Iroquois

 

or Iroquois League (ĭr'əkwoi', –kwä') , North American confederation of indigenous peoples, initially comprising the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca. They gave their name to the Iroquoian branch of the Hokan-Siouan linguistic stock (see Native American languages), which included numerous other Native American groups of the E United States and E Canada. In the early 17th cent. this confederacy of Five Nations (later to become six when the Tuscarora joined) inhabited New York state from the Hudson River N to the St. Lawrence River and W to the Genesee River.

Traditional Culture and Political Organization

Their material culture was the most advanced of the Eastern Woodlands area, but they exhibited many traits peculiar to other areas, and this leads many authorities to believe that the Iroquois at some time in the distant past migrated from the lower Mississippi valley. They lived in palisaded villages; the men hunted deer and small game, and the women raised corn, squash, tobacco, and beans. Women held a high status in the society, and descent was matrilineal. Even before the formation of the confederation, the Iroquois families lived in the distinctive bark-covered rectangular structure known as the long house.

When the prophet Deganawidah and his disciple Hiawatha founded (c.1570) the confederacy (to eliminate incessant intertribal warfare and to end cannibalism), this dwelling became the symbol of the Five Nations. They thought of themselves metaphorically as dwelling in a large long house, which had a door on the eastern end, guarded by the Mohawk (in the extreme geographical east), and a door on the western end, guarded by the Seneca (in the extreme west). The Onondaga, keepers of the council fires and the wampum records, were between the Cayuga on the west and the Oneida on the east. The main Onondaga village served as the capital, or meeting place, of the federated council. Voting in the council was conducted by tribe, and a unanimous decision was necessary to wage war. Nevertheless, intertribal war was not unknown.

Rise to Power

The Iroquois were second to no other Native Americans N of Mexico in political organization, statecraft, and military prowess. In the mid-17th cent. the Iroquois Confederacy, equipped with Dutch firearms, made its united force felt. It dispersed the Huron in 1649, the Tobacco and the Neutral Nation in 1650, the Erie in 1656, the Conestoga in 1675, and the Illinois c.1700. Depleted by continual warfare, they increased the population by the wholesale adoption of alien tribes, so that by the end of the 17th cent. they numbered some 16,000. At this time they controlled the territory bounded by the Kennebec River, the Ottawa River, the Illinois River, and the Tennessee River. Their conquests were checked in the west by the Ojibwa, in the south by the Cherokee and the Catawba, and in the north by the French.

Relationship with the French and the British

Many historians argue that the hostility of the Iroquois toward the French was caused by Samuel Champlain when in 1609 he accompanied a Huron war party armed with French guns into Iroquois territory. In any case, the Iroquois, firm allies of the British, opposed the French at every step until the French lost control of Canada in 1763. The French, partly in the hope of winning over the Iroquois, sent missionaries to them. Isaac Jogues, a notable Jesuit missionary, was killed by the Iroquois as a sorcerer in 1646, but the missionaries were somewhat successful, and a considerable number of the Mohawk withdrew from the confederacy and founded (c.1670) a Catholic settlement. These Catholic Iroquois, called French Mohawks, took the part of the French against their former brethren.

In the early 18th cent. the Five Nations became the Six Nations when the Oneida adopted (c.1722) the remnants of the Tuscarora Confederacy. British settlers had expelled (1711) the Tuscarora from North Carolina, and by 1712 they had moved north. The British, who had used the Six Nations as a buffer against the advance of the French from Canada in the French and Indian Wars, attempted to retain their favor by accrediting various agents, notably Sir William Johnson (Johnson of the Mohawks).

In the American Revolution

The American Revolution was disastrous for the Iroquois. The confederacy, as such, refused to take part in the conflict but allowed each tribe to decide for itself, and all the tribes, except the Oneida, joined the British. Samuel Kirkland, a Protestant missionary, was largely responsible for winning over the Oneida, who rallied to the side of the colonists after remaining neutral for two years.

Cornplanter, Red Jacket, and Joseph Brant (who was educated by Sir William Johnson) led the Iroquois who remained loyal to the British. Brant, the principal leader of the Iroquois troops, participated with the Tory Rangers of Walter Butler in raids in New York and Pennsylvania, particularly the Cherry Valley and Wyoming Valley massacres. The Continental Congress sent out a punitive expedition under John Sullivan, who in 1779 defeated Butler and his Iroquois allies. After the Revolution, Brant, in contrast to the other two chiefs, remained adamant in his hostility toward the United States.

The Iroquois Today

Altogether, there were over 50,000 Iroquois in the United States in 1990. Some 17,000 Mohawk and over 11,000 Oneida live in the United States, in addition to around 10,000 people of Seneca or mixed Seneca-Cayuga heritage. Close to 10,000 Mohawk live in Canada, many on the St. Regis and the Six Nations reserves in Ontario and the Caughnawaga Reserve in Quebec. Many Cayuga, who were strong allies of the British, also live on the Six Nations Reserve, which is open to all members of the confederacy. Most of the remaining Iroquois, except for the Oneida of Wisconsin and the Seneca-Cayuga of Oklahoma, are in New York; the Onondoga reservation there is still the capital of the Iroquois Confederacy. Large numbers of Iroquois in the United States live in urban areas rather than on reservations. Many Mohawk and Oneida work as structural steelworkers, and the Oneida opened a large gambling casino near Syracuse, N.Y., in 1993. In recent years the Iroquois nations have pursued land claims in New York in the federal courts, with mixed results. Most Iroquois are either Christians or followers of Handsome Lake, a Seneca prophet of the 18th cent. who was influenced by the Quakers.

Bibliography

The Iroquois have been the subject of much study and literature. Early students included Cadwallader Colden and Lewis Henry Morgan. See G. T. Hunt, The Wars of the Iroquois (1940, repr. 1960); F. G. Speck, The Iroquois (2d ed. 1955); J. V. Wright, The Ontario Iroquois Tradition (1966); Conference on Iroquois Research, Iroquois Culture, History and Prehistory (1967); A. F. C. Wallace, The Death and Rebirth of the Seneca (1969); B. Graymont, The Iroquois in the American Revolution (1972); G. P. Jemison and A. M. Schein, eds., