilitated by cultural predispositions of the adoptees. All of the native American peoples against whom the Iroquois made war in the seventeenth century—especially the Hurons, Susquehannocks, and other Iroquoians— adopted captives. Prisoners therefore must have known what was expected of them when they were seized, and they presumably acted accordingly.45 Documentary sources provide few hints about precisely how adopted captives interpreted their situation, yet the Baron de Lahontan asserted that "as soon as they are put in Chains, their Relations and the whole Nation to which they retain, look upon 'em as dead." That seems to have been the case in 1648, when the Onondaga war chief Annenraes fell into Huron captivity and then escaped. Upon meeting an Onondaga army that was preparing to { 70 The Great League for War and Survival }

assault the Huron country, Annenraes, "who was looked upon as a man risen from the dead, so bore himself that the three hundred Onnontaeronnons [Onondagas] gave up their plans of war, and entertained thoughts of peace." Another indication that all assumed a captive's former life had ended may be seen in the attitude of a female prisoner the Montagnais gave to the French to requicken three slain colonists in 1636. She at first appeared "very sad, . . . but she was greatly cheered afterward when they told her that the French were very honorable, and that they would do her no harm." Soon the woman announced "that she was now of their [French] Nation; that she did not fear they would do her any harm; that, if she were commanded to marry, she would obey."46 Yet despite their cultural preparation for adoption, many captives resisted full assimilation, and few seem to have fully identified with their captors. When three adopted Hurons had an opportunity to escape from the Mohawks, only one remained behind. "I love my mother too well," he explained; "she has saved my life, and I cannot leave her." For the other two, gratitude presumably did not extend so far. The same could be said for two adoptees who had replaced the sisters of an elderly Onondaga man. After his wife died, "those Slaves were not grateful for the kindness that he had shown them; they stinted his supply of Fuel and provisions. This caused him vexation, that was all the keener because he remembered that He never, during his wife's lifetime, lacked anything." Ultimately the man committed suicide. Other recalcitrant prisoners might bide their time for years, awaiting an opportunity to flee. When Radisson tried in vain to escape from the Mohawks, he was persuaded to do so by an Algonquin adoptee who had long led a life of apparent assimilation. Nevertheless, on a hunting expedition, the two men killed their Mohawk companions and then ran off.47 A few months later Radisson fled again, this time successfully. His case demonstrates the importance of cultural predispositions to the efficacy of Iroquois adoption. Nothing in the experience of French captives prepared them for what they faced: they were unfamiliar with the rules of the mourning-war; they usually could not endure gracefully the pain inflicted upon them; and, especially because a large number were priests or lay missionaries, they showed virtually no willingness to accept Iroquois ways. In short, they were poor candidates for adoption. Accordingly, among the 143 known French taken by the Iroquois before 1667, although many came to understand Iroquois culture well, there is not a single documented case of one who voluntarily remained permanently with the Five Nations: 75 escaped or were { The Great League for War and Survival 71 }

exchanged, and 38 apparently died (approximately 14 during execution rituals). The fate of the remaining 30 is unknown, but the most careful student of the question argues that the majority perished.48 Unlike French people, Indian adoptees knew the rules. Most neither displayed extreme loyalty nor itched to flee; instead, they settled into a life of external conformity and made the best of their lot. They had no choice, for their lives depended upon it. Prospects for escape were slim, and indeed many captives simply had no homes left to which to escape; the massive destruction of Huron, Erie, Petun, and Neutral villages ensured that. "I have been seeking you," a Huron reportedly told the members of a Mohawk war party in 1650. "I am going to my country, to seek out my relatives and friends. The country of the Hurons is no longer where it was,—you have transported it into your own: it is there that I was going, to join my relatives and compatriots, who are now but one people with yourselves."49 Captives became one people with the Iroquois by acting like Iroquois; their new relatives apparently judged them primarily on the basis of external behavior rather than attempting to plumb the depths of their hearts. For some adoptees, especially potentially dangerous adult warriors, the behavioral test might entail such a dramatic act as participation in a raid against one's former people. For women and children, however, the requirements were more mundane: doing one's share of the work, fulfilling one's kinship obligations, marrying one's new relatives' choice of a spouse. Usually that was enough, for such everyday actions gave reality to the ceremony of Requickening and earned the trust of adoptive kin. A newcomer could secure a permanent place in the family by adequately performing the duties of the person she replaced.50 Similarly, outside the family, adoptees won acceptance through appropriate behavior. In this regard Iroquois culture and social organization were ideally suited to incorporate newcomers. Because ceremonies and reciprocal ritual obligations largely defined the Great League of Peace and the society and politics of the villages it encompassed, behavior—not language or blood—principally defined what it meant to be a member of the Five Nations. The model of the League conditioned Iroquois to accept peoples of varying speech, appearance, and belief in a ritual context that united all. By the same token, within a village, people of different clans were bound together by acts of reciprocity and in particular by the mourning ceremonies in which the clans of one moiety condoled those of the other. "Though many of you be descended from the various tribes between the Atlantic and the { 72, The Great League for War and Survival }

Missisipi[,] the Lakes which wash our shores and the Inlandian Sea," an early nineteenth-century orator who was himself an adopted Iroquois reminded his people, "yet remember that it has pleased God that through the customs of our Ancestors all have become and are denominated five Nations."51 Indeed, many of the customs of his seventeenth-century predecessors were probably imported from elsewhere; it seems likely that much of what scholars know as Iroquois culture was a creation of the melting pot that bubbled during the Beaver Wars. The importance of disease in inspiring those wars, for instance, gives weight to the speculations of several scholars that a variety of healing rituals—including the False Face ceremonials that remain important to Iroquois traditionalists in the twentieth century—were brought to the Five Nations by their captives. The case can probably never be conclusively proved, but at least one early eighteenth-century French chronicler was convinced that nearly all of the Iroquois' ritual responses to illness were learned from their adoptees. "The Iroquois have become the slaves of their slaves touching religion," he concluded, "because they have taken the superstitions of other nations, without distinguishing among them."52 Whether or not they became "slaves of their slaves," despite all their cultural advantages, the native population understandably had increasing difficulty in absorbing the newcomers as the Beaver Wars continued and as adoptees became a majority. Huron captives in particular maintained a separate identity within Iroquois communities for decades. In the 16505 and i66os, visiting Jesuit missionaries were welcomed to Iroquoia by throngs of Hurons who had preserved themselves as distinct groups in their new homes. At the main Onondaga village, captives were so far from being fully integrated that priests had to organize three separate congregations for Hurons, Neutrals, and Iroquois. And in the Seneca country, one town was inhabited primarily by Hurons who voluntarily settled there to escape Iroquois attack.53 Other evidence too suggests the incomplete assimilation of many captives. Midcentury Five Nations archaeological sites, for instance, yield substantial amounts of ceramics made from local materials but in non-Iroquois styles, suggesting that adopted women refused to abandon familiar ways of making pots.54 Nor were the origins of an adoptee likely ever to be forgotten. Even after years of peaceful life together, Iroquois might still turn on a captive who flouted their expectations. To avoid such a fate, Radisson's adoptive mother, who was herself a captive Huron, catered to her native Mohawk husband's every whim, "notwithstanding [she was] well beloved of her husband, having { The Great League for War and Survival 73 }

lived together more then fourty years, and in that space brought him 9 children." As the influx of newcomers taxed Iroquois assimilation capacities, it also strained bonds of trust between old and new relatives.55 THE S T R A I N S and social costs were widespread, for the midcentury Beaver Wars and their hordes of captives were the product of a devastating cycle begun early in the century: Iroquois economic disadvantages sparked conflicts with their native neighbors; epidemics inspired deadlier mourningwars fought with firearms; the need for guns increased the demand for pelts to trade for them; the quest for furs produced expanded raids. At each stage, fresh economic and demographic motives fed the spiral, and councils of headmen, having lost many of their most respected elders to disease, could do little to keep the peace. The ferocity of this cycle of warfare led some nineteenth-century Anglo-American historians to call the Iroquois "the Romans of this Western World," all-conquering superhumans whose exploits echoed through the ages.56 Yet the campaigns were less imperialistic victories than desperate struggles to acquire enough peltries for the trade in European goods and sufficient captives to replace huge population losses. They were less a triumphant series of conquests than a precarious holding on. As the spiral of death, mourning, war, and more death accelerated and as the quest for captives and furs grew ever more desperate, additional problems loomed: by the mid-i66os the Five Nations were in danger of losing both their advantage in weapons and their access to European trade goods.

{ 74 The Great League for War and Survival }

C H A P T E R

F O U R

The Economic Lifeline to the Dutch

FOR F I F T Y Y E A R S , the Iroquois' principal source of European tools, cloth, and weapons was Dutch New Netherland; the progress of their relationship with the Hudson River colony was a key to the Five Nations' midcentury fate. Emblematic of both the value they placed on the trade and their priorities in thinking about their colonial neighbors was the name Mohawks used for the Dutch: Kristoni, which translates as "I am a metal maker." Asseroni, their term for Europeans in general, similarly means "axmaker."1 Both words are symbolic in an additional sense as well, for they were coined from Iroquoian rather than imported roots. In ways that went far beyond language, the peoples of the Longhouse incorporated the new { 75 }

commerce into patterns familiar to them. Initially, therefore, many of the domestic changes wrought by the trade occurred not only comfortably but with no ill effects that a reasonably observant person could have perceived. Indeed, for the Iroquois, as for Europeans of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, contact with a new world across the Atlantic brought great economic and cultural enrichment. Had it not been for the horrors of epidemics and the ravages of increasingly dysfunctional warfare, the Age of Discovery might have been a golden epoch for the Five Nations. But precisely because trade with the Hudson was so beneficial within the framework of their culture, the Iroquois became perilously dependent on their Dutch trading partners. After midcentury those partners became unreliable, and by the mid-i66os the relationship almost entirely collapsed, with painful consequences for the Five Nations. L I K E O T H E R horticultural native peoples, the Iroquois did not experience a dramatic upheaval in their ways of life when direct trade with Europeans began. While archaeological evidence indicates that the beavers whose pelts the newcomers most coveted had not been a major traditional resource for the Five Nations, the new search for them apparently simply took over an early winter hunting season that had long led most men far away from home. Even after warfare became the primary means of acquiring the rodents' furs, hunters would "go in large parties, and remain out from one to two months," after which each could expect to return "with from forty to eighty beaver skins, and with some otter, fishers and other skins also." Over the late winter and early spring, pelts, whether acquired in this way or pillaged from enemies, were scraped and processed by women, perhaps with the help of their male kin. Men would then carry the finished products to the Hudson during the Dutch colony's officially sanctioned May-to-November trading period, the season when diplomatic journeys and their associated gift exchanges traditionally occurred. The whole process thus required little change in the traditional seasonal round, the sexual division of labor, or the work of subsistence, particularly because beavers supplied meat and clothing as well as salable furs. In fact, pelts increased in value if Indians donned them as garments, for wear and tear and grease and sweat softened the hide while removing the long prickly hairs that otherwise marred the soft nap European hatmakers prized.2 If the hunting and sale of furs produced no great immediate social and economic revolution, neither did the acquisition and use of the European goods the pelts purchased. From all appearances, the novel things were { 76 The Economic Lifeline to the Dutch }

P L A T E 8 . Beaver-Hunting Techniques. Prom [Louis Armand de Lorn d'Arce], Baron [de] Lahontan, New Voyages to North-America ... (London, 1703). Courtesy of the Library Company of Philadelphia

P L A T E 9 . Brass and Shell Necklace. Circa 1570. Permission of the Collection of the Rochester Museum and Science Center, Rochester, N.Y. Native craftspeople transformed kettles and other metal goods into raw materials that they adapted to their own purposes, such as this Seneca piece, with its tubular brass beads and two pendants.

eagerly adopted as new and improved versions of familiar commodities. Indeed, before the second decade of the seventeenth century, trade goods were more often treated as raw materials for native crafts than as completed products; many items were apparently already reworked by Indian craftspeople before they arrived in the Five Nations. Pieces of brass pots were reprocessed with native cold metal—working skills into a variety of cutting implements, arrowheads, tubular beads, earrings, finger rings, armbands, and pendants, most of which resembled traditional prototypes. The brass bangles on fishing lures could be turned into jewelry, iron axheads could be reworked into countless new forms, and broken or worn-out knives could be reshaped into awls or needles. At least one late-sixteenth-century Seneca even tried unsuccessfully to cut a large glass bead into a new shape. Such uses of trade goods for purposes their European makers could not have imagined demonstrate far more the persistence of old modes of material life than the creation of new ones in the early years of indirect trade with Europeans.3 From the i6ios on, as a semiregular Dutch presence on the upper Hudson made European goods vastly more plentiful, the reworking of European imports continued, but more items now arrived intact and were used for purposes resembling the intentions of their makers. Still, the phenomenon of material evolution rather than revolution persisted. Iroquois incorporated cloth and metal products—which, despite more controversial traffic in firearms and alcohol, were always the key vendibles in intercultural commerce—into familiar slots as replacements for the fruits of native technologies and as elaborations upon ancient forms. Brass kettles served the same functions as ceramic pots, iron axes replaced stone celts, woolen blankets occupied the niche of animal skins. Over the course of a generation, the new versions gradually edged aside their predecessors, and by midcentury the traditional articles had virtually disappeared. Although the innovations were always in some way superior to the older model—lighter, sharper, more durable—they could be adopted without any fundamental shift in the use of such things in cultural context.4 One example is the way in which the Iroquois and their native neighbors employed imported clothing. "Shirts are in Europe worn next to the skin, under the other garments," a bemused French missionary wrote in the late 16505. By contrast, Indians "wear them usually over their dress, to shield it from snow and rain, which are very readily shed by linen when it is greasy, as their shirts are." Among Europeans "the end of a shirt protruding from under the coat is an indecorous thing; but not so in [the] Canadas," he continued. Indians might wear "worsted stockings and a cloak, but without any { The Economic Lifeline to the Dutch 79 }

P L A T E i o. Native Uses of Imported Clothing. From Joseph-Francois Lafitau, Moeurs des sauvages ameriquains . . . (Paris, 1724). Courtesy of the Library Company of Philadelphia. By the middle of the seventeenth century, European goods had replaced many traditional items of clothing, but were used in distinctly non-European ways.

breeches; while before and behind are seen two large shirt-flaps hanging down below the cloak." Natives, he explained, "regard our breeches as an encumbrance, although they sometimes wear them as a bit of finery, or in fun." Thus linen shirts replaced robes made of animal skins, and their tails became breechclouts. Accordingly, an early seventeenth-century Dutch traveler noted that Mohawks used the same word for both "shirt" and "coat," presumably because they considered each to be an outer garment.5 Iroquois peoples used not just imported clothing but nearly all European tools and materials in ways rooted firmly in their own culture. The result of trade, therefore, was more an efflorescence of traditional motifs than an invasion of foreign ones. Iron tools, for instance, allowed a great elaboration in detail in the carving of decorative hair combs, items prized not just for their beauty but for their associations with episodes in the Cosmogonic Myth and the Deganawidah Epic. Before the widespread availability of iron implements, combs carved from antler had from three to five thick teeth and were { 80 The Economic Lifeline to the Dutch }

decorated more often with geometric figures than animal or human effigies, which, when they were present, tended to be abstract and undetailed. Seventeenth-century combs, by contrast, have as many as twenty-five thin teeth and regularly feature intricately carved zoo- or anthropomorphic designs, some apparently intended to commemorate a specific event. A similar artistic revitalization characterized the making of pipes, effigy figures, ladles, and other items molded from clay or carved from stone, wood, bone, and antler. New technologies allowed far more elaborate designs than had been possible with native tools, and new materials permitted innovations within familiar forms, such as the use of glass beads for eyes in representations of human and other-than-human persons.6 A significant example of the ways in which trade goods enhanced traditional cultural themes is the funeral rituals that the seventeenth-century epidemics made so important. Burial customs during the Owasco period preceding the formation of the League have not been extensively studied, but, apparently, material items were seldom interred with the deceased. Beginning in the sixteenth century, however, grave goods became increasingly common, for reasons that are unclear but temptingly assignable to the new mourning rituals sanctioned by the Great Peace. By the late 15008, more than half of all Seneca graves contained artifacts, and the practice soon became nearly universal. Seventeenth-century women were most often interred with a pot of food and perhaps a few tools, ornamental items, and other personal possessions; men, with a wide array of tools, weapons, pipes, and pouches containing chunks of minerals, beads, effigies, and other spiritually significant items. Goods were not equally distributed among all burials, however, probably as a result of the varying social status of the deceased and the differing material circumstances of the kin groups who conducted mourning rituals for grieving families.7 Most striking was the pattern for young children, who, especially in the period of the most severe midcentury epidemics, were often buried with lavish presents given, presumably, to strengthen these weakest of victims on their difficult journey to the villages of the dead. In testimony to the great sacrifices that kin in one moiety made in covering the grief of parents in the other, the bodies of many very young Senecas were lovingly draped with huge quantities of glass and shell acquired in trade. One six-month-old infant buried in approximately the 16505 rested under belts and necklaces made of some forty-three thousand individual beads.8 Regardless of the age or sex of the deceased, grave goods, like other aspects of Iroquois life, saw an increasing displacement of native by imported items { The Economic Lifeline to the Dutch Si

}

P L A T E i i . A Comparison of Seneca Ornamental Combs. Courtesy of the New York State Museum, Albany. The contrast between a mid-sixteenth-century comb (left) and two late-seventeenth-century examples (right, and facing page) shows the new intricacy and detail that imported iron tools facilitated.

during the first half of the seventeenth century, accompanied by an elaboration of traditional practices. Brass, which in about 1600 had been present in fewer than 2.0 percent of Seneca burials, by the i66os occurred in approximately 60 percent, and iron's frequency increased from fewer than 10 percent to about 50 percent over the same period. Other aspects of funeral rituals, too, show the effects of new tools and materials. Although practices varied, most Iroquois graves in the early and mid-seventeenth century were oval or circular. On a layer of furs, skins, bark, or grass, the body rested in a flexed position, usually with its head oriented to the west; multiple burials in a single pit were common—perhaps as a result of epidemics. Protecting the corpses ?nd their treasures were layers of bark and often fieldstone in addi{ 82 The Economic Lifeline to the Dutch }

tion to topsoil. Above ground level, Mohawk graves in the 16305 were "surrounded with palisades ... split [with iron axes] from trees, and were so neatly made that it was a wonder," a Dutch visitor remarked. The structures "were painted red, white, and black," and those for "the chief's grave had an entrance, above which stood a large wooden bird [no doubt carved with imported tools] surrounded by paintings of dogs, deer, snakes, and other animals."9 In both this world and the next, then, Iroquois used European goods and tools in distinctly Indian ways. But, by the middle of the seventeenth century, native customers did not so much purchase "European goods" as they did "Indian goods" made in Europe or North America to suit the customers' tastes. Staples in every Dutch trader's inventory were two-and-a-half- by nine-and-a-half-foot bolts of the heavy woolen cloth called "duffels," which took the place of the "deerskin leather or elk hide" that Indians of both sexes had traditionally worn "around the body, to cover their nakedness." Every { The Economic Lifeline to the Dutch 83 }

P L A T E i z . An Iroquois Funeral. Detail fromJoseph-Franqois Lafitau, Moeurs des sauvages ameriquains . . . (Paris, 1724). Courtesy of the Library Company of Philadelphia. While a circular pit is dug and lined with skins, the corpse waits, seated in a flexed position, surrounded by material goods that will accompany it to the villages of the dead.

trader quickly learned that not just any piece of cloth would do for this basic piece of attire. Indians insisted on high-quality duffels (or their later English equivalent, known as "strowdwaters" or "strouds") in precise hues of deep blue, dark red, or steel gray. Similarly, trade shirts, hatchets, kettles, and wampum were manufactured to Indian specifications.10 The last item perhaps best illustrates the way in which commodities obtained through trade were incorporated into Iroquois culture in Indian ways. Beads made from the shells of the whelk and the quahog clam—respectively, white and black (actually purple) wampum—were apparently highly prized in Iroquoia before the sixteenth century. The relatively rare early beads came in many sizes and shapes, but most often were discoidal, and these may have been the "wampum" central to the Deganawidah Epic. But true wampum (small tubular beads finely drilled for stringing) was a cross-cultural product of European-Indian contact, for it could be made only with iron tools. Its sixteenth-century inventors probably were natives of the southern New England coast, most likely the Pequots and Narragansetts. Through the traditional networks of native exchange, this early wampum made its way, along with other shell items, to Iroquoia in the sixteenth century, but the full efflorescence of the culture of wampum required two more layers of complex cross-cultural interaction.11 { 84 The Economic Lifeline to the Dutch }

P L A T E 1 3 . An Iroquois Wampum Belt. Courtesy of the New York State Museum, Albany. This "Hiawatha" belt symbolizes the unity provided the Five Nations by the Great Tree of Peace.

In the i6ios Dutch traders made shell beads a major item of commerce on the upper Hudson, building on their nation's familiarity with the value that African natives in the sixteenth century had placed on cowries. To increase the supply, by the early 16405 they introduced standardized techniques to native manufacturers. Thereafter, what one scholar calls a "trade triangle" flourished in the Northeast, in which the Dutch exchanged European goods for shell beads from the Southern New England Algonquians who produced them, in turn traded the wampum for furs with the Iroquois and Mahicans, and finally sent the furs to the Netherlands for new stocks of imports. Adjuncts to the triangle were the direct exchange of furs for beads between the Mohawks and native manufacturers, and the internal trade of the New England colonies, in which wampum circulated as currency. Through this system, the shells the peoples of the Five Nations had long held sacred became available in utterly unprecedented quantities; by the middle of the seventeenth century, there may have been as many as three million pieces of wampum in circulation in Iroquoia. Ironically, then, that quintessentially Iroquois cultural artifact, the elaborate ceremonial wampum belt composed of thousands of beads, could be created only as a result of extensive trade with Europeans and with other natives. Its cross-cultural origins are reflected in the fact that in each of the Five Nations' languages, a term based on the Algonquian word wampumpeag replaced an earlier indigenous name.12 Even trade goods that, at first glance, seemed to have no native precedent were incorporated in ways that grew out of familiar cultural traditions. { The Economic Lifeline to the Dutch 85 }

Alcohol is a primary example. Neither the Iroquois nor their nearby Indian neighbors used intoxicating beverages before the arrival of Europeans, and it appears that few in the Five Nations regularly consumed Dutch wine, brandy, or beer before the 16405. When they did acquire the taste, Iroquois, like other seventeenth-century Indians, drank almost exclusively to get drunk; the European concept of moderate social drinking held little or no attraction. Despite centuries-old Anglo-American stereotypes of Indians who were biologically incapable of holding their liquor, the roots of such behavior almost certainly were cultural. The new drink provided a parallel to traditional ceremonial inducements of trancelike states, quests for visions, and searches for external sources of spiritual power. "To the Iroquois, intoxication originally meant not flight, but search; not escape, but fulfilment," concludes one scholar. "To them it was a positive, spiritual experience."13 Iroquois manifested these culturally determined patterns of drinking in two notable ways. First, men held "brandy feasts," which seem to have been modeled after traditional communal means of seeking contact with the spirit world while expressing good thoughts and hospitality; the best traditional precedent, perhaps, was the passing of a tobacco pipe, which was incorporated into the new feasts. With "no less than a kettleful of brandy upon the floor . . . , [t]hey smoked and chatted, and drank in turn from this agreeable fountain" until every drop was gone, a French missionary observed of one such event. Second, individual Iroquois drank to a real or feigned state of intoxication in order to justify the release of aggressions that, according to the principles of Peace, must usually be suppressed. Natives believed alcohol to be a spiritual force that possessed the drinkers and absolved them of responsibility for their actions. "It is a somewhat common custom amongst them when they have enemies," a Frenchman wrote of the Senecas, "to get drunk and afterwards go and break their heads . . . , so as to be able to say afterward that they committed the wicked act when they were not in their senses." It seems likely that, as pressures mounted from the Beaver Wars, the epidemics of European diseases, and the dependence on trade with the Dutch, more and more Iroquois were tempted to say, with a Cayuga man in the late 166os, "I am going to loose my head; I am going to drink of the water that takes away one's wits."14 By then a generation of Iroquois had grown up with European goods. For them, trade cloth, brass kettles, and iron tools had almost completely replaced animal skins, earthen pots, and stone implements. As the last people passed away who came of age before the Europeans arrived, many native craft skills died with them. Traditional techniques in pottery, woodworking, { 86 The Economic Lifeline to the Dutch }

and stone carving that still survived transferred either to the nonutilitarian realm or to materials dependent on the trade: ceramic pipes, ceremonial masks, gunflints. Few craftspeople now knew how to make the items that European goods had displaced, as artifacts recovered from mid-seventeenthcentury Seneca, Mohawk, and Oneida archaeological sites reveal. Considerably fewer than half of the items are of native manufacture, and flint projectile points, stone tools, and ceramic pots are virtually absent. By the middle of the seventeenth century, the Five Nations literally were dependent for their survival on commerce with the Dutch. That dependence was all the more insidious because it had occurred almost imperceptibly and must have seemed so natural. To live as an "Indian" now—at least in the style to which the Iroquois had become accustomed—trade with Europeans was vital.15 Less clear than the results of trade between the Five Nations and New Netherland are the precise circumstances in which the partnership was struck. If Iroquois oral traditions are any guide, relations with Dutch traders began and initially expanded within a familiar context of diplomatic reciprocity in which "the trade and the peace" were "one thing" and personal ties between local leaders symbolized the relationship. On several occasions at Albany in the late seventeenth century, Euro-Americans recorded native oral traditions of the connection. In 1678, for example, an Onondaga orator recalled that an "ancient Brotherhood" had "subsisted from the first Instance of navigation being in use here (at the Time of a Governor Called Jacques)." A decade later, a spokesman for some Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, and Oneida headmen reiterated that "Ja[c]ques many years ago . . . came with a Ship into their Waters and received them as Bretheren." The Mohawks, Oneidas, and Onondagas "desired him to Establish himself in this Country and the Sinnekes and Cayouges they drew into that General Covenant."16 The "Governor Called Jacques" at first glance appears to be a mystery; there was never a ruler of New Netherland of that name. Jacques has been variously depicted as a member of Hudson's 1609 crew or as Jacques Cartier on his early sixteenth-century visits to the St. Lawrence Iroquoians. Neither explanation is convincing; the first mistakenly assumes that Hudson encountered Mohawks as well as Mahicans, and the second rests on an improbable link with Carder's name and on the discredited archaeological theory that the people he met were actually Mohawks. Most historians have assumed, therefore, that the story of Jacques is merely another of several "garbled accounts of the white man's first arrival [that] survived for generations in Indian legend."17 Yet the insistent references in Iroquois oratory suggest that the tradition { The Economic Lifeline to the Dutch 87 }

should be taken seriously. Indeed, there was a man of that name with whom Mohawks, if not other Iroquois, built a close relationship during the early years of Dutch exploration and colonization. That man was Jacob Eelckens, a shadowy figure who also appears in the historical record as Jacques Elekens, Jaques Elckens, Jacob Jacobson Elkins, Jacob Eelkes, and James Elkins. In his early twenties, after a brief career as an Amsterdam merchant's clerk, Eelckens became an associate of the trader and sea captain Hendrick Christiansen. Together the two were the first Europeans to exploit systematically the upper Hudson River Indian trade. In 1613 Christiansen and fellow Dutch trader Adriaen Block sailed to the area of present-day Albany, where they bartered with the local Indians and took home with them "two sons of the principal sachem there"; the youths were probably Mahicans. While no documentary evidence confirms Eelckens's participation in these events, subsequent developments and his own later testimony suggest that he not only sailed with Christiansen in 1613 but, when his comrades returned to the Netherlands, he remained behind with the Mahicans to ensure the safe return of their leader's sons.18 The strongest hint that Eelckens wintered with the Mahicans is the fact that the next year, when Christiansen returned to the site of Albany to establish a year-round post he named Fort Nassau, he left his young protege in charge; the former clerk quite likely had acquired some previous experience in the Indian trade. Until annual floods forced the abandonment of the establishment in 1617, Eelckens conducted a prosperous commerce, primarily with Mahicans but also, beginning at least by 1614, with Mohawks. Hudson Valley folklore, unsupported by documentary sources, holds that Eelckens moved his trading operation to Tawasentha or Tawagonshi (Norman's Kill), where he negotiated a treaty with the Iroquois. If such an arrangement was made, however, it was probably with some Mahicans rather than any people of the Five Nations. Despite the recent appearance in print of an alleged treaty document, there is no evidence that Dutch and Iroquois traders made any written agreement during this period.19 Few of the specifics of Eelckens's activities, then, can be documented satisfactorily, nor can he be conclusively linked to many particular dealings with the Iroquois. Nevertheless, it is clear that until about 162.3 Eelckens was a familiar figure to Mahicans and Mohawks, "being very well acquainted with the said Indians, having often traded with them and speakinge theire language," and that he was a leading European trader on the upper Hudson when Mohawks first began to barter directly with the Dutch. From a native perspective, Eelckens would have appeared to be the local Dutch headman: { 88 The Economic Lifeline to the Dautch }

he was the principal figure who dealt with them, he was the apparent spokesman for his people, and he gave rich presents in European goods. Thus Iroquois orators later recalled him as the "Governor Called Jacques" with whom their peoples had made "a General Covenant, a n d . . . with one accord Planted the Tree of good Understanding."20 Eelckens was forced from the upper Hudson in 162.3 because he fell from favor with Dutch authorities. The official charge was that, on a trading expedition to the Connecticut River valley, he kidnapped a Pequot headman, but the real reason seems to have been that his flourishing commerce threatened the monopoly recently granted the Dutch West India Company. Still, Mohawks and Mahicans remembered him fondly, as became clear a decade later when he returned to New Netherland in a new role. In 1633 a group of London merchants dispatched him aboard the ship William to challenge Dutch claims to the Hudson River trade. Eelckens sailed up the Hudson and pitched a tent within sight of Fort Orange (which had replaced Fort Nassau in 162.4). Soon he reestablished contact with his old native trading partners and made arrangements for "a nation, called the Maques [Mohawks]," to "come downe, and bringe with them fower thousand beaver skinnes. And another nation, called the Mahiggans [Mahicans], . . . with three hundred skinnes more." Before the forty-three hundred pelts arrived, Dutch ships and troops came from Manhattan to confiscate the English trade goods and to send the interlopers home. For good measure, several Indians who dared to deal with Eelckens received a sound thrashing.21 The natives "would not trade with the Dutch, as longe as this deponente was there," Eelckens, the would-be alternative to the West India Company, testified on his return to England. A New Netherlander corroborated the story, stating that when the director of Fort Orange, Hans Jorisz Hontom, arrived to challenge Eelckens, a Mohawk headman named Saggodrycochta "at once packed up his skins and rising up, said, That man is a scoundrel, I will not trade with him.'" Indeed, Iroquois relations with their European neighbors had deteriorated steadily following their friend's departure in 162,3, as the company men in charge of Fort Orange allied themselves with the Mahicans and encouraged them in their war with the Mohawks during the mid-162.05. A few days after Daniel van Krieckenbeeck and his companions perished in their ill-fated attempt to join the 1628 Mahican expedition against the Mohawks, headmen of that nation told a delegation from Fort Orange that they "wished to excuse their act, on the plea that they had never set themselves against the whites, and asked the reason why the latter had meddled with them; otherwise they would not have shot them." The point { The Economic Lifeline to the Dutch 89 }

was well taken, and in future Iroquois wars with native neighbors, New Netherlanders refrained from unsolicited interference.22 Nonetheless, throughout the late i6zos and early 16305, relations between the Dutch and the Iroquois remained tense. Certainly Fort Orange traders did little to endear themselves to their trading partners. Hontom, for example, reportedly once kidnapped a Mohawk headman and, "although the ransom was paid by the chief's subjects,.. . did ... emasculate the chief, hang the severed member on the stay and so killed the Sackima." Angry young natives expressed their disdain for Hontom and his fellow colonists— and dramatized the decay of peace—through attacks on Dutch cattle and other property; they even burned a company sloop anchored near the fort. For all this, however, trade between the Iroquois and the Dutch was too lucrative for either side to abandon. They "regarded each other less often as corn thieves, trespassers, or Indian givers than as sources of economic prosperity," one historian concludes. "What they thought of each other personally was beside the point."23 An effort to ease the tensions occurred in December 1634, when three men traveled from Fort Orange to the Mohawk and Oneida countries to encourage trade on the Hudson and to dissuade the Iroquois from a rumored intention to take their furs to the French outposts on the St. Lawrence. Fort Orange surgeon Harmen Meyndertsz van den Bogaert's journal of the expedition contains the earliest surviving detailed ethnographic information on any of the Iroquois nations. The ways of life of the Mohawks, Oneidas, and the few Onondagas whom the travelers encountered were already profoundly influenced by intercultural trade. And, despite Dutch behavior that, by Iroquois standards, was often indefensibly rude, the visitors found people eager to acquire still more of what Europeans had to sell.24 In the middle of their first night out from Fort Orange, the travelers got an indication of the instability of relations between the Iroquois and the Dutch when they awakened to find their native guides trying to desert them. That crisis averted, the party proceeded toward the eastern Mohawk town. En route they were spotted by some Indians, presumably Mohawks, who apparently took them for enemies. "When they saw us, they ran away," recalled Van den Bogaert. "Throwing down their bags and packs, they ran into a marsh and hid behind a thicket so that we were unable to see them." The Dutch, whose supply of meat and cheese had been eaten by their guides' dogs during the night, rifled the abandoned luggage, helped themselves to some "bread baked with beans," and continued on their way.25 The next morning the travelers reached the eastern Mohawk town, where, { 90 The Economic Lifeline to the Dutca }

in the midst of the early winter hunting season, "most of the people were out hunting for bear and deer." Wandering about, the visitors inspected the village's thirty-six longhouses and found inside dramatic evidence of the productivity of Iroquois horticulture, for some structures held as much as three hundred bushels of maize. They also observed the extent to which at least some lineages had acquired large stocks of metal items in trade or, the Dutch alleged, by theft. A few longhouses featured "interior doors made of split planks furnished with iron hinges," and others displayed "iron chains, bolts, harrow teeth, iron hoops, spikes," and various other metal items. Some of these artifacts probably served functions similar to those for which they had been designed; the number of iron nails found on Mohawk archaeological sites from this period, for instance, indicates that they were widely used in construction. But the diversity of the collections Van den Bogaert's party saw suggests that the iron was accumulated for conspicuous display and for gifts that lineage headmen could distribute to their followers or to leaders from other villages.26 One such headman was "a good hunter" named Sickaris, who lived in the second major town along the Dutch travelers' route and who sought them out to invite them to his home. His lineage, evidently like others' of his village, was not yet as well provided with European items as were people of the eastern town. But Sickaris intended for that to change; in his longhouse he had accumulated "i 2.0 pelts of marketable beaver that he had caught with his own hands." According to Van den Bogaert, Sickaris was not one of the leading headmen of his village, but, with such a stock of pelts to trade for European goods, he was well positioned to become one. His efforts to have the visitors lodge in his home suggest that he planned, as the person who had negotiated peaceful relations, to gain status by establishing a proprietary position over exchanges with them and the redistribution of the wealth it would bring. Throughout the Mohawk country, the visitors found people like Sickaris who were eager to give food and furs for the meager stock of knives, awls, and scissors that they carried. And, while residents of four towns and hamlets entertained the Dutch with ceremonial presents of pelts and hearty feasts, no one seemed offended when they seldom reciprocated. The Mohawks, apparently, had grown accustomed to the way in which Europeans did business.27 That was not the case in the Oneida country. There people still expected visitors to behave properly and to understand the importance of reciprocity. At the main Oneida town, the party from Fort Orange received an elaborate ceremonial welcome. (There had been no such reception in the Mohawk { The Economic Lifeline to the Dutch 91 }

country even though most of the people of the more westerly villages had been at home.) When the travelers were still several miles away from Oneida, a woman brought them a meal of baked pumpkins. Then, at the village, the Oneidas "divided themselves into two rows and let [the party] pass in between them through their entrance." Leaders escorted the Dutch to a longhouse, gave them food, and allowed them time to rest near the fire. Several hours later, noted Van den Bogaert, "one of the councillors came to ask me what we were doing in his country and what we brought him for gifts." The Dutch, who had no presents, bluntly responded that they "just came for a visit." In response, the headman told them they "were worth nothing."28 Unaccustomed as the Oneida may have been to his guests' ways, he knew quite well that one European could be played off against another. "The French had traded with them here with six men and had given them good gifts," he announced. Visitors from the St. Lawrence had offered "them six hands of sewant [wampum] for one beaver and all sorts of other things in addition." The Dutch could plainly see the basic truth of their host's assertions: the villagers owned "good timber axes, French shirts, coats, and razors." By comparison, said the Oneida leader, not only did the men from Fort Orange fail to bring appropriate presents, they were "scoundrels" who "were worthless because [they] gave them so little for their furs."29 The boors from Fort Orange were barely tolerated for the next few days. After an initial feast, they received little to eat and, at a council on New Year's Day 1635, a "very malicious" headman publicly scolded them for their parsimony. Quite naturally, the Dutch, surrounded by some forty-six unhappy Oneidas, were nervous, and one of them "became so angry that the tears ran from his eyes." At last, when Van den Bogaert had seen and heard enough, he threw the charge of "scoundrel" back at the headman who had initially used the word. For the Oneidas, all this too much disrupted the decorum of the council fire. To restore the climate of good thoughts, the leader "began to laugh and said that he was not angry and said 'You must not grow angry. We are happy that you have come here.'" Peace finally prevailed when the Dutch searched their belongings to find the headman a present of "two knives, two scissors, and some awls and needles."30 After at last treating the Dutch to a decent meal, the Oneidas announced that in the future "they would like to have four hands of sewant and four hands of long cloth for each large beaver" and complained that often when they came to Fort Orange they could procure "no cloth, no sewant, no axes, kettles or anything else." Van den Bogaert explained that his party "had no { 92. The Economic Lifeline to the Dutch }

authority to promise them that," but after consulting his superiors he would personally bring the Oneidas an answer in the spring. "You must not lie, and come in the spring to us," the Oneida orator insisted. "If we receive four hands, then we shall trade our pelts with no one else." Thereupon all the headmen "shouted . . . in a loud voice NETHO NETHO NETHO" to emphasize their agreement; they chanted a song promising access to "all the castles" of the Five Nations; and they invited the Dutch to a ceremonial feast of bear meat. All were presumably designed not only to better relations between the Iroquois and Dutch but also to bypass Mohawk intermediaries by establishing direct links between Fort Orange and the Oneida country. After a similar conference with visiting Onondaga headmen and matrons, the party left Oneida amicably a few days later.31 Van den Bogaert apparently did not keep his promise to return to the Oneida country, nor did his compatriots raise the price of beaver skins to four hands of wampum. Accordingly, a lasting improvement in IroquoisDutch relations awaited the arrival of a newcomer who would revive and expand the role previously played by Eelckens. "The Ancient Brotherhood" between the Five Nations and New Netherland, late-seventeenth-century native orators recalled, began with Jacques and "continued to the Time of Old Corlaer." Corlaer is an alternate spelling of the surname of Arent van Curler, a grandnephew of Killiaen van Rensselaer, patroon of Rensselaerswyck. In 1637 the patroon sent his young kinsman from the Netherlands to the New World to assist the commissary of his domains. By 1641 he had made Van Curler his commies, or chief representative and trading agent. The post was important because in 1639 the West India Company abandoned its monopoly of the fur trade and threw the business open to all comers. The company trading post at Fort Orange rapidly declined in significance and in 1644 closed its doors. Thereafter the fort was simply the base for a collection of private traders. In the early 16405, however, the focus of the upper Hudson River Indian-European trade was, not those merchants, but Van Curler, who, on Van Rensselaer's orders, aggressively tried to corner the market.32 By seventeenth-century Dutch standards perhaps, and by modern capitalist ones certainly, Van Curler's business practices left much to be desired. In vain the patroon begged his commies to keep accurate accounts and to learn to write a proper business letter. "I hear that you spend too much time in the woods," Van Rensselaer complained in 1640. "That ought not to be; you must stick to writing and never again neglect to copy your papers and accounts." Sloppy bookkeeping and the high prices Van Curler paid in his { The Economic Lifeline to the Dutch 93 }

ultimately unsuccessful campaign to engross the fur trade threatened to impoverish Van Rensselaer. But the same attractive rates and the time spent "in the woods" endeared the figure they called Corlaer to the Mahicans and Mohawks with whom he dealt. He paid extended visits to Mahican villages and learned the importance of such Indian customs as generosity and the routine offering of food to visitors; the commies was at considerable expense, the patroon noted in 1643, "to feed the savages and provide also for those who assist him faithfully."33 There are strong hints, however, that more than generosity attracted Indian customers to Van Curler and that his sloppy bookkeeping was no accident. He was apparently deeply involved in a clandestine traffic in liquor and guns, two items that, despite official disapproval and occasional legal prohibitions, in the 16405 became staples of the Indian trade on the upper Hudson. "I am very much troubled . .. that my debt is computed at the sum of fl.2.408 without my knowing the items in detail, and without my receiving the least sign or notice from my commies" Van Rensselaer complained to Governor Willem Kieft of New Netherland in 1641. "According to what they tell me these debts arise mostly from the consumption of wine. Can it be that Fort Orange is a wine cellar to debauch my people?" There is no direct evidence, but it seems likely that those being debauched were, not Van Rensselaer's tenants, but the Iroquois and Mahican trading partners of Corlaer. Nor are there more than circumstantial hints of Van Curler's involvement in the firearms trade, but Mohawks first began to acquire the arquebuses that were so crucial to their military success in 1639 and 1640, just as he was beginning his attempt to drive competitors out of business. And, significantly, in 1644 Van Curler intervened with the colonial council on behalf of a suspected smuggler of arms and gunpowder from Europe.34 Legally or illegally, Corlaer acted the part of the generous headman and assumed the dominant role in Dutch-Iroquois relations earlier played by Jacques. His status was confirmed in 1642, when, with due regard for Iroquois customs, he paid a diplomatic visit to the three Mohawk towns. "I carried presents there and proposed that we should keep on good terms as neighbors and that they should do no injury either to the colonists [of Rensselaerswyck] or to their cattle," he reported to the patroon. Both his gifts and his broad proposals conformed to Iroquois definitions of Peace. The Mohawks received him as the respected headman he appeared to them to be, with all due ceremony as embellished with the fruits of intercultural trade. "We were obliged to halt fully a quarter of an hour before each castle, in order that the Indians might salute us by the firing of muskets," Van Curler { 94 The Economic Lifeline to the Dutch }

recalled. "There was also great joy among them because I had come. Indians were immediately sent out to hunt, who brought us in excellent turkeys." Van Curler hoped that his embassy would gain the release of Jesuit missionary Isaac Jogues and two other French prisoners recently seized by the Mohawks. Though he promised (but apparently did not bring with him) a ransom of six hundred florins worth of trade goods, the Mohawks refused to yield their captives. In all other respects, however, the mission was a rousing success.35 Both sides later recalled the 1642. visit as a major turning point that laid the groundwork for an expanded relationship. Three years later Governor Kieft traveled to Fort Orange to negotiate the earliest surviving written treaty between the government of New Netherland and the Mohawks. His successor, Peter Stuyvesant, expanded contacts between Manhattan and Iroquoia and at the same time systematically reduced the role of Rensselaerswyck in both the Fort Orange trade and Indian relations. After 1645, when Van Curler briefly returned to Europe and permanently left his post as the patroonship's commies, his replacement's heavy-handed attempts to monopolize trade and increase the political autonomy of Rensselaerswyck led Stuyvesant to take effective countermeasures. In 1651 the governor created from Fort Orange and its surrounding settlement a new town called Beverwyck and encouraged its local court to assume control of relations with the natives when he was not on the scene. Van Curler retained an almost indispensable role, however. During the 16508 and i66os the court repeatedly called upon him to handle difficult intercultural negotiations.36 His services were needed often. Later reminiscences about a covenant of love and friendship notwithstanding, in Van Curler's day the Iroquois had no illusions about the nature of their ties to Fort Orange and Beverwyck. "The Dutch say we are brothers and that we are joined together with chains," a Mohawk orator told the local magistrates in 1659, "but that lasts only as long as we have beavers. After that we are no longer thought of." Two potential alternatives to trade on the Hudson did exist, but neither could satisfy Iroquois needs adequately. One possibility was the French on the St. Lawrence. Yet from the 16305 on, that option was usually closed off by warfare between the Iroquois and the native allies of New France. More viable was Englishman William Pynchon's Connecticut River valley outpost of Springfield, Massachusetts. Some Mohawks traded there, but a long and difficult overland trade route and a lack of local Euro-American price competition seem to have made it unattractive to most Iroquois, particularly those from the four western nations.37 { The Economic Lifeline to the Dutch 95 }

