Iroquois
Haudenosaunee

Total population
approx. 125,000 (80,000 in the U.S, 45,000 in Canada)[citation needed]
Regions with significant populations
Canada     (southern Quebec, southern Ontario)  United States     (New York, Wisconsin, Oklahoma, North Carolina)
Languages
Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, Tuscarora, English, French
Religion
Longhouse Religion; Christianity; others

The Iroquois ( /ˈɪrəkwɔɪ/ or  /ˈɪrəkwɑː/), also known as the Haudenosaunee or the "People of the Longhouse",^[1] are a league of several nations and tribes of indigenous people of North America. After the Iroquoian-speaking peoples of present-day central and upstate New York coalesced as distinct tribes, by the 16th century or earlier, they came together in an association known today as the Iroquois League, or the "League of Peace and Power". The original Iroquois League was often known as the Five Nations, as it was composed of the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga and Seneca nations. After the Tuscarora nation joined the League in 1722, the Iroquois became known as the Six Nations. The League is embodied in the Grand Council, an assembly of fifty hereditary sachems.^[2] Other Iroquian peoples lived along the St. Lawrence River, around the Great Lakes and in the American Southeast, but they were not part of the Haudenosaunee and often competed and warred with these tribes.

When Europeans first arrived in North America, the Haudenosaunee were based in what is now the northeastern United States, primarily in what is referred to today as upstate New York west of the Hudson River and through the Finger Lakes region.^[3] Today, the Iroquois live primarily in New York, Quebec, and Ontario.

The Iroquois League has also been known as the Iroquois Confederacy. Some modern scholars distinguish between the League and the Confederacy.^[4][5][6] According to this interpretation, the Iroquois League refers to the ceremonial and cultural institution embodied in the Grand Council, while the Iroquois Confederacy was the decentralized political and diplomatic entity that emerged in response to European colonization. The League still exists. The Confederacy dissolved after the defeat of the British and allied Iroquois nations in the American Revolutionary War.^[4]

Name[link]

The Iroquois call themselves the "Haudenosaunee", which means "People of the Longhouse," or more accurately, "They Are Building a Long House." According to their tradition, The Great Peacemaker introduced the name at the time of the formation of the League. It implies that the nations of the League should live together as families in the same longhouse. Symbolically, the Mohawk were the guardians of the eastern door, as they were located in the east closest to the Hudson, and the Seneca were the guardians of the western door of the "tribal longhouse", the territory they controlled in New York. The Onondaga, whose homeland was in the center of Haudenosaunee territory, were keepers of the League's (both literal and figurative) central flame. The French colonists called the Haudenosaunee by the name of Iroquois.^[7] The name had various possible origins, both learned by the French from tribes who were enemies of the Haudenosaunee:

• French transliteration of irinakhoiw, a Huron (Wyandot) name for the Haudenosaunee. As the Hurons were traditional enemies, they used a derogatory term, meaning "black snakes" or "real adders". The Haudenosaunee and Huron were traditional enemies, as the Huron were allied with the French and tried to protect their access to fur traders.
• French linguists, such as Henriette Walter, and anthropologists, such as Dean Snow, support the following explanation. Prior to French colonization, Basque fishermen traded with the Algonquins, who were enemies of the Haudenosaunee. The above scholars think "Iroquois" was derived from a Basque expression, hilokoa, meaning the "killer people". Because there is no "L" sound in the Algonquian languages of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence region, the Algonquian tribes used the name Hirokoa for the Haudenosaunee. They applied this to the pidgin language which they used with the Basque. The French transliterated the word according to their own phonetic rules and arrived at "Iroquois".^[8]

History[link]

Formation of the League[link]

Members of the League speak Iroquoian languages that are distinctly different from those of other Iroquoian speakers. This suggests that while the different Iroquoian tribes had a common historical and cultural origin, they diverged as peoples over a sufficiently long time that their languages (and cultures) became different, and they distinguished themselves as different peoples. Archaeological evidence shows that Iroquois ancestors lived in the Finger Lakes region from at least 1000.^[9]

A traditional Iroquois longhouse.

After becoming united in the League, the Iroquois invaded the Ohio River Valley in present-day Kentucky to seek additional hunting grounds. According to one theory of pre-contact history, the Haudenosaunee by about 1200 pushed tribes of the Ohio River valley, such as the Quapaw (Akansea) and Ofo (Mosopelea), out of the region in a migration west of the Mississippi River.^[10] But, Robert La Salle listed the Mosopelea among the Ohio Valley peoples defeated by the Iroquois in the early 1670s, during the later Beaver Wars.^[11] By 1673, the Siouan-speaking groups had settled in the Midwest, establishing what became known as their historical territories. Just as the Siouan peoples were displaced by the Iroquois, they displaced less powerful tribes whom they encountered west of the Mississippi, such as the Osage, who moved further west.^[10]

The Iroquois League was established prior to major European contact. Most archaeologists and anthropologists believe that the League was formed sometime between about 1450 and 1600.^[12][13] A few claims have been made for an earlier date; one recent study has argued that the League was formed shortly after a solar eclipse on August 31, 1142, an occurrence which seemed to be related to oral tradition about the League's origins.^[14][15][16] Anthropologist Dean Snow argues that the archaeological evidence does not support a date earlier than 1450, and that recent claims for a much earlier date "may be for contemporary political purposes".^[17]

According to tradition, the League was formed through the efforts of two men, Dekanawida, sometimes known as the Great Peacemaker, and Hiawatha. They brought a message, known as the Great Law of Peace, to the squabbling Iroquoian nations. The nations who joined the League were the Mohawk, Onondaga, Oneida, Cayuga and Seneca,. Once they ceased most of their infighting, the Iroquois rapidly became one of the strongest forces in 17th- and 18th-century northeastern North America.

According to legend, an evil Onondaga chieftain named Tadodaho was the last to be converted to the ways of peace by The Great Peacemaker and Hiawatha. He became the spiritual leader of the Haudenosaunee.^[18] This is said to have occurred at Onondaga Lake near Syracuse, New York. The title Tadodaho is still used for the league's spiritual leader, the fiftieth chief, who sits with the Onondaga in council. He is the only one of the fifty to have been chosen by the entire Haudenosaunee people. The current Tadodaho is Sid Hill of the Onondaga Nation.

Expansion[link]

In Reflections in Bullough's Pond, historian Diana Muir argues that the pre-contact Iroquois were an imperialist, expansionist culture whose use of the corn/beans/squash agricultural complex enabled them to support a large population. They made war against Algonquian peoples. Muir uses archaeological data to argue that the Iroquois expansion onto Algonquian lands was checked by the Algonquian adoption of agriculture. This enabled them to support their own populations large enough to have sufficient warriors to defend against the threat of Iroquois conquest.^[19]

Engraving based on a drawing by Champlain of his 1609 voyage. It depicts a battle between Iroquois and Algonquian tribes near Lake Champlain.

The Iroquois may be the Kwedech described in the oral legends of the Mi'kmaq nation of Eastern Canada. These legends relate that the Mi'kmaq in the late pre-contact period had gradually driven their enemies – the Kwedech – westward across New Brunswick, and finally out of the Lower St. Lawrence River region. The Mi'kmaq named the last-conquered land "Gespedeg" or "lost land," leading to the French word Gaspé. The "Kwedech" are generally considered to have been Iroquois, specifically the Mohawk; their expulsion from Gaspé by the Mi'kmaq has been estimated as occurring ca. 1535-1600.^[20]

Around 1535, Jacques Cartier reported Iroquoian-speaking groups on the Gaspé peninsula and along the St. Lawrence River. Archeologists and anthropologists have defined the St. Lawrence Iroquoians as a distinct and separate group (and possibly several discrete groups), living in the villages of Hochelaga and others nearby (near present-day Montreal), which had been visited by Cartier. By 1608, when Samuel de Champlain visited the area, that part of the St. Lawrence River valley had no settlements, but was controlled by the Mohawk as a hunting ground. On the Gaspé peninsula, Champlain encountered Algonquian-speaking groups. The precise identity of any of these groups continues to be debated.