However few Indian customers they lured away from Fort Orange, Pynchon and other New Englanders nonetheless were a major threat to the health of the Dutch colony's trade, a threat that ultimately also imperiled the Five Nations. By the early i66os, English competition was only one of several factors that were sapping New Netherlands economic strength. Poor administration was one culprit; overreliance on the Indian trade was another; excessive profit taking by Amsterdam merchants was a third; the encroachment of English colonists on Long Island was a fourth. But perhaps the key factor was a severe oversupply of wampum. By the 16405, Pynchon and other English traders in the Massachusetts Bay and Plymouth colonies had cornered the market on the output of the Long Island Sound Indian villages where the beads originated. At the same time, wampum was ceasing to circulate as currency in New England. Not surprisingly, beads flowed from the English colonies to the Dutch one, as Yankee merchants dumped their surplus and used it to pay lavishly for, among other things, trade goods that might otherwise have been sold to Indians at Fort Orange.38 The result was a trinity of economic plagues for New Netherland: severe wampum inflation (the value of the beads against specie fell 60 percent between 1641 and 1658 and more than zoo percent during the following decade), shortages of staple Indian trade items, and high wampum prices for beaver pelts. To the directors of the Dutch West India Company, the situation summoned images of a colony full of traders, destitute of both furs and trade goods, "sitting meanwhile on their boxes full of wampum." To compound New Netherlands woes, from 1655 to 1664, the colonists were almost constantly at war with native peoples of Long Island and the lower Hudson Valley. Against this background, it is no wonder that the mood turned nasty in the Fort Orange marketplace. "Almost everybody complains against his neighbor, wholesale dealers against retailers and vice versa, because of the decline of the trade, which grows worse from year to year," lamented Governor Stuyvesant in 1659.39 Intercultural commerce, never a game for the fainthearted, became a freefor-all, as war and inflation stinted peltry supplies. Hard-pressed small-scale Beverwyck merchants either went themselves or employed strong-armed boslopers ("woods runners") to meet Indians in the forest and entice or coerce them to their establishments. Experienced Iroquois traders, of course, preferred to shop around, so the agents frequently had to kidnap their prey or steal peltries outright. Iroquois began to complain of physical abuse as early as 1650, but the violence seems to have peaked in 1660, as a result of shortages of pelts caused by a war between the Dutch and the Esopus band of { 96 The Economic Lifeline to the Dutch }

River Indians of the Hudson Valley and by heated disputes between small and large traders at Fort Orange. On the forest paths that the Cohoes Falls of the Mohawk River required Hudson-bound travelers to take, Dutch waylayers "maltreat[ed] them greatly," Mohawk headmen complained to the local magistrates. "Ten or twelve of them [would] surround an Indian and drag him along, saying, 'Come with me, so and so has no goods,' thus impeding one another, which they fear will end badly." The angry Mohawks demanded that the officials "forbid the Dutch to molest the Indians as heretofore by kicking, beating, and assaulting them" and suggested that, if something were not done, "it might develop into the same trouble as between the Dutch and the Indians in the Esopus."40 The Fort Orange court, much as it had done to little effect on similar occasions in the past, issued a proclamation decrying those "who on horseback go up and down in the woods and not only take away their beavers by force and carry them, leaving the Indians to run after them, but also knock and throw them around," and it forbade, on pain of a substantial fine, "all inhabitants ... to go roaming in the woods as brokers to attract the Indians." Many alleged agents were hauled into court during the summer of 1660, but, because Indians could not legally testify against colonists, convictions were difficult. The only people on whom penalties were levied were a few honest souls who refused to swear to their own innocence or were not quick enough to manufacture such excuses as those of Poulis Jansen ("The defendant admits having been in the woods, but claims that he went there to fetch blueberries") or Cornelis Fynhoudt ("to look for hogs"). It is not clear whether any of the few convicted actually paid a fine, nor even whether the officials who brought the offenders to court were seriously interested in stopping their activities. At best, Dutch-American blueberry pickers were forced to be more discreet in their efforts to cheat Indian clients and Fort Orange competitors.41 Under the leadership of the omnipresent Van Curler, Mohawk headmen and several disgruntled small traders from Beverwyck attempted a solution to some of these problems in 1661. In the first recorded major transfer of land from Iroquois to Europeans, the natives sold Corlaer and his associates some acreage conquered from the Mahicans, on which a new village called Schenectady was established. The mutual advantages would have been great: the location was half again as close to the easternmost Mohawk town as was Fort Orange; it could be reached from Iroquoia directly by water, thus avoiding any trek overland through broker-infested woods; and it promised to allow Van Curler and his compatriots to escape the dominance of wealth{ The Economic Lifeline to the Dutch 97 }

ier Fort Orange merchants. All these hopes came to nought, however, when Stuyvesant refused to grant commercial privileges to the new community, which henceforth had to rely for its legally sanctioned livelihood on the rich agricultural soils surrounding it and confine fur trading to its underground economy.42 The disappointment of the Schenectady experiment and the chaos and shortages of goods at Beverwyck were all the more devastating to the Five Nations in light of several contemporaneous developments on the battlefields of the Beaver Wars. Iroquois had never expected much direct military assistance from their European neighbors: "If the enemy should come, you will not care to help us," a Mohawk orator taunted in 1659; "you people are too much afraid." But for weapons—at a price—they had long depended upon Dutch-Americans. Now long-standing arrangements were falling apart. Any disruption in the supply of firearms and other trade goods became doubly important because by the early i66os the Iroquois had lost their former weapons advantage over their native foes.43 During this period, the most dangerous enemies of the Senecas, Cayugas, Onondagas, and Oneidas were the Susquehannocks, whose ties with Dutch traders in the Delaware Valley and English colonists from Maryland gave them, if anything, a more formidable arsenal than that of the Five Nations. A turning point in the war came in the spring of 1663, when some eight hundred Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas marched off to assault the Susquehannock town. The attackers were surprised to find that it was not only heavily fortified in the style of Euro-American bastions but equipped with artillery. Realizing that force would not carry the day, the Iroquois tried guile. According to French missionary Jerome Lalemant, the Iroquois "offered to enter the besieged town to the number of twenty-five, partly to treat for peace, as they declared, and partly to buy provisions for their return journey." Before they could surprise the Susquehannocks who let them through the gates, however, the Iroquois "were immediately seized and, without further delay, made to mount on scaffolds where, in sight of their own army, they were burned alive." Thenceforth Susquehannocks had their erstwhile conquerors on the defensive, and the conflict settled into a deadly war of attrition.44 At the same time that the western Iroquois nations were learning that they could no longer outgun their foes, the Mohawks were making the same discovery. Since at least 1660, they had been again at war with the Mahicans, who were allied closely with various Western Abenaki and New England Algonquian groups. Those peoples in turn were driven by a decline of the { 98 The Economic Lifeline to the Dutch }

southern New England fur trade in the 16508 to closer economic relationships with their Eastern Abenaki and Montagnais neighbors to the north, who were longtime enemies of the Five Nations. All of these Indians had ample access to French, English, or Dutch purveyors of firearms, a fact driven home for Mohawks by inconclusive but deadly battles with New England Algonquians and Eastern Abenakis in late 1663 and early 1664, respectively. In the summer of the latter year, as a Mohawk headman named Saheda led a peace delegation to negotiate with natives of the Connecticut Valley, he and his companions were murdered by Pocumtucks opposed to the truce. For several years thereafter Mohawks engaged in an all-out struggle with New England Algonquians. Although they destroyed a Pocumtuck fort and apparently killed or captured most of its inhabitants, the survivors and other New England natives gave as good as they got. In 1669 a large force besieged the eastern Mohawk town for several days, although they failed to take it and suffered heavy losses on their retreat.45 Clearly, then, on both eastern and western fronts, Iroquois had their hands full. The same was true in the North, where Algonquin allies of the French hunted openly on lands in the Richelieu River area that Mohawks had long claimed as their own. "The path is not safe for the Indians" of the Five Nations to travel to Fort Orange, wrote Jeremias van Rensselaer in 1663, "for one says that the French Indians are coming and another that the English are coming with Indians, so that the Maquas are quite in a pinch. The Sinnekes [and other western Iroquois] are hard at war with the Minquas [Susquehannocks], so that they do not come except in troops."46 Those who managed to reach the Hudson would soon find still greater changes there, for in 1664 New Netherland—weakened, squabbling, and bankrupt—fell without a shot to the English forces of the duke of York (the future James II). Given their current straits, the peoples of the Five Nations might have been expected to welcome the invaders as potential saviors. Perhaps some did, but, for the moment, there were few reasons to trust the duke's agents, despite a treaty of friendship three Mohawk and four western Iroquois leaders negotiated with the province now called New York soon after the conquest. The English had not exactly earned the best of reputations among the Indians with whom they came into contact; moreover, many Mohawks accused Connecticut Valley colonists of complicity in Saheda's demise. And, in the initial years of the duke's regime, the status of the Hudson River fur trade remained in flux. Continued Anglo-Dutch warfare and the slow reorientation of transatlantic trading routes from the Netherlands to the British Isles caused occasional shortages of staple items at { The Economic Lifeline to the Dutch 99 }

M A p 4 . The Iroquois and Their Neighbors in the Mid-i66os

Albany, as Fort Orange and Beverwyck were renamed; 1665 and 1673 were particularly difficult years for the trade. Moreover, the English conquest of the colony did not immediately translate into effective control of Albany, much less of the trading practices of the Dutch residents who still ran the town's commerce. From the Iroquois perspective, things proceeded largely as they had during the final unpleasant years of New Netherland.47 The situation at Albany, combined with mounting war losses, led many in the four western Iroquois nations to support the efforts of various headmen who had been negotiating for peace with New France and some of its native allies since the early 16508. But now, in contrast to previous years, peace with the French was becoming far more than an adjunct to Indian-Indian military and diplomatic considerations. In 1664 some Senecas expressed a desire that large numbers of colonists might leave the St. Lawrence and settle in their country. "They ask this," explained missionary Lalemant, "hoping that the French will surround their Villages with flanked palisades, and furnish them with the munitions of war,—which they hardly dare any longer to go and obtain of the Dutch, as the Mahingans [Mahicans] render the roads very dangerous." A more general consideration among the war chiefs and young men, however, seems to have been the need to establish peace on their northern flank in order to concentrate all efforts on the Susquehannocks.48 Good relations with the Europeans on the St. Lawrence took on added urgency after 1663, when the French crown revoked the charter of the Company of the Hundred Associates and assumed direct control of the colony. In the summer of 1665 Daniel de Remy de Courcelle and Alexander Prouville, Seigneur de Tracy, arrived in America as, respectively, the new governor and the royal viceroy. They brought with them a thousand royal troops of the elite Carignan-Salieres Regiment and orders "totally to exterminate" the Five Nations. The highly visible show of force was enough, apparently, to convince many Iroquois who still had doubts about the virtues of peace. In December Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, and Oneida leaders came to Quebec to agree to a comprehensive treaty with the French and their Wyandot and Algonquin allies. The pact was reconfirmed with great ceremony the next year.49 But despite some Mohawk support for peace, a majority of that nation remained aloof from the negotiations. Close enough to Albany to be assured of some supply of trade goods and embittered by decades of more intense conflict with New France than other Iroquois had experienced, many Mohawks deeply distrusted the colonizers of the St. Lawrence. More important, their principal foes were not the Susquehannocks, whom the French might be {

102. The Economic Lifeline to the Dutch }

persuaded to war upon, but eastern and northern foes in long-standing trading relationships with Trois-Rivieres and Montreal. Interestingly, three decades earlier Van den Bogaert had claimed, accurately or not, that Adirondack*, which means "Algonquins," was the name Mohawks also employed for the French.50 When the bulk of headmen from the easternmost Iroquois nation refused to come to terms, Tracy and Courcelle acted on their royal orders. In January 1666 the governor and more than five hundred men embarked for the Mohawk country; frostbitten, starving, and inadequately guided, the army stumbled, not to the native towns, but, apparently accidentally, to just outside Schenectady. There, once the Dutch residents learned that the French quarrel was only with the Indians, the army was treated cordially, its injuries nursed, and its supplies replenished. The French military debacle can hardly have much impressed the Mohawks, but the friendly reception their EuroAmerican neighbors gave the invaders surely did. And no one entertained the enemy more warmly than Van Curler, who, "in Compassion of fellow Christians," even "perswaded the Indians this was but a small Party of the French Army, come to amuse them, that the great Body was gone directly towards their Castles, and that it was necessary for them immediately to go in Defence of their Wives and Children" rather than attack Tracy and Courcelle. First the Dutch-Americans had been unable to provide the Iroquois a stable marketplace. Now the man who personified ties to the Hudson sided with the French.51 Following this turn of events, several Mohawk headmen with at least some warriors led by a metis chief the English called "Smiths John" and the French "the Flemish Bastard" seriously pursued negotiations with the French. In July 1666 they peacefully turned back another French army headed for the Mohawk country. Ominously, as the troops approached, rumors circulated among Indians that Van Curler again was "preparing provisions" to welcome them. Despite all this, the two sides did not come to terms, for Mohawks who disagreed with Smiths John continued their raids, and French authorities were determined to teach the Iroquois a lesson.52 In September, Tracy, claiming that "it was necessary by force of arms to render the Agniehronnons [Mohawks] still more tractable," led more than a thousand troops into their country. This time the French reached their destination, but the Mohawks, who had sufficient warning, had fled their towns for hideouts in the woods, the location of which they pointedly kept secret from the Dutch. Tracy had to content himself with burning the villages and the fruits of the recent harvest, which, according to the French, included { The Economic Lifeline to the Dutch 103 }

enough corn, beans, and squash "to nourish all Canada for two entire years." The Mohawks' economic loss was substantial. In addition to food stores, the invaders destroyed dozens of "well built and magnificently ornamented" longhouses "filled with carpentry tools and others that they used to decorate their cabins and furniture. All these were carried off, as well as a good four hundred pots and the remainder of their wealth."53 When the looting was over, French troops again found succor at Schenectady and Albany. Moreover, in dealing with their Iroquois trading partners, Van Curler and other Dutch colonists were, according to Albany's English commander, "very forward towards ... [the Mohawks'] makeinge of peace," because French troops might then be able to "Martch Which way they please Thurrow the Maques cuntry" and remove the duke's forces from the Hudson. Struggling to rebuild their homes, bereft of support, and intimidated by rumors of renewed French military preparations, by June 1667 the last Mohawk holdouts against peace had little choice but to give in. At Quebec that month, headmen allowed Tracy to dictate surrender terms, left Smiths John and several others behind as hostages, and prepared to take French Jesuit missionaries home with them to their country. Arrangements had already been made for priests to settle in each of the four western Iroquois nations as well. Several weeks later, Van Curler set out with a group of Mohawks for Canada to receive the personal thanks of French leaders for his role in making peace. On Lake George his canoe capsized, and he drowned. Contemporary accounts fail to mention the later-recorded Indian tradition that the accident followed an insult to spirit beings who lived under the waters. His Mohawk traveling companions' stories at the time were sufficiently contradictory to lead one to suspect that they assassinated him.54 W H A T E V E R WAY Corlaer perished, the relationship he symbolized was already long dead. During his career, Iroquois material life had experienced a seductively beneficial enrichment. The unforeseen cost was irrevocable dependence on trade with the Hudson for goods that were now necessities and for weapons that were desperately needed to keep pace with native military foes. The rupture of the Dutch lifeline left a void that many Iroquois believed only the Europeans on the St. Lawrence could fill. But along with French trade came the establishment of French mission stations in the villages of the Five Nations. Life in the Longhouse would never be the same, as the arm'slength contacts of trade and war that had previously characterized IroquoisEuropean relations gave way to more complex patterns of interaction.

{

104 The Economic Lifeline to the Dutch }

C H A P T E R

F I V E

The Ascendancy of the Francophiles

THE T R A N S I T I O N marked by the demise of Arent van Curler and the arrival of French priests produced grave upheavals, and none was more shattering than the internal disputes engendered by Christian missions. Even before the Jesuit "Black Gowns" arrived, debate began in the villages of the Five Nations between nascent factions of Christians and traditionalists—or, more accurately, between those who welcomed the priests and those who did not. These incipient divisions hardened under the influence of the missionaries and of Iroquois headmen who had long been trying to make peace with New France. Within a few years almost all of the towns of the Five Nations were dominated by francophile political factions composed of people for {

105 }

whom conversion to Christianity and close diplomatic and economic ties to the French were virtually inseparable. Other Iroquois reviled the francophiles and considered their policies and religion to be abject capitulations to the enemy. But with trading connections to the Hudson in disarray, for the foreseeable future there was no viable alternative.1 A L T H O U G H F R E N C H J E S U I T S had visited Iroquoia, sometimes for extended periods, on several occasions before the peace treaties of 16651667, most Iroquois had little direct experience with either missionaries or Christianity. Protestant ministers from New Netherland had made virtually no impact. As some Onondagas told two French priests in 1665, "The Dutch had neither sense nor tongues; they had never heard them mention Paradise or Hell; on the contrary, they were the first to incite them to wrong-doing." Though Johannes Megapolensis, pastor at Rensselaerswyck from 1642. to 1649, dabbled in the Mohawk language and displayed his superficial knowledge of Iroquois culture in his "Short Account of the Mohawk Indians," he confined his proselyting to a few natives who wandered in to observe services. According to the dominie, the visitors would "stand awhile and look, and afterwards ask me what I am doing and what I want, that I stand there alone and make so many words, while none of the rest may speak." When Megapolensis replied that he was chastising his parishioners for sins of theft, drunkenness, lewdness, and murder, the Indians—survivors of the brutal mid-seventeenth-century Fort Orange trade—typically responded that he did "well to teach the Christians; but immediately add[ed] . . . 'Why do so many Christians do these things?' " Unwittingly, the language Megapolensis used underscored the scant Dutch religious influence on the natives. The Mohawk word he rendered as "Christian" carried no such meaning; it was, as he revealed utterly without irony, the usual term that equated Europeans with metal making. Not surprisingly, the dominie made few, if any, Indian converts. "When we pray they laugh at us," he complained.2 From 1649, when Megapolensis took a post in Manhattan, until 1651, when Gideon Schaets assumed the Rensselaerswyck pulpit, no Dutch minister regularly served the upper Hudson. Schaets, who allegedly drank too much and often quarreled with civil and parish leaders, was hardly a figure to inspire his Dutch flock, much less potential Indian converts. And if the example of one family of Mohawk Christians is representative, the few conversions made during his tenure occurred despite, not because of, his efforts and the attitudes of most Dutch-American colonists. Hilletie van Olinda, child of a Dutch father and a Mohawk mother, first learned about {

106 The Ascendancy of the Francophiles }

Christianity from French priests visiting her native village. Ridiculed for her beliefs and set upon by her kin, she left her home in 1663 to live at Schenectady. There she dwelled, evidently as a servant, with a woman who taught her to read, instructed her in Reformed doctrine, and encouraged her to receive baptism. By 1680 she, her brother (who had also been christened but was a reputed backslider), their spouses, and their children all professed to be Christians, but their lives at Schenectady were not easy. From DutchAmericans Hilletie frequently heard such taunts as: "Well, how is this, there is a sow converted. Run, boys, to the brewer's, and bring some swill for a converted sow."3 Despite most Iroquois' lack of firsthand knowledge about missionaries and Christianity, such scenes must have provided some inkling of what to expect when the Jesuits arrived in the Five Nations. More abundant and accurate information about the black-gowned newcomers, however, came from people who, like the missionaries, were also strangers in Iroquoia. Many adoptees from Huronia and elsewhere had encountered priests in their homelands and had developed strong opinions, pro or con, that, to the extent their perilous position allowed, they readily shared with their hosts. Consequently, in most Iroquois towns both friends and foes awaited the missionaries' appearance. These existing political divisions—products of traditional social patterns and religious beliefs—shaped the priests' reception. That reception in turn began to reshape traditional politics and to create novel forms of intravillage conflict. On one side at the Jesuits' arrival were non-Christian adoptees. Speaking from experience, they told a frightening tale: priests were sorcerers who secretly practiced strange ceremonies that sapped the spiritual power of communities; they brought disease with them wherever they went; they killed people with their rite of baptism. From an Indian perspective, the charges rang true. Missionaries in search of privacy flouted Iroquoian customs when they locked their doors and refused access to Indians except at specific times; apparently they clandestinely practiced witchcraft. Jesuits forbade converts to engage in most village rituals, and as a result those ceremonies lost much of their impact. Like all Europeans, the fathers unwittingly spread disease. They compounded the problem when they scurried from one sickbed to another to minister to the dying. And baptism seemingly did kill people, for the Jesuits, fearing apostasy, seldom christened any Indian who was not already at death's door. The impact of traditionalists' reports became clear when Father Rene Menard tried to inaugurate a mission among the Cayugas in 1656. "The aversion to the Faith and to our persons that the { The Ascendancy of the Francophiles 107 }

Hurons had excited in the minds of the natives of the country, by leading them to believe that we carried disease and misfortune into every region that we entered, caused us to be received with a rather cold welcome," the disillusioned missionary concluded.4 Yet by no means all adoptees had an "aversion to the Faith." Hurons and Algonquians who had converted to Christianity in their native lands were eager to see priests again. "God permitted that these poor Christians be captured by the barbarians for the salvation of the Iroquois nation," concluded French colonist Marie de L'Incarnation, "for it was these prisoners that gave them knowledge of God and cast the first seeds of the Faith among them." Throughout Iroquoia, clusters of Christian captives retained their faith and, despite the disapproval of adoptive relatives, met regularly for prayers. This "Captive Church," which missionary Francois-Joseph Le Mercier estimated to encompass "more than a thousand Christians," ensured support wherever Jesuits ventured. In 1654, for example, "Huron Christians, especially the Captive women," orchestrated a warm welcome for Simon Le Moyne, the first missionary to visit the Onondaga country. In succeeding years other priests on their initial trips to Iroquoia reported joyful reunions with Christians whom they had previously known in other places and happier situations.5 Indeed, in the mid-16508 the desire of Christian Huron captives for priests had been a major factor in Iroquois diplomacy. During negotiations following a truce with New France in 1653, Seneca, Onondaga, and Mohawk emissaries offered the French competing invitations to build a mission outpost in their countries, in hopes of encouraging adopted Christians to remain in their new homes and of luring to Iroquoia the Catholic Huron refugees living near Quebec at Lorette. Attracted by the opportunity to work in Iroquoia, in 1656 more than fifty French priests, lay workers, and soldiers settled behind the palisades of the new mission of Sainte-Marie de Gannentaha, a few miles from the main Onondaga town. A year later, surviving Hurons of the Arendaronon nation had little choice but to leave French protection at Lorette for new homes in the Onondaga country; en route warriors slaughtered many of them and treated the rest as prisoners of war. At about the same time, Attignawantan nation refugees, accompanied by Father Le Moyne, embarked for the Mohawk country, leaving only a handful of Hurons belonging to the Attigneenongnahac nation behind. Once the refugees were ensconced in new homes, many Iroquois decided that the services of priests were no longer required. Meanwhile, complaints multiplied of attacks by Indian friends of New France, an epidemic seemed to { 108 The Ascendancy of the Francophiles }

emanate from the mission post, and, the Jesuits said, Mohawks fanned resistance among Onondagas. In early 1658 the French, fearing for their lives, abandoned Gannentaha in the middle of the night, and Le Moyne, facing increasing opposition, fled the Mohawk country as well.6 This episode suggests that incipient anti-Jesuit factions held the advantage in struggles for the hearts and minds of Iroquoia. The brand of Christianity propounded by seventeenth-century missionaries, Catholic or Protestant, did not easily cross the cultural divide that separated European from native American. People who had no experience with kings, states, or coercive justice initially saw little relevance in Christian notions about an all-powerful God, the Kingdom of Heaven, or the damnation of unrepentant sinners. The central Iroquois problem with Christianity, however, went beyond particulars of doctrine. The exclusivity inherent in Christianity, the inability of seventeenth-century Europeans to distinguish Western culture from Christian religion, and the close relationship between native beliefs and their everyday life combined to require converts to do no less than renounce their Indianness.7 The Jesuits' reputation for tolerance and willingness to adapt Christianity to the traditions of their converts is deserved, but only in comparison with other seventeenth-century missionaries. At bottom, they and other Catholic priests followed in less extreme form the doctrine that English ministers called "civility before sanctity": only when Indians shed their native ways and adopted European customs could they truly become Christians. As Father Jacques Fremin announced to the headmen of a Mohawk town in 1667, the missionaries' purpose was "teaching them to live like men, and then to be Christians." Jesuits professed to allow Indian converts to retain customs that were compatible with Christianity, but in practice few traditional ways measured up. "If these customs were holy and virtuous, they would be respected," Father Jean Pierron explained to a Mohawk headman during a Condolence rite that the priest had publicly mocked. "But to see you pass all your lives in such execrable crimes, that is what I cannot make up my mind to do."8 Prominent among the Iroquois' "execrable crimes" were their ceremonial feasts, their healing rituals, their belief in dreams, and their practice of divorce. For Jesuits, all were hopelessly laced with sin and superstition, but for Iroquois their abandonment would levy enormous social and personal, physical and emotional tolls. To some extent, the missionaries recognized the price they asked their converts to pay, and they tried to provide acceptable Christian substitutes for native practices. They knew, for example, that { The Ascendancy of the Francophiles 109 }

converts forbidden to attend ceremonial feasts lost more than good fellowship and good food. (The importance of the latter, however, should not be underestimated; especially in late winter, feasts could be the only break from a steady diet of corn soup flavored with dried meat and beans.) Ceremonial meals were important rituals of group identity and solidarity^ and to avoid them was to isolate oneself from the community. The Jesuits' solution was simple and relatively effective. Feasts in themselves were acceptable, as long as they were not of the gluttonous, eat-all variety. So the missionaries sought either to purge them of their original ceremonial content, replacing it with Christian prayer, or to hold alternative meals for converts. In this way, at least the requirements of fellowship and diet could be met.9 But other customs were more difficult to replace. With little success, missionaries tried to forbid traditional healing rituals and to treat illnesses in European ways. Unknowingly, perhaps, as healers the priests filled the traditional role of native shamans; in the midst of devastating epidemics, they had as good a chance as anyone to cure their patients. A dose of physic and a hasty prayer, however, could hardly have been as impressive as the elaborate ceremonies of an Iroquois curing society or as physically convincing as a stint in a sweat lodge. Still more difficult to counter were dream-guessing rituals and the acting out of wishes expressed in dreams. Far from seeing slumberous spiritual experiences as parallels to their own beliefs in apparitions by the Virgin, the Jesuits probably considered them something akin to the nocturnal visit of a witch's familiar intent on tormenting a victim. However interpreted, the dreams that natives venerated were the work of the devil. Nonetheless, as Le Mercier lamented from the Onondaga country in 1669, they "seem to constitute this country's sole Divinity, to which they defer in all things. . . . They think their ruin is desired, if any one tries to do away with this divinity, which they regard as the thing that makes them live." Probably no European before Freud could have begun to understand the psychological functions involved with these phenomena, and the Jesuits were at a loss to deal with them.10 Just as difficult was Iroquois insistence on the right to dissolve marriages at will, for in condemning this practice the Jesuits attacked the heart of Iroquois social structure. In a culture where the matrilineal household, not the conjugal couple, was the basic social unit, where a sexual division of labor made men and women economically interdependent yet also required them to separate for long periods, where households belonged to females quite apart from their husbands, where mothers' brothers assumed most of the roles of Western fathers, and where considerable sexual freedom prevailed—the {

no

The Ascendancy of the Francophiles }

Jesuit insistence on lifelong marriage made little sense. To Iroquoians, such ties were unnecessary and, as in all times and places, sometimes unpleasant: "Why should you oblige us for to live like Doggs and Catts together?" one Indian reportedly asked French author-priest Louis Hennepin. By the same token, the solitary existence that must result for a divorced convert forbidden to remarry was both psychologically and economically intolerable.11 Yet despite the problems central to the Christian message, in Iroquoia— just as in Huronia, the St. Lawrence Valley, and elsewhere—the Jesuits made many sincere converts and attracted substantial political followings. At the beginning, the outlandish doctrines they preached presumably played a relatively minor role in their success. In time, and very much on their own terms, many Iroquois would sincerely embrace Christian beliefs, but few could have fathomed the meanings of the new creed when they first heard it. The thoroughgoing religious and behavioral change that the Jesuits demanded would come only later, as missionaries and Indians learned more about each other. In the interim, Jesuits won support on the basis of diplomatic, political, and religious considerations that were essentially Indian and traditional rather than European and Christian.12 "The spiritual interests of these Missions," Father Julien Garnier observed, "depend largely on temporal affairs, and above all on the state of men's minds regarding the peace with the French." More than most Jesuits liked to admit, a priest's role was diplomatic as well as religious, and, from the standpoint of most Iroquois headmen, diplomacy counted most. Significantly, in the seventeenth century, nearly every Iroquois request for French missionaries occurred during peace negotiations. In Indian diplomacy, when enemies made a truce they often exchanged visitors who would live in each others' villages as face-to-face reminders of friendship and as insurance against renewed hostilities; warriors, it was assumed, would not attack a village housing one of their own. Europeans called such visitors "hostages" and adapted the custom to their own purposes, but whatever the colonists thought, Indians continued to consider visiting a two-way street. Thus, when Mohawks came to terms with the French in 1667, they "brought some of their families to serve as hostages, and be answerable for their countrymen's good faith." In return, "they declared, among other things, that all their desires were to have some . .. Fathers with them, to cement the peace." One party's missionary was the other's hostage.13 In an Indian peace, of course, along with the exchange of visitors went the transfer of goods. Iroquois leaders' initial responses to Jesuits can partly be understood against this background. Any material or spiritual benefits, and { The Ascendancy of the Francophiles in }

hence any prestige, that priests might impart redounded to leaders who developed close ties to them. Relations with hostages, like other facets of diplomacy, were largely the personal preserve of the headmen who had made the peace. In nearly every village, therefore, certain leaders appropriated for their lineages personal rights to the missionaries, who readily complied in order to count eminent individuals among their converts. By the early 16705 the priests claimed to have "won to Jesus Christ a great many of the chief personages" of the Five Nations, including the Mohawk headman Assendasse and the Onondaga Garakontie.14 The spiritual fervor of many of these conversions is questionable, but in nearly every case, even the most wholehearted, the first opening came from symbiotic efforts of headman and missionary to gain influence from the relationship. Garakontie perhaps played the game more adroitly than any other. From the 16508 through the 16705, his participation in virtually every treaty between the Onondagas and New France and his efforts to save Canadian captives from execution earned him a reputation as "a man of excellent intelligence, of a good disposition, and fond of the French . . . so that they regard[ed] him as their Father, their Protector, and their sole refuge in this barbarous land." He frequently entertained emissaries and priests from the St. Lawrence in the longhouse of his lineage, and he exploited their presence (and presents) to build a strong following for himself. French civil and religious authorities, of course, used their Onondaga friend to further their own ends. But it is just as true that Garakontie employed the connection to increase his own prestige in ways that harmonized with traditional political patterns.15 If the initial responses of headmen fitted familiar diplomatic and political molds, the first reactions of most Iroquois (and one explanation for the prestige a missionary brought a leader with whom he associated) harmonized with traditional religious beliefs. Both friends and foes tended to view a priest as they would a shaman, a person with an unusual ability to manipulate spiritual forces for good or ill. Accordingly, the horrifying stories that some Huron adoptees told their new relatives labeled missionaries as especially potent and particularly malevolent spiritual figures. The image was confirmed by experiences with Isaac Jogues, the first priest to live in Iroquoia. After his capture in 1642, he earned renown among the Mohawks for his courage during his captivity ordeals. Later, at the town of Ossernenon, where a lineage of the Wolf clan adopted him, he cared for the sick, practiced Catholic ritual, and therefore seemed to act the part of a powerful shaman. With Dutch aid, Jogues escaped from his adoptive kin in 1644, only to return { 112, The Ascendancy of the Francophiles }

two years later on a diplomatic mission. This time, he departed on good terms and left behind a chest of personal belongings to signify his intention to come again. Shortly thereafter, worms infested Mohawk corn and people began to fall sick. Young men of the Bear clan argued that the French shaman's box had caused these misfortunes, and, when he revisited the town later in 1646, they unceremoniously executed him as a sorcerer, despite the protests of the priest's adoptive relatives.16 Yet not all manifestations of Jesuit spiritual power were deleterious. Priests, like other shamans, could use their talents for good as well as ill. In 1656 Onondaga opinions of visiting priests Pierre-Joseph-Marie Chaumanot and Claude Dablon improved dramatically when, after they had baptized a woman, her son, and her two aunts, all four Indians recovered from critical illnesses. Less spectacular cures could also elevate a priest's reputation; like Jean de Lamberville, most missionaries quickly learned that "medicines serve as an introduction to the faith." Even the Jesuits' efforts to discredit shamanism fostered the impression that they themselves were skillful shamans, for in contests with traditional religious figures the priests frequently sought to demonstrate the superiority of their God's powers to those of the Iroquois' "demons." A favorite trick was the "control" of astronomical events, an easy enough feat for a European armed with an almanac. "This prediction of eclipses has always been one of the things that have most astonished our savages; and it has given them a higher opinion of Their missionaries," observed Father Thierry Beschefer in 1683. He was unconsciously close to the mark: among Iroquois, as among many other Indians, it was the Jesuits' personal shamanistic power, not the message they preached, that initially impressed their audience.17 Competitions for followers would be decided by the respective results Catholic and traditionalist shamans produced and by the prospects each offered for the benefit of individuals and the community. If a missionary could escape personal blame when misfortune struck a village and its spiritual strength seemed to wane, he had a sterling chance to win new disciples. Traditional means of tapping supernatural forces had failed, and now the French shaman's methods would receive a trial. In the Seneca country, for instance, after a fire leveled the largely Huron village of Gandougarae, Gamier had considerable, though short-lived, success. According to Dablon, villagers concluded "that they were being justly punished by God for their infidelity, and for the resistance they had hitherto offered to the spread of the Gospel." They promised to erect a chapel in their reconstructed hamlet and "attend prayers there more constantly than in the past."18 { The Ascendancy of the Francophiles 113 }

Misfortunes in war, in particular, tended to increase a priest's audience. The missionaries who entered the Five Nations in force following the treaties of 1665-1667 encountered peoples who had suffered heavy losses in their wars with various recent and continuing native foes and from recurring epidemics. By approximately 1670, the total population of the Five Nations may have shrunk to as few as eighty-six hundred. Accordingly, Iroquois welcomed priests not only as diplomatic visitors but also as potential sources of the spiritual power that could produce battlefield victories and replenish their depleted numbers. Missionaries made especially quick headway among the Mohawks, struggling to reestablish in new locations the towns that lay in ashes following the Tracy expedition of 1666. "God employed the arms of France to give their conversion a beginning," Le Mercier concluded. "Their courage weakened after their defeat; and they are now, of all the Iroquois tribes, the one that gives the greatest hopes of its conversion to the Christian Faith."19 In 1669 a council of headmen from several Mohawk communities promised Pierron that their people would enthusiastically embrace Christianity. "Some days later, I saw that the Sorcerers of this Village were throwing into the fire their tortoise-drums, and the other instruments of their calling," marveled the priest from his station in the western Mohawk town. Sick women ceased to call upon shamans and curing societies, leaders suspended ceremonial dances, and "all the Savages of this country declared themselves openly for the Faith." This performance, however, hardly constituted the sweeping conversion for which the Jesuit hoped. The Mohawks' battles with their New England Algonquian enemies were going badly; indeed, the promise to become Christian occurred following a Condolence ritual for war losses. The headmen hoped to persuade the French to enter the conflict on their side, yet the priest had threatened to leave their country, and thus perhaps break relations with New France, if they did not obey him. Military setbacks, diplomatic strategy, and a waning sense of spiritual power combined to induce submission, for the moment, to Pierron's demands.20 Less entwined with considerations of Iroquois-French relations, and therefore more indicative of the attractiveness of Jesuit shamans when wars turned sour, were contemporaneous developments elsewhere in Iroquoia. In August 1669 Fremin described the Onondagas as being "much humbled of late by the Gandastogue [Susquehannocks]; for nearly all their braves perished in the war." The last was an overstatement, but losses were severe enough to make them "far more tractable than they formerly were." By Christmas, Pierre Millet reported, "Garakontie, speaking in the name of all { 114 The Ascendancy of the Francophiles }

the others, told me that they . . . renounced the superstitions that I had ordered them to renounce, and pledged themselves to obey dreams no longer. He added that... they had already ceased to speak of Agriskoue [Agreskwe, the Iroquois deity who presided over war] at feasts"; instead, they invoked the Christian God. In other words, Onondagas agreed to try the French shaman's military ceremonies. Similarly, in the winter of 1668—1669 Cayuga warriors, fearing a Susquehannock attack, encouraged missionary Etienne de Carheil, whom they had previously ignored, to stand watch with them each night. Apparently they viewed him as a source of spiritual strength for the coming battle. By the same token, shortly before the Mohawk headmen announced their conversion to Christianity, Pierron was surprised to find that a shaman he regarded as "the very enemy of the Faith" had erected a large cross in the middle of one Mohawk town, "because it would protect them and defend them against their enemies."21 Conversion to Christianity, of course, involved more than venerating a cross, incorporating a few Catholic practices into traditional war rituals, or, as frequently happened in the third quarter of the century, including Christian medals, rings, or baptismal certificates in the trove of spiritually charged articles to be buried with the dead. Jesuits required of their converts a massive reorientation of behavior and belief. Nevertheless, many Iroquois who eventually achieved that reorientation began the process with a political or native religious interest largely unrelated to the values the missionaries preached. Again Garakontie is a prime example. Only in the late i66os, after more than a decade of close relationships with French priests, did he ask for baptism. His wish was granted with elaborate ceremony at Quebec in 1670, and until his death during the winter of 1677—1678 he remained a committed Christian as well as an influential advocate of strong diplomatic and economic ties to New France.22 The motives of Garakontie and others who moved beyond diplomacy to embrace the new faith devoutly are difficult to pinpoint. Unlike the writings of some Protestant missionaries, Jesuit sources devote less attention to the process of conversion than to the steadfast faith and good works of those already saved. Doubtless, however, the considerations that induced Iroquois to become Catholics were similar to those that influenced Indians elsewhere to turn Christian: social and ideological disorientation resulting from disease and other aspects of European contact led many to seek new religious answers; the seemingly superior powers of the Christian God impelled some to abandon traditional deities; and material benefits—food, clothing, tools, medicines—brought others into the missionaries' orbit. In addition, Jesuits, { The Ascendancy of the Francophiles 115 }

unlike Protestant missionaries, skillfully employed incense, bells, paintings, and spectacle in ceremonies that sometimes paralleled Indian religious practices and often reached potential converts through each of the physical senses. But perhaps the explanation is both less complex and more profound. Frequently, an initial attraction to the missionaries, for whatever reason, must have become a heartfelt conversion simply because of the Jesuits' ceaseless efforts, evident dedication, and willingness to share in the lives of their charges. A message delivered often enough and sincerely enough by a respected figure was bound, sooner or later, to win adherents.23 Only slightly less difficult to appraise than the motives of converts are their numbers, for a mere handful of the more pious or influential Christians are known by name, and no detailed vital records from the missions in Iroquoia appear to survive. A rough measure, however, is provided by statistics on those baptized while in good health. Despite the persistent myth that seventeenth-century Catholic missionaries offered baptism to all comers and the reality that priests christened virtually any dying Indian who showed signs of repentance, Jesuits were highly selective with able-bodied adults and healthy children whose parents were not proven Christians. In 1679 Father Vincent Bigot claimed that the missionaries had "baptized more than 4 thousand iroquois, of whom a goodly part are in possession of eternal happiness." His figures seem fairly accurate: scattered and incomplete references in the Jesuit Relations mention the baptism between 1668 and 1679 of approximately 3,000 people, more than 1,200 of whom died soon thereafter. Somewhat fewer than 2,000 Iroquois, then, about half of those baptized between 1668 and 1679, apparently embraced Christianity with sufficient fervor to persuade a missionary to grant them the Sacrament while they were in good health. (Some of that number, however, were converts' children, who cannot be considered to have made a free choice.) In all, then, perhaps 20 percent of the 8,600 Iroquois may have become sincere Roman Catholics. Among individual nations of the League, about the same percentage applies to the Oneidas, Onondagas, and Senecas, with somewhat fewer than 20 percent of Cayugas and considerably more than 20 percent of Mohawks subscribing to the new religion.24 In any village, once a few dedicated converts appeared, other, less-devoted, Iroquois followed them into emerging political factions in which adherence to Christianity mingled with pragmatic alliances to the French. The ranks of these francophile factions were swelled by three sets of personal connections: networks of adopted captives, members of the lineages and clans of converted headmen, and close kin of those who received baptism. The Jesuits { 116 The Ascendancy of the Francophiles }

had understandably concentrated first on people who were not only friendly but, through previous exposure to Christianity, had some grasp of the basic concepts they preached. Quite naturally, then, the Christian adoptees who so warmly welcomed the missionaries to Iroquoia were primary targets for their initial efforts. After two years of work among Onondagas, the members of Millet's flock were "almost all either Hurons or of some other Nation that the Iroquois have destroyed," and throughout the 16708 the Jesuits' following included disproportionate numbers of adopted captives, especially Hurons. Indeed, some adoptees who had been hostile or indifferent to Christianity in their native countries became outspoken converts in Iroquoia. Many apparently saw the new faith as a means to preserve a separate identity in a hostile land.25 A second major influx to francophile factions, if not to the flocks of sincere believers, flowed from the kin of such converted headmen as Garakontie and Assendasse. "After I had baptized him," remarked missionary Jacques Bruyas concerning Assendasse, "he desired that all his family should receive baptism, as he had done." The priest had to resist the temptation to confer the Sacrament on every villager in the Mohawk headman's clan. "The conversion of this elder has caused a great stir," wrote Dablon. "Father Bruyas finds himself solicited daily to baptize children and even adults; but he has deemed advisable to grant this favor to a very small number only."26 Bonds of kinship on a more intimate scale also won friends for Christianity and for the French. Among Mohawks, Le Mercier's female catechumens made "a great impression on their husbands' minds." In the Oneida country, a majority of Millet's baptismal candidates were "either parents whose children had already received baptism, or children whose parents were Christians, or other Savages, from various cabins into which the Faith had not yet entered." The priest hoped "that God will make use of them to attract others to his service." The conversion of a beloved relative on the brink of death could also increase Christianity's support. "Most of" the Oneidas Millet "baptized on their death-beds Implored all their relatives to become baptized as soon as possible; and, if they were already Baptized, to remain faithful to God, 'in order,' They said, 'that we may all Find ourselves reunited in Heaven.'"27 Francophile factions, then, encompassed three sets of social networks, and therein lay a dilemma: divisions cut across the lineages, clans, and moieties that defined traditional Iroquoian political structures and factional alignments. In the consensual politics of Iroquois councils, disputes were usually resolved, if they were settled at all, through a process of patient discussion in { The Ascendancy of the Francophiles 117 }

which clans or moieties advocated opposite sides of an issue until agreement emerged. To the extent that Garakontie, Assendasse, and other converted headmen spoke for Christian clans, they conformed to familiar patterns. But because spouses (who were necessarily of different clans) proselyted each other, and because so many converts were adoptees (who were purposely scattered among various lineages), the formation of Christian francophile factions severely disrupted village politics.28 Just as important as the social composition of the francophile groups was the unfamiliar tenacity with which Christian factionalists clung to their positions. Members of a minority faction were traditionally expected "to yield their rights willingly rather than to be obstinate at the wrong time" and disrupt village peace and consensus. In sharp contrast, the Jesuits demanded that their followers make few compromises with the heathen; Christians could not in good conscience say to them, "Thou art in the right, Brother; that is well." Disputes came to a head when converts boycotted or disrupted the village and League rituals that bound together Iroquois of different clans and nations. "As they do not disturb our prayers, and as even the most superstitious attend them," Le Mercier complained of Onondaga traditionalists, "so they cannot suffer any opposition to their ceremonies."29 Yet, as the Jesuits saw it, opposition was mandatory, and they advised Christian headmen to spurn their expected ceremonial roles. In early 1670, as the Onondaga council planned to perform the Midwinter Ceremonial, Garakontie announced that his Christian beliefs forbade him to participate. A few years later he denounced traditional curing ceremonies and eat-all feasts. Worst of all, from the traditionalists' perspective, he denigrated the Cosmogonic Myth, the Deganawidah Epic, and the ceremonies that preserved the Great League of Peace. When ritual demanded that Garakontie recite "the genealogy and origin of the Iroquois . . . , he always protested that what he was about to say was merely a formula which is usually followed on such occasions, but that it was not true; in fine, that all he would relate about the creation of the world was simply a story, and that Jesus was the sole Master of our lives."30 Such behavior, said Garakontie's opponents, revealed "that he was no longer a man; that he had become french; that The black gowns had turned His head; and that, since he had abandoned The customs of the Country, he had also ceased to have Any affection for it." Though the Onondaga headman and his supporters vociferously denied these charges, in a sense the traditionalists were right. When Christians ceased to embrace the two central Iroquois myths and divorced themselves from ceremonies that had pre{

118 The Ascendancy of the Francophiles }

viously ratified their bonds to fellow villagers, they began to define themselves as a distinct people. Non-Christians treated them accordingly. During the 16708 some converts were stripped of their titles of office; others became targets of verbal abuse, attacks by stone-throwing boys, and physical assaults. Such violence, which went beyond ordinary sanctions of ridicule and ostracism of deviants, did not stamp out the new faith. Indeed, the early 16708 saw a steady growth in the number of native Iroquois baptisms and in the size of francophile factions. Perhaps, then, the violence should be seen not just as an effort by traditionalists to force converts back into line but also as evidence of the formation of divergent communities within single villages. Christians were no longer the traditionalists' kin. They were, in some respects, their enemies.31 Iroquoian factions that could not remain at peace with other villagers had in the past left their communities to settle elsewhere. Thus, as the gulf widened between Christians and other Iroquois, many francophiles departed for new homes nearer the French in the St. Lawrence Valley. Migration began as a trickle in the late i66os and grew to a flood after 1673, when the Jesuits altered their missionary tactics. "To make them good Christians in their own country is a difficult thing," concluded Jean de Lamberville, superior of the Five Nations missions. His solution was to isolate proselytes in separate villages where he thought "it would be very easy to make worthy Christians of them in a short time." The new tack coincided with a general lowering of French missionary expectations during the late seventeenth century. From dreams of mass conversion and cultural assimilation, the French moved toward a program of selective instruction and cultural segregation that foreshadowed later North American reservation policies.32 The most prominent of the new communities was initially located at La Prairie de la Madeleine, opposite Montreal on the banks of the St. Lawrence. After the Franco-Iroquois peace of 1665-1667, a few French families located at La Prairie with their pastor, the Jesuit priest Pierre Raffeix. Within a few months some Oneidas began to visit the village, and soon Raffeix had invited a group of them led by Catherine Gandeacteua, an adopted Erie converted by Bruyas, to settle there. By spring of 1669, when Gandeacteua and her husband built a house at La Prairie, a permanent village of Indian Christians had grown up around Raffeix's Saint Francois Xavier des Pres mission. The first settlers were a diverse group of "free iroquois" and Erie, Huron, and Susquehannock adoptees of the Oneidas.33 Between 1669 and 1673 triev were joined by hundreds of visitors from the Five Nations. Few immediately chose to stay, but many—particularly native { The Ascendancy of the Francophiles 119 }

Christians and adopted captives of varying beliefs who were disenchanted with life in Iroquoia—apparently liked what they saw. More than 180 soon returned to make La Prairie their home. A majority came from the central and eastern Mohawk towns where both Christianity and anti-Christian violence were most widespread; in 1673 Lamberville asserted, with some exaggeration, that only a "very small number" remained in those communities. Lesser but still sizable contingents emigrated from the Oneida and Onondaga countries. By 1676, when an estimated 300 Iroquois had settled at La Prairie, the mission moved a short distance upriver to more spacious and productive lands at the Lachine rapids. There it took the name of Saint Francois Xavier du Sault, or "the Sault"; Iroquois residents, however, called the place Kahnawake (Caughnawaga), after the name of the easternmost town in the traditional Mohawk country. In 1679 newcomers were still "flocking to it from all the nations, especially from that of the agnie [Mohawks]," and in 1682 the village contained an estimated 12,0-150 families— perhaps 600 people.34 By then Kahnawake had been joined by at least three other destinations for emigrants from the Five Nations. One was the mission of Notre Dame de Lorette, near Quebec, still home to the small band of Catholic Huron refugees who had avoided the 1657 resettlement in Iroquoia. The first Iroquois to join them seem to have been Smiths John and the other Mohawk hostages for the peace of 1667, who hunted from a base camp in the area. Between 1671 and 1674 several groups of Iroquois (most, evidently, from the westernmost Mohawk town but also some from as far away as the Seneca country) moved to the Huron mission. In 1675, more than fifty of some three hundred residents of Lorette were from the Five Nations. The villagers, "all chosen persons, who openly profess Christianity," developed a reputation for extreme piety. They were, wrote Lamberville, "the most fervent of our christians."35 Meanwhile, Iroquois were also migrating to missions run by orders other than the Jesuits. The largest of these was a Sulpician establishment on Montreal Island. That mission had its roots neither along the St. Lawrence nor in Iroquoia but in a separate Iroquois migration that initially was largely unrelated to the religious and political schisms racking the villages of the Five Nations. Between 1665 and 1670, as peace took hold between the western Iroquois and the Algonquins and Wyandots whom their warriors had previously plundered for peltries, Iroquois hunters—probably guided by Huron adoptees—filtered into the abandoned Huron hunting territories north of Lake Ontario. By 1670 at least six sites on the lake shore had evolved from {

12.0 The Ascendancy of the Francophiles

}

hunters' base camps to year-round hamlets. Each was identified primarily with either the Senecas, Cayugas, or Oneidas, but the settlers, whom the French called Iroquois du Nord, were a mixture from throughout the Five Nations.36 At least some residents of one of the new villages, the primarily Cayuga hamlet of Quinte, were Christians. Jesuit priests from the Iroquois missions occasionally visited them until, in 1668, Bishop Francois de Laval commissioned the Sulpician priests Claude Trouve and Francois de Salignac de La Mothe-Fenelon to establish a mission among the Iroquois du Nord. Because the north shore villages existed almost entirely to serve the fur trade, they were full of French traders laden with brandy and of Iroquois hunters eager to buy it. Thus, while some French connected with the Sulpician mission apparently reaped good profits, the priests gathered few converts. After an initial friendly reception and a mass baptism of some fifty infants, the missionaries' audience dwindled. By 1680 the Sulpicians had abandoned Quinte and consolidated their various Canadian mission activities at the site on Montreal Island. There, at La Montagne, a few refugee Indians had settled as early as 1671. By 1680, when the Sulpicians formally organized their mission, approximately 160 Indians, about half of them Christians, inhabited the village. The residents were of varied backgrounds, but Iroquois predominated. Some had followed the Sulpicians from Quinte to Montreal, others migrated directly from Iroquoia, and still others resettled at La Montagne after a sojourn at Kahnawake.37 On the shores of Ontario, the Sulpicians had been replaced by Recollect friars Luc Buisset and Louis Hennepin, who were assigned in 1673 to Fort Frontenac, a new French post at Cataraqui on the eastern end of the lake. Hennepin soon visited Quinte and at least one other north shore hamlet and brought to Cataraqui "a considerable number of the Natives, in order to make a little Village of about Forty Cottages to be inhabited by them." There the Recollects oversaw an experiment in bicultural living. The Iroquois lived in longhouses, women cultivated corn in traditional ways, and the missionaries translated prayers into an Iroquois tongue. But the friars also encouraged interaction between French and Indian children at the fort. The young people "mutually taught one another their Mother languages," Hennepin reported, "which serv'd likewise to entertain a good Correspondence with the Iroquois." The "good Correspondence," however, was not the sort for which the missionaries hoped. Trade rather than piety characterized Cataraqui. Both Hennepin and another close observer of the mission, Chrestien Le Clercq, soon despaired of ever turning Indians into proper Christians.38 { The Ascendancy of the Francophiles in }

M A P 5 . Iroquois Villages in the Mid-16705

Iroquois who wished to go to mission villages thus had a variety of choices, ranging from the easy Franco-Indian interaction of Cataraqui to the stern piety of Lorette. The motives of the emigrants who became Canadian Iroquois were as diverse as their destinations and as tangled as the factors that had first led them to convert to Christianity or to join francophile factions. For some, the inspiration was unquestionably religious. Priests promised a new life in Canada where godliness prevailed, where converts could absorb the blessings of Christian civilization in proximity to the French, and where the pious could practice their religion free from the insults of pagans and drunkards. "Ah," one Seneca reportedly exclaimed, "when shall I have the happiness of withdrawing to the land of the Faith, among the French, and to live no longer here, where God is yet unknown, and where he is so often offended?" 39 For most emigrants, however, the matter was not so simple, and secular and religious motives intertwined. Recognizing that few Iroquois could afford to devote themselves completely to the life of the spirit, missionaries struggled to create some material incentives to migration. "If we had clothing to give Them When they should come to us, until such time as they could become familiar with The Hunting-Grounds, so that they could procure it for themselves, we would soon gain a good part of those who have already some disposition for embracing The faith," Lamberville observed. "A manifest proof of this lies in The coming of nearly Fifty persons, who started from a single [Mohawk] Iroquois village on The faith of a promise given Them by Father Bruyas ... that They would be in want of nothing." Bruyas's argument was particularly convincing to those Mohawks in 1673 because, as the missionary noted from his post in the western Mohawk town, that year the Dutch-Americans had "not yet seen any ship land at Manathe [Manhattan]; this makes them very uneasy, and causes stuffs to be So dear, that our Iroquois are resolved to provide themselves with these at Montreal." In a time of stress and upheaval at home and of shortages and high prices on the Hudson, the promise of a comfortable living and secure trade with the French was sufficient to persuade many to go to Canada.40 Whatever their motives, Iroquois migrated less often as individuals than as members of groups. Two categories of people are particularly prominent in Jesuit accounts of the earliest settlers at La Prairie and Lorette: adoptees and women. As "socially dead" figures often only tenuously integrated with new kin networks, many captives must have found tremendous hope in the promise of a new form of Christian community on the St. Lawrence. Moreover, the prevalence of adoptees in the migration suggests the obvious pos{

12.4 The Ascendancy of the Francophiles }

sibility that, for them, relocation was a way of resisting their captors and reasserting their identity outside Iroquoia. For some Huron-Iroquois this interpretation is undoubtedly correct. Those who went to Lorette merged with the predominantly Huron residents, and those who went to Kahnawake remained a distinct group within the larger Indian population for at least a generation. Yet one should not too quickly assume that all adoptees viewed emigration to Canada primarily as a means of liberation from their captors. Settling in a mission village meant the exchange of Iroquois cultural imperialism for a far more intrusive French form that must have been evident to anyone who even briefly visited the new towns; the choice cannot have been easy. More important, there is no evidence that any group of adoptees other than the Hurons established an identity apart from the Iroquois once they reached Canada. The villages that missionaries in the late i66os described as home to Indians of twenty or more nations were, a decade later, uniformly characterized as "Iroquois" or "Mohawk." And, except at Lorette, even the Huron identity eventually disappeared. The Mohawk language prevailed at both Kahnawake and La Montagne, and by the early eighteenth century few remembered that anyone but Mohawks had initially settled there. In sum, while some captives may have embraced Christianity partially in order to resist their Iroquois captors, the path from that decision to a Canadian mission was neither direct nor predictable.41 Women figure as prominently as adoptees in the establishment of the mission villages; many immigrants, like the Erie-Oneida Catherine Gandeacteua of La Prairie, were both. Despite the inherent patriarchal bias of the Christianity taught by seventeenth-century missionaries, Roman Catholicism, with its cult of the Virgin Mary, its veneration of female saints, and its sisterhoods of nuns appealed strongly to the matrilineal principles of Iroquois culture. Especially at Kahnawake, priests consciously built on that appeal by organizing female sodalities, encouraging groups of adolescents to pledge themselves to lives of virginity, and preaching about the exemplary lives of native women who had died on what seemed the path to sainthood. The messages were delivered almost entirely by males—nuns played no formal role at the Canadian mission villages, whose residents apparently seldom visited the convents at Montreal and Quebec—but nonetheless some Iroquois women eagerly heard them. In the inventive rigors of their penances and devotion to the Virgin, they went well beyond what their teachers asked of them. A few natives even crossed all the hurdles of culture, education, and French ethnocentrism to take religious orders and don the habits of nuns.42 More than doctrine, however, explains the prominence of women in the { The Ascendancy of the Francophiles 12.5 }

migrations to the new villages. Permanent Iroquois settlements could not have been established in Canada if females had declined a leading role. Hunting bands such as the one Smiths John led could frequent Catholic missions and use them as base camps, but stable towns with longhouses and cornfields were female domains. Women took the initiative whenever Iroquois communities moved during the normal course of swidden cultivation, and the migration to Canada conformed to the broad outlines of that familiar process. Moreover, the late i66os and early 16705 were in general a period of major shifts in Iroquois settlement patterns, as Cayugas, Senecas, and Oneidas occupied the new villages on the north shore of Ontario, and Mohawks, after the 1666 invasion, relocated all of their towns. In many cases Iroquois women may have come gradually to Canada through a series of removals in search of a suitable home for their households and kin.43 And kinship ties were another important factor in migrations to Canada. Missionaries repeatedly described people who, for whatever reason, decided to settle in Canadian villages and then brought with them their spouses and numerous relatives. The wife of the war chief Togouiroui (also called Kryn or the Great Mohawk) decided to settle at Kahnawake early in the 16708. At first Togouiroui was hostile to Christianity, but by 1674 several visits to the mission had persuaded him to accede to his wife's demands; subsequently he brought at least two large bands of kin and followers to the mission. At about the same time, a Canadian Iroquois who was hunting with his spouse met two Mohawk hunters and persuaded them to emigrate. The two "went to their own country for their wives, and loudly proclaimed their design. Fortytwo persons . . . joined them."44 By contrast, other immigrants came to the missions because they lacked such broad webs of kin and friends. The Mohawk Kateri (Catherine) Tekakwitha is a prime example. Her mother, killed by smallpox when Tekakwitha was four years old, was a Christian Algonquin captive adopted into a primarily traditionalist Mohawk lineage and married to a traditionalist husband, whom smallpox also felled. The same epidemic injured Kateri's eyes, leaving her with a sensitivity to light that kept her indoors, frequently alone. Her habits combined with her lack of kin ties to give her a reputation as a misfit. Probably in search of companionship, she soon gravitated to the Jesuit missionaries. When Tekakwitha reached marriageable age and twice refused matches her aunts arranged for her, the women accused her of "a secret hatred of the Iroquois nation, because she was herself of the Algonquin race." Thus rejected by her relatives, she grew closer to the missionaries and in 1676 received baptism. Thereafter, she embarked on a career of almost {

116 The Ascendancy of the Francophiles }

L A T E i 4 Kateri Tekakwitha. From [Claude Charles Le Roy} Bacqueville de La Potherie, Histoire de 1'Amerique septentnonale . . . (Paris, 1711). Courtesy of the Library Company of Philadelphia

pathological piety, delighting in the most extreme forms of penance for sins real and imagined, despite her pastors' pleas for moderation. Her habits and her refusal to work on Catholic holy days increased the ire of kin and fellow villagers and led to a series of physical attacks. At length, in 1677, Tekakwitha conspired with her adoptive sister and her brother-in-law, both of whom already lived at Kahnawake, to escape to the St. Lawrence. There she was free to practice her ever more strenuous devotions until she died three years later at the age of twenty-four, probably because of her frequent fasting and severe physical penance. At Kahnawake, in death as well as life, Tekakwitha found the acceptance she never had in her native country.45 Iroquois, then, migrated to Canadian villages for any number of reasons, religious, political, economic, or familial, but perhaps one of the greatest attractions was the way in which the Christian communities paradoxically provided a social environment in keeping with cherished values that now seemed seldom to exist in the faction-ridden towns of Iroquoia. In Canada, traditional hospitality and reciprocity reigned: in 1673 tne people "of la Prairie had a provision of com for two years; but, as over eight hundred of their countrymen have come at various times to sojourn among them, all has been consumed in giving the strangers a warm reception." And, perhaps most important of all, at Kahnawake, La Montagne, Cataraqui, and Lorette, there was little factional strife. The Great Peace had fled the traditional villages of the Five Nations; it might survive in the Canadian missions.46 The migrations certainly had not ended political struggles in Iroquoia. What might have been a partition of francophile from traditionalist factions remained incomplete, because many of the Jesuits' supporters, both adoptees and natives, remained in Iroquoia. For them, kinship ties with factional opponents, economic considerations, and commitment to traditional ways of life (if not to traditional religion) outweighed devotion to Christianity. "It is not more difficult for The richest personages in Europe to abandon Their great wealth and enter The Religious State," complained one priest, "than it is for our Iroquois to quit Their relatives and friends, their fields, their Cabins filled with indian corn and small articles of furniture suited to their manner of living, in order to go and dwell in another Spot where they are not sure of finding a single one of all the things that they abandon."47 The effect of migrations to Canada, therefore, was neither neatly to divorce one community of factionalists from another nor ultimately to heal factional wounds. Instead, francophile groups were merely deprived of their most influential members and priests of their most dedicated Christians. Deep divisions remained. {

12.8 The Ascendancy of the Francophiles }

Nonetheless, the francophiles' opponents must have considered throwing in the towel. Although Mohawk traditionalists believed that the Jesuits "seemed intent upon making a desert of their country and completely ruining Their villages," they could do little about the exodus, for on such issues village councils were virtually powerless. Even if headmen could agree on the divisive course of opposing emigration, they could not force Christians to stay. At best, traditionalist leaders could mildly remonstrate or, as they did at one Mohawk town in 1678, ostentatiously leave the council fire when talk turned to the new villages. "The more they complained," one missionary gloated, "the more people were desirous of coming to see what was going on [at Kahnawake]; and among these curious ones some always remained."48 In their attempts to stem the tide toward Canada, as in most other matters, Iroquois relied less on village councils than on obligations of kinship. When families divided over religion, individuals endured intense pressure from both sides; the same family connections that helped to draw people to Canada might also lure emigres home. "The Iroquois had used every means to induce those of their countrymen who were at the Sault [Kahnawake] to return to their native land," charged resident priest Pierre Cholenec. "But their prayers and presents having been found useless, they resorted to menaces, and signified to them, that if they persisted in their refusal, they should no longer regard them as relatives or friends, but their hate become irreconcilable, and they would treat them as declared enemies." Threats were no more effective than other measures, however; indeed, more than one Iroquois who came to retrieve kin from Kahnawake or La Montagne eventually joined them instead.49 Even for those who stridently rejected Christianity and remained in Iroquoia, the Five Nations' economic and diplomatic woes forced a grudging acceptance of the missions' existence and of the need for trade and good relations with the French. In the early 16705, there simply was no viable alternative. That lesson had been driven home to the Iroquois du Nord and the hunters from the Five Nations who entered the lands north of Lake Ontario after the peace of 1665-1667. In addition to being the first documented Iroquois effort to occupy lands depopulated by the Beaver Wars, these activities represented a direct challenge to French interests. The men of the Five Nations "do all their hunting, at present, on our allies' lands, which belong in some sort to the French," Canadian Governor Daniel de Remy de Courcelle fumed with only slight exaggeration in 1671. "The Iroquois, however, trade scarcely any with us, but carry all their peltries to New Netherland, depriving us thereby of the fruits of our land." Courcelle's fresh { The Ascendancy of the Francophiles 12.9 }

claims to those territories were based on the exploits of Simon Francois Daumont de Saint Lusson, whom his government had sent west for the winter of 1670—1671. In the spring at Sault Sainte Marie, Saint Lusson summoned delegates from fourteen western bands, described to them the glories of Louis XIV, and announced, in a ceremony that the French, at least, found awe-inspiring, "that he was sent to take possession of that region, [and] receive them under the protection of the great King whose Panegyric they had just heard."50 In pursuance of his pretensions to territories Iroquois were exploiting, Courcelle mustered at Montreal approximately fifty men, thirteen canoes, and a two-ton bateau, with the supposedly impossible design of transporting the entire assemblage up the rapids of the St. Lawrence to Lake Ontario and the doorstep of Iroquoia. The procession had four major objectives: to prove to the Senecas, Cayugas, Onondagas, Oneidas, and Iroquois du Nord that French forces could attack them as easily as they had the Mohawks a few years earlier; to impose peace between the Five Nations and the western Indians (particularly the Ottawas, who had taken the northwestern place of the Hurons in the French trading network) and thereby safeguard the flow of Great Lakes furs to the St. Lawrence; to prevent that peace from becoming too firm by keeping alive seeds of distrust that would hinder any pan-Indian military or economic alliance against French interests; and to scout a location for a fort that might control the route from the lakes and channel all of the region's trade to the French rather than to their rivals at Albany. Courcelle successfully completed his trek and, at the eastern end of Lake Ontario, found a suitably cowed group of Iroquois headmen. Surrounded by hostile nations and uncertain friends, the Five Nations in 1671 could ill afford another war with New France. The next year Garakontie traveled to Montreal to confirm the peace ceremonially.51 Governor Courcelle had returned to Quebec in triumph, only to learn that the ministry had recalled him. But his successor Louis de Buade de Frontenac continued the same western policies. By early 1673 the new governor was convinced that a post on Lake Ontario was more essential than ever. As feared, peace had been all too successfully made between Ottawas and Iroquois, for, if French sources are to be believed, a group of their hunters had agreed to meet some Iroquois at the eastern end of Lake Ontario and exchange furs for Albany trade goods. The story seems exaggerated—Iroquois had never before shown much interest in an intermediary's role and were themselves perilously short of European items—but nonetheless in {

130 The Ascendancy of the Francophiles }

early 1673 Frontenac retraced Courcelle's route with an entourage of four hundred men and plans to build a fort to dominate the Lake Ontario trade routes.52 When Frontenac reached Cataraqui (where no French establishment yet existed), an Iroquois delegation led by an orator named Toronteshati conducted him to what they assured him was a fine camp site. The spot was, said the governor, "the pleasantest harbour that can be seen" and an ideal situation for a military post. Within a week, even as a peace council among the French, Iroquois, Algonquins, and Ottawas proceeded, workers feverishly cleared twenty French arpents of ground and erected the palisade and earthwork defenses of what would be known as Fort Frontenac. In all this, Toronteshati—described thitherto as "always an enemy to the French and greatly in the interest of the Dutch"—like Garakontie and the other leaders with whom Frontenac dealt, were not unsuspecting dupes. There is every indication that many Iroquois—and not just those of Christian or francophile persuasions—eagerly welcomed the post. Seneca headmen were "well disposed to receive your orders," a missionary reported to the governor before negotiations began. "Their leading purpose now is for commerce with Montreal, where they would willingly take their peltries If commodities could be bought cheaper there than at [Fort] orange." Moreover, the Senecas were "eagerly Desirous that the french should inhabit their country,—especially those who Are most useful to them, as blacksmiths and gunsmiths." Many Oneidas and Mohawks expressed similar views, because, with ties to the Hudson uncertain, trade with the French—even at the cost of a military presence in Iroquois territory—seemed imperative.53 Ironically, therefore, north of Lake Ontario the innovative trading strategies and the geographical expansion that initially promised independence only pulled the Iroquois more firmly into the Canadian economic orbit. The French outpost on Lake Ontario squelched for the present any possible Iroquois efforts to mediate trade between the West and Albany. But Fort Frontenac also protected Iroquois travelers to the St. Lawrence from attacks by their Indian enemies; as a result, some eight hundred people of the Five Nations bartered at Montreal during the summer of 1674. Abroad, then, French ascendancy seemed virtually complete. At home anti-French forces, faced with burgeoning Christian strength, continuing emigration to Canada, and encircling French expansionism, were demoralized. Adopting a practice first used by their Huron captives, Iroquois diplomats had recently begun to address the French by the title Onontio, or "Big Mountain," a translation of { The Ascendancy of the Francophiles 131 }

the surname of an early governor, Charles Huault de Montmagny. By the early 16705, the term "Big Mountain" also conveyed an image of the magnitude of French influence on Iroquois life.54 THE F R A N C O P H I L E S who allied themselves so closely to Onontio built their relationships from familiar materials of personal ties, material reciprocity, and connections to the spirit world. Headmen like Garakontie acted in a traditional way when they reached out to outsiders and members of their own community to build alliances with those who could bring spiritual power and temporal benefits; so, too, did early native followers of the Jesuits who sought to join themselves to French shamans closely allied with supernatural forces. While the francophiles undoubtedly included a few quislings who would do nearly anything for their Euro-American allies, most sincerely believed that their peoples' best interests were served by close bonds to the Jesuits, the French traders, and the royal government on the St. Lawrence. But because both the secular and religious aims of their European friends were so utterly alien to Iroquois culture, the francophiles' religious, political, and economic activities soon left their traditional roots behind. As a result, a process that began in efforts to build peace, consensus, and power ended in conflict, division, and—as many in the Five Nations saw it—weakness.

{ 132. The Ascendancy of the Francophiles }

C H A P T E R

S I X

The Revolt of the Anglophiles

I N T H E radically transformed and divisive context of Iroquois village politics, the francophiles were only the first of three major sets of local coalitions to emerge. During the mid- 16705, a new English government on the Hudson cultivated ties with disgruntled Iroquois leaders and provided a focus for anti-French sentiment. Anglophile factions quickly coalesced to eclipse the francophiles, expel the Jesuit missionaries from their towns, and challenge the western interests of the French. Yet, in the view of a third emerging set of Iroquois village factions, the anglophiles were making the same basic mistake that their francophile foes had made in submitting to European friends. As a result, neutralist leaders began seeking a middle course between the

{133 }

empires that would preserve Iroquois political independence without abandoning the vital trade ties upon which the economic survival of the Longhouse depended. Their day lay well in the future, however. The late 16705 and the i68os belonged to the anglophiles. In close partnership with English governors and a group of Dutch-American political leaders at Albany, they led the Five Nations into a renewal of the Beaver Wars and, ultimately, a prominent role in the global imperial struggle that English colonists called King William's War. IN THE L A T E i66os and early 16708, with francophiles in the ascendancy, there had been few hints that any of this might happen. While the Jesuits went about their business in Iroquoia, while sporadic shortages of trade goods continued at Albany, and while the wars with the Susquehannocks, Mahicans, and New England Algonquians took turns for the worse, Iroquois francophobes received mixed signals from the English. As local officials at Albany and delegates from New England attempted to make peace between the Mohawks and their eastern foes, New York agents were negotiating a treaty that promised military protection to the Mohawks' Narragansett enemies. And at the same time that the duke of York's government urged Iroquois wariness toward the French and their missionaries, Arent van Curler's widow Antonia, Albany magistrate Jacob de Hinsse, other prominent DutchAmericans, and even English governors Richard Nicolls and Francis Lovelace corresponded cordially with Canadian officials and with Jesuits stationed in Iroquoia.1 In this context, a few Iroquois tried vainly to enlist their Euro-American neighbors in their struggles against the French and the francophiles. Their weak position is illustrated by a scene at Albany in 1671 while Courcelle prepared for his western expedition. Evidently seeking to recruit allies for a joint counteroffensive, a Mohawk named Canadasse falsely reported to Albany officials that Courcelle's forces were headed for the Hudson. Accompanying him was a certain Sagoestesi, who brought along a French friend called "Robertus Renatus de la Salle." The Frenchman denied that Courcelle's army even existed, and Sagoestesi asked the magistrates to "give no further credence to Canadasse, saying that he is a great liar and that he makes the drunken savages say what he pleases and, furthermore, that he is not a sachem." The Albany leaders paid neither the anti-French Canadasse nor the francophile Sagoestesi much attention, resolving only "to write to the Jesuit in the Maqua country, to ask him to inform [them] sometime of all the circumstances."2 {

134 The Revolt of the Anglophiles

}

In 1673, when the Dutch briefly reconquered New York from the English, times seemed more auspicious for anti-French Mohawks. The merchants of Albany (now called Willemstadt) were worried that wartime shortages of goods would drive all of their Indian trading partners to New France. At their request, the Dutch military government gave the Mohawks a diplomatic present worth five hundred florins (slightly more than forty pounds sterling) and instructed the commander of the Willemstadt garrison "to put a stop to all correspondence with the Jesuit and Frenchmen from Canada." By early 1674, missionary to the Mohawks Jacques Bruyas was, according to his superior, "compelled to hide, in order to save himself from the evil designs which those [Dutch] heretics entertainfed] toward him," and rumor had it that Willemstadt residents were encouraging the Iroquois to attack Fort Frontenac. No doubt buoyed by such signs of opposition to the French and the francophiles, several headmen from the central and eastern Mohawk towns traveled to Manhattan in May and suggested to Governor Anthony Colve that higher fur prices would win customers back from New France. Colve promised better bargains after the Anglo-Dutch war ended; but when the fighting stopped, his rule did too. The colony reverted to English control under the terms of the 1674 Treaty of Westminster.3 The duke of York's new governor, Edmund Andros, was far more willing to work with anti-French Iroquois than his Dutch or English predecessors had been. One of his principal chores was to impose order on the turbulent borders of the English colonies—while expanding the effective boundaries of the duke's province and thus the imperial control of the Stuart royal family. In 1675, the governor improvised strategies to deal with three conflicts that threatened to produce a continentwide native uprising against the English: Metacom's ("King Philip's") War, the bloody struggle between the New England colonies and the Algonquian foes of the Five Nations; the fighting between Mohawks and Mahicans near Albany; and Bacon's Rebellion in Virginia, with its associated frontier intercultural conflicts.4 In each of these, the central geographical position of the Five Nations and their relationships with key participants assured them a pivotal role. In 1675, Andros struck a military alliance with Mohawk leaders and encouraged them to intervene against Metacom's forces. New England Puritan officials, suspicious of royal interference in their affairs, rejected such aid as "a plot and a snare." Nonetheless, a Mohawk attack on Metacom's winter encampment in 1675-1676 and several other major raids through early 1677 were vital to the New England Algonquians' defeat. As these events devolved, Andros and his subordinates at Albany struggled to end the conflict between { The Revolt of the Anglophiles 135 }

the Mohawks and the Mahicans, who were often joined in their battles by New England Algonquians. By 1680 both wars were over, with results that could not have been more favorable to the Iroquois. The Mohawks emerged as the principal Indian power from their valley eastward to central Massachusetts and northward toward the St. Lawrence. From throughout that region Andros invited defeated New England Algonquians, Western Abenakis, and Mahicans to relocate at Schaghticoke, on the Hoosic River some twenty miles northeast of Albany. There they were to live under the protection of the New York government and their former Mohawk foes, who henceforth called them "Children." In the words of a spokesman in 1678 for "all the Indians Westward" from Albany, the Iroquois gave the "Priviledge to all Nations under the Covenant[,] Mehikanders and others[,] to come to our Land . . . in Peace and Quietness."5 During the same period, Andros closed the book on the Iroquois-Susquehannock war, which had acquired a link to Bacon's Rebellion in the South. In 1675 many Susquehannocks migrated to Maryland at the invitation of that colony's government; they arrived just in time to fall victim to a massacre by Baconites from Virginia. When the dust cleared in the Chesapeake region, Andros enticed many of the surviving Susquehannocks to return north. Some settled among the Delawares; others were adopted, evidently with some coercion, by the Onondagas and Cayugas; still others eventually resumed their old position in the Susquehanna Valley, where they eventually became known as Conestogas. For the Five Nations, the outcome of the Susquehanna resettlements, like those at Schaghticoke, was the equivalent of a mourning-war triumph: Iroquois population, military strength, and spiritual power substantially increased through the addition of new adoptees and allies. Thus the comments of Jesuit missionaries that the Susquehannocks were "utterly defeated" by the Senecas or "conquered by the Iroquois and the English of Maryland," while apparently not literally correct, have some merit. The Susquehannocks' lands had not exactly been "wonn with the sword" (as some Iroquois would claim a few years later), but they might as well have been.6 In these far-flung military and diplomatic developments lay the origins of the set of English-Indian alliances known as the Covenant Chain. For Andros, the Chain was an elaborate, if ad hoc, means to pacify the natives, simplify English-Indian relations, and—because the governments of Massachusetts, Maryland, and Virginia all participated in treaty negotiations as subordinate partners to New York—to establish the preeminence of the duke's province in Anglo-America. For the Five Nations it was the beginning {

136 The Revolt of the Anglophiles

}

of a long-lived dominance in the intercultural diplomacy of the Northeast. Their "Ambiguous Iroquois Empire" was not really an empire at all, but rather a system of alliances in which, at best, the Five Nations were first among equals by virtue of their ability to serve as brokers between English governments and Indian nations. Yet even if they did not become emperors, the Iroquois profited enormously from the creation of the Covenant Chain. By the late 16705 they could dream of security on their eastern and southern borders and of thousands of prospective allies among the Mahicans, Schaghticokes, and Susquehannocks as well as the English colonists of several jurisdictions. "The Covenant that is betwixt the Governor Generall and us is Inviolable," a Mohawk orator proclaimed in 1677. "If the very Thunder should break upon the Covenant Chayn it wo[u]ld not break it in Sunder."7 The military potentialities were joined by concrete economic benefits. The English-sponsored end to the wars with Susquehannocks, Mahicans, and New England Algonquians freed warriors and hunters from the Five Nations to seek new sources of furs in the West. Just as important, it allowed Iroquois traders safe access to the Albany market, where, according to Governor Frontenac, beaver pelts sold in this period at rates one-third higher than in New France. Meantime, commerce thrived on the Hudson, as Metacom's War destroyed the capacity of John Pynchon's Springfield operation to compete for Indian customers, as the conclusion of the Anglo-Dutch wars ended shortages of trade goods, and as Andros encouraged Albany merchants' efforts to monopolize the region's fur trade.8 Along with the new prosperity came a new decorum in the Hudson River marketplace. With Andros's support, in the late 16708 Albany magistrates imposed strict regulations on commerce, confined legal bargaining to public areas inside the town palisade, and introduced English concepts of segregation; Indians were no longer permitted free access to Euro-American houses. The new laws were well enforced, and the worst abuses of the mid-seventeenth-century trading scene dramatically abated. It is unlikely that illicit practices disappeared, and it is hard to imagine that Indians received optimum prices in an environment tightly controlled by local officials who were also merchants. Still, the improvement over the kidnappings, beatings, and thefts of earlier years was plain. Iroquois traders could now expect to get something in exchange for their pelts and to return home in one piece.9 The changes at Albany could not have occurred without the cooperation of local residents. Within the Dutch community a group of young fur traders had risen to prominence since the first English conquest; among them were Peter Schuyler, Dirck Wesselse Ten Broeck, and Evert Bancker. Allied with a { The Revolt of the Anglophiles 137 }

handful of local English and such other newcomers as the Dutch-speaking Scot Robert Livingston, these anglicizers threw in their lot with the conquerors and gained offices and preferment under Andros. Their good fortune came at the expense of such dominant figures of the old regime as trader and Mohawk language interpreter Arnout Cornelisz Viele and merchants Johannes Cuyler and Johannes Wendell. In 1686 the rising leaders secured from Andros's successor, Thomas Dongan, a city charter that, among other things, confirmed their town's traditional monopoly of the province's northern and western Indian trade and installed Schuyler as mayor, Livingston as city clerk, and other prominent anglicizers as aldermen. Not surprisingly, although all Albany merchants prospered from the developments, the Schuyler faction benefited most.10 For the Iroquois, the contrast between the old Dutch order and the new leadership was dramatic and welcome. At the same time that the anglicizers were consolidating their economic and political power and improving the trading climate at Albany, they were also emerging as the principal brokers between the Five Nations and the duke's government at Manhattan. This role evolved easily from their control of key local offices, their dominant position in the town's Indian trade, their resulting connections to anti-French Iroquois, and their simple presence on the scene. Of necessity Andros and Dongan left day-to-day Indian affairs in the hands of local authorities, who eventually acquired the title of Commissioners for Indian Affairs. Schuyler, as mayor and chief spokesman for the town, and Livingston, as town clerk and by extension Indian affairs secretary, played particularly important roles.11 The impact of the changes at Albany and Manhattan on village politics in the Five Nations is difficult to pinpoint. The effect can easily be imagined, however, in the context of Iroquois concern about French western expansionism and internal political influence. The Covenant Chain relationships cast Iroquois dealings with the St. Lawrence colony in a new light: there need be no more concessions like those made to Courcelle and Frontenac on Lake Ontario in 1671 and 1673. Andros's policies introduced a new and—to Iroquois francophobes—more palatable economic option. That option became even more compelling after the establishment at Cataraqui proved but the first in a series of new French western posts. In 1676 Frontenac and ReneRobert Cavelier de La Salle constructed a fort at Niagara, on the very doorstep of Seneca territory. A few years later, La Salle sailed from that post in a ship that, despite several Seneca acts of sabotage, he had built there to exploit the Great Lakes trade. The craft ultimately disappeared (without La {

138 The Revolt of the Anglophiles

}

Salle aboard), probably in a storm but perhaps as a result of Iroquois attack. Its commander, meanwhile, left to erect a chain of forts in the West—St. Joseph on Lake Huron, Crevecoeur on the Illinois River, and Prudhomme far to the south on the Mississippi. These he designed to capture the trade of the Miami and Illinois countries and to ship furs directly to Europe by way of the Gulf of Mexico, bypassing the Iroquois and their neighbors almost entirely.12 The extent to which Iroquois were privy to the grand design is unclear, but it was obvious that the French were tightening a noose around vital beaverhunting territories and trade routes while menacing the northern and western flanks of the Five Nations. To those who feared these developments as further assertions of French dominance over Iroquois life, Andros and the Albany elite promised to provide more than an economic alternative to the St. Lawrence markets. "Let the Maques Indyans know," the governor instructed Albany officials in early 1675, "that if they bee not wanting themselves, I shall not on my part, in continuance of the Friendship . . . and also [in] interposing with the French, or any other Neighbour, in any just matter." Presumably, he reiterated the message in person that August at a conference in the western Mohawk town with leaders of that nation "and Associates to about four hundred miles further." The council was evidently held there instead of at Albany because Seneca headmen en route to meet the governor had begun to hurry home after a report from the Mohawk leader Tahiadoris "that the Governor of Canada was to coming [sic] with 1000 men to Cataraguy . . . to goe and destroy them said Sinnekes and Cayukes."13 Two years later, after that threat proved a false alarm, Andros sent Wentworth Greenhalgh and interpreter Viele through the Five Nations with the message "that the Maques Indians and associates on this side the Lake [Ontario] (haveing bein always Under a Pairt of this government) have nothing to do with the French, Only as they are our friendes, but in no case are to be Commanded by them." Because the French and English crowns were at peace, Andros stopped short of endorsing hostilities or forbidding relations between the Five Nations and New France. "You are free to go to Canada or where you think proper," he told Mohawk headmen in 1679. But Iroquois foes of the French knew well how to use the freedom the Covenant Chain provided them.14 In the villages of the Five Nations, those who hoped "in no case . . . to be Commanded by" the French were now gathered into cohesive anglophile factions that mobilized previously demoralized anti-Christian and antifrancophile sentiment. Very little is known about the early stages of these developments. Beyond the names of a handful of prominent figures, Jesuit { The Revolt of the Anglophiles 139 }

sources reveal even less about the precise composition of opposition parties than of their own supporters. It seems safe to assume, however, that in many respects the two factions mirrored each other: headmen without close ties to French missionaries emerged as anglophile leaders; anti-Christian adoptees provided a core of support; kinship bonds contributed additional followers. Moreover, non-Christian shamans and headmen could win back disciples in many of the same ways that priests had first lured them away. In particular, when Iroquois spiritual power seemed to increase through such traditional means as success in war, missionaries lost much of their audience. As Father Etienne de Carheil ruefully observed of Cayugas in 1672., "There is nothing more inimical to our Missions than the victories that these peoples gain over their enemies." Since the end of the Susquehannock conflict, missionary Jacques Bruyas concurred, Senecas seemed to "talk of nothing but renewing the war against... [New France's Indian] allies, and even against the French, and of beginning by the destruction of fort Catarokoui."15 The same attitude prevailed among groups in all the villages of the Five Nations, for critics of the French and the francophiles now had a concrete alternative to the Jesuits, Frontenac, and La Salle. In their view, the new English order at Albany must have promised a healthy return to what now seemed the good old days of Arent van Curler. The Dutch had many faults, but they had largely left the Five Nations' religious life alone, refrained from meddling in their domestic or foreign politics, and—most important—supplied vital trade goods without asking whence furs came or on whom weapons would be turned. Symbolizing the hoped-for return to an earlier era, when Andros visited the Mohawk country in 1675, leaders of the Five Nations dubbed him "Corlaer," requickening him in the position formerly held by their erstwhile Dutch friend.16 That council title indicates that style was just as important as substance: like Van Curler's before him, Andros's personal embassies and pledges of friendship conformed to the practices of Indian diplomacy and Iroquois politics. At the governor's 1675 treaty council in the Mohawk country, the headmen present "submitted in an Extraordinary manner, with reitterated promisses." Similarly, Greenhalgh and Viele encountered warm welcomes wherever they went, especially in villages where distance from Albany had previously inhibited close ties to the Dutch or English. Cayugas offered the travelers a choice of sleeping companions, and Senecas treated them to rituals usually reserved for close military allies. A few months after this embassy the Seneca orator Adondarechaa summarized the views of Andros's new Iroquois friends: "Wee have alwyes had ane firm Covenant with this {