The Iroquois became well known in the south by this time. After the first English settlement in Jamestown, Virginia (1607), numerous 17th-century accounts describe a powerful people known to the Powhatan Confederacy as the Massawomeck, and to the French as the Antouhonoron. They were said to come from the north, beyond the Susquehannock territory. Historians have often identified the Massawomeck / Antouhonoron as the Iroquois proper. Other Iroquoian candidates include the Erie, who were destroyed by the Iroquois in 1654 over competition for the fur trade.^[21] Over the years 1670-1710, the Five Nations achieved political dominance of most of Virginia west of the fall line and extending to the Ohio River valley in present-day West Virginia. They reserved it as a hunting ground by right of conquest and continued to claim it until 1722, when they began selling land in the area to their British allies.^{[citation needed]}

Beaver Wars[link]

Map of the New York tribes before European arrival:

  Iroquoian tribes

  Algonquian tribes

Haudenosaunee flag created in the 1980s. It is based on the "Hiawatha Wampum Belt ... created from purple and white wampum beads centuries ago to symbolize the union forged when the former enemies buried their weapons under the Great Tree of Peace."^[22] It represents the original five nations that were united by the Peacemaker and Hiawatha. The tree symbol in the center represents an Eastern White Pine, the needles of which are clustered in groups of five.^[23]

Beginning in 1609, the League engaged in the Beaver Wars with the French and their Iroquoian-speaking Huron allies. They also put great pressure on the Algonquian peoples of the Atlantic coast and the boreal Canadian Shield region, and not infrequently fought the English colonies as well. During the 17th century, they were said to have exterminated the Neutral Nation.^[24][25] and Erie Tribe to the west. The wars were a way to control the lucrative fur trade,^{[citation needed][26]} although additional reasons are often given for these wars.

In 1628, the Mohawk defeated the Mahican to gain a monopoly in the fur trade with the Dutch at Fort Orange, New Netherland. The Mohawk would not allow Canadian Indians to trade with the Dutch. In 1645, a tentative peace was forged between the Iroquois and the Hurons, Algonquins and French. In 1646, Jesuit missionaries at Sainte-Marie among the Hurons went as envoys to the Mohawk lands to protect the fragile peace of the time. Mohawk attitudes toward the peace soured while the Jesuits' were traveling and the party was attacked by Mohawk warriors en route. The missionaries were taken to the village of Ossernenon (Auriesville, N.Y.), where the moderate Turtle and Wolf clans recommended setting the priests free. Angered, members of the Bear clan killed Jean de Lalande and Isaac Jogues on October 18, 1646. The Catholic Church has commemorated the two French priests as among the eight North American Martyrs. In 1649 during the Beaver Wars, the Iroquois used recently purchased Dutch guns to attack the Hurons. From 1651 to 1652, the Iroquois attacked the Susquehannocks, without sustained success.

In the early 17th century, the Iroquois were at the height of their power, with a population of about 12,000 people.^[27] In 1654, they invited the French to establish a trading and missionary settlement at Onondaga (in present-day New York state). The following year, the Mohawk attacked and expelled the French from the trading post, possibly because of the sudden death of 500 Indians from an epidemic of smallpox, a European infectious disease to which they had no immunity.

From 1658 to 1663, the Iroquois were at war with the Susquehannock and their Delaware and Province of Maryland allies. In 1663, a large Iroquois invasion force was defeated at the Susquehannock main fort. In 1663, the Iroquois were at war with the Sokoki tribe of the upper Connecticut River. Smallpox struck again; and through the effects of disease, famine and war, the Iroquois were threatened by extermination. In 1664, an Oneida party struck at allies of the Susquehannock on Chesapeake Bay.

In 1665, three of the Five Nations made peace with the French. The following year, the Canadian Governor sent the Carignan regiment under Marquis de Tracy to confront the Mohawk and the Oneida. The Mohawk avoided battle, but the French burned their villages and crops. In 1667, the remaining two Iroquois Nations signed a peace treaty with the French and agreed to allow their missionaries to visit their villages. This treaty lasted for 17 years.

Around 1670, the Iroquois drove the Siouan Mannahoac tribe out of the northern Virginia Piedmont region. They began to claim ownership of the territory by right of conquest. In 1672, the Iroquois were defeated by a war party of Susquehannock. The Iroquois appealed to the French for support and asked Governor Frontenac to assist them against the Susquehannock because

"it would be a shame for him to allow his children to be crushed, as they saw themselves to be... they not having the means of going to attack their fort, which was very strong, nor even of defending themselves if the others came to attack them in their villages."^[28]

Some old histories state that the Iroquois defeated the Susquehannock during this time period. As no record of a defeat has been found, historians have concluded that no defeat occurred.^[28] In 1677, the Iroquois adopted the majority of the Iroquoian-speaking Susquehannock into their nation.^[29]

Iroquois by Louis-Philippe Hébert, Maisonneuve Monument, Montreal, Quebec

By 1677, the Iroquois formed an alliance with the English through an agreement known as the Covenant Chain. Together, they battled to a standstill the French, who were allied with the Huron. These Iroquoian people had been a traditional and historic foe of the Confederacy. The Iroquois colonized the northern shore of Lake Ontario and sent raiding parties westward all the way to Illinois Country. The tribes of Illinois were eventually defeated, not by the Iroquois, but rather by the Potawatomis. In 1684, the Iroquois invaded Virginia and Illinois territory again, and unsuccessfully attacked French outposts in the latter. Later that year, the Virginia Colony agreed at Albany to recognize the Iroquois' right to use the North-South path running east of the Blue Ridge (later the Old Carolina Road), provided they did not intrude on the English settlements east of the fall line.

In 1679, the Susquehannock, with Iroquois help, attacked Maryland's Piscataway and Mattawoman allies. Peace was not reached until 1685.

With support from the French, the Algonquian nations drove the Iroquois out of the territories north of Lake Erie and west of present-day Cleveland, regions which they had conquered during the Beaver Wars.^[30]

In 1687, Jacques-René de Brisay de Denonville, Marquis de Denonville, Governor of New France from 1685 to 1689, set out for Fort Frontenac with a well-organized force. There they met with the 50 hereditary sachems of the Iroquois Confederation from the Onondaga council fire, who came under a flag of truce. Denonville recaptured the fort for New France and seized, chained, and shipped the 50 Iroquois chiefs to Marseilles, France, to be used as galley slaves. He ravaged the land of the Seneca, landing a French armada at Irondequoit Bay, striking straight into the seat of Seneca power, and destroying many of its villages. Fleeing before the attack, the Seneca moved further west, east and south down the Susquehanna River. Although great damage was done to the Seneca home land, the Seneca’s military might was not appreciably weakened. The Confederacy and the Seneca moved into an alliance with the British in the east; the destruction of the Seneca land infuriated the Iroquois Confederacy.

Iroquois conquests 1638-1711

On August 4, 1689, they retaliated by burning to the ground Lachine, a small town adjacent to Montreal. Fifteen hundred Iroquois warriors had been harassing Montreal defenses for many months prior to that. They finally exhausted and defeated Denonville and his forces. His tenure was followed by the return of Frontenac, who succeeded Denonville as Governor for the next nine years (1689–1698). Frontenac had been arranging a new plan of attack to lessen the effects of the Iroquois in North America. Realizing the danger of holding the sachems, he located the 13 surviving leaders and returned with them to New France that October 1698.