140 The Revolt of the Anglophiles

}

Goverment which haith bein fayt[h]fuly Keeped by this Governor Generall (for which wee doe give him harty thankes, whom wee have taken to be our greatest Lord)."17 The word Lord, of course, is European, not Iroquoian, although it has frequently been used to translate native terms for League Sachems and rotiyanehr. Whatever Seneca word Adondarechaa actually employed, the interpreter's choice of Lord suggests a final key to the English support in Iroquois villages. Around the diplomacy of the Covenant Chain developed a rich body of intercultural rituals that, like Lord, had different meanings for Indians and English. Indicative of those contrasting interpretations were the ways in which the two sides preserved memories of the proceedings: in oral tradition aided by mnemonic wampum belts for one, in neatly engrossed legal documents for the other.18 The ceremonies were modeled upon the rites of the Great League of Peace and, for Iroquois, helped to make the Covenant Chain a partnership much like that among the Five Nations. The regular meetings that Andros initiated with headmen of the Five Nations evolved into periodic "brightenings" of the Chain, which were based on League rituals. During these affairs, Iroquois orators intoned the history of the relationship with New Netherland and New York, just as they recalled the origins of the Great Peace at League councils; they exchanged Condolences and gifts, just as in native politics and diplomacy; they insisted that Albany was the only legitimate place for treaties with members of the Chain, just as Onondaga was the seat of the League; and they passed the name "Corlaer" from Andros to successive New York governors, just as they requickened their own traditional council titles from one generation to the next. Latter-day Corlaers and their fellow European negotiators would not fully appreciate the intercultural rituals' significance and learn their rules until after the turn of the eighteenth century. Nonetheless, the ceremonial actions of Iroquois orators and the bumbling efforts of late-seventeenth-century New Yorkers to imitate them gave the utilitarian benefits of the Covenant a cultural meaning that ordinary Iroquois could understand. For many, the combination was irresistible.19 In the towns of the Five Nations, as support for the English and their Covenant Chain waxed, enthusiasm for the French and their religion waned. One crucial factor, of course, was the departure of many of the Jesuits' most dedicated converts for the Canadian villages. In addition, during the mid-16705 francophile factions lost two of their most effective leaders with the death of Assendasse, "the foundation-stone of" Mohawk Catholicism, and of Garakontie, "the friend and protector of the French in his country." Assendasse's { The Revolt of the Anglophiles 141 }

P L A T E 1 5 . A Native Record of Diplomacy: The "Tadadaho" Wampum Belt. Courtesy of the New York State Museum, Albany

void apparently went unfilled and unlamented; Garakontie's name was requickened in a brother, who never acquired the influence the first had wielded and did not share his predecessor's close ties to New France. He soon came under the sway of the Onondaga orator Otreouti (La Grande Gueule, "Big Mouth"), who, events would soon reveal, was no friend of the French.20 With the evaporation of francophile support, the days of the Jesuits were numbered. In 1676 Father Claude Dablon reported that Cayugas and Senecas had "become so insolent that they talk[ed] only of breaking the missionaries' heads, by way of beginning hostilities." In the eyes of anglophiles, the Jesuits had lost the right to protection as diplomatic hostages; the disruption they had brought to Iroquois villages made them, and the French in general, enemies once again. In 1682 Cayugas led by the headman Ourehouare (New Yorkers called him Taweeraet) chased Father Carheil from their country. A year later, although Jesuit superior Thierry Beschefer still spoke optimistically about prospects for converting the entire Mohawk nation and about continued migrations to Kahnawake, he had to confess that the Iroquois peoples were "opposed more strongly than any other to Christianity." Their recent military and diplomatic triumphs, he complained, had "rendered them so haughty that they considered] themselves the masters of the earth." By early 1684, missionaries' lives were in danger throughout Iroquoia, and a mere handful of Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, and Senecas still openly practiced Christianity in their homelands. That summer most of the priests serving Iroquoia abandoned their posts, and the great Jesuit effort to convert {

142 The Revolt of the Anglophiles

}

P L A T E i 6 . A Euro-American Record of Diplomacy: Treaty Minutes. New York State Archives, Albany

the Five Nations came to an end. Only Jean de Lamberville, later joined at Onondaga by his brother Jacques, remained, and neither would stay much longer.21 The revolt of the anglophiles at home accompanied a new assertiveness abroad. By 1678, the tentative Iroquois contacts with western Indians that had concerned Frontenac earlier in the decade had developed into serious efforts to mediate trade between the Ottawas and Wyandots in the West and the Dutch and English on the Hudson. But warfare more often than commerce dominated Iroquois western activities in the late 16708 and early i68os. Fighters from the Five Nations battled a host of foes, including Miamis, Illinois, Ojibwas, Foxes, and some bands of Shawnees, Wyandots, and Ottawas (other groups of those peoples remained at peace). The new western campaigns followed a familiar pattern: captive-taking motives blended with the economic demands of the fur trade. Otreouti maintained that his people attacked the Illinois and Miamis because "they came to hunt Beavers upon our Lands; and contrary to the custom of all the Savages, have carried off whole Stocks, both Male and Female." Whether those lands actually belonged to the Iroquois or whether the western Indians actually overhunted them may be questioned. The importance of furs in Iroquois war aims may not. Yet conflict in the West disrupted the trading relationships that some Iroquois cultivated with particular bands of Ottawas and Wyandots. Furthermore, with most Iroquois men engaged in combat, hunting declined. There was "a great scarcity of peltries" at Albany in 1680, and soon thereafter most of the Iroquois du Nord abandoned their now-dangerous hunting grounds and hamlets to return to Iroquoia. Apparently again the Five Nations had to depend primarily on furs stolen from their enemies rather than on pelts harvested by their own hunters.22 The first recorded major western engagement had flared in 1676, when Jean de Lamberville reported from Onondaga that warriors were "bringing 50 captives from a distance of zoo leagues from here, to whom they have granted their lives because they destine them to work in their Fields." Four years later, some four hundred Iroquois warriors assaulted a large party of Miami and Illinois hunters, killed more than thirty, and took approximately three hundred captive. The western Indians' compatriots, however, regrouped to free the prisoners and to kill many of the invaders. A far more successful mission occurred in 1682, when warriors brought an estimated seven hundred Illinois prisoners to Onondaga and other villages of the Five Nations. According to Lamberville, the troops "killed and ate over 600 others on the spot, without counting those whom they burned along the {

144 The Revolt of the Anglophiles

}

road." The priest may have inflated his figures, but clearly the Iroquois secured a major victory. Moreover, he added, they "never had a larger store of weapons and of munitions of war than they" did as they prepared for the next year's campaign. Those arms could not prevent, however, a crushing defeat in which Iroquois forces reportedly lost several hundred men to the Ojibwas and Foxes in 1683.23 Just as in the 16505, then, the price of warfare was high. But so were the stakes, for the Iroquois desperately needed every captive as well as every pelt they could seize. In the years since the peace of 1665-1667, diseases had repeatedly devastated the villages of the Five Nations: upwards of two hundred Senecas died in 1668, at least fifty Mohawks fell in 1669—1670, many others succumbed in 1673, and more than sixty Seneca children expired during a single month in 1676. Worse than any of these diseases was a smallpox epidemic, probably transmitted from Kahnawake, that struck Manhattan, Albany, and Iroquoia in late 1679. An "immense number" perished in each of the Five Nations. The next March, when the first boat after the thaw of the Hudson reached Manhattan from Albany, it bore "scarcely any news except that a great number of Indians had died in the early part of the winter of small pox, and [that] a large party of them had gone south to make war against the Indians of Carolina." The report reveals with unusual clarity what had happened: the epidemic had inspired a massive mourning-war.24 Less obviously, the message suggests some of the complexities of the new Iroquois campaigns and the Covenant Chain arrangements that made them possible. Warriors from Iroquoia began to raid Conoys, Piscataways, Catawbas, and other Indian neighbors of Maryland, Virginia, and the Carolinas at the same time that events in the West were heating up. The southern campaigns were an indirect result of the diplomacy of the mid-16708, for the instigators were the Susquehannock adoptees whom the Covenant Chain treaties had settled in Iroquoia. Armies of the Five Nations, one Virginia Englishman explained, "used always to march northward and still would, but for the incitement of the Susquehannas," who were eager to win satisfaction against old southern foes. This trade-off suggests the likelihood of another: in exchange for assistance against their enemies, Susquehannock adoptees must have aided their new relatives in the western wars. In such arrangements, about which the English and French governments knew little, lay many of the benefits Indian participants derived from the Covenant Chain.25 As a result of victories in both the West and the South, captives flowed into { The Revolt of the Anglophiles 145 }

M A P 6 . The Late-Seventeenth-Century Wars

Iroquoia in numbers unseen since the 16405. Meanwhile, some western Indians—in particular several hundred Eries who had earlier sought refuge in the Ohio Valley—voluntarily relocated in Iroquoia to avoid forced adoption. The Five Nations "have strengthened themselves, in this and the preceding years, with more than nine hundred men armed with muskets," concluded Jean de Lamberville in 1682.. Of all the foes of New France, echoed the colony's governor in 1685, "the Iroquois are the most formidable; they are the most powerful by reason of the facility they possess of procuring arms from the English, and in consequence of the number of prisoners (esclaves) they daily make among their neighbors." The governor overstated his case. If anything, between 1679 and 1685 the population of the Five Nations declined by several hundred. In the i68os, just as in the 16408, epidemics, mourning-wars, and economic considerations produced a dangerous spiral of conflict in which the Five Nations could barely hold their own.26 The strain threatened to unravel the fabric of Iroquois society. As deaths mounted and as multitudes of distant Indians with strange speech and unfamiliar customs were taken prisoner, traditions regarding the treatment of captives decayed, and previously orderly practices degenerated into chaotic violence. If Lamberville was even half right in his assertion that Iroquois warriors "killed and ate . . . on the spot" more than six hundred enemies in their campaign against the Illinois in 1682., something had gone horribly wrong in the practice of the mourning-war. When that army party returned with its prisoners, a gantlet ritual turned into a deadly attack, and Onondaga headmen barely managed to save the lives of the Illinois. A few hours later, drunken young men, "who observe[d] no usages or customs," again tried to kill some captives who were being sheltered in longhouses. In vain headmen pleaded with their people to remember "that it was contrary to custom to illtreat prisoners on their arrival, when They had not yet been given in the place of any person . . . and when their fate had been left Undecided by the victors."27 Disorder was not confined to emotional occasions such as the return of a war party; a general political breakdown seems to have been imminent. The Five Nations were, one English observer concluded, "a stout, numerous, rapacious people, composed of many nations, receiving all sorts of outlying Indians, and therefore an ungoverned people, with whom no treaty can be depended on." The problem stemmed not just from newcomers but from the diseases that felled an extraordinary number of the headmen whose role it was to keep the peace. To the ranks of Garakontie and Assendasse were added in the middle to late i68os the Mohawk headman Canondondawe, a {

148 The Revolt of the Anglophiles

}

"Chiefe Sachim of Onnondagae a great Creature of the French and Enemy to the English Interest" called Aguirachronge, the prominent Onondaga Otreouti, and many others whose individual names did not regularly find their way into Euro-American records. "The Sachims who Spoke formerly with your Excellency are Dead, and we have not So much knowlege as they had," an inexperienced Mohawk orator named Sindachsegie lamented to Governor Andros in i688.28 While the Five Nations struggled with demographic carnage and the domestic implications of their campaigns, Iroquois and French western aims inevitably came into conflict. A series of embarrassments followed for New France. In 1680, for example, when La Salle's aide Henri de Tonty tried to stop a battle in the Illinois country, he was met with a hail of Iroquois gunfire. Then "a young Onontaghe ran up, knife in hand, and stabbed Monsieur de Tonty near the heart, but it fortunately glanced off a rib." When the Onondagas determined the man's nationality, they released him, and at last the French temporarily checked the hostilities. Nonetheless, as a member of Tonty's party confessed, "We were all in danger of losing our heads." Such "injuries done by them to the French, without their having been made to give any satisfaction, persuade them that they are feared," Jean de Lamberville complained of his Onondaga hosts in September i68z.29 A month later, when Frontenac's newly appointed successor, JosephAntoine Le Febvre de La Barre, met with the colony's military and religious leaders at Quebec, it was clear that French western policy was unraveling. The council concluded that the Iroquois planned to destroy one after another the western Indian nations, and with them the French fur trade and the Jesuit missions in the region. New France itself would be the ultimate target. The only solution was to make conspicuous preparations for war in hopes of intimidating the Five Nations. By 1684 tne bluff had been called, and La Barre mounted serious plans to invade Iroquoia. In justification, he cited numerous transgressions, including a series of attacks on French traders in the West and a Seneca assault on Fort St. Louis in the Illinois country. At Albany, however, an Iroquois spokesman concisely explained to the English the underlying motive: "The French will have all the Bevers, and are angry with us for bringing any to you."30 La Barre's 1682, council concluded that "for four years past the English have left nothing undone to induce the Iroquois to declare war against us,— by means of the great number of presents which they have made them, or by the low terms at which they have given them goods, especially guns, powder, and lead." The French, however, confused the effect of English policy with its { The Revolt of the Anglophiles 149 }

intent. The Covenant Chain arrangements and the improved trading climate at Albany had made Iroquois western initiatives possible, and English diplomatic gifts had won many friends in the Five Nations. Still, not the English or the Dutch, but the leaders of Iroquois anglophile factions—even if they were, as La Salle complained, "good friends of Monsieur Andros"—were the ones who autonomously assembled the elements to move aggressively into the West. Indeed, renegade French trading agents were far more active than New Yorkers in directly facilitating commerce between the Five Nations and the western bands with which they remained at peace and in challenging the economic dominance of New France over the region.31 Only during the months immediately preceding La Barre's planned invasion did the New York government begin to intervene in Iroquois affairs aggressively and to use the Covenant Chain actively as an instrument of imperial policy. Dongan, who became the duke's governor in 1683, sought to expand upon Andros's strategy of using relationships with the Five Nations for the extension of New York territory and trade. He found Iroquois anglophiles eager for a marriage of convenience. Maneuvering began in the fall of 1683, when several Cayugas and Onondagas—their leader was the same Ourehouare who had masterminded the expulsion of the missionary Carheil from the Cayuga country—conspired with the Albany magistrates to transfer to Dongan ownership of the upper Susquehanna River valley. The transaction kept the territory temporarily out of the hands of William Penn, whose agents had been treating with some Iroquois. More important, it excluded his colony from the region's lucrative Indian trade. The central Iroquois claimed the lands by virtue of their victory over the Susquehannocks, or at least because, as Penn explained, "the remainder of the Susquahannahs, who are right Owners thereof, are amongst them." For their pains, the Cayugas and Onondagas received "half a Peece of duffellsf,] Twoo Blanketts, Twoo gunns, Three kitles, four Coats, fifty Pound of Lead, [and] Twenty five Pound of Powder." Subsequent developments suggest, though, that the sellers expected more than a bundle of trade goods in return for their services and that, in dealing with New York and Pennsylvania, they kept New France in view.32 Ourehouare emerged from the transaction anticipating great things from his Albany friends, "whose civilities in his regard" Jean de Lamberville reported to be "the never-ending subject of his praise." As the Cayuga leader trumpeted English virtues, the Mohawk orator Odianne led a group of headmen to Manhattan for a conference with the new governor, who had summoned them to explain that under his leadership the Covenant Chain {

150 The Revolt of the Anglophiles

}

would entail expanded Iroquois obligations. The Five Nations were "to trade no more with the French; nor goe there if sent for, without leave of this Government." They were also "to permitt no Frenchmen to live amongst them except the Jesuits" (whose missionary efforts Dongan tolerated because he himself was a Roman Catholic) "and such as shall have a passe from the Governour of New Yorke." In the West, the Iroquois should "make peace with those Indians they now warre against, and trade with them, and . . . bring the trade to this Government." Though the headmen politely ducked the issue of war in the West, they eagerly approved the proposals regarding New France and even offered to expel the remaining Jesuits along with other "stragling Frenchmen." Perhaps encouraged, Dongan gave the departing Mohawks a final message for their people and the rest of the Five Nations. "All the [south] side of the lake of Canada belongs to the Government of New Yorke," he declared. "The Governour desires they may be all acquainted with it, and expects their submission."33 The next summer, as La Barre's invasion force mobilized, "submission" was readily forthcoming from the Iroquois headmen who participated in a major conference at Albany with Dongan, Virginia Governor Francis, Lord Howard of Effingham, and agents from the Massachusetts Bay colony.34 Shortly before the conference was scheduled to begin, Dongan and leaders of the Five Nations each learned that La Barre's army was on its way to Iroquoia. The New York governor left early for Albany, intending to summon headmen of the Five Nations and give them instructions. When he arrived, he found already waiting for him a group of Senecas who had passed through the Onondaga town a few days earlier and come ahead to purchase arms and ammunition. Their headmen remained at the seat of the League for a meeting with counterparts from the Cayugas and Onondagas. The council, which the Lambervilles lobbied vigorously, decided that Otreouti—who in 1684 was still very much alive and active—should lead one final attempt to make peace with La Barre; if the French governor failed to come to terms, the Five Nations would "conclude on a league against" him. Aware of the likelihood that peace overtures would fail, the headmen apparently agreed on one final piece of strategy, perhaps proposed by Senecas. Building on the Susquehanna land deal, they would do as the English governor desired, but their price would be military aid against La Barre.35 When the formal proceedings in Albany opened at the end of July, Odianne (the Mohawk orator who had met with Dongan a few months earlier) was first to offer "submission." In separate speeches on behalf of the Mohawks and Oneidas, he asked for placards bearing "the Duke of yorks armes { The Revolt of the Anglophiles 151 }

to put on their Castles which was Immediatly given them and which they catched at very greedily"; copies had already been distributed to the three more westerly Iroquois nations. A few days after Odianne's performance, a spokesman for Onondaga and Cayuga headmen concurred with his actions. "Wee have putt all our land and our selfs under the Protection of the great Duke of York, the brother of your great Sachim," the orator declared. "We have given the Susquehanne River which we wonn with the sword to this Government and desire that it may be a branch of that great tree . . . under whose branches we shall shelter our selves from the French or any other people." Here was the quid pro quo: "You will protect us from the French," the Onondagas and Cayugas demanded, "which if you do not, we shall lose all our hunting and Bevers." Lest Dongan misinterpret Iroquois intentions, the spokesman emphasized, with Lord Howard as their witness, that "we being a free People Uniting our Selves to the English it may be in our Power to give our Land to what Sachim we Please."36 Those were brave words, but the Iroquois were nonetheless desperate. That was plain in the remarks of an orator for the Senecas, the people La Barre most immediately threatened and the last of the Five Nations to be heard from at the Albany conference. "We cannot live without free Beverhunting," the orator admitted, in full awareness of the dependence on European trade that had led Iroquois peoples to rely first on the Dutch, then on the French, and now on the English. Corlaer, Hear what we say, We Thank you for the Dukes Arms which you have given us to put on our Castles, as a Defence to them. You command them. Have we wander'd out of the way, as the Governor of Canada saysf?] We do not threaten him with War, as he threatens us. What shall we do? Shall we run away, or shall we sit still in our Houses? What shall we do? We speak to him that Governs and Commands us. Dongan had no satisfactory answers and no intention of supplying military aid. He had the formal "submission" he desired, and, regardless of consequences for the Five Nations, he planned to use it in the contest with other English colonies and with New France for suzerainty over Iroquois territories. As Dongan saw it, the Indians' role in these affairs was over for the present; under no circumstances were his new Iroquois subjects to engage in independent peace talks with the French.37 The headmen at Albany balked—this was probably the context for the "we being a free People" remark—and therefore Dongan assigned provincial interpreter Viele the unenviable task of traveling to Onondaga to persuade a {

152 The Revolt of the Anglophiles

}

gathering of headmen from the Onondagas, Oneidas, and Cayugas. There Viele found the Iroquois in "a very great uproar" over Dongan's behavior and more than willing to listen to a French delegation come to pave the way for a treaty with La Barre, whose army had halted at La Famine on the south shore of Lake Ontario. Otreouti bluntly told Viele that Dongan had not adequately fulfilled his end of the bargain negotiated at Albany: "You say we are Subjects to the King of England and Duke of York, but we say, we are Brethren. We must take care of our selves. Those Arms fixed upon the Post without the Gate [of Onondaga], cannot defend us against the Arms of La Barre."38 Otreouti's speech marks the first recorded stirring of an incipient Iroquois faction suspicious of both the French and the English and convinced that the Five Nations must find some way to "take care of ... [them]selves." The Onondaga orator was no newcomer to the business of dealing with Europeans. In 1658 he had been captured by the French and imprisoned in the jail of Montreal. He soon escaped and, three years later, led a war party that slew a priest and some other colonists near that French town. Although he initially opposed Garakontie's subsequent peace efforts, he had apparently reluctantly signed the 1665 treaty with New France. When Otreouti led a delegation of Onondagas, Cayugas, and Oneidas to a conference with the French governor at La Famine in 1684, he certainly did not speak as a francophile or, in light of his recent statements, an anglophile. Instead, his message reflected a neutralist agenda that was also embraced by at least two Onondaga headmen of a younger generation who accompanied him: the second Garakontie and Teganissorens (the English spelled his name "Decanesora"). From the latter, Euro-Americans and Iroquois would hear much more in future years.39 La Barrels army, camped in a swamp, was short of supplies and riddled with influenza. The governor showed a brave front, but he could not fool the Iroquois delegation. "I perceive," Otreouti declared, "that the Onnontio raves in a Camp of sick People, whose lives the great Spirit has sav'd by visiting them with Infirmities." There were more verbal barbs to come, and a ringing statement of Iroquois independence by a leader who had little patience with either his anglophile or francophile compatriots: We have conducted the English to our Lakes, in order to traffick with the Outaouas, and the Hurons [Wyandots]; just as the Algonkins conducted the French to our five Cantons, in order to carry on a Commerce that the English lay claim to as their Right. We are born Freemen, and { The Revolt of the Anglophiles 153 }

P L A T E 1 7 . Otreouti's Speech at La Famine, 1684. From [Louis Armand de Lorn d'Arce], Baron [de] Lahontan, New Voyages to North-America . . . (London, 1703). Courtesy of the Library Company of Philadelphia

have no dependance either upon the Onnontio or the Corlar. We have a power to go where we please, to conduct who we will to the places we resort to, and to buy and sell where we think fit. If your Allies are your Slaves or Children, you may e'en treat 'em as such, and rob 'em of the liberty of entertaining any other Nation but your own. But not, declared Otreouti, the Iroquois.40 In the end, La Barre agreed to peace terms humiliating to the French, abandoned diplomatic support of his Illinois allies, and slunk back to Montreal in disgrace. A few weeks later, in a message Viele carried to the Five Nations, Dongan characteristically took credit for Otreouti's accomplishment. The governor congratulated anglophile Mohawks and Senecas for their loyalty in refusing to attend the treaty at La Famine (they, of course, had never intended to go) and taunted neutralists of the other three nations for their infidelity. Those who trusted him, the governor declared, would "not regret that they were so true to this government."41 Emboldened by their verbal triumph over the French if troubled by their contentious connections to New York, both neutralists and anglophiles among the Five Nations plunged more deeply into war and commerce in the West while attempting to make peace with some of their southern foes. In April 1685, "Sachagaeagenoy Speaker with three more great men Elected and Chosen by the Great men of all the Nations of Indians" traveled to Maryland to treat with the Conoys, the Piscataways, and Lord Baltimore's government. Despite the orator's claim to speak for the entire League, however, the treaty minutes reveal that no Oneidas, and probably no Mohawks, participated. At the same time that these Iroquois were securing at least part of their southern flank in order to concentrate on western affairs, Dongan and his agents at Albany were obligingly furnishing powder and lead for raids on the Illinois and Miamis and actively courting trade with the Ottawas and Wyandots. The latter effort culminated in licenses Dongan granted in late 1686 to New Yorkers Johannes Rooseboom and Patrick Magregory for trading expeditions to the Great Lakes. The same year the governor instructed the Iroquois to prevent any Europeans from trafficking in the West or on the Susquehanna unless they bore "3 litle Red Seals" issued by him. As the French rightly complained, he thus authorized attacks on their voyageurs.42 In late 1686, Dongan took to calling the Five Nations his subordinate "Children" rather than his equal "Brethren" and commanded them "not to make either warr or peace either with Christians or Indians before" inform{ The Revolt of the Anglophiles 155 }

ing him. To neutralist Iroquois and probably even some anglophiles he was again pushing too far. "Your Honour hath said of the Christian hunters and the traders that may come upon the Sesquehannah River to hunt or trade without your passe; that we should take their goods from them, and bring their persons to Albany," a spokesman for Onondaga and Cayuga leaders complained at a conference that autumn. "We dare not meddle therewith; for a man whose goods is taken from him will defend himselfe which may create trouble or warre, and therefore we deliver the seals [to] your Honour again." Mohawk and Seneca leaders concurred, and some Iroquois continued to trade at Fort Frontenac despite Dongan's prohibitions.43 The New York governor continued, however, to encourage an unyielding stance toward the French. Early the next year, he led Iroquois headmen to believe that he would assist his fellow "subjects of the King of England" if events led to war. "Now Brethren, Maquas, Oneydes, Onnondages and Cajouges, we must not permit the French to come on your side of the lake, nor to do any damage to our brethren the Sinnekes," he urged, returning to the traditional language of diplomatic equality. "If necessary you must take up the hatchet.. ., and when I see that the French start the war, you will see what I shall do." The governor failed to mention, however, that open New York military involvement was out of the question. Like his predecessor Andros, Dongan had never been authorized to engage in hostilities, and beginning in 1686 a treaty of friendship bound the English and French crowns.44 War between French and Iroquois came in the summer of 1687, when the Five Nations' activities in the West provoked an invasion of the Seneca country under the command of La Barre's successor, Jacques-Rene de Brisay de Denonville. In late June, as Denonville's army moved toward Iroquoia, a few Onondaga and Oneida francophiles journeyed with Jacques de Lamberville to a treaty conference the governor had called at Fort Frontenac. Despite the warnings of many of their compatriots and the English, they went because they trusted the Lambervilles and because the promised negotiations might foster Iroquois western trade through a final settlement with the Wyandots. Perhaps they also realized that the anglophiles had deluded their people about the prospects for military aid from the English and so hoped to seize one last opportunity to avert a disastrous war with the French. When Denonville arrived at Cataraqui, he promptly kidnapped the Iroquois ambassadors, along with a small scouting party led by the Cayuga anglophile Ourehouare, which was in the neighborhood to watch the French army and, presumably, the francophile diplomats. At the same time, the governor {

156 The Revolt of the Anglophiles

}

P L A T E i 8 . The Invasion of the Seneca Country, 1687. From [Louis Armand de Lorn d'Arce], Baron [de] Lahontan, New Voyages to North-America . . . (London, 1703). Courtesy of the Library Company of Philadelphia

ordered his troops to surprise and capture the residents of Quinte and Ganneious, the two shrunken remaining hamlets of the Iroquois du Nord.45 With Ourehouare and at least thirty more of the assorted prisoners destined to slave in French royal galleys on the Mediterranean Sea, Denonville marched for the Seneca country. His force grew to more than two thousand men with the arrival from the West of several hundred French soldiers and Indian allies who, en route, had captured the Rooseboom and Magregory parties and their English trade goods. Meanwhile, representatives of the four eastern Iroquois nations came to Albany to call for assistance. The local magistrates accused them of being "small of heart," chastised them for attending to "running rumors" of a French attack, and sent them on their way with token amounts of ammunition. Dongan and his council, on receiving word that one of the Lambervilles had sought asylum from the English "sinse hee might not bee Safe" any longer at Onondaga, took the report more seriously, but did little more than declare that the Senecas "ought to be protected and defended by this Government."46 { The Revolt of the Anglophiles 157 }

Denonville's army rapidly entered Seneca territory. The nation's women and children and a majority of its men had escaped to safety in the Cayuga country and in forests to the south, where they were "severely straitened for want of provisions, which they were unable to carry with them by reason of their sudden flight." Several hundred warriors who remained to welcome the invaders killed ten to fifteen, but lost twenty or more of their own men, having mistaken an advance party for the main force. After this skirmish, the French and their Indian allies met no further resistance. Over the course of eight days they burned and looted the Seneca towns of Gannagaro (Ganondagan) and Totiakton and their associated hamlets of Gannogarae and Gannounata. At each site they paid particular attention to demolishing agricultural fields with their ripening crops and the brimming caches of corn still stored from earlier harvests; Denonville estimated the total amount of food destroyed at some 1,2.00,000 bushels. "We can infer from this," he concluded, "the multitude of people in these 4 villages, and the great suffering they will experience from this devastation." Additional targets were the Senecas' cemeteries, in which French and Indian troops not only desecrated the effigies and masks that honored the dead but pillaged corpses for brass kettles and other grave goods. Fittingly, among the things the sackers destroyed at Gannounata were "the arms of England which Sieur Dongan, Governor of New-York, had caused to be placed there." Over the smoldering ruins of each village Denonville erected the heraldry of Louis XIV.47 When Dongan learned of the invasion, he gave additional weapons to the Five Nations and offered shelter to homeless women and children. Primarily, however, he tried to dampen the conflict and to persuade the Iroquois to leave matters in his hands while he exchanged vigorous diplomatic protests with Denonville. "If the Brethren will only have a little patience," he said in April 1688, "I doubt not but everything will turn out to the satisfaction of all concerned." As he explained to the president of the English Board of Trade, "I put them off by giving them Powder, Lead, Arms and other things, fitting and necessary for them and also by making such Propositions as I thought would please them being unwilling actually to ingage the French until I knew his Majesty's pleasure." The governor, who spent the winter of 1687—1688 at Albany with a motley force of militia, itched to do more. "By hard words, fair words and a little bribery I have hitherto kept the Indians to us indifferent well, but that will not do always," he lamented.48 For their part, the Five Nations prepared to strike back at the French in the tradition of the mourning-war. Their grief was inspired as much by the kidnappings at Fort Frontenac as by the destruction of the Seneca villages, {

158 The Revolt of the Anglophiles

}

cemeteries, and food stores. "The Governor of Canada . . . has started an unjust war against all the [Five] nations," a Mohawk orator announced to Dongan soon after the invasion. "The Maquase doe not yet have any prisoners [lost], but that Governor has taken a hundred prisoners from all the [Iroquois] nations to the West. . . . Therefore the nations have desired to revenge the unjust attacks." In 1687 and early 1688 warriors of the Five Nations relentlessly assaulted New France. Officials there bewailed "the discouragement under which the Colonists are laboring, who hear every day of their women and children being daily carried off," yet they retained virtually no influence in the councils of the Five Nations. The Lambervilles, virtually the last personal links between New France and the Iroquois, dared not return to Onondaga after Denonville's betrayal of the diplomats they encouraged to go to Cataraqui in 1687.49 Within the Five Nations, however, differences of opinion continued over the best way to deal with the French. The easy initial victories and the dangers to Iroquois independence from Dongan's stratagems led some neutralist Onondagas, Cayugas, and Oneidas to seize an opportunity for peace negotiations in mid-i688. A leading figure in the movement was Otreouti, who with his usual bluntness warned the French that "he would not be responsible for what might occur" if they failed to come to terms. As for Dongan's ban on independent Iroquois negotiations, the Onondaga orator explained to Denonville "that they had always resisted his pretensions and wished only to be friends of the French and English, equally, without either the one or the other being their masters, because they held their country directly of God." Despite strenuous opposition from Dongan's agent Viele and the Onondaga anglophiles led by the headman Sadekanaktie, talks continued throughout the summer. They collapsed only when warriors led by the Wyandot Kondiaronk, fearing abandonment by his French allies, ambushed an Iroquois delegation and then falsely claimed to have acted under Denonville's orders.50 This act of supposed French treachery unified Iroquois who a few months earlier had disagreed on matters of war and peace; at the end of the year a reported nine hundred Onondagas, Cayugas, and Oneidas prepared to raid Canada. Hundreds more Iroquois went west to combine beaver hunting and raids on the Wyandots, Ottawas, Miamis, and French. During the summer of 1689, shortly after a Mohawk orator at Albany pledged "that the Place where the French Stole their Indians two years ago should soon be cut off (meaning Fort Frontenac)," the Iroquois forced the temporary abandonment not only of that post but Niagara and other French western strongholds. One { The Revolt of the Anglophiles 159 }

Onondaga war party besieging Fort Frontenac lured Jesuit priest Pierre Millet, who was stationed there, to their camp and took him prisoner, thus gaining what seemed at the time appropriate revenge for the kidnappings of Iroquois diplomats two years earlier. The same summer, in an assault at Lachine on Montreal Island, Iroquois forces killed twenty-four French and took seventy to ninety prisoners.51 As Iroquois victories multiplied, events in England and France, New York and Canada transformed the nature of the conflict and of the relationship anglophile Iroquois believed they had with Albany. In 1688 New York had become part of the supercolony of James II, the Dominion of New England. The administrative change once again made Andros its governor. At a contentious autumn conference at Albany, Andros addressed headmen of the Five Nations as his "Children," brushed off their demands that he secure the release of Ourehouare and the other galley slaves, and informed them that treaties between the crowns of France and England required them to cease hostilities. Even as Andros spoke, however, William of Orange was preparing to invade England in support of a bloodless coup that would place him and his spouse, Mary, daughter of James II, on the English throne. This Glorious Revolution was of great import not just to Andros—who would soon, like his Stuart master, lose power—but also to the Iroquois. In Europe William was already fighting France in the War of the League of Augsburg, part of a long-standing dynastic, religious, and territorial struggle that must have made as little sense to Iroquois as their mourning-wars did to Europeans. To the Five Nations, the conflict's significance lay in the virtual certainty that William would bring his new colonial domains into the fray by endorsing attacks against New France.52 The Mohawks "hear there is War betwixt France and England," an orator proclaimed at Albany in June 1689, "and as they are one hand and Soul with the English, they will take Up the Ax with pleasure against the French Viz, they, the Sinnekes, onnondages, Cayouges, and Oneydes." The magistrates responded "that as yet they had no certainty of War, but expected it every day, and as soon as they had an account of it would Inform the Breatheren of it, and be ready to Revenge the Blood of the Bretheren spilt by the Deceitfull French and also root them out of Canada." These were just the words that anglophile Iroquois had been waiting to hear. They must have hoped fervently that the English would finally live up to the promise of the Covenant Chain alliance, "in which," boasted the Mohawk anglophile Tahiadoris, "are Included all there Majesties Subjects from the Sinnekes Countrey quite to the Eastward as farr as any Christian Subjects of our great king lives and from {

160 The Revolt of the Anglophiles

}

thence Southward all along New England quite to Virginia." For anglophiles, whatever they understood the term subjects to mean, the declaration of war between England and France clearly made the covenant of friendship a reciprocal military alliance, binding on English and Indian partners alike.53 THE P A R T N E R S H I P between English officials and Iroquois anglophiles had developed in a fashion that mirrored the earlier emergence of the francophiles. Like their opponents, anglophiles were convinced that close ties to European colonizers provided the best hope for increasing the material prosperity and spiritual power of their peoples. The religious element should not be underestimated. On the one hand it was precisely the lack of English missionary endeavors that made Albany an attractive alternative to Montreal; traditionalists were now free to expel the Jesuits and reinstitute traditional observances. On the other, the weapons and other material goods that again flowed from the Hudson to Iroquoia permitted a new round of mourning-wars to replenish spiritual power through the adoption of captives. That many targets of those wars were trading partners of New France and that the peltries raiders seized came from lands freshly claimed by the French were all for the best; the prospect of doing battle with those old European foes was tempting. When the Onondaga neutralists warned that the anglophiles were in danger of trading the domination of the French for that of the English and their pretensions to the Iroquois homelands, many listened; Tahiadoris and his anglophile companions discussed their specific military objectives at Albany only in a secret session, for fear, they said, that "by Some falsehearted Persones our DeSigne should be carried to our Enemies." Yet critics mostly stayed in the background, particularly after the death of their leading spokesman, Otreouti, shortly after his negotiations with the French in 1688. Under anglophile leadership and with the promise of English aid, the Five Nations confidently waged the last and most deadly of their Beaver Wars.54

{ The Revolt of the Anglophiles 161 }

C H A P T E R

S E V E N

The J£ast of the Beaver Wars

"You A R E Pleased to Recommend us to Pursue our Enemies the French Vigorously which wee will endevor to the Uttmost for they are your Enemies also," the anglophile Mohawk Tahiadoris proclaimed to the rulers of Albany in 1689. "Yea if all our People should be Ruined and Cutt in Peeces, wee will never make peace with them."1 These were prophetic words. Neither Tahiadoris nor a frightful number of his people would survive the next decade of war. From an Iroquois perspective, five related factors set the conflict of the 1 6905 dramatically apart from the Beaver Wars of an earlier generation and made the military disasters all the more inexorable. First, the French and English imperial governments were deeply involved in the struggle among { I HI, 159 (quotation); Gabriel Sagardf-Theodat], The Long Journey to the Country of the Hurons, ed. George M. Wrong, trans. H. H. Langton (Toronto, 1939 [orig. publ. Paris, 1632]), 151—152; Boucher, Histoire veritable et naturelle, 119—121. 10. Lafitau, Customs of American Indians, ed. and trans. Fenton and Moore, II, 153 — 155 (quotation; brackets supplied by editors); [Claude Charles Le Roy] Bacqueville de La Potherie, Histoire de VAmerique septentrionale . . . (Paris, 1722), III, { 302

Notes to Pages 33-35 }

45~5°; James E. Seaver, A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison . . ., ed. Allen W. Trelease (New York, 1961 [orig. publ. 182,4]), 4^-47; Martha Champion Randle, "Iroquois Women, Then and Now," in William N. Fenton, ed., Symposium on Local Diversity in Iroquois Culture, BAEB, no. 149 (Washington, D.C., 1951), 171-172.; Cara E. Richards, "Matriarchy or Mistake: The Role of Iroquois Women through Time," Proceedings of the 1957 Annual Spring Meeting of the American Ethnological Society (Seattle, Wash., 1957), 36-38. For examples of the relatively rare Iroquois torture and execution of women and children, see Sagard, Long Journey, ed. Wrong, trans. Langton, 158-159; JR, XXXIX, 2.19-2.2.1, XLII, 97-99, LI, 213, 2.31-2.33, LII, 157, LIII, 2.53, LXII, 59, LXIV, 12.7-12.9, LXV, 33-39; and Gideon D. Scull, ed., Voyages of Peter Esprit Radisson: Being an Account of His Travels and Experiences among the North American Indians, from 1652 to 1684 (Boston, 1885), 56. ii. JR, XXII, 2.51-2,67, XXXIX, 57-77, L, 59-63, LIV, 23-35; DRCNY, IX, 4849; James H. Coyne, ed. and trans., "Exploration of the Great Lakes, 16601670, by Dollier de Casson and de Brehant de Galinee," Ontario Historical Society, Papers and Records, IV (1903), 31-35; Lafitau, Customs of American Indians, ed. and trans. Fenton and Moore, II, 148-172.; Nathaniel Knowles, "The Torture of Captives by the Indians of Eastern North America," APSP, LXXXII (1940), 181-190; Wallace, Death and Rebirth of the Seneca, 103-107. Several authors, from James Adair and Philip Mazzei in the i8th century to W. Arens in the zoth, have denied the Iroquois ever actually engaged in cannibalism (Adair, The History of the American Indians . . . [London, 1775], 2.09; Mazzei, Researches, ed. and trans. Sherman, 359; Arens, The Man-Eating Myth: Anthropology and Anthropophagy [New York, 1979], 12.7-129). From the perspective of the late i8th century, Adair and Mazzei may have been correct; by then the Five Nations had apparently abandoned anthropophagy (Adolph B. Benson, ed., Peter Kalm's Travels in North America [New York, 1937], II, 694). Arens, however, is simply wrong, as Thomas S. Abler has shown in "Iroquois Cannibalism: Fact Not Fiction," Ethnohistory, XXVII (1980), 309-316. On 16th-century evidence of the pre-European-contact origins of torture ceremonies, see Lorraine P. Saunders, "The Jesuit Relations: Corroboration through the Archaeological Record," paper presented at the Eastern States Archaeological Federation annual meeting, November 1990. For mid-17th-century archaeological evidence of human remains in cooking pits, see "The Dann Site, Honeoye Falls, New York: Field Notes of Excavations by Charles Wray, Harry Schoff, and Donald Cameron," n.p., typescript, RMSC; and "The Power House Site, Lima, New York: Field Notes of Excavations by Charles F[.] Wray and Harry Schoff and Donald G. Cameron," n.p., typescript, RMSC. A far sounder discussion than Arens's of European myths and misconceptions about Indian cannibalism is Christon I. Archer, "Cannibalism in the Early History of the Northwest Coast: Enduring Myths and Neglected Realities," CHR, LXI (1980), 453-479. 12.. A few Euro-American authors did proffer explanations of Iroquois anthropophagy. William Wood—who never visited Iroquoia and probably never saw any of the Mohawks he wrote about—argued in New England's Prospect, ed. Alden T. { Notes to Page 36

303 }

Vaughan (Amherst, Mass., 1977 [orig. publ. London, 1634]), 7&-> tnat they, "being destitute of fish and flesh,.. . suffice hunger and maintain nature with the use of vegetatives. But that which they most hunger after is the flesh of man." Wood foreshadowed recent analyses of Aztec cannibalism that stress protein deficiencies in 16th-century Mesoamerican diets (see Michael Harner, "The Ecological Basis for Aztec Sacrifice," American Ethnologist, IV [1977], 117—135), but it is hardly likely that the forests, streams, and lakes of Iroquoia failed to provide the region's human inhabitants with sufficient animal protein. A more plausible speculation is that Iroquois torture and cannibalism constituted human sacrifices to the deity Agreskwe, who, among other roles, was the Iroquois equivalent of a god of war. The hard evidence on this point, however, is slim. Jesuit missionary Isaac Jogues, in his account of his Mohawk captivity in 1641, discusses the torture of one female captive who was apparently sacrificed to Agreskwe before she was eaten, and he describes a feast dedicated to Agreskwe in which bear meat was substituted for human flesh (JR, XXXIX, 2.19—121). Dutch minister Johannes Megapolensis, who aided Jogues's escape and thereby must have got his story, gives a more dramatic version of the latter episode in NNN, 177, which is plagiarized in David Petersen de Vries, "Voyages from Holland to America, A.D. 1632 to 1644," NYHSC, zd Sen, III (1857), 95-96. I have found no later descriptions of Iroquois sacrifices to Agreskwe that do not rely on either Jogues or Megapolensis. On what little is known about Agreskwe, see Ives Goddard, "Agreskwe, a Northern Iroquoian Deity," in Michael K. Foster et al., eds., Extending the Rafters: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Iroquoian Studies (Albany, N.Y., 1984), 22.9-2.35. For recent attempts to reconstruct the symbolic meaning of Iroquois cannibalism, see Urzula Chodowiec, "La hantise et la pratique: Le cannibalisme iroquois," Nouvelle revue de psychanalyse, VI (1972.), 5569; Marie-Laure Pilette, "Cannibalism, Torture, and Sacrifice: The Ambiguous and Paradoxical Relation of the Iroquois to Their Captives during the i6th and 17th Centuries," paper presented at the Annual Conference on Iroquois Research, Rensselaerville, N.Y., October 1986; and Abler and Logan, "Florescence and Demise of Cannibalism," MIN, no. 35 (Spring 1988), 1-2.6. 13. Sagard, Long Journey, ed. Wrong, trans. Langton, 12,3-12.4,151-154;/R, XLII, 139, XLIII, 2.63-2.65; Lfouis] Hennepin, A New Discovery of a Vast Country in America . . ., ist English ed. (London, 1698), II, 88 (quotation), 92; Fenton, ed., "Hyde Manuscript," Am. Scene Mag., VI (1965), n.p.; Maurice R. Davie, The Evolution of War: A Study of Its Role in Early Societies (New Haven, Conn., 1929), 36—38; Robert L. Rands and Carroll L. Riley, "Diffusion and Discontinuous Distribution," AA, LX (1958), 2.84—2.89; Bruce G. Trigger, The Children of Aataentsic: A History of the Huron People to 1660 (Montreal, 1976), I, 68-69, 145-147. 14. Biggar, ed., Works of Champlain, IV, 330; Sagard, Long Journey, ed. Wrong, trans. Langton, 158-163; JR, LXII, 85-87, LXVII, 173; Boucher, Histoire veritable et naturelle, 117; DRCNY, V, 274 (quotation); Charlevoix, Voyage to North-America, I, 316-333, 381; Bacqueville de La Potherie, Histoire, III, 10n; Knowles, "Torture of Captives," APSP, LXXII (1940), 2.10-2.11; Bruce { 304 Notes to Pages 36-37 }

William Wright, A Proxemic Analysis of the Iroquoian Settlement Pattern (Calgary, Alb., 1979), 40—42.; James Axtell and William C. Sturtevant, "The Unkindest Cut; or, Who Invented Scalping?" WMQ, XXXVII (1980), 451-472. 15. Biggar, ed., Works ofChamplain, III, 73-74; JR, X, 145, XXXIX, 2,9-31, 159; Harry Holbert Turney-High, Primitive War: Its Practice and Concepts, zd ed. (Columbia, S.C., 1971), 186; J.N.B. Hewitt, "The Iroquoian Concept of the Soul," Journal of American Folk-Lore, VIII (1895), 107—116. 16. Sagard, Long Journey, ed. Wrong, trans. Langton, 152-157; JR, XXII, 309311, XXXII, 173-175, LXVI, 273; Adriaen van der Donck et at, "The Representation of New Netherland, 1650," in NNN, 300-301; Boucher, Histoire veritable et naturelle, 121-123; Nicolas Perrot, "Memoir on the Manners, Customs, and Religion of the Savages of North America" (ca. 1680-1718), in Emma Helen Blair, ed. and trans., The Indian Tribes of the Upper Mississippi Valley and Region of the Great Lakes . . . (Cleveland, Ohio, 1911), I, 142—144; John K. Mahon, "Anglo-American Methods of Indian Warfare, 1676-1794," MVHR, XLV (1958), 260-261; Patrick Mitchell Malone, "Indian and English Military Systems in New England in the Seventeenth Century" (Ph.D. diss., Brown University, 1971), 33-38. 17. Vecsey, "Story and Structure," Jour. Am. Acad. Religion, LIV (1986), 79-106. See also the references in n. 3, above. iS. JR, LI, 237 (quotation); Tooker, "League of the Iroquois," in HNAI, 418-429. 19. Horatio Hale, ed., The Iroquois Book of Rites (Philadelphia, 1883); William M. Beauchamp, Civil, Religious, and Mourning Councils and Ceremonies of Adoption of the New York Indians, NYSMB, no. 113 (Albany, N.Y., 1907), 351-397; William N. Fenton, "An Iroquois Condolence Council for Installing Cayuga Chiefs in 1945," Journal ofthe Washington Academy of Sciences, XXXVI (1946), 110-127. 20. JR, LI, 237 (quotation); Snyderman, "Behind the Tree of Peace," PA, XVIII, nos. 3-4 (1948), 24-29; James Wesley Bradley, "The Onondaga Iroquois, 15001655: A Study in Acculturative Change and Its Consequences" (Ph.D. diss., Syracuse University, 1979), 394-406; Jack Campisi, "The Iroquois and the EuroAmerican Concept of Tribe," New York History, LXIII (1982), 165-182. 21. Johannes Megapolensis, Jr., "A Short Account of the Mohawk Indians" (1644), in NNN, 179-180; Coyne, ed., "Exploration of the Great Lakes," Ont. Hist. Soc., Papers and Records, IV (1903), 17; Reid, Better Kind of Hatchet, 9-17, quotation from 16. 22. Parker, Constitution, NYSMB, no. 134, 37 (ist quotation); Wallace, Death and Rebirth of the Seneca, 30-44; 2d quotation as rendered in Fenton, "Lore of the Longhouse," Anthro. Qtly., XLVIII (1975), 131. 23. "Names by which the different Indian Nations address each other in public conferences," n.d., IIDH, reel i; Reid, Better Kind of Hatchet, 9—17; William N. Fenton, "Structure, Continuity, and Change in the Process of Iroquois Treaty Making," in Francis Jennings et al., eds., The History and Culture of Iroquois Diplomacy: An Interdisciplinary Guide to the Treaties of the Six Nations and Their League (Syracuse, N.Y., 1985), 14-21; Mary A. Druke, "Linking Arms: { Notes to Pages 38-41

305 }

The Structure of Iroquois Intertribal Diplomacy," in Daniel K. Richter and James H. Merrell, eds., Beyond the Covenant Chain: The Iroquois and Their Neighbors in Indian North America, 1600—1800 (Syracuse, N.Y., 1987), 34—39. 24. Michael K. Foster, "On Who Spoke First at Iroquois-White Councils: An Exercise in the Method of Upstreaming," in Foster etal., eds., Extending the Rafters, 183186; Druke, "Linking Arms," in Richter and Merrell, eds., Beyond the Covenant Chain, 183-186. 25. Foster, "Who Spoke First," in Foster etal., eds., Extending the Rafters, 183-207; Fenton, "Structure, Continuity, and Change," in Jennings etaL, eds., History and Culture of Iroquois Diplomacy, 2.1-30. 2.6. ]R, LVIII, 185—187; Lafitau, Customs of American Indians, ed. and trans. Fenton and Moore, I, 2.90—2.94 (id quotation); "Speech of Teyoninhokarawen [John Norton]," 19 Feb. 1807, John Norton Letterbook, 1805-1810, 98-12.3 (ist quotation from 103), Ayer Manuscripts, no. 654, Newberry Library, Chicago; J.N.B. Hewitt, "Status of Woman in Iroquois Polity before 1784," in Smithsonian Institution, Annual Report of the Board of Regents . . . 1932 (Washington, D.C., J 933)> 475-488; William N. Fenton, "Northern Iroquoian Culture Patterns," in HNAI, 309-314; Fenton, personal communication, 7 Apr. 1991; Bruce G. Trigger, "Iroquoian Matriliny," PA, XLVIII, nos. 1-2. (April 1978), 55-65; Elisabeth Tooker, "Women in Iroquois Society," in Foster et aL, eds., Extending the Rafters, 109-123. French documents usually use the Huron cognate of rotiyanehr, agoiander. 27. Lafitau, Customs of American Indians, ed. and trans. Fenton and Moore, I, 6971; Hewitt, "Status of Woman," in Smithsonian Institution, Annual Report. . . 1932, 475-488; William N. Fenton, "Locality as a Basic Factor in the Development of Iroquois Social Structure," in Fenton, ed., Symposium on Local Diversity in Iroquois Culture, BAEB, no. 149 (Washington, D.C., 1951), 44-45; Tooker, "League of the Iroquois," in HNAI, 424—426. 28. JR, LIV, 281-283 ( i s t quotation); Lafitau, Customs of American Indians, ed. and trans. Fenton and Moore, I, 295 (2d quotation); Bacqueville de La Potherie, Histoire, III, 29-33; Judith K. Brown, "Economic Organization and the Position of Women among the Iroquois," Ethnohistory, XVII (1970), 151 — 167; Norman Clermont, "La place de la femme dans les societes iroquoiennes de la periode du contact," Recherches amerindiennes au Quebec, XIII (1983), 286-290; Tooker, "Women in Iroquois Society," in Foster et aL, eds., Extending the Rafters, 118121. In regard to the sexual division of labor, women's role in mourning-wars and the adoption or execution of war captives was a function of their responsibility for the welfare of the family household. 29. Megapolensis, "Short Account," in NNN, 179—180; Joyce Marshall, ed. and trans., Word from New France: The Selected Letters of Marie de LTncarnation (Toronto, 1967), 216-217; Robert Hunter to , 12 Mar. 1713, IIDH, reel 7 (2d quotation); Lafitau, Customs of American Indians, ed. and trans. Fenton and Moore, I, 294-297 (ist quotation from 294); Fenton, "Locality as a Basic Factor," in Fenton, ed., Symposium on Local Diversity, 50—51; Richard L. Haan, "The Covenant Chain: Iroquois Diplomacy on the Niagara Frontier, 1697— {

306

Notes to Pages 41—44

}

i73°" (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Santa Barbara, 1976), 22—30. Below, Sachem in uppercase refers to the holders of the hereditary titles of members of the Grand Council. In most instances, the sachems (or Sachems) mentioned in quotations should be understood as members of the more inclusive category of headmen. My use of the term headman explicitly rejects the assumption (most eloquently stated in Morgan, League of the Iroquois, 54—146) that all power at village, nation, and League levels was concentrated in the hands of League Sachems. For a critique of the orthodox Morgan interpretation, see Daniel K. Richter, "Ordeals of the Longhouse: The Five Nations in Early American History," in Richter and Merrell, eds., Beyond the Covenant Chain, 11-2.7; and for a discussion of some of the interpretive difficulties surrounding the 17th-century League, see William N. Fenton, "Problems in the Authentication of the League of the Iroquois," in Laurence M. Hauptman and Jack Campisi, eds., Neighbors and Intruders: An Ethnohistorical Exploration of the Indians of Hudson's River, National Museum of Man, Mercury Series, Canadian Ethnology Service Paper, no. 39 (Ottawa, 1978), 2,61-268. 30. Biggar, ed., Works of Champlain, III, 157—160; [Cadwallader Colden], The History of the Five Indian Nations Depending on the Province of New-York in America (New York, 1727), xv—xvi (ist and 3d quotations); Wallace, Death and Rebirth of the Seneca, 30-39 (2d quotation); Brown, "Economic Organization and the Position of Women," Ethnohistory, XVII (1970), 151-167. 31. Treaty minutes, 12 July 1697, NYCMSS, XLI, fol. 93 (quotation); Druke, "Linking Arms," in Richter and Merrell, eds., Beyond the Covenant Chain, 29-39. 32. DRCNY, IX, 47-48; Fenton, "Locality as a Basic Factor," in Fenton, ed., Symposium on Local Diversity, BAEB, no. 149, 48-49; Nancy Bonvillain, "Iroquoian Women," in Bonvillain, ed., Studies on Iroquoian Culture (Rindge, N.H., 1980), 48. 33. Hennepin, New Discovery, I, 58—59 (quotation); Bruce Graham Trigger, "Order and Freedom in Huron Society," Anthropologica, V (1963), 151—169; Reid, Better Kind of Hatchet, 4-12. 34. Lafitau, Customs of American Indians, ed. and trans. Fenton and Moore, I, 299— 300, brackets supplied by editors. On the nature and significance of factions and factionalism, see William N. Fenton, "Factionalism in American Indian Society," in Actes du lVe Congres international des sciences anthropologiques et ethnologiques (Vienna, 1955), II, 330—340; Ralph W. Nicholas, "Factions: A Comparative Analysis," in Michael Banton, ed., Political Systems and the Distribution of Power (London, 1965), 21-61; Robert F. Berkhofer, Jr., "The Political Context of a New Indian History," Pacific Historical Review, XL (1971), 357—382; and Jeremy Boissevain, Friends of Friends: Networks, Manipulators, and Coalitions (Oxford, i974) ? 192--2-05. 35. Colden, History of Five Nations of Canada, 14 (ist quotation); Lafitau, Customs of American Indians, ed. and trans. Fenton and Moore, I, 297 (2d quotation). 36. Lafitau, Customs of American Indians, ed. and trans. Fenton and Moore, I, 297— 299 (quotation); Morgan, League of the Iroquois, 106-107; William N. Fenton, "The Iroquois in History," in Eleanor Burke Leacock and Nancy Oestreich Lurie, { Notes to Pages 44-47

307 }

eds., North American Indians in Historical Perspective (New York, 1971), 129. Of the Onondaga Teganissorens—perhaps the greatest of all Iroquois orators in the late i7th and early 18th centuries—Golden wrote: "He was grown old when I saw him, and heard him speak; he had a great Fluency in speaking and a graceful Elocution, that would have pleased in any Part of the World. His Person was tall and well made, and his Features, to my thinking, resembled much the Bustos of Cicero" (History of Five Nations of Canada, 156); see also Wilbur Jacobs, "Descanosora: A Note on Cadwallader Colden's Concept of the Iroquois," Indian Historian, VIII, no. 3 (Summer 1975), 55—56. On oral cultures, see James Axtell, The Invasion Within: The Contest of Cultures in Colonial North America (New York, 1985), 14-15. 37. JR, XXII, 291-293 (zd quotation); Gehring and Grumet, eds., "Observations from Danckaerts's Journal," WMQ, XLIV (1987), 108; "Recit d'un ami de Pabbe de Gallinee," in Margry, ed., Decouvertes et etablissements, I, 362; Parker, Constitution, 20 (ist quotation); Wilbur R. Jacobs, Diplomacy and Indian Gifts: Anglo-French Rivalry along the Ohio and Northwest Frontiers, 1748-1763 (Stanford, Calif., 1950), 11-28; George S. Snyderman, "The Functions of Wampum," APSP, XCVIII (1954), 469-494; Lynn Ceci, "The Value of Wampum among the New York Iroquois: A Case Study in Artifact Analysis," Journal of Anthropological Research, XXXVIII (1982), 97-107; George R. Hamell, "Life's Immortal Shell: Wampum among the Iroquois," paper presented at the Conference on New York State History, Rochester, N.Y., June 1984; Michael K. Foster, "Another Look at the Function of Wampum in Iroquois-White Councils," in Jennings et al., eds., History and Culture of Iroquois Diplomacy, 99-114. 38.]R, LVIII, 185 (ist quotation); treaty minutes, 9 Nov. 1680, MA, XXX, 253; Bacqueville de La Potherie, Histoire, I, 333-334; Lafitau, Customs of American Indians, ed. and trans. Fenton and Moore, I, 310-312 (zd quotation). 39. Treaty minutes, 16 Aug. 1751, MA, XXXII, 205; Conrad Heidenreich, Huronia: A History and Geography of the Huron Indians, 1600—1650 ([Toronto], 1971), 220—227; Bruce G. Trigger, Natives and Newcomers: Canada's "Heroic Age" Reconsidered (Kingston, Ont., 1985), 183—194; Christopher L. Miller and George R. Hamell, "A New Perspective on Indian-White Contact: Cultural Symbols and Colonial Trade," JAH, LXXIII (1986-1987), 311-328; Hamell, "Mythical Realities and European Contact in the Northeast during the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries," MIN, no. 33 (Spring 1987), 63-87; Thomas S. Abler, ed., Chainbreaker: The Revolutionary War Memoirs of Governor Blacksnake as Told to Benjamin Williams (Lincoln, Nebr., 1989), 65.

CHAPTER

3

The Great League for War and Survival i. H. P. Biggar, gen. ed., The Works of Samuel de Champlain (Toronto, 1922— 1936), I, 91-189, II, 24-25, 35-39, 65-107; Philip L. Barbour, ed., The Complete Works of Captain John Smith (1580-1631) (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1986), I, { 308 Notes to Pages 47-51 }

148-150, quotation from 150; Robert Juet, "The Third Voyage of Master Henry Hudson" (1610), in NNN, 16-2.8; W. J. Eccles, France in America (New York, 1972), 14-2.1. 2.. Bernard G. Hoffman, Cabot to Cartier: Sources for a Historical Ethnography of Northeastern North America, 1497-1550 (Toronto, 1961); Carl Ortwin Sauer, Sixteenth Century North America: The Land and the People as Seen by the Europeans (Berkeley, Calif., 1971); Samuel Eliot Morison, The European Discovery of America: The Northern Voyages, AD. 500-1600 (New York, 1971); David B. Quinn, England and the Discovery of America, 1481-1620: From the Bristol Voyages of the Fifteenth Century to the Pilgrim Settlement at Plymouth.,. (London, 1973); Quinn, North America from Earliest Discovery to First Settlements: The Norse Voyages to 1612 (New York, 1977); James Axtell, After Columbus: Essays in the Ethnohistory of Colonial North America (New York, 1988), 145-160. 3. Charles Wray and Harry L. Schoff, "A Preliminary Report on the Seneca Sequence in Western New York, 1550-1687," PA, XXIII, no. 2. (July 1953), 53-63; Wray etal., The Adams and Culbertson Sites, RMSC Research Records, no. 19 (Rochester, N.Y., 1987), 2.48-2.51; James A. Tuck, Onondaga Iroquois Prehistory: A Study in Settlement Archaeology (Syracuse, N.Y., 1971), 140-177; Donald Lenig, "Of Dutchmen, Beaver Hats, and Iroquois," in Robert E. Funk and Charles F. Hayes III, eds., Current Perspectives in Northeastern Archeology: Essays in Honor of William A. Ritchie (New York State Archeological Association, Researches and Transactions, XVII, no. i [Rochester, N.Y., 1977]), 71-84; Martha L. Sempowski, personal communication, 16 Aug. 1989. 4. Bruce G. Trigger, Natives and Newcomers: Canada's "Heroic Age" Reconsidered (Kingston, Ont., 1985), 106—107, 144—148; James W. Bradley, Evolution of the Onondaga Iroquois: Accommodating Change, 1500—1655 (Syracuse, N.Y, 1987), 83—89. The first evidence of Huron-style pottery (presumably made by Huron captives), for instance, appears on Mohawk sites from the same mid-16thcentury period in which European goods are first observed (Robert Douglas Kuhn, "Trade and Exchange among the Mohawk-Iroquois: A Trace Element Analysis of Ceramic Smoking Pipes" [Ph.D. diss., State University of New York at Albany, 1985], 36-42.). 5. John Witthoft, "Ancestry of the Susquehannocks," in Witthoft and W. Fred Kinsey III, eds., Susquehannock Miscellany (Harrisburg, Pa., 1959), 19-59; Francis Jennings, "Susquehannock," in HNAI, 362-367; Barry C. Kent, Susquehanna's Indians (Harrisburg, Pa., 1984), 14—21, 117; Bradley, Evolution of Onondaga, 89-111; Janet C. Brashler, "A Middle Sixteenth-Century Susquehannock Village in Hampshire County, West Virginia," West Virginia Archeologist, XXXIX, no. 2. (1988), 1-30. 6. Lynn Ceci, "Shell Bead Evidence from Archaeological Sites in the Seneca Region of New York State," paper delivered at the Annual Conference on Iroquois Research, Rensselaerville, N.Y., October 1985, p. 9; Sempowski, personal communication, 16 Aug. 1989. 7. Biggar, ed., Works of Champlain, II, 65-107, quotations from 99-100. The { Notes to Pages 52-54

309 }

precise location of this battle is uncertain; see Floyd G. Lounsbury, "Iroquois Place-Names in the Champlain Valley," in Laurence M. Hauptman and Jack Campisi, eds., Neighbors and Intruders: An Ethnohistorical Exploration of the Indians of Hudson's River, National Museum of Man, Mercury Series, Canadian Ethnology Service Paper, no. 39 (Ottawa, 1978), 106. 8. Biggar, ed., Works of Champlain, II, 12.2.—134, quotation from 130; Gabriel Sagard[-Theodat], The Long Journey to the Country of the Hurons, ed. George M. Wrong, trans. H. H. Langton (Toronto, 1939 [orig. publ. Paris, 1632.]), 154; Daniel Gookin, "Historical Collections of the Indians in New England" (1674), Massachusetts Historical Society, Collections, ist Ser., I (1792,), 161; [Cadwallader Golden], The History of the Five Indian Nations Depending on the Province of New-York in America (New York, 172.7), 8-10; Francis Jennings, The Invasion of America: Indians, Colonialism, and the Cant of Conquest (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1975), 165-166; Bruce G. Trigger, The Children of Aataentsic: A History of the Huron People to 1660 (Montreal, 1976), I, 417418. On the use of armor in combat games, see Charles T. Gehring and William A. Starna, eds. and trans., A Journey into Mohawk and Oneida Country, 1634—1635: The Journal of Harmen Meyndertsz van den Bogaert (Syracuse, N.Y., 1988), 9-10. 9. Biggar, ed., Works of Champlain, I, 103, 141, 178-179, II, 77, 90-91, 96 (id quotation), 119 (ist quotation), III, 31, 170-172; Leo-Paul Desrosiers, Iroquoisie (Montreal, 1947), 11-90; Trigger, Children of Aataentsic, I, 2.60-161, 191—193. Pierre de Charlevoix claimed that Indian "warriors never load themselves with the spoils of the vanquished, and if they bring home any booty, [they] abandon it to the first that pleases to take it" (Journal of a Voyage to NorthAmerica . . . [London, 1761 (orig. publ. Paris, 1744)], I, 381). His comments perhaps correctly indicate ideal Indian priorities and actual practices of a redistributive economy, but, as Champlain's remarks after the Algonquin-Mohawk battle of 1609 indicate, plunder was hardly irrelevant in early 17th-century Indian wars: "After we had gained the victory, our Indians wasted time in taking a large quantity of Indian corn and meal belonging to the enemy, as well as their shields, which they had left behind, the better to run. Having feasted, danced, and sung, we three hours later set off for home with the prisoners" (Biggar, ed., Works of Champlain, II, 100). 10. VRBM, 148 (id and 3d quotations), 306 (ist quotation); Biggar, ed., Works of Champlain, V, 114—131; John Romeyn Brodhead, History of the State of New York, I (New York, 1853), 145 — 151; Bruce G. Trigger, "The Mohawk-Mahican War (1614-18): The Establishment of a Pattern," CHR, LII (1971), 176-186. Trigger's suggestion that large-scale economically motivated wars began much earlier than the i6ios—that the disappearance sometime during the i6th century of the St. Lawrence Iroquoians was the result of a Mohawk war of extermination—is intriguing but probably unprovable (Trigger, Children of Aataentsic, I, 118-114; Trigger, Natives and Newcomers, 144-148). The lack of documentary evidence until the late i6ios, or perhaps the 16405 (see below), of Mohawks' waging the kind of war that must have been necessary to disperse the St. Law{ 310 Notes to Pages 55-56

}

rence Iroquoians leads me to assume, with William N. Fenton, that some combination of epidemics and attrition from more traditional raids by various enemies accounts for their demise (Fenton, "Problems Arising from the Historic Northeastern Position of the Iroquois," in Julian H. Steward, ed., Essays in Historical Anthropology of North America Published in Honor of John R. Swanton, Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, C [Washington, D.C., 1940], 175). An assumption of multiple attacks and the adoption of remnants of the Laurentian Iroquoians by various neighbors would account for conflicting Indian traditions that one or another nation conquered these people. For other discussions of the question, see James A. Tuck, "Northern Iroquoian Prehistory," in HNAI, 322-333; and Bruce G. Trigger and James F. Pendergast, "Saint Lawrence Iroquoians," in HNAI, 357—361. n.Biggar, ed., Works of Champlain, V, 73-80, 130-133, 264-2.66, 308-312; Christian [Chrestien] Le Clercq, First Establishment of the Faith in New France, trans. John Gilmary Shea (New York, 1881), I, 211-213. On the concept of one political "structural pose" for war and another for peace, see Fred Gearing, Priests and Warriors: Social Structures for Cherokee Politics in the Eighteenth Century, American Anthropological Association Memoir, no. 93 (Menasha, Wis., 1962); and Anthony F. C. Wallace, "Psychological Preparations for War," in Morton Fried et al., eds., War: The Anthropology of Armed Conflict and Aggression (Garden City, N.Y., 1968), 173-182. 12. Nicolaes van Wassenaer, "Historisch Verhael" (1624-1630), in NNN, 84-85 (quotations), 89; Isaack de Rasiere to Director of Amsterdam Chamber of Dutch West India Company, 23 Sept. 1626, in A.J.F. van Laer, ed. and trans., Documents Relating to New Netherland, 1624-1626, in the Henry E. Huntington Library (San Marino, Calif., 1924), 172-251. For more on this incident, see p. 104 in this volume. 13. Biggar, ed., Works of Champlain, VI, 3-4; JR, XII, 199-209; Le Clercq, First Establishment, trans. Shea, I, 284; Desrosiers, Iroquoisie, 91-343; Trigger, Children of Aataentsic, I, 464-498. 14. [Claude Charles Le Roy] Bacqueville de La Potherie, Histoire de VAmerique septentrionale . . . (Paris, 1722), III, 56. On the fate of the beaver in Iroquoia, see Harold A. Innis, The Fur Trade in Canada: An Introduction to Canadian Economic History (New Haven, Conn., 1930), 1-4, 20-41; B. H. Quain, "The Iroquois," in Margaret Mead, ed., Cooperation and Competition among Primitive Peoples (New York, 1937), 246; George T. Hunt, The Wars of the Iroquois: A Study in Intertribal Trade Relations (Madison, Wis., 1940), 34—37; Raymond Scheele, "Warfare of the Iroquois and Their Northern Neighbors" (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1950), 119—146; Conrad Heidenreich, Huronia: A History and Geography of the Huron Indians, 1600-1650 ([Toronto], 1971), 260; Thomas Elliot Norton, The Fur Trade in Colonial New York, 1686-1776 (Madison, Wis., 1974), 10-15; and Bruce G. Trigger, "Ontario Native People and the Epidemics of 1634-1640," in Shepard Krech III, ed., Indians, Animals, and the Fur Trade: A Critique of "Keepers of the Game" (Athens, Ga., 1981), 27-28. 15. JR, XXX, 287-289; Pierre Boucher, Histoire veritable et naturelle des moeurs et {

Notes to Pages 56-57

311 }

productions du pays de la Nouvelle-France vulgairement dite le Canada, facsimile ed. (Boucherville, P.Q., 1964 [orig. publ. Paris, 1664]), 101 (quotation; my translation); Gookin, "Historical Collections," Mass. Hist. Soc., Colls., istSer., I (1792.), 160-161; Allen W. Trelease, "The Iroquois and the Western Fur Trade: A Problem in Interpretation," MVHR, XLIX (1961-1963), 31-51; Trigger, Children of Aataentsic, II, 617-664; Trigger, "Early Iroquoian Contacts with Europeans," in HNAl, 351—354. This is not to suggest that Iroquois hunters never were active in territories evacuated by their foes (see, for example, ]R, XXVIII, 187, 191) nor that Iroquois traders never profited as mediators. (For some evidence hinting that Senecas may have mediated in early 17th-century trade between Europeans and Fries, see William E. Engelbrecht, "The Kleis Site Ceramics: An Interpretive Approach," in Michael K. Foster et al., eds., Extending the Rafters: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Iroquoian Studies [Albany, N.Y., 1984], 315—339.) But before late-century there is no convincing evidence of a concerted Iroquois effort to become mediators, nor, before the establishment in the late i66os and early 16708 of Iroquois villages on the north shore of Lake Ontario (see Chapter 5), was there any effort by the Five Nations to consolidate control over new hunting territories. See Donald H. Kent, Iroquois Indians, II, Historical Report on the Niagara River and the Niagara River Strip to 1759 (New York, 1974), 5-19. 16. Adriaen van der Donck, "Description of the New Netherlands" (1656), trans. Jeremiah Johnson, NYHSC, id Sen, I (1841), 183 (quotation); John Duffy, Epidemics in Colonial America (Baton Rouge, La., 1953), 179; Woodrow Borah, "America as Model: The Demographic Impact of European Expansion upon the Non-European World," Congreso Internacional de Americanistas, Mexico, 1961, Actes y memorias, III (Mexico City, 1964), 379—387; Henry F. Dobyns, "Estimating Aboriginal American Population: An Appraisal of Techniques with a New Hemispheric Estimate," Current Anthropology, VII (1966), 395-415; Sherburne F. Cook, "The Significance of Disease in the Extinction of the New England Indians," Human Biology, XLV (1973), 485-508; Alfred W. Crosby, "Virgin Soil Epidemics as a Factor in the Aboriginal Depopulation in America," WMQ, XXXIII (1976), 189—199; Russell Thornton, American Indian Holocaust and Survival: A Population History since 1492 (Norman, Okla., 1987); Ann F. Ramenofsky, Vectors of Death: The Archaeology of European Contact (Albuquerque, N.M., 1987), 137-171. 17. Eccles, France in America, 17—59; Stephen Innes, Labor in a New Land: Economy and Society in Seventeenth-Century Springfield (Princeton, N.J., 1983), 3— 16; Oliver A. Rink, Holland on the Hudson: An Economic and Social History of Dutch New York (Ithaca, N.Y., 1986), 50-116. 18. Gehring and Starna, eds. and trans., Journey into Mohawk and Oneida Country, 4;/R, XXI, ii i; Trigger, Children of Aataentsic, 601; Trigger, "Ontario Native People," in Krech, ed., Indians, Animals, and the Fur Trade, 11—38; Cornelius J. Jaenen, Friend and Foe: Aspects of French-Amerindian Cultural Contact in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (New York, 1976), 100; Ramenofsky, Vectors of Death, 71-101; Dean R. Snow and Kim M. Lanphear, "European Con{ 311

Notes to Pages 58—59 }

tact and Indian Depopulation in the Northeast: The Timing of the First Epidemics," Ethnohistory, XXXV (1988), 15-33; Snow and William A. Starna, "Sixteenth-Century Depopulation: A View from the Mohawk Valley," AA, XCI (1989), 142-149. Compare the extravagant claims for epidemics in Iroquoia and throughout the Northeast in Henry F. Dobyns, Their Number Become Thinned: Native American Population Dynamics in Eastern North America (Knoxville, Tenn., 1983), 313-32.7. For critiques of Dobyns's methodology, see Daniel K. Richter, essay review, WMQ, XLI (1984), 649-653; David Henige, "Primary Source by Primary Source? On the Role of Epidemics in New World Depopulation," Ethnohistory, XXXIII (1986), 2.93-312.; Snow and Lanphear, "European Contact and Depopulation," Ethnohistory, XXXV (1988), 15-33; and tnae roundtable by Dobyns, Snow, Lanphear, and Henige, in "Commentary on Native American Demography," Ethnohistory, XXXVI (1989), 2.85—307. Most documentary and scholarly sources agree on a rough estimate of 10,000 for the total post-1640 population of all five nations (Gunther Michelson, "Iroquois Population Statistics," MIN, no. 14 [Fall 1977], 3-17; Daniel Karl Richter, "The Ordeal of the Longhouse: Change and Persistence on the Iroquois Frontier, 1609-172.0" [Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1984], 599-600). 19. ]R, XXX, 273 (ist quotation), XLIV, 43 (zd quotation), XLVII, 193, 2.05, XLVIII, 79-83, XLIX, 105-107 (6th quotation), LIV, 79-81 (3d quotation), LVII, 81-83 (4th quotation), LX, 175 (5th quotation). For overviews of the epidemics that struck the Iroquois and their neighbors, see Robert Larocque, "L'introduction de malades europeens chez les autochtones des XVIIe et XVIIP siecles," Recherches amerindiennes au Quebec, XII (1982.), 13—2,4; and Kim Lanphear, "Biocultural Interactions: Smallpox and the Mohawk Iroquois" (master's thesis, State University of New York at Albany, 1983), 58. Conceptually dated but still useful studies include John J. Heagerty, Four Centuries of Medical History in Canada and a Sketch of the Medical History of Newfoundland, I (Toronto, 192,8); E. Wagner Stearn and Allen E. Stearn, The Effect of Smallpox on the Destiny of the Amerindian (Boston, 1945); P. M. Ashburn, The Ranks of Death: A Medical History of the Conquest of America, ed. Frank D. Ashburn (New York, 1947); and John Duffy, "Smallpox and the Indians in the American Colonies," Bulletin of the History of Medicine, XXV (1951), 32.4-341. 2.0. Gehring and Starna, eds. and trans.journey into Mohawk and Oneida Country, 10; Macfarlane Burnet and David O. White, Natural History of Infectious Disease, 4th ed. (Cambridge, 1972.), 88-104; Lanphear, "Biocultural Interactions," i5-i7> 35-5 1 2.1. Lanphear, "Biocultural Interactions," 2,3-2.7, 51-54. 2.2.. Virtually the only hint in the sources of the Iroquois' casting personal blame for a major epidemic comes from 1634, when Dutch travelers in the Mohawk country found the "principal" headman of that nation's easternmost town "living one quarter mile from the fort in a small cabin because many Indians here in the castle had died of smallpox" (Gehring and Starna, eds. and trans., Journey into Mohawk and Oneida Country, 4). The syntax of the original Dutch is unclear whether the leader left to escape disease or was banished because he was held { Notes to Pages 59-60

313 }

responsible, but his name, Adriochten, translates as "he has caused others to die" (32-n). 2,3./R, VII, 2.13-2,15, XVII, 63-73, in, XXXIII, 199-^09, 117, XLIII, 265-267; Bruce G. Trigger, "Early Iroquoian Contacts with Europeans," in HNAI, 349; Marian E. White, "Neutral and Wenro," in HNAI, 407—411. 2.4./R, XXIV-XXXI, esp. XXIV, 271-297, XXV, 25, XXVI, 175 (ist quotation); Isaac Jogues to Charles-Jacques Hualt de Montmagny, 30 June 1643, in Felix Martin, The Life of Father Isaac Jogues, Missionary Priest of the Society of Jesus . . . , trans. John Gilmary Shea (New York, 1885), 134 (zd quotation); Heidenreich, Huronia, 2.64-2.77; Trigger, Children of Aataentsic, II, 617-664. It is unlikely that the warriors literally "destroyed all [the Arendaronons] by fire" in 1642.; many must have been taken prisoner. 25. JR, XXIV, 2.75-2.79, quotations from 2,77. 2.6. JR, XXXIII, 81-89, 259-265, XXXIV, 87-99, 123-137, 197-221, quotation from XXXIV, 197; Trigger, Children of Aataentsic, II, 725, 751—766; Keith F. Otterbein, "Huron vs. Iroquois: A Case Study in Inter-Tribal Warfare," Ethnohistory, XXVI (1979), 141-152. 27. Joyce Marshall, ed. and trans., Word from New France: The Selected Letters of Marie de LTncarnation (Toronto, 1967), 210. For Iroquois traditions regarding the origins of some of these wars, see "The Destruction of the Eries," in Neville B. Craig, comp., The Olden Time, I (Cincinnati, Ohio, 1876 [orig. publ. 1846]), 225-231; and Carl F. Klinck and James J. Talman, eds., The Journal of Major John Norton, 1816 (Toronto, 1970), 105-109. On the Wyandots—who also appear in i7th- and iSth-century sources under the name "Huron" (the Hurons called themselves "Wendat")—see Elisabeth Tooker, "Wyandot," in HNAI, 398— 406. 28. JR, XXXVIII, 181, XLVII, 139-153. The classic study of the Beaver Wars is Hunt, Wars of the Iroquois, but decades of subsequent scholarship have overturned many of its interpretations. Most criticism has centered on Hunt's somewhat ethnocentric variety of economic determinism, and especially on the "middleman thesis" that he derived from Charles Howard Mcllwain's introduction to AIA, ix—Ixxxv; and Innis, Fur Trade in Canada, 20—84. The Mcllwain-InnisHunt argument that, during the i7th century, the Five Nations sought to establish themselves as mediators in the trade between French or English and Indians of the West is scrutinized along with other aspects of Hunt's work in numerous studies, including Trelease, "Iroquois and the Western Fur Trade," MVHR, XLIX (19621963), 32-51; Raoul Naroll, "The Causes of the Fourth Iroquois War," Ethnohistory, XVI (1969), 51-81; Allan Forbes, Jr., "Two and a Half Centuries of Conflict: The Iroquois and the Laurentian Wars," PA, XL, nos. 3—4 (December 1970), i—20; William N. Fenton, "The Iroquois in History," in Eleanor Burke Leacock and Nancy Oestreich Lurie, eds., North American Indians in Historical Perspective (New York, 1971), 139-145; Karl H. Schlesier, "Epidemics and Indian Middlemen: Rethinking the Wars of the Iroquois, 1609-1653," Ethnohistory, XXIII (1976), 129-145; Trigger, Children of Aataentsic, esp. II, 617-664; W. J. Eccles, "A Belated Review of Harold Adams Innis, The Fur Trade in {

314

Notes to Pages 60-62 }

Canada," CHR, LX (1979), 419-441; and Daniel K. Richter, "War and Culture: The Iroquois Experience," WMQ, XL (1983), 52.8-559. 2.9. JR, XXIV, Z95 (ist quotation); DRCNY, I, 150 (id quotation). Parts of firearms have been found on a Mohawk archaeological site dated approximately 1605— 162.5, but no others appear on contemporaneous or subsequent sites dated before the late 16305 (Donald A. Rumrill, "An Interpretation and Analysis of the Seventeenth Century Mohawk Nation: Its Chronology and Movements," Bulletin and Journal of Archaeology for New York State, no. 90 [1985], 5—11). By 1639, Mohawks were purchasing firearms from English traders on the Connecticut River as well as from the Dutch of Fort Orange (Colin G. Calloway, The Western Abenakis of Vermont, 1600-1800: War, Migration, and the Survival of an Indian People [Norman, Okla., 1990], 45). The Western Abenakis were one of the few native neighbors of the Iroquois to obtain guns at about the same time or even earlier; a group of their musketeers showed up at Quebec in 1637 (ibid.). 30. JR, XXIV, 177 (quotation), XLV, 105-2,07; [Louis-Armand de Lom d'Arce], Baron [de] Lahontan, New Voyages to North-America... (London, 1703), II, 73— 77; John K. Mahon, "Anglo-American Methods of Indian Warfare, 1676-1794," MVHR, XLV (1958-1959), 2.55; Carl P. Russell, Guns on the Early Frontiers: A History of Firearms from Colonial Times through the Years of the Western Fur Trade (Berkeley, Calif., 1957), 11-15,6z-66; Allen W. Trelease, Indian Affairs in Colonial New York: The Seventeenth Century (Ithaca, N.Y., 1960), 95-96; Elisabeth Tooker, "The Iroquois Defeat of the Huron: A Review of Causes," PA, XXXIII, nos. 1-2. (1963), 115-12.3; Keith F. Otterbein, "Why the Iroquois Won: An Analysis of Iroquois Military Tactics," Ethnohistory, XI (1964), 56-63; Patrick Mitchell Malone, "Indian and English Military Systems in New England in the Seventeenth Century" (Ph.D. diss., Brown University, 1971), 179—2.00. On the relative strengths and weaknesses of early 17th-century muskets and bows and arrows—the balance was not as uneven as might be supposed—see J. Frederick Fausz, "Fighting 'Fire' with Firearms: The Anglo-Powhatan Arms Race in Early Virginia," American Indian Culture and Research Journal, III, no. 4 (1979), 3350. Thanks to Thomas Abler for pointing out the fact that combatants can dodge arrows (personal communication, November 1987). 31. }R, XXIV, 2.99, XXV, 193, XXXIV, 2.7-37, 139-149; Marshall, ed. and trans., Word from New France, 2,5 5 (quotation); Gustave Lanctot, A History of Canada, trans. Josephine Hambleton and Margaret M. Cameron (Cambridge, Mass., 1963—1965), I, 169—2,70; Robert A. Goldstein, French-Iroquois Diplomatic and Military Relations, 1609-1701 (The Hague, 1969), 48-84; Forbes, "Two and a Half Centuries of Conflict," PA, XL, nos. 3-4 (December 1970), 1-2.0; Trigger, "Mohawk-Mahican War," CHR, LII (1971), 2,76-2.86. On the internal weakness of the French colony see Eccles, France in America, 2.9-59. 32.. JR, XL, 157 (quotation); Hunt, Wars of the Iroquois, 96—100; John A. Dickinson, "La guerre iroquoise et la mortalite en Nouvelle-France, 1608—1666," Revue d'histoire de I'Amerique franqaise, XXXVI (1982.), 36; Dickinson, "Les amerindiens et les debuts de la Nouvelle-France," Biblioteca della ricerca cultura straniera, XIII (1986), 87-108 (I am indebted to Donald B. Smith for providing a { Notes to Pages 62-64