During King William's War (North American part of the War of the Grand Alliance), the Iroquois were allied with the English. In July 1701, they concluded the "Nanfan Treaty", deeding the English a large tract north of the Ohio River. The Iroquois claimed to have conquered this territory 80 years earlier. France did not recognize the validity of the treaty, as it had the strongest presence of colonists within the area in question. Meanwhile, the Iroquois were negotiating peace with the French; together they signed the Great Peace of Montreal that same year.

French and Indian Wars[link]

After the 1701 peace treaty with the French, the Iroquois remained mostly neutral even though during Queen Anne's War (North American part of the War of the Spanish Succession) they were involved in some planned attacks against the French. Peter Schuyler, mayor of Albany, arranged for three Mohawk chiefs and a Mahican chief (the Four Mohawk Kings) to travel to London in 1710 to meet with Queen Anne in an effort to seal an alliance with the British. Queen Anne was so impressed by her visitors that she commissioned their portraits by court painter John Verelst. The portraits are believed to be some of the earliest surviving oil portraits of Aboriginal peoples taken from life.^[31]

In the first quarter of the 18th century, the Iroquoian-speaking Tuscarora fled north from the pressure of British colonization of North Carolina and intertribal warfare. They petitioned to become the sixth nation of the Confederacy. This was a non-voting position but placed them under the protection of the Haudenosaunee.

In 1721 and 1722, Lt. Governor Alexander Spotswood of Virginia concluded a new Treaty at Albany with the Iroquois, renewing the Covenant Chain and agreeing to recognize the Blue Ridge as the demarcation between Virginia Colony and the Iroquois. But, as European settlers began to move beyond the Blue Ridge and into the Shenandoah Valley in the 1730s, the Iroquois objected. Virginia officials told them that the demarcation was to prevent the Iroquois from trespassing east of the Blue Ridge, but it did not prevent English from expanding west of them. The Iroquois were on the verge of going to war with the Virginia Colony, when in 1743, Governor Gooch paid them the sum of 100 pounds sterling for any settled land in the Valley that was claimed by the Iroquois. The following year at the Treaty of Lancaster, the Iroquois sold Virginia all their remaining claims on the Shenandoah Valley for 200 pounds in gold.^[32]

Iroquois engaging in trade with Europeans, 1722

During the French and Indian War (North American part of the Seven Years' War), the Iroquois sided with the British against the French and their Algonquian allies, both traditional enemies of the Iroquois. The Iroquois hoped that aiding the British would also bring favors after the war. Few Iroquois warriors joined the campaign. In the Battle of Lake George, a group of Catholic Mohawk (from Kahnawake) and French ambushed a Mohawk-led British column.

After the war, to protect their alliance, the British government issued the Royal Proclamation of 1763, forbidding white settlements beyond the Appalachian Mountains. Colonists largely ignored the order and the British had insufficient soldiers to enforce it. The Iroquois agreed to adjust the line again at the Treaty of Fort Stanwix (1768), whereby they sold the British Crown all their remaining claim to the lands between the Ohio and Tennessee rivers.

American Revolution[link]

During the American Revolution, the Iroquois first tried to stay neutral. Pressed to join one side or the other, many Tuscarora and the Oneida sided with the colonists, while the Mohawk, Seneca, Onondaga and Cayuga remained loyal to Great Britain, with whom they had stronger relationships. It was the first political split among the Six Nations. Joseph Louis Cook offered his services to the United States and received a Congressional commission as a Lieutenant Colonel- the highest rank held by any Native American during the war.^[33]

The Mohawk war chief Joseph Brant, other war chiefs, and British allies conducted numerous operations against frontier settlements in the Mohawk Valley, destroying many villages and crops. The Continentals retaliated and in 1779, George Washington ordered the Sullivan Campaign, led by Col. Daniel Brodhead and General John Sullivan, against the Iroquois nations to "not merely overrun, but destroy," the British-Indian alliance. They burned many Iroquois villages and stores throughout western New York; refugees moved north to Canada. By the end of the war, few houses and barns in the valley had survived the warfare.

Post-war[link]

After the war, the ancient central fireplace of the League was reestablished at Buffalo Creek. Captain Joseph Brant and a group of Iroquois left New York to settle in Quebec (present-day Ontario). As a reward for their loyalty to the British Crown, they were given a large land grant on the Grand River. Brant's crossing of the river gave the original name to the area: Brant's ford. By 1847, European settlers began to settle nearby and named the village Brantford. The original Mohawk settlement was on the south edge of the present-day city at a location still favorable for launching and landing canoes. In the 1830s many of the Onondaga, Oneida, Seneca, Cayuga and Tuscarora relocated into the Indian Territory, the Province of Upper Canada and Wisconsin.

Culture[link]

Stone pipe (19th-century engraving).

Melting pot[link]

The Iroquois are a melting pot. League traditions allowed for the dead to be symbolically replaced through captives taken in the "Mourning War." Raids were conducted to take vengeance on enemies and to seize captives to replace lost compatriots. This tradition was common to native people of the northeast and was quite different from European settlers' notions of combat. The captives were generally adopted by families of the tribes to replace members who had died.

The Iroquois worked to incorporate conquered peoples and assimilate them as Iroquois, thus naturalizing them as full citizens of the tribe. Cadwallader Colden wrote, "It has been a constant maxim with the Five Nations, to save children and young men of the people they conquer, to adopt them into their own Nation, and to educate them as their own children, without distinction; These young people soon forget their own country and nation and by this policy the Five Nations make up the losses which their nation suffers by the people they lose in war." By 1668, two-thirds of the Oneida village were assimilated Algonquians and Hurons. At Onondaga there were Native Americans of seven different nations and among the Seneca eleven.^[34] They also adopted European captives, as did the Catholic Mohawk in settlements outside Montreal.

Food[link]

The Iroquois were a mix of farmers, fishers, gatherers and hunters, though their main diet came from farming. The main crops they farmed were corn, beans and squash, which were called the three sisters and were considered special gifts from the Creator. These crops are grown strategically. The cornstalks grow, the bean plants climb the stalks, and the squash grow beneath, inhibiting weeds and keeping the soil moist under the shade of their broad leaves. In this combination, the soil remained fertile for several decades. The food was stored during the winter, and it lasted for two to three years. When the soil eventually lost its fertility, the Iroquois migrated.

Gathering was the job of the women and children. Wild roots, greens, berries and nuts were gathered in the summer. During spring, maple syrup was tapped from the trees, and herbs were gathered for medicine.

A member of the False Face Society.

The Iroquois hunted mostly deer but also other game such as wild turkey and migratory birds. Muskrat and beaver were hunted during the winter. Fishing was also a significant source of food because the Iroquois were located near a large river (St. Lawerence River). They fished salmon, trout, bass, perch and whitefish. In the spring the Iroquois netted, and in the winter fishing holes were made in the ice.^[35]

Women in society[link]

When Americans and Canadians of European descent began to study Iroquois customs in the 18th and 19th centuries, they learned that the people had a matrilineal system: women held property and hereditary leadership passed through their lines. They held dwellings, horses and farmed land, and a woman's property before marriage stayed in her possession without being mixed with that of her husband. They had separate roles but real power in the nations. The work of a woman's hands was hers to do with as she saw fit. At marriage, a young couple lived in the longhouse of the wife's family. A woman choosing to divorce a shiftless or otherwise unsatisfactory husband was able to ask him to leave the dwelling and take his possessions with him.^[36] The children of the marriage belonged to their mother's clan and gained their social status through hers. Her brothers were important teachers and mentors to the children, especially introducing boys to men's roles and societies. The clans were matrilineal, that is, clan ties were traced through the mother's line. If a couple separated, the woman kept the children.^[37] The chief of a clan could be removed at any time by a council of the women elders of that clan. The chief's sister was responsible for nominating his successor.^[37]

Spiritual beliefs[link]

The Iroquois believe that the spirits change the seasons. Key festivals coincided with the major events of the agricultural calendar, including a harvest festival of thanksgiving. The Great Peacemaker (Deganawida) was their prophet. After the arrival of the Europeans, many Iroquois became Christians, among them Kateri Tekakwitha, a young woman of Mohawk-Algonkin parents. Traditional religion was revived to some extent in the second half of the 18th century by the teachings of the Iroquois prophet Handsome Lake.^[38]

People[link]

Nations[link]

The first five nations listed below formed the original Five Nations (listed from west to east); the Tuscarora became the sixth nation in 1720.