315 }

copy of this article); Matthew James Dennis, "A 'Peace with a Purpose'? The Iroquois-French Peace of 1653-1658: A Reexamination of the 'Imperial' Iroquois," paper delivered at the American Society for Ethnohistory annual meeting, Chicago, November 1985. 33. JR, XXXV, 183-215, XXXVI, 177-191, XLI, 43-65, XLIII, 115-115, 187207; FOCM, 304, 306; Jonathan Pearson, comp., Early Records of the City and County of Albany, and Colony of Rensselaerswyck (1656-1675) (Albany, N.Y., 1869), 217-218; Gideon D. Scull, ed., Voyages of Peter Esprit Radisson: Being an Account of His Travels and Experiences among the North American Indians, from 1652 to 1684 (Boston, 1885), 86-123; Nicolas Perrot, "Memoir on the Manners, Customs, and Religion of the Savages of North America" (ca. 16801718), in Emma Helen Blair, ed. and trans., The Indian Tribes of the Upper Mississippi Valley and Region of the Great Lakes . . . (Cleveland, Ohio, 1911), I, 148-193. 34. JR, XLIV, 219 (ist quotation); Scull, ed., Voyages of Radisson, 185 (2d quotation); Antoine Silvy, Letters from North America (1709—1710), trans. Ivy Alice Dickson (Belleville, Ont., 1980 [orig. publ. Paris, 1904]), 195-196. On the cultural similarities between the Five Nations and their Iroquoian neighbors, see Fenton, "Problems Arising from Historic Position," in Steward, ed., Essays in Historical Anthropology, 159-251. At least one scholar has argued that the Petuns originated as a post—European-contact assemblage of diverse Iroquoian peoples (Charles Garrad, "Petun Pottery," in Charles F. Hayes III, ed., Proceedings of the 1979 Iroquois Pottery Conference, RMSC Research Records, no. 13 [Rochester, N.Y., 1980], 105-111). 35. JR, XLIII, 265 (quotation), XLV, 207, LI, 123, 187; Lawrence M. Hauptman, "Refugee Havens: The Iroquois Villages of the Eighteenth Century," in Christopher Vecsey and Robert W. Venables, eds., American Indian Environments: Ecological Issues in Native American History (Syracuse, N.Y., 1980), 128—139; Richter, "Ordeal of the Longhouse," 600. 36. Henry R. Schoolcraft, Notes on the Iroquois; or, Contributions to the Statistics, Aboriginal History, Antiquities, and General Ethnology of Western New York (New York, 1846), 29. The composite account that follows is based on numerous contemporaneous reports of Iroquois treatment of captives; endnotes give sources for quotations and explanatory comments only. Valuable descriptions include JR, XXII, 251-267, XXXIX, 55-77, L, 59-63, LIV, 23-35; Scull, ed., Voyages of Radisson, 28—60; and James H. Coyne, ed. and trans., "Exploration of the Great Lakes, 1660—1670, by Dollier de Casson and de Brehant de Galinee," Ontario Historical Society, Papers and Records, IV (1903), 31—35. See also the many other portrayals in JR; and the discussions in Marshall, ed. and trans., Word from New France, 135-136; DRCNY, IX, 48-50; William N. Fenton, ed., "The Hyde Manuscript: Captain William Hyde's Observations on the Five Nations of Indians at New York, 1698," American Scene Magazine, VI (1965), n.p.; L[ouis] Hennepin, A New Discovery of a Vast Country in America . . . ist English ed. (London, 1698), I, 59-60, II, 89-93; Joseph Francois Lafitau, Customs of American Indians Compared with the Customs of Primitive {

316 Notes to Pages 65-66

}

Times, ed. and trans. William N. Fenton and Elizabeth L. Moore (Toronto, 1975-1977), II, 148-172,; Charlevoix, Voyage to North-America, I, 368-380; James E. Seaver, A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison . . ., ed. Allen W. Trelease (New York, 1961 [orig. publ. 1814]), 32-43; Nathaniel Knowles, "The Torture of Captives by the Indians of Eastern North America," APSP, LXXXII (1940), 181-190; Scheele, "Warfare of the Iroquois," 86-97; Elisabeth Tooker, An Ethnography of the Huron Indians, 1615—1649, BAEB, no. 190 (Washington, D.C., 1964), 31-39; Anthony F. C. Wallace, The Death and Rebirth of the Seneca . . . (New York, 1969), 103—107; Barbara Graymont, The Iroquois in the American Revolution (Syracuse, N.Y., 1972.), 17—20; Trigger, Children of Aataentsic, I, 70-75; Denys Delage, Le pays renverse: Amerindiens et europeens en Amerique du nord-est, 1600-1664 (Montreal, 1985), 230-233; and Jeffrey Penner, "Adoption Practices of the Iroquois," senior seminar paper, May 1990, Dickinson College Archives, Boyd Lee Spahr Library, Carlisle, Pa. 37. Hennepin, New Discovery, II, 89 (ist quotation); DRCNY, III, 252 (2d quotation). 38. According to Marie de L'Incarnation, prisoners were divided into three groups immediately after their capture, and these were represented in Iroquois pictographs of war parties with their captives by distinct colors: red for those slated for execution, black for those whose fate was undecided, and no color for those destined for adoption (Marshall, ed. and trans., Word from New France, 112). 39. }R, XXXIX, 189 (quotation). Compare the 17th-century gantlets described here with the milder iSth-century form described in John Heckewelder, "An Account of the History, Manners, and Customs of the Indian Nations Who Once Inhabited Pennsylvania and the Neighbouring States," Historical and Literary Committee of the American Philosophical Society, Transactions, I (1819), 211-213. 40. JR, XXX, 243 (quotation). Compare Bertram Wyatt-Brown's discussion of the role of women and children in 19th-century white American lynchings (Honor and Violence in the Old South [New York, 1986], 209—210). 41. JR, LXII, XL, 103 (ist quotation), 137—139 (2d quotation). 42. Scull, ed., Voyages of Radisson, 42—62, quotations from 60, 2d set of brackets supplied by editors. 43. JR, XLIII, 293-295 (quotation); Hennepin, New Discovery, II, 91 (2d quotation). On the close link in European minds between slavery and capture in war, see Winthrop D. Jordan, White over Black: American Attitudes toward the Negro, 1550-1812. (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1968), 52-56; William McKee Evans, "From the Land of Canaan to the Land of Guinea: The Strange Odyssey of the 'Sons of Ham,'" AHR, LXXXV (1980), 15—43; and Orlando Patterson, Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative Study (Cambridge, Mass., 1982), esp. 106— 115. For an argument that captives were in fact slaves, see William A. Starna and Ralph Watkins, "Northern Iroquoian Slavery," Ethnohistory, XXXVIII (1991), 34-57. The argument is persuasive, but only if taken in terms of the Patterson's broad definition of slavery as "social death." 44. Lorraine P. Saunders, "The Jesuit Relations: Corroboration through the Archaeological Record," paper presented at the Eastern States Archaeological Federa{ Notes to Pages 67-70

317 }

tion annual meeting, November 1990, p. i. See discussion of "dream-consciousness" in David Blanchard, ". . . To the Other Side of the Sky: Catholicism at Kahnawake, 1667-1700," Anthropologica, XXIV (1982.), 77-102. Compare the extensive literature on European captives of Indians, esp. James Axtell, "The White Indians of Colonial America," WMQ, XXXII (1975), 55-88; Alden T. Vaughan and Daniel K. Richter, "Crossing the Cultural Divide: Indians and New Englanders, 1605-1763," American Antiquarian Society, Proceedings, XC (1980), 81-84; Dickinson, "La guerre iroquoise," Revue d'histoire de I'Amerique franqaise, XXXVI (1982.), 31-54; and Colin G. Calloway, "An Uncertain Destiny: Indian Captivities on the Upper Connecticut River," Journal of American Studies, XVII (1983), 189-210.

45.;R, xxx, 289, xxxm, 91-93,119, xxxiv, 141-145, XLII, 57, xnv, n7,

XLV, 155-157, XLVI, 85-91, XLVIII, 81, L, 199; treaty minutes, loNov. 1680, MA, XXX, 254 (quotation); Trigger, Natives and Newcomers, 96-100. 46. JR, IX, 2.65-269 (3d and 4th quotations), XXXIII, 119 (zd quotation); Lahontan, New Voyages, II, 81 (ist quotation). 47. JR, XXXII, 27, LXII, 61-65 (zd quotation); Scull, ed., Voyages ofRadisson, 4243. There may be more to the suicide story than appears at first glance. One suspects that these two women, for whatever reason, lacked the network of male kin necessary to supply the old man adequately. 48. Dickinson, "La guerre iroquoise," Revue d'histoire de I'Amerique franqaise, XXXVI (1982), 31-54. Compare Vaughan and Richter, "Crossing the Cultural Divide," AAS, Procs., XC (1980), 81-84. 49./R, XXXV, 219. 50. ]R, XXIII, 165-167, XLVII, 201-203, LV, 291-293. 51. Speech of Teyoninhokarawen [John Norton], 19 Feb. 1807, John Norton Letterbook, 1805-1810, p. 121, Ayer Manuscripts, Newberry Library, Chicago (quotation); William N. Fenton, "The Lore of the Longhouse: Myth, Ritual, and Red Power," Anthropological Quarterly, XLVIII (1975), 131-147; Fenton, "Iroquois in History," in Leacock and Lurie, eds., North American Indians, 138-143. 52. Bacqueville de La Potherie, Histoire, III, 7-8 (quotation; my translation); Harold Blau, "Function and the False Faces: A Classification of Onondaga Masked Rituals and Themes," Journal of American Folklore, LXXIX (1966), 577—579; Zena Pearlstone Mathews, "The Relation of Seneca False-Face Masks to Seneca and Ontario Archeology" (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 1977), 80-85, 201-204; William N. Fenton, The False Faces of the Iroquois (Norman, Okla., 1987), 65—92. 53. JR, XLIV, 21, 41, LVII, 193-195; Trigger, Children of Aataentsic, II, 826-840. 54. Charles F. Hayes III, "An Overview of the Current Status of Seneca Ceramics," in Hayes, ed., Proceedings of 1979 Pottery Conference, 89; Kuhn, "Trade and Exchange," 36—42. Compare these mid-17th-century findings with those from earlier Susquehannock sites, where, although on the basis of materials and the potters' techniques it is possible to identify ceramics made by captives, most adoptees seem to have striven for a surface similarity to the style of their hosts { 318

Notes to Pages 70-73 }

(Witthoft, "Ancestry of the Susquehannocks," in Witthoft and Kinsey, eds., Susquehannock Miscellany, 22-23). 55. Scull, ed., Voyages of Radisson, 62-63 (brackets supplied by editor). On persistent memories of an adoptee's origins, see Klinck and Talman, eds., Journal of Norton, esp. 105. 56. Apparently the first to use the phrase was De Witt Clinton, in Discourse Delivered before the New-York Historical Society, at Their Anniversary Meeting, 6th December, 1811 (New York, 1812), 9.

CHAPTER

4

The Economic Lifeline to the Dutch 1. Charles T. Gehring and William A. Starna, eds. and trans., A Journey into Mohawk and Oneida Country, 1634-1635: The Journal ofHarmen Meyndertsz van den Bogaert (Syracuse, N.Y., 1988), 62 (quotations); Johannes Megapolensis, Jr., "A Short Account of the Mohawk Indians" (1644), in NNN, 178. Megapolensis mistranslated asseroni (in his spelling assirioni) as "cloth-makers," but his gloss conveys the same basic cultural message about Iroquois views of Europeans. On the fur trade as an initial source of cultural enrichment and stability for the Huron neighbors of the Iroquois, see Bruce G. Trigger, "The Road to Affluence: A Reassessment of Early Huron Responses to European Contact," in Richard F. Salisbury and Elisabeth Tooker, eds., Affluence and Cultural Survival: 1981 Proceedings of the American Ethnological Society (Washington, D.C., 1984), 12-25. 2. Gehring and Starna, eds. and trans., Journey into Mohawk and Oneida Country, 5-6, 35n; Adriaen van der Donck, "Description of the New Netherlands" (1656), trans. Jeremiah Johnson, NYHSC, 2d Ser., I (1841), 209-210 (quotation); [Claude Charles Le Roy] Bacqueville de La Potherie, Histoire de I'Amerique septentrionale . . . (Paris, 1722), I, 263-269; Francis Jennings, The Invasion of America: Indians, Colonialism, and the Cant of Conquest (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1975), 9 I ~9 2 -; Donald Lenig, "Of Dutchmen, Beaver Hats, and Iroquois," in Robert E. Funk and Charles F. Hayes III, eds., Current Perspectives in Northeastern Archeology: Essays in Honor of William A. Ritchie (New York State Archeological Association, Researches and Transactions, XVII, no. i [Rochester, N.Y., 1977]), 73—74; James Axtell, After Columbus: Essays in the Ethnohistory of Colonial North America (New York, 1988), 165; Donna Merwick, Possessing Albany, 1630—1710: The Dutch and English Experiences (Cambridge, 1990), 77-88. 3. Report on burial 45, in "Archaeological Excavations on the Tram-Guilian Site, Livonia, New York: A Report of the Field Explorations of Charles F. Wray and Donald G. Cameron, July-October, 1970," n.p., typescript, RMSC; reports on burials 15, 33, in "The Cameron Site, Lima, New York: Archaeological Field Notes of Charles Wray, Harry Schoff, and Donald Cameron," n.p., typescript, { Notes to Pages 74-79

319 }

RMSC; Peter P. Pratt, Archaeology of the Oneida Iroquois, I, Occasional Publications in Northeastern Anthropology, no. i (George's Mill, N.H., 1976), 116147; Lenig, "Of Dutchmen, Beaver Hats, and Iroquois," in Funk and Hayes, ed., Current Perspectives (N.Y. St. Arch. Ass., Researches and Trans., XVII, no. i [1977]), 73; James W. Bradley, "Iron Work in Onondaga, 1550—1650," in Nancy Bonvillain, ed., Studies on Iroquoian Culture (Rindge, N.H., 1980), 109—117; Bradley, Evolution of the Onondaga Iroquois: Accommodating Change, ijoo— 1655 (Syracuse, N.Y., 1987), 69-78; Charles F. Wray et aL, The Adams and Culbertson Sites, RMSC Research Records, no. 19 (Rochester, N.Y., 1987), 4861, 117-12.1, 195-197, 212, 249-252; Axtell, After Columbus, 167-177. 4. For broader overviews of these issues, see George Irving Quimby, Indian Culture and European Trade Goods: The Archaeology of the Historic Period in the Western Great Lakes Region (Madison, Wis., 1966); James Axtell, The European and the Indian: Essays in the Ethnohistory of Colonial North America (New York, 1981), 245-271; William Cronon, Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England (New York, 1983), 93-99; and David B. Guldenzopf, "The Colonial Transformation of Mohawk Iroquois Society" (Ph.D. diss., State University of New York at Albany, 1987), 10—12. 5. Gehring and Starna, eds. and trans., Journey into Mohawk and Oneida Country, 53; JR, XLIV, 293-295 (quotations); Joseph Francois Lafitau, Customs of the American Indians Compared with the Customs of Primitive Times, ed. and trans. William N. Fenton and Elizabeth L. Moore (Toronto, 1974—1977), II, 30. 6. Report on burial 23, in "Archaeological Excavations on Tram-Guilian Site," n.p.; photographs of ceramic pipe and wooden ladle, in "The Dann Site, Honeoye Falls, New York: Field Notes of Excavations by Charles Wray, Harry Schoff, and Donald Cameron," n.p., typescript, RMSC; Bradley, Evolution of Onondaga, 120—130; Wray et aL, Adams and Culbertson Sites, 36—37. 7. "Archaeological Excavations on Tram-Guilian Site," esp. comparison of data from the Tram and Adams sites, n.p.; "Cameron Site"; [Charles F. Wray], "Factory Hollow Site, Ontario Co., N.Y.," typescript field notes, RMSC; William A. Ritchie, The Archaeology of New York State, rev. ed. (Harrison, N.Y., 1980), 321—322; Martha L. Sempowski, "Differential Mortuary Treatment of Seneca Women: Some Social Inferences," Archaeology of Eastern North America, XIV (1986), 35—44; Wray et aL, Adams and Culbertson Sites, 175—178, 245—252. 8. "The Power House Site, Lima, New York: Field Notes of Excavations by Charles F[.] Wray and Harry Schoff and Donald G. Cameron," esp. reports on burials 85, 164, 175, n.p., typescript, RMSC; "Dann Site," esp. reports on burials 2, 9, n.p.; reports on burials 161 (east cemetery) and 80 (barn cemetery), in "The Boughton Hill Site, Victor, N.Y.: Field Notes of Excavations by Charles F[.] Wray, Harry Schoff, and Robert Graham," n.p., typescript, RMSC; report on burial 16, in "Rochester Junction Site, Mendon, New York: Archeological Field Notes of Charles Wray and Harry Schoff," n.p., typescript, RMSC. Although massive interment of beads dates from the epidemic period, burials from the end of the 16th century through the 16208 also show rather large contributions of beads to the graves of children, particularly when considered in light of the relatively small {

320

Notes to Pages 79-81 }

amount of trade goods available in the period. See reports on burials 5, 27, in "Archaeological Excavations on Tram-Guilian Site," n.p.; reports on burials 18, 27 (ist Sen), 3, 13, 20, 44 (zd Ser.), in "Cameron Site," n.p.; reports on south cemetery burials 8, 42., in [Wray], "Factory Hollow," n.p.; and report on burial 13, in [Charles F. Wray], "The Warren Site, West Bloomfield Township, Ontario County, New York," n.p., typescript field notes, RMSC. 9. Gehring and Starna, eds. and trans., Journey into Mohawk and Oneida Country, 12 (quotations); "Cameron Site"; "The Steele Site, Holcomb, New York: Archaeological Field Notes of Charles Wray and Robert Graham," typescript, RMSC; Wray et al., Adams and Culbertson Sites, 167—175; Martha L. Sempowski, personal communication, 16 Aug. 1989. 10. DRCNY, I, 281 (quotation); VRBM, 536, 545-546, 563; A.J.F. vanLaer, ed. and trans., Documents Relating to New Netherland, 1624-1626, in the Henry E. Huntington Library (San Marino, Calif., 192.4), 223-232; Quimby, Indian Culture and Trade Goods, 63-80; John C. Ewers, "The Influence of the Fur Trade upon the Indians of the Northern Plains," in Malvina Bolus, ed., People and Pelts: Selected Papers of the Second North American Fur Trade Conference (Winnipeg, Man., 1972.), 1—26; Jennings, Invasion of America, 97—104; Howard Vernon, "The Dutch, the Indians, and the Fur Trade in the Hudson Valley, 1609-1664," in Laurence M. Hauptman and Jack Campisi, eds., Neighbors and Intruders: An Ethnohistorical Exploration of the Indians of Hudson's River, National Museum of Man, Mercury Series, Canadian Ethnology Service Paper, no. 39 (Ottawa, 1978), 203; Arthur J. Ray, "Indians as Consumers in the Eighteenth Century," in Carol M. Judd and Arthur J. Ray, eds., Old Trails and New Directions: Papers of the Third North American Fur Trade Conference (Toronto, 1980), 255-271. 11. William N. Fenton, "The New York State Wampum Collection: The Case for the Integrity of Cultural Treasures," APSP, CXV (1971), 440—442; Lynn Ceci, "Shell Bead Evidence from Archaeological Sites in the Seneca Region of New York State," paper presented at the Annual Conference on Iroquois Research, October 1985, 4-15; Bradley, Evolution of Onondaga, 67-69, 90-97, 2i7n. 12. William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, 1620—1647, ed. Samuel Eliot Morison (New York, 1952.), 202-204; Lenig, "Of Dutchmen, Beaver Hats, and Iroquois," in Funk and Hayes, eds., Current Perspectives (N.Y. St. Arch. Ass., Researches and Trans., XVII, no. i [1977]), 81-82; Neal Salisbury, Manitou and Providence: Indians, Europeans, and the Making of New England, 1500-1643 (New York, 1982), 147-152; Salisbury, "Toward the Covenant Chain: Iroquois and Southern New England Algonquians, 1637-1684," in Daniel K. Richter and James H. Merrell, eds., Beyond the Covenant Chain: The Iroquois and Their Neighbors in Indian North America, 1600-1800 (Syracuse, N.Y., 1987), 61-65; Lynn Ceci, "The Value of Wampum among the New York Iroquois: A Case Study in Artifact Analysis," Journal of Anthropological Research, XXXVIII (1982), 97—107, quotation from 98; Ceci, "Shell Bead Evidence," 10; Oliver A. Rink, Holland on the Hudson: An Economic and Social History of Dutch New York (Ithaca, N.Y., 1986), 88-89; Bradley, Evolution of Onondaga, 178-180. 13. Joseph P. Donnelly, ed., "[Francois Vachon de] Belmont's History of Brandy," { Notes to Pages 83-86

321 }

Mid-America, XXXIV (1951), 42-63; Edmund S. Carpenter, "Alcohol in the Iroquois Dream Quest," American Journal of Psychiatry, CXVI (1959), 148-151 (quotation from 150); Andre Vachon, "L'eau-de-vie dans la societe indienne," Canadian Historical Association, Report (1960), 22-32; R. C. Dailey, "The Role of Alcohol among North American Indian Tribes as Reported in The Jesuit Relations," Anthropologica, X (1968), 45-59; Craig MacAndrew and Robert B. Edgerton, Drunken Comportment: A Social Explanation (Chicago, 1969), esp. 100-164; Axtell, European and Indian, 257-259. 14./R, LI, 123-125, LII, 193 (4th quotation), LIII, 191-193, 257, LVII, 145, LIX, 239, LXI, 57-59 (id quotation), LXII, 59-61 (ist quotation), 65-67, 105-107; James H. Coyne, ed. and trans., "Exploration of the Great Lakes, 1669-1670, by Dollier de Casson and de Brehant de Galinee," Ontario Historical Society, Papers and Records, IV (1903), 29 (3d quotation); Charles T. Gehring and Robert S. Grumet, eds., "Observations of the Indians from Jasper Danckaerts's Journal, 1679-1680," WMQ, XLIV (1987), 114-115; William N. Fenton, ed., "The Hyde Manuscript: Captain William Hyde's Observations of the Five Nations of Indians at New York, 1698," American Scene Magazine, VI (1965), n.p.; L[ouis] Hennepin, A New Discovery of a Vast Country in America . . ., ist English ed. (London, 1698), II, 94. See Nancy Oestreich Lurie, "The World's Oldest OnGoing Protest Demonstration: North American Indian Drinking Patterns," Pacific Historical Review, XL (1971), 311—332. 15. Charles F. Wray and Harry L. Schoff, "A Preliminary Report on the Seneca Sequence in Western New York, 1550—1687," PA, XXIII, no. 2 (July 1953), 5363; Wray, Manual for Seneca Iroquois Archaeology (Rochester, N.Y., 1975), 9, 12; Pratt, Archaeology of Oneida, 143; Robert Douglas Kuhn, "Trade and Exchange among the Mohawk-Iroquois: A Trace Element Analysis of Ceramic Smoking Pipes" (Ph.D. diss., State University of New York at Albany, 1985), 71 — 74,179. An insightful general application of the concept of economic dependency to native American experiences is Richard White, The Roots of Dependency: Subsistence, Environment, and Social Change among the Choctaws, Pawnees, andNavajos (Lincoln, Nebr., 1983). 16. Van Laer, ed. and trans., Documents Relating to New Netherland, 192-195; treaty minutes, 23 Sept. 1678 (zd quotation), 27 June 1689 (3d quotation), NINA; DRCNY, III, 775; MCIA, II, 73 (ist quotation). This and the following five paragraphs are revised from Daniel K. Richter, "Rediscovered Links in the Covenant Chain: Previously Unpublished Transcripts of New York Indian Treaty Minutes, 1677—1691," American Antiquarian Society, Proceedings, XCII (1982), 48—55, and supersede the discussion of early Dutch-Iroquois relations contained in that article. 17. William M. Beauchamp, A History of the New York Iroquois, Now Commonly Called the Six Nations, NYSMB, no. 78 (Albany, N.Y., 1905), 149-150; George T. Hunt, The Wars of the Iroquois: A Study in Intertribal Trade Relations (Madison, Wis., 1940), 25-31; Allen W. Trelease, Indian Affairs in Colonial New York: The Seventeenth Century (Ithaca, N.Y., 1960), 27 (quotation). A Captain {

322

Notes to Pages 86-87

}

Jacobs, who sailed to the site of Albany in 1623, has also been suggested as a possible "Jacques." 18. Nicolaes van Wassenaer, "Historisch Verhael" (1624-1630), in NNN, 78-81, quotation from 81; Edward Hagaman Hall, "The New York Commercial Tercentenary, 1614—1914," American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society, Nineteenth Annual Report (Albany, N.Y., 1914), 466-468, 474-478; Rink, Holland on the Hudson, 37-45. In 1633 Eelckens testified to English officials that he had "heretofore lived foure yeare with" the Indians (DRCNY, I, 80). Fort Nassau, his home beginning in 1614, was abandoned in 1617; thus he may have dated his sojourn from 1613. 19. Johan de Laet, "New World" (1625), in NNN, 47-48; Van Wassenaer, "Historisch Verhael," in NNN, 67-68; DRCNY, I, map facing p. 13; John Heckewelder, "An Account of the History, Manners, and Customs of the Indian Nations Who Once Inhabited Pennsylvania and the Neighbouring States," Historical and Literary Committee of the American Philosophical Society, Transactions, I (1819), 11-12, 38-48; John V. N. Yates and Joseph W. Moulton, History of the State of New-York, Including Its Aboriginal and Colonial Annals (New York, 182.4— 182.6), 346-347; E. B. O'Callaghan, History of New Netherland; or, New York under the Dutch (New York, 1846-1848), I, 76-77; John Romeyn Brodhead, History of the State of New York, I (New York, 1853), 54-55, 66-67, 80-81; Hall, "New York Tercentenary," Am. Scenic and Hist. Preservation Soc., Nineteenth Report, 481-484; Hunt, Wars of the Iroquois, 2.6-27; Trelease, Indian Affairs, 34. A Dutch text and English translation of a purported treaty signed by Eelckens, Christiansen, and four Iroquois on 21 Apr. 1613 appears in L. G. Van Loon, "Tawagonshi: Beginning in the Treaty Era," Indian Historian, I, no. 3 (1968), 22-26. Despite expressing some reservations about its origins, I cited this document to support the case for Eelckens as "Jacques" in my "Rediscovered Links," 50-51.1 have since learned that the Tawagonshi "treaty" is an utter fraud that has been in circulation for nearly half a century. I am grateful to William Fenton and Charles Gehring for showing me the error of my ways. For a close analysis of the forgery, see Gehring et al., "The Tawagonshi Treaty of 1613: The Final Chapter," New York History, LXVIII (1987), 373-393. 20. DRCNY, I, 74 (ist quotation); treaty minutes, 23 Sept. 1678, 27 June 1689 (id quotation), NINA. 21. DRCNY, I, 71-81, 91-95, quotation from 78; Van Wassenaer, "Historisch Verhael," in NNN, 86; David Pietersz. de Vries, "Korte Historiael Ende Journaels Aenteyckeninge" (1655), in NNN, 187-189; O'Callaghan, History of New Netherland, 143—146; Brodhead, History of New York, I, 145—146, 152; Thomas J. Condon, New York Beginnings: The Commercial Origins of New Netherland (New York, 1968), 3-86; Rink, Holland on the Hudson, 118-121. On the lasting significance of Eelckens's visit to the Connecticut Valley in 1622, see Salisbury, Manitou and Providence, 148—150. 22. DRCNY, I, 81 (ist quotation); VRBM, 303-304 (2d quotation), 306; Van Wassenaer, "Historisch Verhael," in NNN, 84-85 (3d quotation), 89; Van Laer, { Notes to Pages 88-90

323 }

ed. and trans., Documents Relating to New Netherland, 171—151; Bruce G. Trigger, "The Mohawk-Mahican War (16x4-2.8): The Establishment of a Pattern," CHR, LII (1971), 276-286. 23. VRBM, 243, 266—288, 302—304, ist quotation from 302; DRCNY, I, 93—95; Brodhead, History of New York, I, 229-231; Trelease, Indian Affairs, 115 (id quotation). 24. Gehring and Starna, eds. and trans., Journey into Mohawk and Oneida Country. This document is the same as that mistakenly attributed to Arent van Curler, in J. Grant Wilson, ed. and trans., "Arent van Curler and His Journal of 1634— 1635," m American Historical Association, Annual Report for the Year 1895 (Washington, D.C., 1896), 76—101. A revised but still often inaccurate translation—no longer attributed to Van Curler—appeared as "Narrative of a Journey into the Mohawk and Oneida Country" (1634-1635), in NNN, 135-162. The Gehring and Starna edition is an authoritative retranslation from the original manuscript. 25. Gehring and Starna, eds. and trans., Journey into Mohawk and Oneida Country, 326. Ibid., 3-4, 3in. On the prevalence of iron nails, see Donald A. Rumrill, "An Interpretation and Analysis of the Seventeenth Century Mohawk Nation: Its Chronology and Movements," Bulletin and Journal of Archaeology for New York State, no. 90 (1985), 14. On the role of trade in enhancing the status of Iroquoian headmen, see Trigger, Natives and Newcomers, 183-194. 27. Gehring and Starna, eds. and trans., Journey into Mohawk and Oneida Country, 3-12, quotations from 5-6. 28. Ibid., 12-13. 29. Ibid., 13. 30. Ibid., 13—15. 31. Ibid., 15-17 (quotations); Trelease, Indian Affairs, 54. Compare the complaint of Mohawks at Fort Orange in 1626: "Why should we go Hunting? Half the time you have no cloth" (Van Laer, ed., Documents Relating to New Netherland, 231). 32. VRBM, 389-392, 410-411, 433-434, 438-443, 459-463, 508-515, 609619; A.J.F. van Laer, ed. and trans., "Arent van Curler and His Historic Letter to the Patroon," Dutch Settlers Society of Albany, Yearbook, III (1927-1928), n17; treaty minutes, 23 Sept. 1678, NINA (quotation); Trelease, Indian Affairs, 112—116; Oliver A. Rink, "New Netherland and the Amsterdam Merchants, 1640—1644," in Working Papers of the Seminar on New York State History (Albany, N.Y., 1983), 1-22; Thomas E. Burke, "The New Netherland Fur Trade, 1657—1661: Response to Crisis," de Halve Maen, LIX, no. 3 (March 1986), 1—4, 21. 33. VRBM, 452-454, 458, 473-486, 556-565, 624, 632, 646-647, 658-668, 683-684, 690, ist quotation from 486, 2d from 684; Van Laer, ed. and trans., "Arent van Curler and His Letter," Dutch Settlers Soc., Yearbook, III (19271928), 18-29; Koert D. Burnham, "Arent van Curler Alias Corlaer," de Halve Maen, LIII, no. i (Spring 1978), 7-8; Merwick, Possessing Albany, 54-58. 34. VRBM, 622 (quotation); MCARS, I, 216; Arnold J. F. van Laer, trans., New York {

324

Notes to Pages 90-94 }

Historical Manuscripts: Dutch, ed. Kenneth Scott and Kenn Stryker-Rodda (Baltimore, 1974), IV, 244. After Van Curler's death in 1667 his widow Antonia operated a tavern and, as a temporary act of government compassion after her house and barn burned in the early 16705, received a license to sell rum, gunpowder, and lead to Indians legally (NYCM, III, pt. i, 127-12.8; DRCNY, II, 652.). A decade earlier, Van Curler was active in efforts to restrict the business of "liquor vendors" on the Hudson River, perhaps with an eye to his own profits (A.J.F. Van Laer, ed. and trans., Correspondence of Jeremias van Rensselaer, 1651-1674 [Albany, N.Y., 1932.], 2,51). On Dutch efforts to suppress the trade in guns and liquor (the sale of alcoholic beverages to Indians was not legally restricted until 1643), see Trelease, Indian Affairs, 93-102. 35. Van Laer, ed., "Arent van Curler and His Letter," Dutch Settlers Soc., Yearbook, III (1927-1928), 27-28 (quotations) ;/R, XXIV, 283. 36. Van Laer, trans., N.Y. Historical Manuscripts, ed. Scott and Stryker-Rodda, IV, 278-281, 607; MCR, 127-130; FOCM, 456-459; Jonathan Pearson, A History of the Schenectady Patent in the Dutch and English Times (Albany, N.Y., 1883), 7-18; Trelease, Indian Affairs, 116-117. Recalling his 1642 visit, in 1659, when Van Curler again traveled to the Mohawk country, he proclaimed (with some lack of arithmetical precision): "Brothers, it is now sixteen years ago that we made our first treaty of friendship and brotherhood between you and all the Dutch, which we then joined together with an iron chain"; the Mohawks expressed similar sentiments (FOCM, 453—459, quotation from 457). The 1645 negotiations with the New Netherland governor apparently convinced Mohawk leaders that they should mediate talks later that year that ended the conflict between colonists and Indians near Manhattan known as Kieft's War. 37. FOCM, 453 (quotation); Jean E. Murray, "The Early Fur Trade in New France and New Netherland," CHR, XIX (1938), 365-377; Paul Chrisler Phillips, The Fur Trade, I (Norman, Okla., 1961), 133—i38;Merwick, Possessing Albany, 68— 72. For an account of the difficult route between Springfield and Albany, see Francis Nicholson to [William Blathwayt], [October] 1688, BP, XV, folder i. 38. Lynn Ceci, "The First Fiscal Crisis in New York," Economic Development and Cultural Change, XXVIII (1980), 839-847; Rink, "New Netherland and Amsterdam Merchants," in Working Papers, 1-22; Burke, "New Netherland Fur Trade," de Halve Maen, LIX, no. 3 (March 1986), 1-4, 21. 39. DRCNY, XIV, 444 (zd quotation), 448-453 (ist quotation from 450); Trelease, Indian Affairs, 13 8—174; John J. McCusker, Money and Exchange in Europe and America, 1600—1775: A Handbook (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1978), 157, i57n. 40. MCR, 129—130; FOCM, 463—464, 503 (quotations), 516— 517; Trelease, Indian Affairs, 124—137; Langdon G. Wright, "Local Government and Central Authority in New Netherland," New-York Historical Society Quarterly, LVII (1973), 15; Vernon, "Dutch, Indians, and Fur Trade," in Hauptman and Campisi, eds., Neighbors and Intruders, 205—207. 41. FOCM, 503-504 (see also 434, 460, 491-492, 496-504, 511-515, 523-524, 529—530), first set of quotations from 503—504, second from 511—513. Donna Merwick sees the entire affair of suits against those who engaged in "walking in { Notes to Pages 95-97

325 }

the woods" as part of a plan by Fort Orange leaders to show that the fur trade was out of control as a means of achieving more municipal autonomy over the commerce (Possessing Albany, 88—99). 41. Thomas E. Burke, Jr., "The Extreemest Part of All': The Dutch Community of Schenectady, New York, 1661-172.0" (Ph.D. diss., State University of New York at Albany, 1984), 1-170. 43. FOCM, 454. 44. ./£, XLVIII, 77-79 (quotations); DRCNY, XII, 431; FOCM, 515-518; Francis Jennings, "Glory, Death, and Transfiguration: The Susquehannock Indians in the Seventeenth Century," APSP, CXII (1968), 10-19. For a contrasting interpretation of this event, see Barry C. Kent, Susquehanna's Indians (Harrisburg, Pa., 1984), 40. 45. Carl Bridenbaugh, ed., The Pynchon Papers, I (Boston, 1981), 50-71; DRCNY, II, 371-371, XIII, 355-356; JR, XLIX, 139-141; Van Laer, ed., Correspondence of ]. van Rensselaer, 358; Governor and Council of Mass, to "the cheefe Sagamores, of The people Called Mawhakes," 9 Sept. 1665, MA, XXX, 1171173; Daniel Gookin, "Historical Collections of the Indians in New England," Massachusetts Historical Society, Collections, ist Ser., I (1791), 161-168; Trelease, Indian Affairs, 118-130; Richard I. Melvoin, New England Outpost: War and Society in Colonial Deerfield (New York, 1989), 39—47; Burke, " 'Extreemest Part,'" 171—175; Colin G. Galloway, The Western Abenakis of Vermont, 1600—1800: War, Migration, and the Survival of an Indian People (Norman, Okla., 1990), 61-73. On the complex and often misinterpreted connections and conflicts among Mohawks, Mahicans, and Northern and Southern New England Algonquians, see Gordon M. Day, "The Ouragie War: A Case History in Iroquois-New England Indian Relations," in Michael K. Foster et aL, eds., Extending the Rafters: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Iroquoian Studies (Albany, N. Y, 1984), 37; Day, "The Identity of the Sokokis," Ethnohistory, XII (1965), 137— 149; and Salisbury, "Toward the Covenant Chain," in Richter and Merrell, eds., Beyond the Covenant Chain, 61-73. 46. Joyce Marshall, ed. and trans., Word from New France: The Selected Letters of Marie de LTncarnation (Toronto, 1967), 315—316; Van Laer, ed., Correspondence ofj. van Rensselaer, 315-316 (quotation). The Dutch usually referred to all four western Iroquois nations as "Senecas." 47. DRCNY, III, 67-68; Van Laer, ed. and trans., Correspondence of J. van Rensselaer, 315—331, 345—346, 358—371, 411—413, 440—449; Michael Kammen, Colonial New York: A History (New York, 1975), 48—99; Donna Merwick, "Becoming English: Anglo-Dutch Conflict in the 16705 in Albany, New York," New York History, LXII (1981), 389-414; Day, "Ouragie War," in Foster et aL, eds., Extending the Rafters, 35-50. For background on relations between English and Indians in the Northeast, see Alden T. Vaiighan, New England Frontier: Puritans and Indians, 1620-1675, rev- ed- (New York, 1979); Jennings, Invasion of America, part II; and Salisbury, Manitou and Providence. For an argument that the Anglo-Dutch wars had little impact on trade at Albany, see Jan Kupp, {

316

Notes to Pages 98-102 }

"Aspects of New York-Dutch Trade under the English, 1670-1674," New-York Historical Society Quarterly, LVIII (1974), I 39~ I 4748./R, XLVI, 179-181, 2.2.3-2.33, XLVII, 93-115, XLVIII, 75-83, 2.33-239, XLIX, 137—153, 177—181, quotation from XLIX, 141; Hunt, Wars oflroquois, 134-137; Francis Jennings, The Ambiguous Iroquois Empire: The Covenant Chain Confederation of Indian Tribes with English Colonies from Its Beginnings to the Lancaster Treaty of 1744 (New York, 1984), 113-136. 49. DRCNY, III, 121-125, IX, 25-26 (quotation), 37-38, 44-47;/R, XLIX, 217239; Traitez de paix conclus entre s. m. le roy de France et les indiens du Canada (Paris, 1667) (microfilm copy in IIDH, reel 2); W. J. Eccles, Canada under Louis XIV, 1663—1701 (Toronto, 1964), 1—58. On the domestic background for the imperial and mercantile activities of which the royal takeover of New France was a part, see David Parker, The Making of French Absolutism (London, 1983), 118—129. 50. Gehring and Starna, eds. and trans., Journey into Mohawk and Oneida Country, 62, 64n. 51./R, L, 127-135, 181-187; DRCNY, III, 118-121; [Cadwallader Golden], The History of the Five Indian Nations Depending on the Province of New-York in America (New York, 1727), 22-23 (quotation); Burke, "'Extreemest Part,'" 177-186. 52. Bridenbaugh, ed., Pynchon Papers, I, 55—61, 71—73, quotation from 57; DRCNY, III, 126-135; LIR, 29-33; /R, L, 135-139, 191; Nicolas Perrot, "Memoir on the Manners, Customs, and Religion of the Savages of North America" (ca. 1680—1718), in Emma Helen Blair, ed. and trans., The Indian Tribes of the Upper Mississippi Valley and Region of the Great Lakes . . . (Cleveland, Ohio, 1911), I, 199-203; Thomas Grassman, "Flemish Bastard," in DCB, I, 307-308. 53. JR, L, 139-147, 199-205, ist quotation from 141; Marshall, ed. and trans., Word from New France, 317—328 (remaining quotations); DRCNY, III, 135; [Golden], History of Five Nations of New-York, 24-25. 54. John Baker to John Winthrop Jr., August 9, 1666, IIDH, reel 2 (quotation); DRCNY, III, 146-154; JR, LI, 81-85; Perrot, "Memoir," in Blair, ed., Indian Tribes, 1,199-203; A.J.F. van Laer, ed. and trans., "Documents Relating to Arent van Curler's Death," Dutch Settlers Soc., Yearbook, III (1927-1928), 30-34; [Golden], History of Five Nations of New-York, 23—24; Burnham, "Arent Van Curler," de Halve Maen, LII, no. i (Spring 1978), 8, 16.