English name	Iroquoian	Meaning	17th/18th century location
Seneca	Onondowahgah	"People of the Great Hill"	Seneca Lake and Genesee River
Cayuga	Guyohkohnyoh	"People of the Great Swamp"	Cayuga Lake
Onondaga	Onöñda'gega'	"People of the Hills"	Onondaga Lake
Oneida	Onayotekaono	"People of Standing Stone"	Oneida Lake
Mohawk	Kanien'kehá:ka	"People of the Great Flint"	Mohawk River
Tuscarora1	Ska-Ruh-Reh	"Hemp Gatherers"[39]	From North Carolina²

¹ Not one of the original Five Nations; joined 1720.
² Settled between Oneidas and Onondagas.

Clans[link]

Within each of the six nations, people are divided into a number of matrilineal clans. The number of clans varies by nation, currently from three to eight, with a total of nine different clan names.

Population history[link]

This section requires expansion.

The total number of Iroquois today is difficult to establish. About 45,000 Iroquois lived in Canada in 1995.^[40] In the 2000 census, 80,822 people in the United States claimed Iroquois ethnicity, with 45,217 of them claiming only Iroquois background. Tribal registrations among the Six Nations in the United States in 1995 numbered about 30,000 in total.

Prominent individuals[link]

• Frederick Alexcee, artist (also of Tsimshian ancestry)
• Henry Armstrong, boxer, #2 in Ring Magazine's list of the 80 Best Fighters of the Last 80 Years
• George Armstrong, hockey player, most successful captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs with five Stanley Cup victories.
• Joseph Brant or Thayendanegea, Mohawk leader
• Cornplanter or Kaintwakon, Seneca chief
• Deganawida or The Great Peacemaker, the traditional founder along with Hiawatha of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy
• Graham Greene, Canadian Oneida and award-winning actor
• Handsome Lake (Ganioda'yo), Seneca religious leader
• Ki Longfellow, novelist
• Oren Lyons, Onondaga, a traditional Faithkeeper of the Turtle clan
• Ely S. Parker, Seneca, Union Army officer during American Civil War; appointed Commissioner of Indian Affairs during Ulysses S. Grant's first term as President.
• Red Jacket, Seneca orator and chief of the Wolf clan
• Robbie Robertson, Mohawk, songwriter, guitarist and singer who was part of The Band.
• Joanne Shenandoah, Oneida singer, songwriter, actress and educator
• Jay Silverheels, actor, of Canadian Mohawk origin, famously portrayed Tonto the companion to The Lone Ranger
• Kateri Tekakwitha, Mohawk and Algonquin, first Catholic Native American saint, patron of ecology
• Canassatego, Tadadaho of the Iroquois Confederacy

Government[link]

Mohawk leader John Smoke Johnson (right) with John Tutela and Young Warner, two other Six Nations War of 1812 veterans. Photo: July 1882.

The Grand Council of the Iroquois League is an assembly of 50 Hoyenah (chiefs) or Sachems, a number that has never changed. Today, the seats on the Council are distributed among the Six Nations as follows:

• 14 Onondaga
• 10 Cayuga
•   9 Oneida
•   9 Mohawk
•   8 Seneca
•   0 Tuscarora

When anthropologist Lewis Henry Morgan studied the Grand Council in the 19th century, he interpreted it as a central government. This interpretation became influential, but some scholars have since argued that while the Grand Council served an important ceremonial role, it was not a government in the sense that Morgan thought.^[4][5][6] According to this view, Iroquois political and diplomatic decisions are made on the local level, and are based on assessments of community consensus. A central government that develops policy and implements it for the people at large is not the Iroquois model of government.

Unanimity in public acts was essential to the Council. In 1855, Minnie Myrtle observed that no Iroquois treaty was binding unless it was ratified by 75% of the male voters and 75% of the mothers of the nation.^[41] In revising Council laws and customs, a consent of two-thirds of the mothers was required.^[41]

Chiefs of the Six Nations explaining their wampum belts to Horatio Hale, 1871

The women held real power, particularly the power to veto treaties or declarations of war.^[41] The members of the Grand Council of Sachems were chosen by the mothers of each clan. If any leader failed to comply with the wishes of the women of his tribe and the Great Law of Peace, the mother of his clan could demote him, a process called "knocking off the horns". The deer antlers, emblem of leadership, were removed from his headgear, thus returning him to private life.^[41][42]

Councils of the mothers of each tribe were held separately from the men's councils. The women used men as runners to send word of their decisions to concerned parties, or a woman could appear at the men's council as an orator, presenting the view of the women. Women often took the initiative in suggesting legislation.^[41]

Influence on the United States[link]

Historians in the 20th century have suggested the Iroquois system of government influenced the development of the Articles of Confederation or United States Constitution. Consensus has not been reached on how influential the Iroquois model was to the development of the United States' documents.^[43] The influence thesis has been discussed by historians such as Donald Grinde^[44] and Bruce Johansen.^[45] In 1988, the United States Congress passed a resolution to recognize the influence of the Iroquois League upon the Constitution and Bill of Rights.^[46] In 1987, Cornell University held a conference on the link between the Iroquois' government and the U.S. Constitution. ^[47]

Scholars, such as Jack N. Rakove and Elizabeth Tooker, challenge the thesis. Stanford University historian Rakove writes, "The voluminous records we have for the constitutional debates of the late 1780s contain no significant references to the Iroquois" and notes that there are ample European precedents to the democratic institutions of the United States.^[48] Historian Francis Jennings noted that supporters of the thesis frequently cite the following statement by Benjamin Franklin: "It would be a very strange thing, if six Nations of ignorant savages should be capable of forming a Scheme for such a Union … and yet that a like union should be impracticable for ten or a Dozen English Colonies," but he disagrees that it establishes influence. Rather, he thinks Franklin was promoting union against the "ignorant savages" and called the idea "absurd".^[49] The anthropologist Dean Snow stated that though Franklin's Albany Plan may have drawn some inspiration from the Iroquois League, there is little evidence that either the Plan or the Constitution drew substantially from this source. He argues that "...such claims muddle and denigrate the subtle and remarkable features of Iroquois government. The two forms of government are distinctive and individually remarkable in conception."^[50]

Tooker, a Temple University professor of anthropology and an authority on the culture and history of the Northern Iroquois, believes the "influence" thesis is myth rather than fact. He does not think that the Iroquois League was a democratic culture; such a conclusion is not supported within historical literature. The relationship between the Iroquois League and the Constitution is based on a portion of a letter written by Benjamin Franklin and a speech by the Iroquois chief Canasatego in 1744. Tooker concluded that the documents cited indicate that some groups of Iroquois and white settlers realized the advantages of a confederation, but he thinks there is little evidence to support the idea that 18th century colonists were knowledgeable regarding the Iroquois system of governance. Historic evidence suggests that chiefs of different tribes were permitted representation in the Iroquois League council, and the leadership positions were hereditary. The council did not practice representative government and had no elections. Deceased chiefs’' successors were selected by the most senior woman within the hereditary lineage in consultation with other women in the clan. Decision making occurred through lengthy discussion and decisions were unanimous, with topics discussed being introduced by a single tribe.^[51]

Tooker concludes, "...there is virtually no evidence that the framers borrowed from the Iroquois." He thinks the myth resulted from exaggerations and misunderstandings of a claim made by the Iroquois linguist and ethnographer J.N.B. Hewitt after his death in 1937.^[51]

International[link]

The Iroquois government has issued passports since 1923, when Haudenosaunee authorities issued a passport to Cayuga statesman Deskaheh (Levi General) to travel to the League of Nations headquarters.^[52]

More recently, passports have been issued since 1997.^[53] Before 2001 these were accepted by various nations for international travel, but with increased security concerns across the world since the 9/11 and other terrorist attacks, this is no longer the case.^[54] The Iroquois Nationals lacrosse team was allowed by the U.S. to travel on their own passports to an international lacrosse tournament in England after the personal intervention of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on July 14, 2010, after previously being refused. But, the British government refused to recognize the Iroquois passports and denied the team members entry into the United Kingdom.^[55][56]

The Onondaga Nation spent $1.5 million on a subsequent upgrade to passports designed to meet 21st century international security requirements.^[57]

Modern communities[link]

Iroquois in Buffalo, New York, 1914.

• Canada
  • Kahnawake Mohawk in Quebec
  • Kanesatake Mohawk in Quebec
  • Mohawk Nation of Akwesasne in Ontario
  • Thames Oneida in Ontario
  • Six Nations of the Grand River Territory in Ontario
  • Tyendinaga Mohawk in Ontario
  • Wahta Mohawk in Ontario

• United States
  • Cayuga Nation in New York
  • Ganienkeh Mohawk — not federally recognized
  • Kanatsiohareke Mohawk
  • Onondaga Nation in New York
  • Oneida Indian Nation in New York
  • Oneida Tribe of Indians in Wisconsin
  • St. Regis Band of Mohawk Indians in New York
  • Seneca Nation of New York
  • Seneca-Cayuga Tribe of Oklahoma
  • Tuscarora Nation of New York

See also[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Iroquois

References[link]

Further reading[link]

External links[link]

• Iroquois Indian Museum
• Canadian Genealogy (The Iroquois)

Beaver Wars
The Great Lakes region in red.
Date mid 17th century Location Great Lakes region Result Great Peace of Montreal, Growth of French influence in the Great Lakes region
Belligerents
Iroquois Supported by:  England,  Dutch Republic	Algonquian Supported by:  France

The Beaver Wars, also known as the Iroquois Wars or the French and Iroquois Wars, commonly refers to a series of conflicts fought in the mid-17th century in eastern North America. Encouraged and armed by their Dutch and English trading partners, the Iroquois sought to expand their territory and monopolize the fur trade and the trade between European markets and the tribes of the western Great Lakes region. The conflict pitted the nations of the Iroquois Confederation, led by the dominant Mohawk, against the French-backed and largely Algonquian-speaking tribes of the Great Lakes region.

The wars were brutal and are considered one of the bloodiest series of conflicts in the history of North America. As the Iroquois succeeded in the war and enlarged their territory, they realigned the tribal geography of North America, and destroyed several large tribal confederacies—including the Huron, Neutral, Erie, and Susquehannock—and pushed some eastern tribes west of the Mississippi River, or southward into the Carolinas. The Iroquois also controlled the Ohio Valley lands as hunting ground, from about 1670 onward, as far as can be determined from contemporary French (Jesuit) accounts. The Ohio Country and the Lower Peninsula of Michigan were virtually emptied of Native people as refugees fled westward to escape Iroquois warriors. (Much of this region was later repopulated by Native peoples nominally subjected to the Six Nations; see Mingo)

Both Algonquian and Iroquoian societies were greatly disturbed by these wars. The conflict subsided with the loss by the Iroquois of their Dutch allies in the New Netherland colony, and with a growing French objective to gain the Iroquois as an ally against English encroachment. After the Iroquois became trading partners with the English, their alliance was a crucial component of the later English expansion. They used the Iroquois conquests as a claim to the old Northwest.

Origins[link]

Written records for the St. Lawrence valley begin with the voyages of Jacques Cartier in the 1540s. Cartier wrote of encounters with a people later classified as the St. Lawrence Iroquoians,^[1] also known as the Stadaconan or Laurentian, who occupied several fortified villages, including Stadacona and Hochelaga. Cartier recorded that the Stadaconans were at war with another tribe known as the Toudaman, who had destroyed one of their forts the previous year, resulting in 200 deaths. Continental wars and politics distracted French efforts at colonization in the St. Lawrence Valley until the beginning of the 17th century. When the French returned, they were surprised to find that the sites of both Stadacona and Hochelaga were abandoned—completely destroyed by an unknown enemy.

Beaver Pelt

Some anthropologists and historians have suggested the Mohawk of the Iroquois Confederacy destroyed and drove out the St. Lawrence Iroquoians, based on analysis of political and economic conditions at the time. When the French returned, there were no inhabitants in this part of the upper river valley. The Iroquois and Huron used it as hunting ground.^{[1] [2]} The issue has not been fully settled. (Iroquois oral tradition, as recorded in the Jesuit Relations, speaks of a draining war between the Mohawk Iroquois and an alliance of the Susquehannock and Algonquin sometime between 1580 and 1600.)

When the French returned in 1601, the St. Lawrence Valley had already been the site of generations of blood-feud-style warfare. When Samuel de Champlain landed at Tadoussac on the St. Lawrence, he and his small company of French adventurers were almost immediately recruited by the Montagnais, Algonquin, and Huron to assist in attacking their Iroquois enemies upriver.^{[citation needed]}

Before 1603, Champlain had formed an offensive alliance against the Iroquois. His rationale was commercial; the northern Natives were the French source of valuable fur and the Iroquois, based in present-day New York, interfered with that trade. The first battle in 1609 was fought at Champlain's initiative. He wrote, "I had come with no other intention than to make war".^[3] In the company of his Algonquin allies, Champlain and his forces fought a pitched battle with the Iroquois on the shores of Lake Champlain. Champlain killed three Iroquois chiefs with an arquebus. In 1610, Champlain and his arquebus-wielding French companions helped the Algonquin and Huron defeat a large Iroquois raiding party. In 1615, Champlain joined a Huron raiding party and took part in a siege on an Iroquois town, probably among the Onondaga south of Lake Ontario in present-day New York. The attack ultimately failed, and Champlain was injured.^[4]

In 1610 the Dutch established a trading post on the edge of Iroquois territory, giving them direct access to European markets. This removed the Iroquois need to rely on the French and the tribes who had functioned as middlemen in the trading of goods. The new post offered valuable tools that the Iroquois could receive in exchange for animal pelts. This began the Iroquois' large-scale hunting for furs.^[5]

At this time, the conflict began to quickly grow between the Iroquois and Indians supported by the French. The Iroquois inhabited the region of present-day New York south of Lake Ontario and west of the Hudson River. The Iroquois lands comprised an ethnic island, surrounded on all sides by Algonquian-speaking nations, including the Shawnee to the west in the Ohio Country. Their enemies included the Iroquoian-speaking Huron and Neutral Nation Confederacies, who lived on the southern shore of Lake Huron and the western shore of Lake Ontario, respectively, but who were not part of the Iroquois Confederation.