CHAPTER 5 The Ascendancy of the Francophiles i. On the political impact of Christian missions, see Herbert E. Bolton, "The Mission as a Frontier Institution in the Spanish-American Colonies," AHR, XXIII (1917-1918), 42-61; Francis Jennings, "Goals and Functions of Puritan { Notes to Pages 102-106

327 }

Missions to the Indians," Ethnohistory, XVIII (1971), 197—2.12.; Neal Salisbury, "Red Puritans: The 'Praying Indians' of Massachusetts Bay and John Eliot," WMQ, XXXI (1974), 27-54; James Axtell, "The Invasion Within: The Contest of Cultures in Colonial North America," in Howard Lamar and Leonard Thompson, eds., The Frontier in History: North America and Southern Africa Compared (New Haven, Conn., 1981), 237—269; and Henry Warner Bowden, American Indians and Christian Missions: Studies in Cultural Conflict (Chicago, 1981). Portions of this chapter first appeared in slightly different form in Daniel K. Richter, "Iroquois versus Iroquois: Jesuit Missions and Christianity in Village Politics, 1642-1686," Ethnohistory, XXXII (1985), 1-16. 2. JR, XLII, in (ist quotation); Johannes Megapolensis, Jr., "A Short Account of the Mohawk Indians" (1644), in NNN, 177-178 (remaining quotations). The "Short Account" (NNN, 163—180) was published in the Netherlands without the author's consent in 1644. To add verisimilitude to it, on this and several other occasions, he supplied the original Mohawk words as he understood them. On the dominie's career, see VRBM, 606—619, 645—655; Charles E. Corwin, "Efforts of the Dutch-American Colonial Pastors for the Conversion of the Indians," Journal of the Presbyterian Historical Society, XII (1924-1927), 225-246; Allen W. Trelease, Indian Affairs in Colonial New York: The Seventeenth Century (Ithaca, N.Y., 1960), 169-172; and Gerald Francis De Jong, "Dominie Johannes Megapolensis: Minister to New Netherland," New-York Historical Society Quarterly, LII (1968), 7-47. Corwin's hagiographic account claims that Megapolensis admitted some 30 Indians to church membership, but the evidence favors Trelease's argument that the dominie "almost certainly failed to convert a single Indian" (Indian Affairs, 170). 3. FOCM, 285; MCARS, I, 278, II, 36-37; Jaspar Dankers [Danckaerts] and Peter Sluyter, Journal of a Voyage to New York and a Tour in Several of the American Colonies in 1679-80, ed. and trans. Henry C. Murphy (Long Island Historical Society, Memoirs, I [Brooklyn, 1867]), 110-112, 301-319, quotation from 305; A.J.F. van Laer, ed. and trans., Correspondence of Maria van Rensselaer, 16691689 (Albany, N.Y., 1935), 16. Danckaerts, who heard Schaets preach, complained that the minister "had a defect in the left eye, and used such strange gestures and language that I think I never in all my life have heard any thing more miserable" (Dankers and Sluyter, Journal, 112). For additional examples of Dutch mockery of Christian Mohawks, see/R, LIII, 179—189. ./R, XXIV, 209-213, XXV, 35-37, XXXI, 121, XXXIV, 169, XLII, 135, XLIII, 4 307—317 (quotation from 307); Christian [Chrestien] Le Clercq, First Establishment of the Faith in New France, trans. John Gilmary Shea (New York, 1881), I, 267-269; Gideon D. Scull, ed., Voyages of Peter Esprit Radisson: Being an Account of His Travels and Experiences among the North American Indians, from 1652 to 1684 (Boston, 1885), 122-123. 5. Joyce Marshall, ed. and trans., Word from New France: The Selected Letters of Marie de LTncarnation (Toronto, 1967), 213 (ist quotation), 225;/R, XLI, 119 (3d quotation), 95-125, 133 (2d quotation), XLII, 71-83, 185-189, XLVI, 109-113, XLVII, 57, 197, XLIX, 107-109, L, 115-117, LIV, 81-93. {

328

Notes to Pages 106—108

}

6. /R, XLI, 37-65, 109-119, XLII, 49-59, 95~97, XLIII, 99-«9, XLIV, 69-77, 149-191; Marshall, ed. and trans., Word from New Prance, 2.2.9-235; Scull, ed., Voyages ofRadisson, 118-134; Bruce G. Trigger, The Children of Aataentsic: A History of the Huron People to 1660 (Montreal, 1976), II, 808—815; Lucien Campeau, Gannentaha: Premiere mission iroquoise (1653-1665) (Montreal, 1983), esp. 12—25, 37—4^5 Francis Jennings, The Ambiguous Iroquois Empire: The Covenant Chain Confederation of Indian Tribes with English Colonies from Its Beginnings to the Lancaster Treaty of 1744 (New York, 1984), 105—109. Campeau argues that in the end only about 100 of the 500-600 Hurons were actually forced to resettle in Iroquoia, approximately 50 of them with the Onondagas (Gannentaha, 51—52). 7. Trigger, Children of Aataentsic, I, 393-394; Cornelius J. Jaenen, Friend and Foe: Aspects of French-Amerindian Cultural Contact in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (New York, 1976), 52-53; James P. Ronda, " 'We Are Well as We Are': An Indian Critique of Seventeenth-Century Christian Missions," WMQ, XXXIV (1977), 66-82; Daniel Karl Richter, "The Ordeal of the Longhouse: Change and Persistence on the Iroquois Frontier, 1609—1720" (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1984), 138-150. 8./R, LI, 205 (ist quotation), LIII, 213-215 (zd quotation); Le Clercq, First Establishment, trans. Shea, I, 214—215; George F. G. Stanley, "The Policy of 'Francisation' as Applied to the Indians during the Ancien Regime," Revue d'histoire de I'Amerique franqaise, III (1949-1950), 333-348; Cornelius J. Jaenen, "The Frenchification and Evangelization of the Amerindians in the Seventeenth Century New France," Canadian Catholic Historical Association, Study Sessions, XXXV (1968), 57-81; Jaenen, "French Attitudes toward Native Society," in Carol M. Judd and Arthur J. Ray, eds., Old Trails and New Directions: Papers of the Third North American Fur Trade Conference (Toronto, 1980), 5972; Trigger, Children of Aataentsic, I, 377-380; Henry W. Bowden and James P. Ronda, eds., John Eliot's Indian Dialogues: A Study in Cultural Interaction (Westport, Conn., 1980), 35—37; Axtell, "Invasion Within," in Lamar and Thompson, eds., Frontier in History, 237—269. Compare Fremin's remarks with Cotton Mather's almost identical comment about the work of John Eliot in New England: "He was to make Men of them, ere he could hope to see them Saints; they must be civilized, er'e they could be Christianized" (The Triumphs of the Reformed Religion in America: The Life of the Renowned John Eliot... [Boston, 1691], 83). On the Jesuits' relative tolerance, see J. H. Kennedy, Jesuit and Savage in New France (New Haven, Conn., 1950); George R. Healy, "The French Jesuits and the Idea of the Noble Savage," WMQ, XV (1958), 143-167; James T. Moore, Indian and Jesuit: A Seventeenth-Century Encounter ([Chicago], 1982); and James Axtell, The Invasion Within: The Contest of Cultures in Colonial North America (New York, 1985), 71—90. .JR, XIII, 169-173, XVII, 113-143, XXIII, 185-187, XXVIII, 47-61; Trigger, 9 Children of Aataentsic, II, 569-570, 709-710; Denys Delage, Le pays renverse: Amerindiens et europeens en Amerique du nord-est, 1600—1664 (Montreal, 1985), 202-229. { Notes to Pages 109-110

329 }

io. JR, XLII, 135-137, 147-169, LII, 12.5, 153-155 (quotation); Anthony F. C. Wallace, "Dreams and the Wishes of the Soul: A Type of Psychoanalytic Theory among the Seventeenth Century Iroquois," AA, LX (1958), 2.34-2.48. On European folk beliefs regarding spectral visitors, see Carol F. Karlsen, The Devil in the Shape of a Woman: Witchcraft in Colonial New England (New York, 1987), 614n. JR, XIV, 2.35, XXIII, 187-189; L[ouis] Hennepin, A New Discovery of a Vast Country in America . . ., ist English ed. (London, 1698), II, 61-62 (quotation); [Louis-Armand de Lorn d'Arce], Baron [de] Lahontan, New Voyages to NorthAmerica . . . (London, 1703), II, 37—40. 12.. For comparisons to other times and places, see Edward H. Spicer, Cycles of Conquest: The Impact of Spain, Mexico, and the United States on the Indians of the Southwest, 1533-1960 (Tucson, Ariz., 1962.), 469-475; Trigger, Children of Aataentsic, II, 699-72.4; James P. Ronda, 'The Sillery Experiment: A JesuitIndian Village in New France, 1637-1663," American Indian Culture and Research Journal, III, no. i (1979), 1-18; Robert F. Berkhofer, Jr., Salvation and the Savage: An Analysis of Protestant Missions and American Indian Response, 1787-1862 (Lexington, Ky., 1965); and William G. McLoughlin, Cherokeesand Missionaries, 1789-1839 (New Haven, Conn., 1984). 13. H. P. Biggar, gen. ed., The Works of Samuel de Champlain (Toronto, 192.2.— 1936), II, 138-142.; JR, XLI, 45, LI, 81 (zd quotation), LVI, 59 (ist quotation); Marshall, ed. and trans., Word from New France, 153-154, 32,8-32.9; DRCNY, IX, 44-47; LIR, 143-144; Le Clercq, First Establishment, trans. Shea, II, 142., 191; John Phillip Reid, A Law of Blood: The Primitive Law of the Cherokee Nation (New York, 1970), 2.2.5-2.2.8. 14. JR, LVIII, 171-177, LIX, 2.37-2.43, LXI, 175-179, quotation from LIX, 237. Occasionally, Jesuits became the object of disputes between headmen jostling for status. In the late i66os, Garakontie introduced Father Etienne de Carheil to the Cayuga village of Oiogouen. The Cayuga headman "who took him under his care, treated him badly for a long time; for, desiring some Mission Father whom he might bring to his house for his own family, and his right to whom no one would be able to dispute, he reluctantly permits Father Carheil to be given to Oiogouen by Garakontie." To Jesuits, "this dispute about rights, and this rivalry as to who shall have the Missionaries . . . [was] a good sign." Yet the quarrel primarily involved Indian politics; it had little to do with the priests' Christian message (JR, LII, 181; see also the translation in Charles Hawley, Early Chapters of Cayuga History: Jesuit Missions in Goi-o-gouen, 1656—1684 . . . [Auburn, N.Y., 18791,40-41). 15. JR, XLVII-LXI, quotation from XLVII, 73; John G. Shea, History of the Catholic Missions among the Indian Tribes of the United States, 1529-1854 (New York, 1855), 242; William M. Beauchamp, A History of the New York Iroquois, Now Commonly Called the Six Nations, NYSMB, no. 78 (Albany, N.Y., 1905), 200— 222; Bruce G. Trigger, "Garakontie," in DCB, I, 322-323; Norman Clermont, "Une figure iroquoise, Garakontie," Recherches amerindiennes au Quebec, VII (1978), 101 — 107. The discussion of Garakontie's career in Stephen Saunders { 330 Notes to Pages iio-i12 }

Webb, 1676: The End of American Independence (New York, 1984), esp. 151301, misinterprets the headman's role in Onondaga and, especially, League politics while seriously overstating his real power to shape the collective diplomacy of the Five Nations. i6./R, XXVIII, 2.31, XXIX, 45-63, XXX, 2,2,7-2.2.9, XXXI, 111-119; Marshall, ed. and trans., Word from New France, 101-113; Felix Martin, The Life of Father Isaac Jogues, Missionary Priest of the Society of Jesus . . . , trans. John Gilmary Shea (New York, 1885); Delage, Le pays renverse, 174-183. 17./R, XVII, 119-12,1, XLI, 99, XLII, 145-147, LVIII, 2.43, LXII, 95-99 (ist quotation), 199—2,01 (id quotation); Charles T. Gehring and Robert S. Grumet, eds., "Observations of the Indians from Jasper Danckaerts's Journal, 1679— 1689," WMQ, XLIV (1987), 109-110; Bruce G. Trigger, "Ontario Native People and the Epidemics of 1634—1640," in Shepard Krech III, ed., Indians, Animals, and the Fur Trade: A Critique of "Keepers of the Game" (Athens, Ga., 1981), 2,9-32,. Compare Robert Conkling, "Legitimacy and Conversion in Social Change: The Case of French Missionaries and the Northeastern Algonkian," Ethnohistory, XXI (1974), 1-2.4; an 13° Annenraes, 70-71 Anti-French factions, 107-108, 113, 12,8-12,9, 131-132, 134-135. See also Anglophile factions Anti-Leislerian faction, 164-166, 175, 191-193, 2,15-2,16. See also Anglicizer faction Antlers, 26-28, 80-81. See also Combs Aouenano, 203-204, 207, 210-211 Aradgi, 201-204, 207, 217 Archaic cultures, 13, 23 Arendaronons, 60-6 1, 108. See also Huron Confederacy Armor, 34-35, 54-55 Arms, coats of, 151-153, 158, 227-228, 230, 342-343nn. 35, 38 Arrowheads, 54-57, 87 Assendasse, 112, 117, 118, 141 Asseroni, 75-76, 106, 184, 3i9n. i, 353-354n. s 2 Ataronchronons, 61-62. See also Huron Confederacy Attignawantans, 108. See also Huron Confederacy Attigneenongnahacs, 61-62, 108. See also Huron Confederacy Autonomy, 7, 40-45, 169, 189, 236-237 Axes and hatchets: as tools and weapons, 55? 79? 84, 92, 268; symbolism of, 156, 160, 170, 185, 188, 203, 228, 234, 238, 245. See also Smiths Ax-maker. See Asseroni Bacon's Rebellion, 135-136 Bacqueville de La Potherie, Claude Charles Le Roy, 196 Bancker, Evert, 137, 192 Baptism: as shamanistic act, 107, 113, 115, 23 2; by Jesuits, 115-117, 119, 332n. 24; of children, 116-117, 232-234; by Sulpicians, 121; by Protestant clergy, 178, 231-232; and Protestant Mohawks, 233-234, 37in. 72 Barclay, Thomas, 223 Barentsen, Peter, 56 Bark: as building material, 17-18, 23, 260-261; and pictographs, 37, 277; as grave lining, 82, 277 Bartram, John, 257, 260-261, 277

{

Baskets, 19 Battles. See Military strategies and tactics Bayard, Nicholas, 164, 193 Beads: shell, 13, 28, 29, 53, 84; glass, 52, 79, 268; brass, 78; as grave goods, 81, 3 20-3 2 in. 8. See also Wampum Beans, 14-1 5, 19-20, 23, 90, 103-104, no, 257-258. See also Agriculture; Food Bear clan, n, 21, 113, 175, 194, 207, 210, 230, 238, 277. See also Clan system Bears. See Animals; Hunting; Meat Beavers. See Animals; Furs and skins; Hunting; Meat Beaver Wars: of mid- 1 7th century, 50-51, 56-66, 74, 98-99; economic motives for, 53-57, 60, 65, 144, 163-164; of 16705 and i68os, 144-149; King William's War as last of, 161-163, 189, Z56 Bellomont, Richard Coote, earl of, 187, 188, 191-194, 197, 200, 206209, 211, 356n. 2, 358-359^ 25, 36in. 41 Beschefer, Thierry, 113, 142, 167 Beverwyck, 95-98, 101-102. See also Albany Bigot, Vincent, 1 1 6 Blacksmiths. See Smiths Bleecker, Johannes, Jr., 210 Block, Adriaen, 88 Blue Ridge Mountains, 241-243, 258-259 Board of Trade, 158, 208, 247 Bone as craft material, 28, 8 1 Boslopers, 96-97 Boucher, Pierre, 57 Boundary between Europeans and Indians, 241-243, 258-259 Brant, 228, 368n. 29 Brass, 52, 54, 55, 78-79, 82, 86, 158, 268 Bread, 9, 14, 19-20, 90. See also Food Brebeuf, Jean de, 64 Breechclouts, 79-80, 83 Bressani, Francois-Joseph, 64 Brethren. See Council titles Bristol fishers, 5 1 British. See English Brothers. See Council titles; Kinship system

418 Index

}

Bruyas, Jacques, 117, 119, 124, 135, 140, 198, 203-2.05, 210, 36111. 44 Buisset, Luc, 121 Burial customs. See Mortuary customs Burial mounds, 14 Burnet, William, 241, 247, 249-252, 36211. 47, 38611. 40 Cabot, John, 5 Cadillac, Antoine de La Mothe de, 184-186, 210, 215, 223 Cagenquarichten, 247, 248, 252, 377n. 22 Calliere, Louis-Hector de, 187, 196, 197, 199, 203-207, 210-211, 36on. 38 Camps, 17, 22-24, 12.0-121, 126, 200-20 1, 256, 29 2n. 14. See also Villages Canadasse, 134 Canadian Iroquois: migration to Canada of, 119-129, 141, 188, 197-198, 3 8 in. 12; religious beliefs of, 119-121, 124-128; factionalism and, 128, 197, 3 8 in. 12; and League Iroquois, 167-169, 173-174, 181-184, 196199, 203-204, 211, 238-240, 244, 36in. 44; trade with Albany of, 197-198, 247-248, 269-270; raids of, on English frontiers, 218, 238-240, 244; identification of, 33 3n. 34. See also Christian missions: Jesuit, Recollect, Sulpician Canadians. See French Canagigai, 175 Canajoharie, 232, 257, 351-352^ 37 Canandaigua Lake, 257 Cannibalism, 35-36, 56, 144-145, 148, 3O3~3O4nn. 11-12. See also War captives: torture and execution of Canoe Point phase, 14 Canondondawe, 148-149 Canossade. See Iroquois League: names for Capitalism, impact of, 262-263. $ee a^so Economic conditions Captives. See War captives Carheil, Etienne de, 115, 140, 142, 33on. 14 Carignan-Salieres Regiment, 102 Cartier, Jacques, 52, 53, 87 Castles. See Towns Cataraqui: Recollect mission at, 121, 124;

Fort Frontenac established at, 128, 131, 135, 1 3 8-1 3 9; kidnapping of Iroquois ambassadors at, 156-157, 158-159, 345n. 49; fort at, abandoned, 159-160; controversy over reoccupation of, 170-172, 181-185, I 9 I ; and French influence, 188, 195, 199-201, 224-225; Iroquois trading rights at, 207, 21 1; Seneca hamlet at, 219, 246, 262 Cataraqui Lake. See Ontario, Lake Catawbas, 145, 237-238, 240-241, 277 See also Southern Indians Catholicism, Roman. See Christianity; Christian missions: Jesuit, Recollect, Sulpician Cattle: of colonists, 90, 94, 175; among Iroquois, 268-269; at Oswego, 273 Caughnawaga, 120. See also Kahnawake Cayenquiragoe. See Council titles; Fletcher, Benjamin Cayugas: names for, i, 282; language of, 15; towns of, 16-17, 122-123, 146147, 252, 256-260, 293n. 16; clan structure of, 21, 45, 29 6n. 25; role in Iroquois League of, 39, 239; epidemics among, 59; warfare of, 60-65, 98, 195, 226-228, 234, 237, 367n. 27, 3 69n. 3 2; relations with French of, 1 02, 217, 219; Christianity among, 107-108, 115, 116, 121, 140, 142, 224, 33on. 14, 332n. 24; among Iroquois du Nord, 120-121, 126, 183; among Canadian Iroquois, 121, 348n. 13; adoption of Susquehannocks by, 136, 150; relations with Pennsylvania of, 150, 273-276, 387n. 42; relations with New York of, 150-153, 221, 226-228, 248-249, 252-253, 267, 387n. 42; anglophiles among, 150-151; neutralists among, 152-153, 159; and shelter of Senecas, 158; francophiles among, 183-184; housing patterns of, 261-262. See also Five Nations; Iroquois Confederacy; Iroquois League Cemeteries, 24, 31, 158. See also Mortuary customs Ceremonies: of thanksgiving, 10-11, 24, 277; of burial, 13-15, 211; of welcome (At the Wood's Edge), 18, 42, 91-92, 94-95, 204; of Midwinter, 25, 28, 118; and shamanism, 24-25; and tobacco,

{ Index 419 }

28; of enlistment in war party, 34-35, 114-115, 226, 228; and village councils, 43-48; impact of adopted captives on, 73; and alcohol, 86; and Christianity, 107, 112-113, 114-116, 118, 232-234. See also Adoption; Condolence; Covenant Chain: brightening of; Diplomacy, native patterns of; Feasts; Gift giving; Iroquois League: Grand Council of Champlain, Samuel de, 35, 51, 54-55 Champlain, Lake, n, 163, 166, 226 Champlain Sea, 1 1 Chaumanot, Pierre-Joseph-Marie, 113 Chenopodium, 13 Cherokees, 238 Chesapeake Bay, 12-13 Chesapeake-Susquehanna watershed, 51-53 Chiefs. See Headmen Child-rearing. See Parenting Children. See Council titles; Kinship system Chippewas. See Ojibwas Cholenec, Pierre, 129 Christianity: among New England Algonquians, 70; opposition to, 107-108, 142-144, 161, 230-231; and traditional beliefs, 109-116, 221-223, 231-234; as political force, 115-119, 128-129, I 75~ I 7^» J78; among Canadian Jroquois, 121-128; as viewed by neutralists, 210, 230. See also Baptism; Christian missions Christian missions: Dutch Reformed, 106-107, 1^5, 178, 192-193, 209, 222-223, 2 33? 31811. 2, 366n. 20; Jesuit, 65, 71-71, 73, 95> 104-129, 134-135, 142-144, 151, 156, 2O4-2O5, 2O9, 2IO, 2I7-2I8, 221,

222, 224-226, 244, 278, 33on. 14, 332nn. 24-25, 339n. 21; Sulpician, 1 20-121; Recollect, 121; English Catholic, 167; Anglican, 204-205, 208, 2IO, 221-222, 227, 229-234,

365n. 19, 369n. 33, 37on. 38; Moravian, 266, 277. See also Canadian Iroquois; Christianity Christiansen, Hendrick, 88 Claessen van der Volgen, Lawrence, 202-203, 217, 219-220, 223, 225, 231-232, 237-238, 248, 364-365^ 15

{

Clan system: origins of, n, 14-15, 2.9 6n. 25; and community structure, 2,0-2.1, 25, 31-33, 72; and politics, 39, 42-43, 45, 116-118, 175, 217, 131, 161, 276-2.77, 36on. 37. See tf/so Bear clan; Kinship system; Moieties; Turtle clan; Wolf clan Clarke, George, 260, 387^ 42 Clearing, symbolism of, 23 Clinton, George, 272 Cloth, 79-80, 83-84, 92, 247, 268-269 Coats of arms. See Arms, coats of Cohoes Falls, 97 Golden, Cadwallader, 33-34, 44, 46, 226, 247, 255, 271-272, 277, 361-362^ 47 Colonization process, 3-4, 51-52, 58, 255-256 Colve, Anthony, 135 Combs, 9, 27-28, 39, 80-83, 268. See also Crafts Commissioners for Indian Affairs: origins of, 137-138; as cultural brokers, 164165, 177, 192-193, 216, 231-232, 363-364^ 5; negotiations of, with Indians, 164-165, 187, 221, 234, 247, 250, 264-265 Communalism. See Reciprocity and redistribution Community structure, 14, 15-19, 22-23, 117-119, 148, 256-262, 266, 276. See also Kinship system; Population statistics; Residence patterns Company of New France, 58, 64, 102 Condolence: origins and functions of, 32-33, 39-41, 276, 30i-302nn. 6-7; in diplomacy, 41-42, 56, 83, 172, 198, 216, 218-219, 2-355 2-41; and Christianity, 109, 114. See also Mourning; Requickening Conestoga (town), 238, 243, 274 Conestogas, 136, 238, 243, 256, 274. See also Susquehannocks Connecticut (province), 164, 182 Connecticut River valley, 58, 89, 95, 99

Conoys, 145, 155, 239, 243 Consensus, 6-7, 22, 40, 45-46, 118, 132, *75

Copper, 13-14, 28-29, 48, 52. See also Brass Corachkoo, 212

420 Index

}

Corker. See Council titles; Van Curler, Arent Corn. See Maize Cornbury, Edward Hyde, Viscount, 2.15-2,17, 2,2,5, 363n. 4 Cosmogonic Myth, 8-n, 15-16, 2,0, 2.5, 80, 1 1 8, 276, 2,89-2.90™!. 1-2 Councils: of other-than-human persons, 9; of villages, 2.1, 41-46, 114, 117118, 12.9, 175-176, 248, 250-254; of women, 42-43, 92-93, See also Diplomacy, native patterns of; Iroquois Confederacy: council of; Iroquois League: Grand Council of Council titles: brethren (brothers), 31, 41, 44, 95, 153, 155-156, 158, 164, 165, 172, 178, 185, 204, 222, 253-

254, 256, 268, 272, 278-279; Cayenquiragoe, 174, 179, 182, 184; children, 136, 155. * 60, 184, 200, 219, 239, 244, 245, 337n. 5; Corachkoo, 212; Corlaer (Arent van Curler), 24, 93, 97, 104; Corlaer (governor of New York), 140-141, 152, 155, 164, 195, 198, 201-204, 212, 215, 264, 346n. 4; father, 41, 69, 136, 184, 195-196, 219, 253, 264, 273, 337^ 5; Jacques, 87-89, 93, l64, 2-78, 322-323^ 17, 323n. 19; Miquon, 388n. 49; nephew, 40; Old Corlaer, 93, 278; Onas, 277278, 388n. 49; Onontio, 131-132, 153-155, 172, 184, 200, 253, 277-

278; Quider, 164, 172, 249, 279, 346n. 4; Taouestaouis, 358n. 18. See also Diplomacy, native patterns of Courcelle, Daniel de Remy de, 102-103, 129-131, 134, 163 Covenant Chain: origins and functions of, 134-142, 145; and New England colonies, 136-137, 164, 218; brightening of, 141, 164, 178, 182-183, 216; Iroquois interpretations of, 140-141, 160-161, 165, 191, 208-209, 211212, 272, 277—279; redefinitions of, 150-152, 202, 208-209, 2II-2I2,

342-343^ 35 Crafts, 28, 76-79, 86-87, 2.68. See also Combs; Jewelry; Material culture; Pipes; Pottery Creative adaptation, 2, 28 7-28 8n. 3 Creeks, 238 Crosby, William, 272

Cultural brokers, 87-89, 93-95, 137138, 164-165, 177-178, 195-200, 223-224, 231-232, 358n. 18. See also Christian missions; Interpreters; Smiths Cuyler, Johannes, 138 Danckaerts, Jasper, 328n. 3 David of Schoharie, 388n. 52 Dablon, Claude, 43, 113, 117, 142 D'Aux, Pierre, 172-173, 35on. 25 Death and afterlife, 9, 24-25, 32, 37-38, 60, 70-71, 107-108, 117. See also Condolence; Diseases; Mortuary customs; Mourning Debt. See Economic conditions Decanesora. See Teganissorens Deer. See Food; Furs and skins; Hunting; Meat Deerfield, Mass., 177, 240, 3 5 in. 25 Deganawidah Epic, 31-32, 39-41, 47, 80, 84, 118, 276, 30on. 3 Delaware Bay, 1 1 Delaware River valley, n, 51,98,2,74 Delawares, 136, 239, 243, 256, 270, 274, 275, 387n. 42. See also Lenapes; Munsees; River Indians Dellius, Godfridius, 165, 177-178, 181, 191-192, 233, 3 6 5 n. 19 Deloria, Vine, i Denonville, Jacques-Rene de Brisay de, 156-159, 167-168, 181-182, 345n. 49 Dependency. See Economic conditions Detroit: French post at, 210-212, 215, 237, 246; Indians of, 210, 216, 223224, 238 Dewadarondore, 188 D'Heu, Jacques, 220-221 Diet. See Food Diplomacy, native patterns of: personal basis of, 6-7, 48-49, III-H2, 274275; peaceful thoughts versus decisions in, 30-31, 40-41, 45, 56, 9*, 182-183, 193, 206; councils as focus of, 41-42, 141, 276-278; protocol of, 41-42, 47, 91, 94, 172, 179, 181, 191, 209, 216, 222; council fires in, 42-45, 171-172, 179, 182, 184-185, 192, 207, 244, 245, 272, 279; use of wampum for "words" in, 47-49, 141; role of exchange in, 47-49, 52, 76, 87; separation of functions from war in, 56-57; Euro-American ignorance of, 90-93,

{ Index 421 }

215-216; Euro-American adaptation to, 94-95. 140-142-, 191-192-, 195-196, 219-220; role of hostages in, 104, in-112, 142-143, 203, 218, 339n. 21; adaptation to European practices in, 140—142, 211— 212, 221—222,

234-235, 275; balance as principle in, 206-208, 210-212, 219, 236-237, 240, 244-246, 248-254, 269, 271. See also Council titles; Gift giving; Treaty Diseases: demographic impact of, 2-4, 53, 58-59, 145, !73, l88, 2.62, 266; political impact of, 6, 59-60, 148-149, 169, 21 1 ; beliefs concerning causes of, 9, 24-25, 107-108, 3i3-3i4n. 22; influenza, 58-59, 153; measles, 58-59; smallpox, 58-60, 126, 145, 166, 173, 232-233, 266, 313-314^ 22, 34on. 24, 37in. 40; and burial customs, 81-82; and children, 59-60, 81, 145; treatment of, 59, 73, 109-110, 232-233. See also Mourning- war Divorce. See Marriage and divorce Dogs, 34-35 Dominion of New England, 160 Dongan, Thomas, 138, 150-153, 155159, 163, 164, 167, 170, 194, 274, 344n- 42Dowaganhaes. See Western Indians Dreams, 25—28, 60, 69, 109-110, 114— 115,232-233 Duffels. See Cloth Duke of York. See James II Dummer's War, 244-246 Dutch: early colonization by, 51, 53-54, 58, 87-90; in wampum trade, 85, 96; in English New York, 102-104, 124, 134, 137-138, 164-166, 193, 222, 264. See also Netherlands; New Netherland Dutch West India Company, 58, 89-90, 93,96 Early Woodland period, 13-14 Eastern Abenakis, 98-99, 164, 211, 218, 244-246, 342n. 34, 375^ 14 Eastern Senecas, 248, 252, 256, 258-259. See also Senecas Economic conditions: and dependency, 2-4, 86-87, 152., 180, 213, 217, 255-256, 263, 268-269, 382383n. 28; and decline of fur trade,

{

96-101, 2.69-2.71; and material distress, 187-188, 266-268; and cash wages, 262-263; and limits on private property, 262-263, 38in. 15; and debts to traders, 3 8 2-3 8 3 n. 28. See also Reciprocity and redistribution Eelckens, Jacob, 87-89, 323^ 19 Elders. See Headmen Elowohkaom, 229, 368n. 29 English: early colonization by, 51-52, 58, 89; versus French domination, 134142, 160—161, 252—253; Iroquois in empire of, 135—137, 150—152, 271; and protection of Five Nations, 139, 150-152, 156, 2 1 1-2 1 2; and neutralists, 152-156; imperial rivalry of, with French, 150—152, 163, 183—184, 187, 215, 246-254, 273; attempts of, to invade Canada, 166-167, 226-229; Iroquois and peace between French and, 180-183; western imperialism of, i55 ? 163, 246-254, 361-362^ 47; relations with Western Indians of, 216, 223-225, 246-254, 264-265, 335n. 52, 34in. 31, 363^ 4, 367^ 25; and European goods, 269-270 Epidemics. See Diseases Erie, Lake, 212, 223 Fries, 15, 62, 64, 65, 119, 148, 292n. 13 Esopus band. See River Indians Esopus War, 96-97 Evil Twin, 10, 13, 276 Execution. See War captives Factionalism: among League Iroquois, 6-7, 45-46> 116-119, 128, 175-176, 200-206, 274-275, 362-363^ i, 387n. 42; at Albany, 137-138, 164167, 191-193; among Canadian Iroquois, 128, 196-197, 38in. 12. See also Anglophiles; Anti-French factions; Francophiles; Neutralists False Face societies, 73, 87, no, 277 Families. See Kinship system Famines, 53, 186, 188, 209-210 Father. See Council titles Fathers. See Kinship system Feasts: and social solidarity, 22, 44, 109-110; and warfare, 33-36, 226, 228; and diplomacy, 41-42, 91-93, 94, 178-179; and Christianity, 109-110, 114-115, 118, 232-233

422 Index

}

Finger Lakes, n, 17, 257 Fire: symbolism of, in society, 9, 18-2.1, 25, 215; symbolism of, in diplomacy, 4*-45> 171-17** *79, l82 -» 184-185, 192, 207, 244, 245, 272, 279; as weapon in war, 60, 103-104, 158, 173-174, 185-186; accidental, 113, 196, 257; in managing game, 297n. 32 Firearms, 54, 61, 62, 64, 74, 79, 94, 98, 99, 148, 149, 175, 200, 220, 229, 247, 3i5 Firekeepers, 39, 45, 175 Firewood, 18-19, 23, 59, 297n. 32, 3 Son. 7 Fish, 14, 17, 19-20, 59, 294-295n. 21. See also Food Fishing, 14, 17, 19, 23-24, 65, 200-201, 262 Fishing camps. See Camps Five Nations (Six Nations). See also Iroquois Confederacy; Iroquois League —names and locations of, 1-4, 6-8, 238-240, 256-260, 282-283 —emergence of, 11-15 —rivalries among, 54, 65, 108-109 —relations of, with: sixteenth-century neighbors, 28-29, 52-53; Western Indians, 29, 62, 129-131, 141-148, 155-160, 173, 182-188, 195, 202203, 204, 207-211, 215-219, 223225, 234, 238, 34onn. 22, 23, 359^ 27, 3 6 2-3 6 3 nn. i, 4; Southern New England Algonquians, 98-99, 114, 134137, 2.39-240, 34 2n. 34; Dutch, 8790, 99-102; French, 51, 54-55. 64, 102-104, 129-132, 141-144, 149161, 170-188, 193-211, 217-219, 224-228, 234-235, 246-254; New York, 134-141, 150-158, 191-195, 200-202, 206-212, 215-217, 223230, 234-235, 240-241, 246-254, 263-265, 272-273, 339nn. 14-16, 36on. 37, 36i~362nn. 44, 47, 363nn. 3-4, 367^ 26; Southern Indians, 155, 237-239; Canadian Iroquois, 167-169, 181-184, 196-199, 203204, 211, 238-240, 244, 36in. 44; Pennsylvania, 240-244, 265, 273-276, 387n. 42; Virginia, 240-243; Massachusetts, 244-246; Eastern Abenakis, 244—246 —trade of, with: Fort Orange, 53-54,

55-57, 62, 85, 87-90, 93-98, 135, 325-326n. 41; Albany, 99-102, 137, 144, 149-150, 188, 191; French, 131, 199-200; Pennsylvania, 241-243, 265 —as intermediaries in western trade, 57, 130-131, 144, 244, 246, 250, 3i2n. 15 "Flatheads." See Southern Indians "Flemish Bastard." See Smiths John Fletcher, Benjamin, 174, 178-179, 181-188, 191, 192 Flint. See Stone Food: of Iroquois' predecessors, 13-14; of 17th-century Iroquois, 18-22, 28, no, 294-29 5 n. 21; storage of, 18-20, 38, 91, 103-104, 158; wild, 19, 23; women's control of, 43, 44; shortages of, 21-22, 59, 158-159, 174, 186, 267; as grave goods, 81; as item of trade, 91, 199, 262-263. See also Agriculture; Gathering; Hunting; specific food items Forest, symbolism of, 23, 32. See also Ceremonies: of welcome Fort Christianna, 240 Fort Crevecoeur, 139 Fort Frontenac. See Cataraqui Fort Hunter, 229-230, 262, 267, 272, 369n. 33. See also Tiononderoge Fortifications, 17-18, 31, 38, 98, 102, 257, 262. See also Military strategies and tactics Fort Nassau, 88-89 Fort Niagara, 138, 159, 246-253, 262263, 268-270, 377n. 22 Fort Orange: Indian trade of, 53-54, 55-57, 62, 85, 87-90, 93-98, i35 ? 325~326n. 41; establishment and conquest of, 58, 99-102. See also Albany; Beverwyck; Fort Nassau Fort Oswego, 249-254, 262-265, 266-270 Fort Pontchartrain. See Detroit Fort Prudhomme, 139 Fort St. Joseph, 139 Fowling, 17, 23 Foxes (Indian nation), 144-145, 211, 215, 234. See also Western Indians France. See French Francophile factions: emergence of, 105-106, 116-119, 128; dominance of, 129-132, 134, 176-177, 200-203; declining influence of, 135, 141-144, 218-219; betrayal of, by French, 156-

{ Index 423 }

157, 345n. 49; and neutrality policy, 205-207, 235, 271, 378n. 33; and reinstating of Jesuit missions, 217; and southern wars, 237-238 Francophobes. See Anti-French factions Freeman, Bernardus, 208, 209, 220, 222, 223, 232, 233, 365, 366 Fremin, Jacques, 109, 114 French: early colonization by, 51; relations with Five Nations of, 51, 54-55, 64, 90, 92, 95, 102-104, 129-132, 141-144, 149-161, 170-188, 193211, 217-219, 224-228, 234-235, 246-254; relations with Northern Algonquians of, 54-58, 61-64, 98-99; trade with Northern Algonquians and Hurons of, 55, 57, 60-6 1, 64, 102103; as captives of Iroquois, 64, 95, 112-113, l6o> J73> i75-!76, 198, 200, 210; relations with Western Indians of, 121, 129-131, 138-139, 149-150, 156-158, 163, 173, 185186, 205, 207-211, 215, 218-219, 224-225, 234, 246-253; western imperialism of, 129-132, 138-139, 149-151, 163, 246-254; trade with Iroquois of, 131, 199—200, 207, 211, 219-220; imperial rivalry of, with English, 150-152, 163, 183-184, 187, 215, 246-254, 273; Iroquois and peace between English and, 180-183; and colonists' correspondence with New Yorkers, 134 Frontenac, Louis de Buade de, 130-131, 137, 144, 149, 163, 165-166, 168, 170-172, 176-177, 179-187, 193198, 352nn. 42, 46, 353^ 51 Frontenac, Lake. See Ontario, Lake Frost Island culture, 1 3 Funeral rituals. See Mortuary customs Furs and skins: development of trade in, 52, 89-95; and warfare, 55-57, 60-62, 159, 1 88; as clothing, 76, 79-80, 83, 86, 210, 230; and hunting, 76-77, 159, 195, 209-210; and graves, 82, 84; decline of trade in, 96-99, 205, 270-271, 384-385^ 33; West as source of, 121, 137-139, 144, 149, 152, 211-212 Galley slaves, 156-157, 170-171 Gandastogues. See Susquehannocks

{

Gandeacteua, Catherine, 119, 12.5 Gandougarae, 113 Ganienkeh. See Mohawks Gannagaro, 158 Ganneious, 157 Gannentaha. See Sainte-Marie de Gannentaha Gannogarae, 158 Gannounata, 158 Ganondagan. See Gannagaro Gantlet. See War captives Garakontie (Onondaga francophile, first of that name), 112, 114-115, 117—118, 130—132, 141, 181, 330-33inn. 14-15, 352n. 46. Garakontie (Onondaga neutralist-francophile, second of that name), 153, 176 Gamier, Julien, in, 113, 217-218, 342-343n. 35 Gathering, 14, 19-20, 59 Gender roles: reciprocity in, 19-20, 22, 25; in division of labor, 14, 19-20, 22-24, 76, iio-ui, 276; in politics, 23, 43-44, 56; and alcohol abuse, 265-266 Generosity, 44, 46, 47, 94 Genesee River valley, i, n, 17, 257 George I, 244-245 George, Lake, n, 24, 55, 104, 173 German immigration, 274 Gift giving: and personal and kin relations, 9, 19, 21-22, 33, 129; and relations with spirit world, 13-14, 28; and politics, 22, 39-41, 44, 91; as pattern for trade, 22, 29; and native diplomacy, 41-42, 47-49, 76, 141, 223-224; and Christian missions, 112, 37on. 38; and diplomacy of Euro-Americans, 91-92, 94, 141, 149-150, 177, 185-186, 197, 200, 209, 2l6, 220, 228, 230,

249, 363n. 4. See also Diplomacy, native patterns of; Reciprocity and redistribution Glaciers, n Glass. See Beads "Glorious Enterprise," 225-228, 367nn. 27-28, 369^ 32 Glorious Revolution, 160, 164. See also Leisler's Rebellion Good Twin, 10-11, 15, 20, 24, 25, 32, 276

Gordon, Patrick, 273-274

42.4 Index

}

Gouentagrandi, Susanne, 175-176, 186 Government. See Politics, patterns of Graham, James, 174 Grand Banks, 5 1 Grand Council. See Iroquois League: Grand Council of Grande Gueule. See Otreouti Grandmother. See Sky Woman Grand Settlement of 1701, 214-215, 3 62-3 63 n. i. See also Treaty: of Albany; of Montreal Grave goods, 13-14, 15, 28, 52, 81-82, 115, 276-277, 158, 299n. 37, 32032in. 8. See also Mortuary customs Great Lakes, 13, 14, 28-29, 48, 55?r3°, 138-139, 155, 163, 215, 218, 256, 270, 275 Great Lakes Lowland, 1 1 Great League of Peace and Power. See Iroquois League "Great Mohawk." See Togouiroui Great Peace. See Iroquois League Greenhalgh, Wentworth, 66-67, X 39~ 140, 339n. 14 Gunpowder and shot, 62, 149, 150, 151, 155, 158, 175, 187, 200,

229-230,

237-238, 240, 267

Guns. See Firearms Gunsmiths. See Smiths Hair, symbolism of, 9, 19, 28, 33, 39, 68, 80 Hamlets: characteristics of, 17, 22-24, 260; of Senecas, 113, 158; of Iroquois du Nord, 120-121, 144, 157, 188; of Mohawks, 178, 257. See also Villages Handsome Lake, 280 Hansen, Hendrick, 200 Hatchets. See Axes and hatchets Haudenosaunee. See Iroquois League: names for Headmen: autonomy of, in diplomacy, 6-7, 48-49, IH-II2, 215, 348349n. 15, 362-363^ i; qualities expected in, 22, 40-41, 46, 92, 118, 193, 205, 231; limited authority of, 42-46, 56-57, 129, 148; removal from office of, 43, 231, 248, 377n. 22, 386n. 40; categories of, 43-44, 46-47, 169-170, 3O7n. 29; selection of, 42-44, 46; war captives as, 70, 175176, 183; Euro- Americans behaving as,

88-89, 93-95, 140-142.* 177-179, 191-192, 226 Hearths. See Housing Hemp, 14 Hendrick, 228, 230-232, 234, 245, 272, 368n. 29, 375^ 14 Hennepin, Louis, 36, 45, 69, in, 121 Henry, 207 Hertel de La Fresniere, Joseph-Francois, 358n. 18 Hetaquantgechty, 274-275 Hiawatha, 3*~33, 38, 39, 47, 68, 85, 276 Hinsse, Jacob de, 134 History, Iroquois concepts of, 277-280. See also Oral traditions Hogs, 184, 268 Hontom, Hans Jorisz, 89-90 Hoosic River, 136 Hopewellian culture, 14 Horses, 175, 268-269 Horticulture. See Agriculture Hospitality, 21-22, 47, 128 Hostages. See Diplomacy, native patterns of: role of hostages in Housing, 18-19, 2.3-2,4, 91, I04, IZI, 260-262, 294nn. 19-20, 3803 8 inn. 9-10 Howard of Effingham, Francis, Lord, I I I i 5 ~ 5 , 34*n. 34 Hudson, Henry, 51, 87 Hudson River valley: native inhabitants of, 2, 55-56, 87-89, European occupation of, 3,58, 87-89, 99-102; as locus of trade and transportation, n, 54-56, 93-96, 99-102, 124, 131, 137, 223224, 249-250; lands of, 192 Human Beings. See Onckwe Hundred Associates. See Company of New France Hunter, Robert, 43, 220-221, 228-230, 234,235,240,247 Hunter's Home phase, 14 Hunting: for furs and skins, 3, 57, 76-77, 91, 159, 199; for subsistence, 14, 19, 22-25, 59, 65, 95, 124, 262, 267-268; conflicts over rights of, 99, 129-131, 139, 144, 152, 155-156, 159, 163, 188-189, 205, 209-212, 215, 218, 243, 248; as precursor to Iroquois settlement, 120-121, 126, 256; and alliances, 185, 202 Hunting camps. See Camps