In 1628 the Mohawk defeated the Mahican and established a monopoly of trade with the Dutch at Fort Orange, New Netherland. The Iroquois, particularly the Mohawk, had come to rely on the trade for the purchase of firearms and other European goods for their livelihood and survival. By the 1630s, the Iroquois had become fully armed with European weaponry through their trade with the Dutch. They used their growing expertise with the arquebus to good effect in their continuing wars with the Algonquin, Huron, and other traditional enemies. The French, meanwhile, outlawed the trading of firearms to their native allies, though they occasionally gave arquebuses as gifts to individuals who converted to Christianity. Although the Iroquois first attacked their traditional enemies (the Algonquins, Mahicans, Montagnais, and Hurons), the alliance of these tribes with the French quickly brought the Iroquois into fierce and bloody conflict directly with the European colonists.

The use of firearms enabled overhunting and accelerated the decline of the beaver population. By 1640 the animal had largely disappeared from the Hudson Valley. Some historians have argued that the wars were accelerated by the growing scarcity of the beaver in the lands controlled by the Iroquois in the middle 17th century. The center of the fur trade shifted northward to the colder regions of present-day southern Ontario, which was controlled by the Neutrals; as well as by the Hurons, who were the close trading partners of the French. The Iroquois were displaced in the fur trade by other nations in the region. Threatened by disease and with a declining population, the Iroquois began an aggressive campaign to expand their area of control.

Conflict[link]

Map showing the approximate location of major tribes and settlements.^[6]

With the decline of beaver, the Iroquois began to conquer their smaller neighbors. They attacked the Wenro in 1638 and took all of their territory. Survivors fled to the Hurons for refuge. The Wenro had served as a buffer between the Iroquois and the Neutral tribe and Erie allies. These two tribes were considerably larger and more powerful than the Iroquois. With expansion to the west blocked, the Iroquois turned their attention to the north.^[7] The Dutch also encouraged the Iroquois in this strategy. At that time, the Dutch were the Iroquois' primary European trading partners, with their goods passing through Dutch trading posts down the Hudson River and from there sent back to Europe. As the Iroquois' sources of furs declined, so did the income of the trading posts.^[8]

In 1641, the Mohawks traveled to Trois-Rivières in New France to propose peace with the French and their allied tribes. They asked the French to set up a trading post in Iroquoia. Governor Montmagny rejected this proposal because it would imply abandonment of their Huron allies.

In the early 1640s, the war began in earnest with Iroquois attacks on frontier Huron villages along the St. Lawrence River; their intent was disruption of the trade with the French. In 1645 the French called the tribes together to negotiate a treaty to end the conflict. Two Iroquois leaders, Deganaweida and Koiseaton, traveled to New France to take part in the negotiations.^[9] The French agreed to most of the Iroquois demands, granting them trading rights in New France. The next summer a fleet of eighty canoes carrying a large harvest of furs traveled through Iroquois territory to be sold in New France. When the Iroquois arrived, the French refused to purchase the furs and told the Iroquois to sell them to the Huron, who would act as a middleman. Outraged, the Iroquois resumed the war.^[9]

The French decided to become directly involved in the conflict. The Huron and the Iroquois had similar access to manpower, each tribe having an estimated 25,000–30,000 members.^[10] To gain the upper hand, in 1647 the Huron and Susquehannock formed an alliance to counter Iroquois aggression. Together their warriors greatly outnumbered those of the Iroquois. The Huron tried to break the Iroquois Confederacy by negotiating separate peaces with the Onondaga and the Cayuga. When the other tribes intercepted their messengers, they put an end to the negotiations. During the summer of 1647 there were several small skirmishes between the tribes. In 1648 a more significant battle occurred when the two Algonquin tribes attempted to pass a fur convoy through an Iroquois blockade. Their attempt succeeded and they inflicted high casualties on the Iroquois.^[11]

During the following years, the Iroquois strengthened their confederacy to work more closely and create an effective central leadership. Although the workings of their government remain largely unknown, by the 1660s the five Iroquois ceased fighting among themselves. They also easily coordinated military and economic plans among all five nations. In so doing, they increased their power and achieved a level of government more advanced than those of the surrounding tribes' decentralized forms of operating.^[12]

Although Indian raids were not constant, they terrified the inhabitants of New France. Initially, the colonists felt helpless to prevent them. Some of the heroes of French-Canadian folk memory are of individuals who stood up to such attacks. An example was Dollard des Ormeaux, who died in May 1660 while resisting an Iroquois raiding force at the Long Sault, the confluence of the St. Lawrence and the Ottawa Rivers. According to legend, he succeeded in saving Montreal by his actions. Another hero was Madeleine de Verchères, who in 1692 at age 14, led the defense of her family farm against Iroquois attack. Viewing the Iroquois as pawns of the Dutch and English, their traditional Protestant enemies, the French refused to make peace with the Natives.

Defeat of the Huron[link]

In 1648, the Dutch authorized selling guns directly to the Mohawk rather than through traders, and promptly sold 400 to the Iroquois. The Confederacy sent 1,000 newly armed warriors through the woods to Huron territory. With the onset of winter, the Iroquois warriors launched a devastating attack into the heart of Huron territory, destroying several key villages, killing many warriors and taking thousands of people captive, for later adoption into the tribe. Among those killed were the Jesuit missionaries Jean Brebeuf, Charles Garnier, and Gabriel Lallemant. Each is considered a martyr of the Roman Catholic Church. The surviving Huron fled their territory to seek assistance from the Anishinaabeg Confederacy in the northern Great Lakes region. The Odaawaa Nation (Ottawa) temporarily halted Iroquois expansion further northwest. With the Hurons' withdrawal, the Iroquois controlled a fur-rich region and had no more native tribes blocking them from the French settlements in Canada.^[13]

European diseases had taken their toll on the Iroquois and neighbors in the years preceding the war, however, and their populations had drastically declined. To replace lost warriors, the Iroquois worked to integrate many of their captured enemy by adoption into their own tribes. They invited Jesuits into their territory to teach those who had converted to Christianity. One priest recorded, "As far as I can divine, It is the design of the Iroquois to capture all the Huron...put the Chiefs to death...and with the rest to form one nation and country." The Jesuits also reached out to the Iroquois, many of whom converted to or added Catholicism to indigenous belief. The converted Iroquois would play an important part in the years to come.^[14]

In the early 1650s, the Iroquois began to attack the French. Some of the Iroquois Nations, notably the Oneida and Onondaga, had peaceful relations with the French but were under control of the Mohawk. The latter were the strongest nation in the Confederacy and were hostile to the French presence. After a failed peace treaty negotiated by Chief Canaqueese, Iroquois war parties moved north into New France along Lake Champlain and the Richelieu River. They attacked and blockaded Montreal. Typically a raid on an isolated farm or settlement consisted of a war party moving swiftly and silently through the woods, swooping down suddenly, and wielding a tomahawk and a scalping knife to attack the inhabitants. In many cases, prisoners, especially women and children, were brought back to the Iroquois homelands and were adopted into the nations.

Defeat of the Erie and Neutral[link]

The Iroquois attacked the Neutral Nation in 1650. By the end of 1651, they had completely driven the tribe from traditional territory, killing or assimilating thousands.^[13] At the time, the Neutrals inhabited a territory ranging from the present-day Niagara Peninsula, westward to the Grand River valley.^[15]

In 1654 the Iroquois attacked the Erie, but with less success. The war between the Erie and the Iroquois lasted for two years. By 1656 the Iroquois had almost completely destroyed the Erie confederacy, whose members refused to flee to the west. The Erie territory was located on the southeastern shore of Lake Erie and was estimated to have 12,000 members in 1650.^[16] Greatly outnumbered by the tribes they had subdued, the Iroquois had been able to achieve their victories through the use of firearms purchased from the Dutch.^[13]

Defeat of the Susquehannock[link]

With the tribes to the north and west destroyed, the Iroquois turned their attention southward to the Iroquoian-speaking Susquehannock. 1660 marked the zenith of Iroquois military power, and they were able to use that to their advantage in the decades to follow.^[17] The Susquehannock had become allied with the English in the Maryland colony in 1661. The English had grown fearful of the Iroquois and hoped an alliance with Susquehannock would help block the northern tribes' advance on the English colonies. In 1663 the Iroquois sent an army of 800 warriors into the Susquehannock territory. They repulsed the army, but the invasion prompted the colony of Maryland to declare war on the Iroquois.

By supplying Susquehannock forts with artillery, the English in Maryland changed the balance of power away from the Iroquois. The Susquehannock took the upper hand and began to invade Iroquois territory, where they caused significant damage. This warfare continued intermittently for 11 years. In 1674 the English in Maryland changed their Indian Policy and negotiated peace with the Iroquois. They terminated their alliance with the Susquehannock. In 1675 the militias of Virginia and Maryland captured and executed the chiefs of the Susquehannock, whose growing power they feared. The Iroquois made quick work of the rest of the nation. They drove the warriors from traditional territory^[18] and absorbed the survivors in 1677.

During the course of this conflict, in 1670 the Iroquois also drove the Siouan-speaking Mannahoac tribe out of the northern Virginia Piedmont region. The Iroquois claimed the land by right of conquest as a hunting ground. The English acknowledged this claim in 1674 and again in 1684. They acquired the land from the Iroquois by a 1722 treaty.

French counterattack[link]

The Iroquois continued to control the countryside of New France, raiding to the edges of the walled settlements of Quebec and Montreal. In May 1660 an Iroquois force of 160 warriors attacked Montreal and captured 17 colonists. The following year, an attack by 250 warriors yielded ten captives.^[19] In 1661 and 1662 the Iroquois made several raids against the Abenakis, who were allied with the French. The French Crown ordered a change to the governing of Canada. They put together a small military force made up of Frenchmen, Huron, and Algonquin to counter the Iroquois raids. When the militia ventured into the countryside, they were attacked by the Iroquois. Only 29 of the French survived and escaped. Five were captured and tortured to death by the Iroquois in retaliation. Despite their victory, the Iroquois also suffered a significant number of casualties. Their leaders began to consider negotiating for peace with the French.^[20]

The tide of war in New France began to turn in the mid-1660s with the arrival of a small contingent of regular troops from France, the brown-uniformed Carignan-Salières Regiment—the first group of uniformed professional soldiers to enter present-day Canada. A change in administration led the New France government to authorize direct sale of arms and other military support to their Native allies. In 1664, the Dutch allies of the Iroquois lost control of the New Netherland colony to the English. In the immediate years after the Dutch defeat, European support waned for the Iroquois.^[19]

In January 1666, the French invaded the Iroquois homeland in present-day New York. The first invasion force, of 400 or 500 men,^[21] was led by Daniel de Rémy de Courcelle. His men were greatly outnumbered by the Iroquois and were forced to withdraw before any significant action could take place. Although the invasion was abortive, they took Chief Canaqueese prisoner.

The second invasion force was led by the aristocrat Alexandre de Prouville, the "Marquis de Tracy" and viceroy of New France. From his base in Quebec City, as Lieutenant General of the Carignan-Salières Regiment, he initiated a campaign against the Mohawks. The invasion force of about 1300 men moved out in the fall of 1666. Upon arriving at the Mohawk villages and finding them deserted, they destroyed the villages and their crops.^[21] Prouville de Tracy seized all the Mohawk lands in the name of the king of France, and forced the Mohawks to accept the Roman Catholic faith and to adopt the French language as taught by the Jesuit missionaries.^[22] With their immediate European support cut off, the Iroquois sued for peace, to which France agreed.

Ohio and Illinois Country[link]

René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, explorer of the old Northwest. Negotiated anti-Iroquois treaties with the tribes of the Great Lakes region

Once peace was achieved with the French, the Iroquois returned to their westward conquest in their continued attempt to take control of all the land between the Algonquins and the French. As a result of Iroquois expansion and war with the Anishinaabeg Confederacy, eastern Nations such as the Lakota were pushed across the Mississippi onto the Great Plains. There in the early 18th century, they adopted the horse culture and nomadic lifestyle for which they later became well known. Other refugees flooded the Great Lakes area, resulting in a conflict with existing nations in the region. In the Ohio Country the Shawnee and Miami tribes were the dominant tribes. The Iroquois quickly overran Shawnee holdings in central Ohio forcing them to flee into Miami territory. The Miami were a powerful tribe and brought together a confederacy of their neighboring allies, including the Pottawatomie and the Illinois tribe who inhabited modern Michigan and Illinois. The majority of the fighting was between the Anishininaabeg Confederacy and the Iroquois Confederacy.^[23]

The Iroquois improved on their warfare as they continued to attack even farther from their home. War parties often traveled by canoes at night. They would sink their canoes and fill them with rocks to hold them on the river bottom. After going through the woods to a target, at the appointed time, they would quickly burst from the wood to cause the greatest panic among their enemy. After the attack, the Iroquois could return quickly to their boats and leave before any significant resistance could be put together.^[24] The lack of firearms caused the Algonquin tribes the greatest disadvantage. Despite their larger numbers, they were not centralized enough to mount a united defense and were unable to withstand the Iroquois. Several tribes ultimately moved west beyond the Mississippi River, leaving much of the Ohio Valley, southern Michigan, and southern Ontario depopulated. Several large Anishinaabe military forces, numbering in the thousands, remained to the north of Lakes Huron and Superior. They later were decisive in rolling back the Iroquois advance.^[25] From west of the Mississippi, displaced groups continued to arm war parties and attempt to retake their homelands.

Beginning in the 1670s, the French began to explore and settle the Ohio and Illinois Country from the Mississippi and Ohio rivers. There they discovered the Algonquin tribes of that region were locked in warfare with the Iroquois. The French established the post of Tassinong to trade with the western tribes. The Iroquois destroyed it to retain control of the fur trade with the Europeans.

During a raid into the Illinois Country in 1689, the Iroquois captured numerous prisoners and destroyed a sizable Miami settlement. The Miami asked for aid from others in the Anishinaabeg Confederacy, and a large force gathered to track down the Iroquois. Using their new firearms, the Confederacy laid an ambush near modern South Bend, Indiana. They attacked and destroyed most of the Iroquois army.^[26] Although a large part of the region was left depopulated, the Iroquois were unable to establish a permanent presence. Their own tribe lacked the manpower to colonize the large area.^[27] After their setbacks and the local tribes' gaining firearms, the Iroquois' brief control over the region was lost. Many of the former inhabitants of the territory began to return.^[28]

Resumption of war with France[link]

As the English began to move into the former Dutch territory of upper New York State, they began to form close ties with the Iroquois. They sought to use them as a buffer and force to hinder French colonial expansion. They soon began to supply the Iroquois with firearms much as the Dutch had and encouraged them to disrupt French interests.

At the same time, Governor of New France Louis de Buade, Comte de Frontenac, tried to revive the western fur-trade. His efforts competed with those of the Iroquois to control the traffic and they started attacking the French again. The war lasted ten years and was as bloody as the first.

In 1681 René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle negotiated a treaty with the Miami and Illinois tribes.^[29] The same year France lifted the ban on the sale of firearms to the native tribes. Colonists quickly armed the Algonquin tribes, evening the odds between the Iroquois and their enemies.