{ Index 425 }

Hunting territories, deeds to English for, 2,11-2,13, 2.15-216, 245, 2,47, 252, 361-362^ 47 Huron, Lake, 139 Huron Confederacy: and French, 3, 55, 1 08, 1 20, 329^ 6; and other Iroquoians, 5, 15, 2.8, 34, 299n. 40; and northern and eastern neighbors, 28, 53; and Iroquois, 29, 55, 57, 60-65; towns of, 60-62; remnants of, as Wyandots, 62, 153, 3i4n. 27; as captive adoptees of Iroquois, 67, 70-74, 107-108, 112, 113, 116-117, 131, 329^ 6, 332n. 25; as Canadian Iroquois, 119-120, 125; language of, 29 2n. 13 Illinois (Indian nation), 139, 144, 148, 149, 155, 182, 188, 195, 203. See also Western Indians Incest taboos, 20-21 Influenza. See Diseases Interpreters, 5, 141, 200-201, 219, 231, 281. See also Claessen van der Volgen, Lawrence; Joncaire, Louis-Thomas Chabert de; Oliver, John; Van Eps, Jan Baptist; Van Olinda, Hilletie; Viele, Arnout Cornelisz; Weiser, Conrad Invasion: of North America by Europeans, 2, 51-54, 58; of Huronia by Iroquois, 61-62; of Mohawk country by French, 102-103, 126, 173-174, 196, 257; of Seneca country by French, 149-155, 156-158, 257; of Schenectady by French, 165-166, 172; of Canada by English and Iroquois, 166-169, 225-226, 228; of Onondaga and Oneida countries by French, 184, 186, 196, 257, 358n. 18 Iron: reworking of, 52; weapons of, 54-55; tools of, 79, 80, 82-83, 84, 86; for display, 91; symbolism of, 278. See also Smiths Irondequoit, 246-247, 249-250, 264, 273

Iroquoia, i, 11-13, J7, 5 I ~53» 57~5 8 > 150, 192, 2II-2I2, 246, 249, 252, 256

Iroquoian language family, i, 13, 15, 85, 121, 279, 282, 292n. 13, 332n. 25 Iroquoians, i, 15, 65, 292n. 13. See also individual nations Iroquois (word), i, 282-283 Iroquois, Lake, n

{

Iroquois Confederacy: versus Iroquois League, 7, 169-170; development of, 163, 169-172, 236; councils of, 151, 169-172, 177, 179-181, 183-184, 194, 197, 198-199, 201-205, 210, 215, 222, 225, 234-235, 248-249, 252-253, 264-265, 274-275, 277,

348~349n. 15. See also Five Nations Iroquois diplomacy. See Cayugas; Diplomacy, native patterns of; Five Nations; Mohawks; Oneidas; Onondagas; Senecas; Treaty Iroquois du Nord: immigration of, 120-124, 129-130, 334n. 50; retreat of, 144, 156-157, 183; villages of, 188, 202, 205, 215, 256 Iroquois empire, myth of, 2, 74, 136-137, 190, 242, 275-276 Iroquois League: Longhouse as metaphor for, i, 30; names for, i, 30, 184, 353-354; and Tuscaroras, i, 239; religious and ceremonial character of, 3-4, 30-31, 39-41, 72-~73> 81, 118, 141, 205, 279-280; versus Iroquois Confederacy, 7, 169-170; establishment of, I 5-> 3 I ~3 2 -> 39? 3Oon. 2; Onondaga as seat of, 39, 151, 186, 260-261, 277; Grand Council of, 39-41, 56, 169, 260-261; Sachems of, 39-43, 70, 141, 169-170, 175-176, 183, 279-280, 307n. 29, 35on. 31 Jacques. See Council titles; Eelckens, Jacob James II: as Duke of York, 99, 134, 135, 151-153; as king, 160 Jamestown colony, 5 1 Jansen, Poulis, 97 Jefferson County Iroquoians, 15, 53, 292n. 13 Jesuit missionaries. See Christian missions: Jesuit Jesuit Relations, 65, 116 Jewelry, 52, 79. See also Crafts Jogues, Isaac, 61, 62, 64, 67, 95, 112-113 Johnson, William, 271 Joncaire, Louis-Thomas Chabert de, 198, 203-204, 2IO, 219-220, 224-225,

248-249, 265, 3&7n. 26, 377n. 22 Joseph, 165, 207 Jurian, 165, 171-172, 176, 179 Juthory, 186-187

426 Index

}

Kahnawake, 12.0-12.1, 12,5-129, 141, 184, 196-197, 348n. 13, 355 n - 5 6, 38in. 12; epidemics at, 145, 34011. 24; relations with League Iroquois of, 167-169, 185-186, 193-194, 196199, 203-204, 35211. 42; trade of, with Albany, 167, 197-198, 247-248, 251, 269-270, 34 in. 31, 377n. 21; factionalism at, 128, 197, 3 8 in. 12; versus Caughnawaga, 333n. 34 Kalm, Peter, 263, 268 Kanonaweendowanne, 195 Kanosoni. See Iroquois League: names for Keith, William, 241-244, 247 Kenaachkoone, 201 Kennebec River, 244 Kettles: symbolism of, 19, 36, 202, 228; and cooking, 22, 36, 79, 84, 86; as raw materials, 52, 55, 78; as grave goods, 158 Kieft, Willem, 94, 95, 325^ 36 King George's War, 271 "Kings," Four Indian, 227-229, 368~369nn. 29-30 King William's War, 160, 163-187, 278 Kinship system: and social and political structure, 9, 14, 15, 19-22, 25, 44, 47-48, 81, 119, 140, 176-177, 217, 220, 236, 256, 260-263; fathers in, 9, 10, 20-21, 198, 203, 359n. 29; children in, 9-10, 20, 23; brothers in, 10, 176, 179; nuclear families in, 19, 20, 260, 261-262; maternal uncles in, 20, 35, no, 202; matrilineality of, 20, no, 125, 261-262, 276; and warfare and treatment of captives, 32-36, 56, 6869, 72-73, 224; nephews in, 35, 225; and Christianity, 106-107, 116-117, 126-129. See also Clan system; Council titles; Lineages; Moieties; Parenting Kipp Island phase, 14 Knives, 22, 68, 79, 91, 92, 268 Kondiaronk, 159, 211, 36on. 38 Kristoni, 75-76 Kryn. See Togouiroui La Barre, Joseph-Antoine Le Febvre de, i49-i55> T 56, 167 Labor. See Work, patterns of Lachine, 120, 160, 199, 345n. 51. See also Kahnawake La Famine, 153-155, 167, 180

Lafitau, Joseph Francois, 32, 35, 42, 43, 46-47 Lahontan, Louis Armand, Baron de, 70 Lalemant, Gabriel, 64, 98, 102 Lamberville, Jacques de, 144, 151, 156-157, 159, 217-218, 221, 225-226, 3 43 n. 35, 3 45 n. 49 Lamberville, Jean de, 113, 119-120, 124, 144, 148, 149, 150, 151, 156-157, 159, 170, 171, 3 43 n. 35, 3 45 n. 49 La Montagne, 121-123, I2 -5> I2-8, 129, 196-199, 348n. 13, 357^ 13, 358n. 19 La Mothe de Cadillac, Antoine de. See Cadillac, Antoine de La Mothe de La Mothe-Fenelon, Francois de Salignac de. See Salignac de La Mothe-Fenelon, Francois de Land: Iroquois attitudes toward, 10, 21-24; transferal of, to Europeans, 97-98, 192, 230-231, 248, 262, 271275, 36in. 41, 385^ 37, 386n. 40; of Iroquois under English protection, 150-152, 211-212, 252-253 La Porte de Louvigny, Louis de, 195, 199-200 La Prairie de la Madeleine, 119-120, 124-125, 166-167, 347n. 8. See also Kahnawake La Salle, Rene-Robert Cavelier de, 134, 138-139, 149, 150, 336n. 2 Laval, Francois de, 121 Lawrence, 165, 172 League Sachems. See Iroquois League Lead. See Gunpowder and shot Leadership. See Headmen Le Clercq, Chrestien, 121 Le Febvre de La Barre, Joseph-Antoine. See La Barre, Joseph-Antoine Le Febvre de Leisler, Jacob, 164-166, 178 Leislerian faction (New York province), 164-166, 171, 175, 191-193, 349n. 22 Leisler's Rebellion, 164-166 Le Jeune, Paul, 65, 69 Le Mercier, Francois, 38-39, 108, no, 114, 117, 118 Le Moyne, Simon, 65, 108-109 Le Moyne de Longueuil, Charles, 251-252 Le Moyne de Maricourt, Paul, 198-199, 203-205, 210, 217, 358n. 18 Lenapes, 15. See also Dela wares

{ Index 427 }

L'Incarnation, Mane de, 64, 108 Lineages, 20-23, 33-35, 39-40, 42-48, 68-69, 91, no, 116-118, 262. See also Kinship system; Residence patterns Livingston, Philip, 383 Livingston, Robert, 137-138, 177, 181, 188, 193, 197-198, 200-202, 212, 247, 346n. 4, 362n. 47, 363-364^ 5 Localism, 6-7, 234, 236, 276 Logan, James, 243, 247, 266, 269, 2-73-2-75, 383-384™. 2.8, 32 London: merchants of, 89, 269-270, 3 84-3 8 5n. 33; and Indian "kings," 227-229, 368~369nn. 29-30 Longhouse. See Housing; Iroquois League; Residence patterns Long Island, 29, 85, 96, 269 Longueuil, Charles Le Moyne de. See Le Moyne de Longueuil, Charles Lorette, 65, 108, 120, 124, 125, 128 Louis XIV, 130, 169, 224, 235 Louis XV, 235 Louisiana, 237-238 Louvigny, Louis de La Porte de. See La Porte de Louvigny, Louis de Lovelace, Francis, 134 Lovelace, John, Lord, 225, 228 Lower Castle. See Tiononderoge Lydms, Johannes, 209, 222-223, 2,31233, 365^ 15, 366n. 20 Magregory, Patrick, 155, 157, 344^ 46 Maguas, i Mahicans: location of, 2, 15, 56; and Iroquois, 29, 54, 55-56, 98-99, 102, 134-137, 194, 223, 299n. 40, 342n. 34; and Dutch, 51, 55-56, 87-89, 94; and Northern Algonquians, 55; and Southern New England Algonquians, 85, 98-99, 135-136; and English, 135-136, 1 66, 227; versus River Indians, 292n. 13 Maine, 163, 218, 244-245 Maize, 10, 14-15, 19-20, 23, 91, 103104, 257-258, 294~295n. 21. See also Agriculture; Food Manchot, 175 Manhattan. See New Amsterdam; New York (city) Maquas: as name for Iroquois, i; as name for Mohawks, 31, 89, 99, 104, 134, 139, 156, 159, 168, 282

{

Mareuil, Pierre de, 226 Maricourt, Paul Le Moyne de. See Le Moyne de Maricourt, Paul Markham, William, 2.43-2.44 Marriage and divorce, 9, 14, 2.0-2.1, 36, 72, 109-111, 2,32,, 2,33. See also Kinship system Mary II, 160, 164, 166 Maryland, 98, 136, 145, 155, 164, 234, 2-74-*75> 343-344n. 42Mascoutens, 2,11. See also Western Indians Masks. See False Face societies Massachusetts Bay (province), 96, 135136, 151, 164, 166, 182,, 2,18, 244246, 277-279, 367n. 28, 37sn. 14 Massachusetts Bay Company, 58 Massawomekes, 51 Material culture, 26-28, 31. See also Beads; Combs; Crafts; Jewelry; Pipes; Wampum Matrilineality. See Kinship system Matrilocality. See Residence patterns Matrons, 20, 22, 35, 39, 42, 43, 68, 93, 175, 185, 217 Meadowood phase, 13-14 Measles. See Diseases Meat, 10, 19, 22, 24, 59, 76, no, 268269. See also Food; Hunting Mediators. See Cultural brokers Medicine. See Disease Megapolensis, Johannes, 106, 328n. 2 Meherrin River, 240 Meherrins, 240-241 Men. See Gender roles Menard, Rene, 107-108 Menkwes, i Menominees, 211 Metacom's War, 135-137, 342n. 34 Metal: for tools and weapons, 55, 60; symbolism of, 75, 106; as raw material, 78-79. See also Brass; Iron Miamis: hunting territories of, 139; and Iroquois, 144, 155, 159, 182, 187, 188, 195, 203, 208, 211, 215, 218, 34on. 22; and New York, 216, 223224, 250. See also Western Indians Michilimackinac, 184, 210, 212, 215, 219

Middle Woodland period, 14 Midwinter Ceremonial, 25, 28, 118 Milborne, Jacob, 165, 166, 171-173

428 Index

}

Military strategies and tactics: defensive, 17, 37, 103-104, 158, 186, 2.61; in massed confrontations, 35, 54, 64; and scouts and spies, 37; in ambushes, 37, 54, 61, 62; sham negotiations as, 38, 170, 2.40; in blockades, 57, 61; and firearms, 62-63; false reports as, 134. See also Fortifications Millet, Pierre, 114-115, 117, 159-160, 171-172, 175-183, 196 Minerals as gifts from spirit world, 2.8-2.9, 8 1 Mingos, i, 256, 270, 276 Miquon. See Council titles Missionaries. See Christian missions Mississaugas, 202, 215, 224, 238, 250, 367n. 25. See also Ojibwas Mississippi River, 13, 62, 139, 270 Mohawk Flatts, 272 Mohawk River valley, n, 17, 97, 136, 192, 249, 256 Mohawks: names for, i, 282; language of, 15, 75> 80, !o6, I2 -5> l6 4> i74? 178, 220, 222-223, 279; towns of, 16-17, 90, 94, 99, 103-104, 112-115, I2O, 122-123,

I2

-6, 129, 139, 146-

147, 174, J 78, 2.00, 222, 229-234,

256-260, 293n. 16, 351-352^ 37; militant reputation of, 31; clan structure of, 45, 29 6n. 25; role in Iroquois League of, 39; epidemics among, 58-59; warfare of, 51, 54-57, 60-65, 98-99, 102-104, I 35~ I 3 6 ? J 45, 166-168, 172-174, 226-228, 234, 3io-3iin. 10, 367^ 27, 369^ 32; trade of, 85, 93, 250; and Dutch, 87-91, 94-95; land sales of> 9798, 192, 209, 271-272, 36in. 41, 385n. 37; and French, 103-104, 108, in, 131, 173-174; Protestantism among, 106-107, 178, 221-223, 229-234; Roman Catholicism among, 108-109, 112-116, 142, 332n. 24; among Canadian Iroquois, 119-120, 124-129, 196-198, 348n. 13; and New York, 134-136, 150-153, 155156, 164-167, 171-172, 226-228, 367~369nn. 29^30; anglophiles among, 165, 171-172, 178, 200; and other nations of Confederacy, 181, 204-205; housing patterns of, 261-262; of Schoharie, 276; and Susquehannocks,

3 4 on. 25. See also Five Nations; Iroquois Confederacy; Iroquois League Moieties, 21, 39-41, 45, 72, 81, 117-118, 239. See also Clan system; Condolence; Kinship system Monongahelas, 15, 29 2n. 13 Montagnais, 3, 51, 53, 54, 71, 99 Montgomerie, John, 265, 273 Montmagny, Charles Hualt de, 131-132 Montour, Alexander, 224, 225; family of, 230, 250, 367^ 25 Montreal: establishment of, 58, early military weakness of, 61, 64; as trading center, 103, 131, 197-198, 224, 235, 269; trade with Albany of, 167, 197-198, 247-248, 251, 269-270, 3 4 in. 31, 377n. 21. See also Treaty: of Montreal Monts, Pierre de Gua, sieur de, 5 1 Moore, Thoroughgood, 221—222 Moravians. See Christian missions Mortuary customs: of Iroquois' predecessors, 9, 13-14, 15; of Five Nations, 21, 33, 81-83, 84, "i, 276-277; for children, 8 1, 299n. 37, 3 20-3 2 in. 8. See also Grave goods; Mourning Mourning, 9, 21, 31-33, 35, 38-40, 69-70, 72, 81, 167, 276-277, 3oi~3O2n. 6 Mourning-war, 32-38, 49, 54, 55, 57-58, 60, 62, 71, 136, 145-148, 158-159, 160, 224, 232-233, 237-238, 30in. 4, 302n. 7, 34in. 27 Munsees, 15, 299^ 40. See also Delawares Muskets. See Firearms Nanfan, John, 187, 194, 211-212, 215, 36in. 44 Nanticokes, 239 Narragansetts, 84, 134. See also Southern New England Algonquians Nau, Luc Francois, 3 8 in. 12 Naudoways, i Nemattanew, 180 Nephew. See Council titles Nephews. See Kinship system Netherlands, 51, 85, 99-100, 38438511. 33 Neutralists: emergence of, 152-155; and European imperialism, 155-156, 159, 184, 198, 227-228; peace plans of,

{ Index 429 }

180-185, i93~ I 94? and francophiles, 200-203; and policy of balance, 204210, 215, 217, 219, 230, 234-237, 248-249, 253-254, 269, 271; and Pennsylvania, 269, 273-275 Neutrals, 15, 29, 62, 64, 65, 73, 299n. 40 New Amsterdam (Manhattan), 58, 135. See also New York (city) Newcheconner, 378n. 33, 387^ 42 New England Algonquians. See Southern New England Algonquians New England Company for the Propagation of the Gospel, 178 New France. See French New Hampshire, 367^ 28 New Jersey (the Jerseys), 182, 234 New Netherland: and Iroquois, 54-56, 87-98, 135, 278, 325n. 36; economic problems of, 96-98, 193; conquest of, by English, 99-102, 278; and French, 129; reestablishment of, 135. See also Dutch New York (city), 150-151, 164, 186, 191-192 New York (province): conquest of, from Dutch, 99-102, 278; and Iroquois, 134-141, 150-188, 191-195, 2002O2, 2O6-2I2, 215-217, 22O-22I, 223-230, 234-235, 239-241, 246254, 264-265, 272-273, 278-279,

339nn. 14-16, 36on. 37, 361362nn. 44, 47, 363nn. 3-4, 367^ 26; and colonists' correspondence with French, 134; trade of, with Western Indians, 155, 157, 163, 202-203, 207-209, 223-225, 246-253, 263265, 344n. 46, 363^ 4, 367^ 25; provincial council and assembly of, 157, 186, 226, 230, 271, 272, 368n. 29; and Western Indians, 216, 223-225, 246-254, 264-265, 335". 5^ 34m. 31, 36311. 4, 36711. 25See also English Niagara Falls and River, 13, 262. See also Fort Niagara Nicholson, Francis, 226-228, 368n. 29 Nicolls, Richard, 134, 335n. 52 Nipissings, 62, 211. See also Western Indians Norman's Kill, 88 Norridgewock, Maine, 245 North Carolina, 238, 271

Northern Algonquians, 55-56, 62, 334n. 50. See also Algonquins; Montagnais; Nipissings; Western Abenakis Notre Dame de Lorette. See Lorette Nottoways, 240-241 Ocaneechis, 240-241 Odatshedeh, 175. See also Millet, Pierre Odianne, 150-152 Odongaowa, 178-179 Ohio country, 148, 256, 260, 270, 274, 276, 385^ 34 Ohneeyeathtonnoprow, 229, 368n. 29 Ohonsiowanne, 198-199, 203, 207, 217, 219 Ohwachira. See Lineages Oiogouen (Cayuga town), 33on. 14 Oiogouens. See Cayugas Ojibwas: and Iroquois, 144-145, 188, 195, 2O2-203, 205, 2O9-2IO, 211,

215, 359n. 27; and New York, 225, 250, 367n. 25. See also Mississaugas; Western Indians Old Corlaer. See Council titles; Van Curler, Arent Oliver, John, 23 1 Onas. See Council titles Onckwe, 184, 353-354^ 52 Oneida (town), 16-17, 9 I ~9 2 -? 122-123, 146-147, 171, 172, 175-177, 179, 186, 232, 249-250, 256-260, 293n. 16 Oneida Carrying Place, 249, 258-259, 262 Oneida Creek, 17 Oneidas: names for, i, 282; language of, 15; role in Iroquois League of, 39, 239; clan structure of, 45; epidemics among, 59; warfare of, 60-65, 9^, 173, 218, 226-228, 234, 240, 367n. 27, 369n. 32; and Dutch, 91-93; and French, 102, 130-131, 176-180, 184-187, 204, 207, 219; Christianity among, 116-117, 142, 232, 332n. 24; among Canadian Iroquois, 119-120, 125, 198, 348n. 13; among Iroquois du Nord, 1 20-1 2 1, 126; and New York, 151-153, 226-228, 248-249; neutralists among, 152-153, 159; francophiles among, 156, 175-177, 179-180, 183184, 35in. 34, 355n. 56; anglophiles among, 171, 202; housing patterns of, 261-262; and land gift to Tuscaroras,

{ 430 Index

}

23 9> 2 5 ^; and Pennsylvania, 273-276. See J 59> l 6 l > l6 3> l8o » 181, 343n. 39, 3 45 n. 54, 35 2nn. 42, 46 Ottawa River watershed, 2, Ottawas: and Iroquois, 62, 130-131, 144, 153, 159, 173, 181-186, 188, 195, 203, 208, 211, 218-219, 223, 234, 36on. 38; and New York, 153, 155, 209, 223-224, 250; resettlement of, at Detroit, 210, 215. See also Western Indians Ourehouare, 142, 150-151, 156-157, 160, 171, 172, 182 Owasco period, 14-15, 81 Paleo-Indians, 13 Palisades. See Fortifications Parenting, 9-10, 15-17, 20, 23, 121, 210, 233

Peace: as principle of politics, 30-31, 39-43, 45-46, 48, 56, 9^ 94, 1*8, 193-194, 206, 375-376nn. 14-15; Great Tree of, 85, 89, 152, 182, 203, 279. See also Iroquois League Peacemaker. See Deganawidah Epic Pelts. See Furs and skins Penn, John, 265 Penn, William, 150, 273-274, 277-278 Pennsylvania, 150, 234, 238, 241-244, 265, 269-270, 273-276, 367n. 28, 378n. 33, 384-385^ 33, 387^ 42 Pequots, 84, 89. See also Southern New England Algonquians Petuns, 15, 62, 64, 65, 3i6n. 34 Pictographs, 21, 37, 276, 277, 388n. 48 Pierron, Jean, 109, 114, 115 Pine Tree Chiefs, 43 Pinhorne, William, 192 Pipes, 13-14, 26, 28, 81, 86-87, 2.68. See also Crafts Piscataways, 145, 155 Plymouth Colony, 96, 164 Pocumtucks, 99. See also Southern New England Algonquians Point Peninsula tradition, 14 Poison, 200, 201-202, 358~359n. 25 Politics, patterns of, 6-7, 41-49. See also Alliance; Autonomy; Clan system;

{ Index 431 }

Headmen; Iroquois Confederacy; Moieties; Peace Poncet, Joseph 68 Pontchartrain, Louis Phelypeaux de, 183-184 Population statistics, 17, 58-60, 65-66, 114, 147-148, 173, 188, 197-198, 231, 237, 256, 262, 292-293nn. 1516, 33in. 19, 34in. 26, 355~35 6n - 6o> 357 n. 13 Port Royal, 166, 227 Potawatomis, 185, 211, 215 Potomac River, 53 Potomac-Blue Ridge Boundary Line, 241-243, 258-259 Pottery: symbolism of, 10, 41; ceramic, 13, 14, 19, 79, 81, 86-87. See also Crafts Poverty. See Economic conditions "Praying Indians." See Christianity Presents. See Gift giving; Reciprocity and redistribution Priests. See Christian missions: Jesuit, Sulpician Prisoners. See War captives Property, attitudes toward, 21-22, 263, 38in. 15 "Props of the Longhouse," 239, 256, 275 Protestant Mohawks: religion of, 178, 221-223, 2-2-9~2-34; and land frauds, 192, 209. See also Christian missions: Anglican, Dutch Reformed Prouville, Alexander. See Tracy, Alexander Prouville, Seigneur de Pynchon, William, 95-96, 137 Quebec, 51, 55, 166, 228 Queen Anne's War. See War of the Spanish Succession Quider, 164, 172, 249, 346 Quinte, 121, 156-157, 188, 248 Radisson, Pierre Esprit, 67-69, 71, 73-74 Raffeix, Pierre, 119 Ragueneau, Paul, 61-62 Rale, Sebastien, 244-245 Reciprocity and redistribution, 18-23, 24, 2-5, 2.9, 33, 44, 47~49» 51-53, 7i~73, 87, 91-92, 263, 267 Recollects, 121 Refugee groups, 239, 241, 254. See also Conestogas; Conoys; Delawares; Nan-

{

ticokes; "Props of the Longhouse"; Schaghticokes; Shawnees; Tuscaroras; Wyandots Religion. See Ceremonies; Christianity; Christian missions; Condolence; Mourning; Requickening; Shamanism; Spiritual power; Spirit world; Wampum; Wish-fulfillment Rensselaerswyck, 58, 93-95, 106 Requickening, 32-33, 39-40, 43, 60, 68, 71, 72, 140, 175-176, 2.79-280. See also Adoption; Condolence; Mourning Residence patterns, 18-20, 33, 90-91, 121, 256-262, 38o-38inn. 9-10 Rhode Island, 367^ 28 Richelieu River, 55, 99 Rituals. See Ceremonies River Indians, 15, 29, 51, 96-97, 278, 292n. 13. See also Delawares Rode, 182-183 Romer, Wolfgang, 193, 209 Rooseboom, Johannes, 155, 157, 344n. 46 Rotiyanehr, 42-43, 119, 141. See also Iroquois League: Sachems of Ryswick, Treaty of, 187, 191, 193 Sachagaeagenoy, 155 Sachems. See Headmen; Iroquois League: Sachems of Sadekanaktie, 159, 172, 179, 182-185, 186, 191-192, 201-202, 207-209, 211-212, 353-354n. 52, 358nn. 18, *5 Sagayeanquaprahton, 22.8, 3680. 29 Saggodrycochta, 89 Sagoestesi, 134 Saheda, 99 Sainte-Marie among the Hurons, 61 Sainte-Marie de Gannentaha, 108-109 Saint Francois Xavier des Pres. See La Prairie de la Madeleine Saint Francois Xavier du Sault. See Kahnawake Saint-Ignace, 61 St. Lawrence, Gulf of, 51, 2.28 St. Lawrence Iroquoians, 15, 28—29, 5 1 ? 5^ 53, 87 St. Lawrence River valley: as locus of trade and transportation, 3, 11-13, 95? 131; French occupation of, 51-53, 58; as war zone, 55-57, 60-64, 95? J 3^;

432 Index

—

}

7

J J J

J J T^

J —7 J

J

7

Canadian Iroquois migration to, 119-12.1 Saint-Louis, 61 Saint Lusson, Simon Francois Daumong de, 129-130 Sakoghsinnakichte, 195 Salignac de La Mothe-Fenelon, Francois de, 121 Sanders, Robert, 171-172 Saplings as building material, 17, 18, 260 Saponis, 240-241 Saratoga, 167 Sauks, 211 Sault, the. See Kahnawake Sault Sainte Marie, 130 Scalping, 18, 36, 37, 57, 67, 224, 245, 277. See also Mourning- war Schaets, Gideon, 106, 328n. 3 Schaghticoke, 136, 137, 192, 33 yn. 5, 342n. 34 Schenectady: establishment of, 97-98, 338n. 10; French sacking of, 166, 168, 172, 220, 364-365^ 15; and Iroquois, 174, 175, 230; refortification of, 211 Schoharie Creek, Mohawk hamlet on, 256, 257, 276 Schuyler, David, 210 Schuyler, Johannes, 166, 168, 194, 199, 225-226, 363n. 5 Schuyler, Peter, 137-138, 164-167, 171-173, 174, 176-177, 179, 191, 192-193, 196, 200-202, 226-228, 230, 232, 249, 250, 346n. 4, 349^ 22, 363n. 5, 368n. 29 Schuylkill, River, 344n. 42 Seasonal round of subsistence, 13, 22-24, 76, 267 Seawant. See Wampum Segowane, 198 Senecas: names for, i, 282; as name for Iroquois, i, 326n. 46, 343-34411. 42; language of, 15, 141, 219; towns of, 16-17, 73, 113, 122-123, 146-147, 158, 195, 219, 248, 252, 256-260, 266, 293n. 16, 379n. 5; clan structure of, 21, 45, 29 6n. 25; role in Iroquois League of, 39; grave goods among, 52-53, 81-82; epidemics among, 59, 145; warfare of, 60-65, 98-99, 136, 195, 218-219, 228, 34on. 23, 369n. 32; and French, 102, 108, 131, 138-139, 156-158, 217, 219, 246-

248, 359n. 29, 378n. 33; Christianity among, 113, 116, 124, 140, 142, 217-218, 224, 332n. 24; among Iroquois du Nord, 120-121, 126, 183; and New York, 140-141, 151153, 228, 246-249, 252-253, 342, 343n. 35, 387^ 42; anglophiles among, 155, 248; invasion of country of, 156-158; and shelter among Cayugas, 158; francophiles among, 183, 203, 217, 219-220, 224-225, 234, 248; neutralists among, 234; and Pennsylvania, 241, 273-276, 387^ 42; housing patterns of, 261-262; among Canadian Iroquois, 348n. 13. See also Eastern Senecas; Five Nations; Iroquois Confederacy; Iroquois League; Western Senecas Settlement patterns, 17-18, 24, 125-126, 256-263, 292-293nn. 15-16, 38in. 12 Seven Years' War, 3-4, 271 Sexual division of labor. See Gender roles Shamanism, 24-25, 29, 60, no, 112115, 140, 175-176, 232, 233. See also Spiritual power Shamokin, 256, 274 Shawnees, 144, 239, 243, 252-253, 256, 270, 274-275, 378n. 33, 387^ 42 Shells. See Beads; Wampum Shenk's Ferry people, 53 Shikellamy, 274-275 Shirts, 68, 79-80, 84, 92, 268 Sickaris, 91 Sindachsegie, 149, 34in. 28 Sinnekes. See Senecas Sinnonquirese, 172, 192, 200, 207 Sinnonswanne, 353n. 51 Siouans, 62 Six Nations. See Five Nations Skins. See Furs and skins Sky-Grasper. See Good Twin Sky Woman, 9-10, 14, 17-18, 19, 20, 68, 29on. 2 Sky World, 9, 10, 15-16, 19, 24-25, 29 Slaves. See War captives Sloughter, Henry, 166, 168, 174, 178 Smallpox. See Diseases Smith, John, 5 1 Smiths, 131, 191, 219, 220-221, 246 Smiths John, 103-104, 120, 126 Snakes, symbolism of, 39, 83 Society for the Propagation of the Gospel

{ Index 433 }

in Foreign Parts. See Christian missions: Anglican Society of Jesus. See Christian missions: Jesuit Soup, 9, 19-10, no. See also Food South Carolina, 2.40, 271 Southern Indians, 145, 155, 237-241, 282, 372n. i Southern New England Algonquians: as war captives, 70; in wampum trade, 85; and Iroquois, 98-99, 114, 134137, 239-240, 342n. 34; See also Metacom's War; Narragansetts; Pequots; Pocumtucks Spies. See Military strategies and tactics Spiritual power, 9, 10, 24-25, 28-33, 35-40, 47, 69, 86, 107-108, 112-115, 175-176, 206, 232, 237, 239, 276277, 29 8n. 33. See also Shamanism Spirit world, 4, 9-11, 14, 24, 25-28, 44, 48, 104, 277 Spotswood, Alexander, 239, 240-243 Springfield, Mass., 58, 95, 137, 33 7n. 8 Squash, 14-15, 19-20, 23, 103-104, 257-258. See also Agriculture; Food Stadacona, 51 Stone, 28, 54-55, 79, 81, 86-87, 268. See also Arrowheads Storke, Samuel, 383-384^ 32 Stratification, social, 20, 22, 32, 43-44, 48-49, 69,91, 263, 38111. 15 Strouds. See Cloth Stuyvesant, Peter, 95, 96, 98 Sulpicians, 120-121 Susquehanna River valley: as locus of population and transportation, 11—13, 51-53, 136, 238-241, 256, 258-260, 265; gift of, to New York, 150-152, 212; and traders, 155-156, 243244, 265, 269-271, 270, 34in. 31, 344n. 42, 383n. 28; gift of, to Pennsylvania, 273-275, 386n. 40 Susquehannocks: locations of, 15, 51, 53; relations with Iroquois of, 28-29, 53, 60, 62, 65, 70, 98, 102, 114-115, 134, 136-137; as adoptees of Iroquois, 119, 136, 140, 145, 150, 34on. 25, 342n. 34; language of, 292n. 13; captives of, 318-319^ 54. See also Conestogas Sweat lodges, 59, no, 277 Swidden horticulture. See Agriculture

{

Tadadaho, 39, 141 Tagnaynaut, 231, 375n. 14 Tahayeeri, 200-201 Tahiadoris, 139, 160-161, 162, 166-167, 346n. 4, 347n. 10 Tannewhannegah, 273 Taouestaouis. See Council titles; Le Moyne de Maricourt, Paul Tarriha, 176-180, 184, 3 5 in. 34 Tatakwissere, 197 Tawagonshi, 88, 323 n. 19 Taweeraet. See Ourehouare Tawiskaron. See Evil Twin Teganissorens, 153, 180-183, 185, 186, i93~ I 94, 196-197, 2,01-2.11, 215, 217-218, 227-228, 230, 235, 238239, 243, 249-253, 256, 264, 267, 273-274, 3o8n. 36, 352n. 42, 358359n. 25, 36in. 44, 363^ 3, 37711. 22, 386n. 40 Tekakwitha, Kateri, 126-128 Ten Broeck, Dirck Wesselse. See Wesselse Ten Broeck, Dirck Tenskwatawa, 180 Thanksgiving. See Ceremonies Thannintsorowee, 244 Tharonhiawagon. See Good Twin Theft, 21-22, 91, 175, 263 Theyanoquin. See Hendrick Thioratorion, 197 Thorontisati, 352n. 56 Ticonderoga, 51, 3 5 1-35 2n. 37 Tiononderoge, 178, 222, 229-234, 257, 272, 351-352^ 37, 366n. 20, 369^.33 Tionondoge, 200 Titles, hereditary. See Iroquois League: Sachems of; Rotiyanehr Tjughsaghrondie. See Detroit Tobacco, 22, 24, 28, 86, 207, 268. See also Pipes Togouiroui, 126, 168 Tonarengouenion, 359n. 29 Tonatakout, 203, 207, 210-211, 359n. 29 Tonty, Henri de, 149 Toronteshati, 131, 335 n. 53 Torskim, 352n. 42 Torture. See War captives: torture of Totiakton, 158 Towns, 17-18, 256-263. See also Cayugas: towns of; Mohawks: towns of;

434 Index

}

Oneida; Onondaga; Senecas: towns of; Villages; names of particular towns Tracy, Alexander Prouville, Seigneur de, 102-104, T I 4 Trade: routes for, 2-3, cultural impact of, 3> 74* 75-8?> 2.62-169, 382.-383n. 28; pre-European contact patterns of, 13-15, 28-29; as diplomatic reciprocity, 48-49, 52-53; indirect, with Europeans, 52-54, 79, 278; interrelationship of English and French, 247-248, 269-270, 383-384^ 32; decreasing significance of, 270-271, 384385n. 33. See also Albany; Alcohol; Firearms; Five Nations; Fort Orange; French; Furs and skins; New York; Niagara; Oswego; Wampum Traditionalist factions. See Anti-French factions Traditions. See Oral traditions Treaty: of Quebec, 102, 104; of Westminster, 135; of Ryswick, 187, 191, 193; of Albany, 151-152, 206-209, 210-212, 214, 241-243, 273-274,

36on. 37; of Montreal, 206-207, 210-211, 214, 218, 247, 36onn. 35, 38, 36in. 44; of Utrecht, 235, 246, 247. See also Diplomacy, native patterns of Treaty minutes as historical sources, 5-6, 143

Trois-Rivieres, 58, 103 Trouve, Claude, 121 Tsonhoaestsuam, 359n. 29 Tsonnontouans. See Senecas Turtle clan, n, 21, 175. See also Clan system Turtle's Back. See Cosmogonic Myth Tuscaroras, i, 238-240, 243, 256, 267, 274, 282 Tuscarora War, 238-240 Tutelos, 240-241 Twichtwicks. See Miamis Ulster, immigration from, 274 Uncle (as council title), 20, 35, 41, 35, 202

Uncles. See Kinship system Upholder of the Heavens. See Good Twin Upper Castle. See Canajoharie Utrecht, Treaty of, 235, 246, 247

Valliant de Gueslis, Francois, 217-218 Van Curler, Antonia, 134 Van Curler, Arent, 24, 93-95, 97-98, 103-104, 140, 298n. 34, 325nn. 34, 36, 338n. 10, 339n. 16 Van den Bogaert, Harmen Meyndertsz, 90-93, 103 Van der Donck, Adriaen, 58 Van der Volgen, Lawrence Claessen. See Claessen van der Volgen, Lawrence Van Eps, Jan Baptist, 177, 204, 211, 36411. 15 Van Krieckenbeeck, Daniel, 56, 89-90 Van Olinda, Hilletie, 106-107, 178, 192-193, 211, 365^ 15 Van Rensselaer, Jeremias, 99 Van Rensselaer, Killiaen, 93-94 Vaudreuil, Philippe de Rigaud de, 186, 218-220, 223, 225, 234-235, 245, 246-249, 251, 252 Verrazano, Giovanni de, 52 Vetch, Samuel, 368n. 29. See also "Glorious Enterprise" Viele, Arnout Cornelisz, 138, 139-140, 152-153, 155, 159, 171-172, 193, 211, 364n. 15 Villages: in Sky World, 9, 16-17; m Early and Middle Woodland periods, 14-15; descriptions of, 17-18, 256-263; social and political organization of, 22-23, 41-47, 72, 206, 276; periodic relocation of, 23-24, 262. See also Camps; Hamlets; Towns Villages of the dead, 37-38, 81, 84 Virginia, 51, 135-137, 151-152, 160-161, 164, 234, 239-243 Virgin Mary, no, 125 Virgin soil epidemics. See Diseases "Walking Purchase" of 1737, 274 Wampum: in Deganawidah Epic, 32, 38, 47; in diplomacy, 47~49> 141* *79, 216, 222, 267, 276-277; trade in, 53, 84-85, 92-93, 96, 268, 269; as messages, 171, 181, 183, 184, 187, 194, 197-199, 203, 205, 217, 234, 244245,251,252 War captives: as response to deaths, 3-4, 32-35, 60-62, 65-66, 145, 232-233; women and children as, 35, 56, 60-6 1, 67-68, 71-74, 159; torture and execution of, 35-36, 65-70, 148, 169, 173,

{ Index 435 }

232-233? 3 I 7 n - 38; as primary purpose of war, 36-38, 54, 56-58, 65-66, 144-148, 158-160, 2.37; as issue in diplomacy, 41, 176-177, 181-183, 185, 187, 191-194, 199, 203-206, 210-211, 2.19, 2,45; Dutch, of Five Nations, 56, 89-90; French, of Five Nations, 64, 95, 112-113, 160, 173, 175-176, 198, 2,00, 2.10; as "slaves," 69, 73; assimilation of, 70-74, 148149, 3i8~3i9n. 54; Iroquois, of French, 70, 156-157, 170-171, 173-174, 199; in Iroquois politics, 107-109, 116-117, 12.6, 131-132, 140, 145; as emigrants to Canadian villages, 119-120, 124-125; at Schenectady in 1690, 166; in fighting between League and Canadian Iroquois, 169, I73.I97 War chiefs, 34-35, 178, 226 Warfare. See Military strategies and tactics; Mourning-war War of the Austrian Succession, 271 War of the League of Augsburg, 160, 163-187, 278 War of the Spanish Succession, 215, 218, 225-229, 235, 237-238, 263, 36in. 44 Weapons. See Armor; Arrowheads; Brass; Firearms; Gunpowder and shot; Iron; Lead; Metal Weiser, Conrad, 263, 275, 380-38™. 10 Wendell, Johannes, 138 Wenros, 15, 29, 60, 299n. 40 Wergild, 33, 301-302^ 6. See also Condolence Wesselse Ten Broeck, Dirck, 137-138, 177, 179-180, 192, 194, 346n. 4, 347n. 10, 363^ 5 Western Abenakis, 15, 98-99, 136, 211, 3i5n. 29, 342n. 34 Western Indians: and Five Nations, 29, 62, 129-131, 144-148, 155-160, 173, 182-188, 195, 202-203, 205, 207211, 215-219, 223-225, 234, 238,

34onn. 22-23, 359"- 2.7, 362363nn. i, 4; and French, 129-131, 138-139, 149-150, 156-158, 173, 185-186, 205, 207-211, 215, 218219, 234; trade of, with New York,

{

155, 157, *63> 102-203, 207209, 223-225, 246-253, 263-265, 344n. 46, 363n. 4, 367^ 25; relations of, with New York, 216, 223225, 246-254, 264-265, 33 511. 52, 34in. 31, 363n. 4, 367^ 25; identification of, 282, 34on. 22, 359n. 27. See also individual nations Western Iroquois. See Cayugas; Onondagas; Senecas Western Senecas, 248, 256, 258-259 Westminster, Treaty of, 135 Willemstadt. See Albany William III, 160, 164, 166, 181, 189, 212 Winnebagos, 211 Wish-fulfillment, 9, 25-28, 115, 232-233 Wolf clan, n, 21, 112-113, 175. See also Clan system Women: in written sources, 5; work of, 14, 19-20, 121; political and economic power of, 22-23, 33-35, 42-44> 4648, 55—56, 126, 224; and treatment of war captives, 35-36, 68-69, 3o6n. 28; councils of, 42-43, 92-93; as war captives, 60-61, 67, 71-74, 159; mortuary customs and, 81; and Christianity, 108, 114, 117, 124-126, 231; in diplomacy, 1 8 6, 206. See also Gender roles; Matrons Wood Creek (at Lake Champlain), 166, 226, 228 Wood Creek (at Oneida Carrying Place), 249

Wood's Edge rite. See Ceremonies: of welcome Work, patterns of, 14, 19—20, 22-24, 69, 72, 76, 262-263, 276 Wraxall, Peter, 206, 339n. 14 Wyandots: as refugee group, 62, 3i4n. 27; and Iroquois, 102, 120, 144, 156, 159, 173, 181-182, 185, 188, 211, 36on. 38; resettlement of, at Detroit, 210, 215; trade of, with New York, 153-155, 216, 223-224 Yamasee War, 240 York, duke of. See James II York, Samuel, 209

436 Index

}