With the renewal of hostilities, the local militia of New France was stiffened after 1683 by a small force of regular French navy troops, the Compagnies Franches de la Marine. The latter were to constitute the longest-serving unit of French regular troops in New France. Over the years, the men identified with the colony. The officer corps became completely Canadian. Essentially, these forces can be considered as Canada's first standing professional armed force. Officers' commissions, both in the militia and in the Compagnie Franches, became coveted amongst the upper class of the colony. The militia together with members of the Compagnie Franches, dressed for woodland travel similarly to their Algonquin Indian allies, and grew to specialize in the swift and mobile brand of warfare termed la petite guerre. It was characterized by long expeditions through the forests and quick raids on enemy encampments —the same kind of warfare practiced by the Iroquois and other Natives.

In June 1687, Pierre de Troyes commanded a company under Governor Denonville for his attack against the Seneca.^[30] This attack resulted in the destruction of Ganondagan, the Seneca's largest village.

In September 1687, the French used 3,000 militia and regulars to attack the Iroquois in a punitive raid on their territory. They proceeded down the Richelieu River and marched through Iroquois territory, but did not find many warriors. They burned their villages and stored crops, destroying an estimated 1.2 million bushels of corn. Many Iroquois died from starvation during the following winter.

In 1687, Denonville set out with a well-organized force to Fort Frontenac, where they met with the 50 hereditary sachems of the Iroquois Confederacy from their Onondaga council fire. These 50 chiefs constituted the entire decision-making strata of the Iroquois. They had been lulled into meeting under a flag of truce. Denonville seized, chained, and shipped the 50 Iroquois chiefs to Marseilles, France, to be used as galley slaves. He then ravaged the land of the Seneca. Before he returned to New France, he travelled down the shore of Lake Ontario and created Fort Denonville at the site where the Niagara River meets Lake Ontario. This site was previously used by La Salle for a fort named Fort Conti from 1678 to 1679, and was later used for Fort Niagara, which still exists to this day.

The destruction of the Seneca land infuriated the Iroquois Confederacy. This, coupled with the dishonourable loss of their sachems, demanded they set out to terrorize New France as never before. Denonville's regulars were dissolved and dispersed to towns across the land, attempting to protect New France's homes and families. Forts were abandoned. The Iroquois destroyed farmsteads and whole families were slaughtered or captured. On August 4, 1689, Lachine, a small town adjacent to Montreal, was burned to the ground. Fifteen hundred Iroquois warriors had been harassing Montreal defences for many months prior. Denonville was finally exhausted and defeated. His tenure was followed by the return of Frontenac, who replaced Denonville as governor for the next nine years (1689–1698). Frontenac had been arranging a new plan of attack to mollify the effects of the Iroquois in North America and realized the true danger the imprisonment of the sachems created. He located the 13 surviving leaders, and they returned with him to New France in October 1698.

During King William's War (1689–1697), the French created raiding parties with native allies to attack English colonial settlements, as the English had used the Iroquois against the French. Some of the most notable of the French-sponsored raids in 1690 were the Schenectady massacre in the Province of New York; Salmon Falls, New Hampshire; and Falmouth Neck (present-day Portland, Maine). The French and their allies killed settlers in the raids and carried some back to Canada. Settlers in New England raised money to redeem their captives, but some were adopted into the Native tribes. The French government generally did not intervene when the Natives kept the captives. Throughout the 1690s the French and their allies also continued to raid deep into Iroquois, destroying Mohawk villages in 1692, and later raiding Seneca, Oneida, and Onondaga villages. The English and Iroquois banded together for operations aimed at New France, but these were largely ineffectual. The most successful incursion resulted in the 1691 Battle of La Prairie. Because France claimed dominion over the Iroquois, the French offensive was not halted by the 1697 Treaty of Ryswick that brought peace between France and England, and ended overt English participation in the conflict.

Great Peace of Montreal[link]

Finally in 1698, the Iroquois began to see the English as becoming a greater threat than the French. The English had begun colonizing Pennsylvania in 1681, the continued colonial growth there began to encroach on the southern border of the Iroquois territory.^[31] The French policy began to change towards the Iroquois. After nearly 50 years of warfare, they began to believe that it would be impossible to ever destroy them. They decided that befriending the Iroquois would be the easiest way to ensure their monopoly on the northern fur trade and help stop English expansion. As soon as the English heard of the treaty they immediately set about to prevent it from being agreed to. It would result in the loss of Albany's monopoly on the fur trade with the Iroquois and, without their protection, the northern flank of the English colonies would be open to French attack. Despite English interference the treaty was agreed to.^[32]

The peace treaty, Great Peace of Montreal was signed in 1701 in Montreal by 39 Indian chiefs and the French. In the treaty, the Iroquois agreed to stop marauding and to allow refugees from the Great Lakes to return east. The Shawnee eventually regained control of the Ohio Country and the lower Allegheny River. The Miami tribe returned to take control of modern Indiana and north-west Ohio. The Pottawatomie went to Michigan, and the Illinois tribe to Illinois.^[32] With the Dutch long removed from North America, the English had become just as powerful as the French. The Iroquois came to see that they held the balance of power between the two European powers and they used that position to their benefit for the decades to come. Their society began to quickly change as the tribes began to focus on building up a strong nation, improving their farming technology, and educating their population. The peace was lasting and it would not be until the 1720s that their territory would again be threatened by the Europeans.^[33]

Also in 1701, the Iroquois nominally gave the English much of the disputed territory north of the Ohio in the Nanfan Treaty, although this transfer was not recognised by the French, who were the strongest actual presence there at the time. In that treaty, the Iroquois leadership claimed to have conquered this "Beaver Hunting Ground" 80 years previously, or in ca. 1621.

Aftermath[link]

The Illinois Country's former inhabitants returned shortly after the war ended; the Miami, Potowatomie, Sauk, and Fox tribes became dominant in the region. The Ohio Country, which was nearer to the core of Iroquois territory, remained depopulated for longer, as the Iroquois controlled it by right of conquest as a hunting ground. The Lenape settled along the Allegheny River beginning in the 1720s. It was not until the 1740s and 1750s that the Shawnee began to return to the southern and central areas of the region, and the Miami began to resettle the western portions.

Through various European treaties, the English control over the Iroquois and their territory had been recognized before the war had ended. The English exaggerated the extent of Iroquois control in the west as a means to dispute French control of the Illinois and Ohio country.^[27] In 1768 several colonies officially purchased the "Iroquois claim" to the Ohio and Illinois Country. The colonies created the Indiana Land Company to hold the claim to all of the Northwest. It maintained a claim to the region using the Iroquois right of conquest until the company was dissolved by the United States Supreme Court in 1798.^[34]

Because a large part of the conflict between the native tribes took place far beyond the frontier and in locations that had yet to have European contact, the full extent and impact of the war is unknown. Most knowledge of the western parts of the conflict comes through accounts of French explorers and the tribes they encountered during the early years of exploration. Even the effects in the eastern regions are not fully known, as large parts of the region remained unexplored. The resident tribes did not have direct contact with Europeans, so no accounts were passed on about the wars.^[35]

The Beaver Wars joined the Powhatan wars of 1610–14, 1622–32 and 1644–46^[36] in Virginia, the Pequot War of 1637 in Connecticut, the Dutch-Indian War of 1643 along the Hudson River^[37] and King Philip's War in a list of ongoing uprisings and conflicts between various Native American tribes and the French, Dutch, and English colonial settlements of Canada, New York, and New England.

Native American tribes would continue to be embroiled in conflicts involving England, France, and their colonists during the ensuing French and Indian Wars.

See also[link]

	History of Canada portal
	New France portal
	France portal

• Northwest Indian War
• Military history of France
• History of Canada
• Military history of Canada
• Fox Wars
• Oka Crisis
• French and Indian Wars
• King Philip's War

Notes[link]

Sources[link]

External links[link]

• Timeline of the Iroquois Wars (1533-1650)

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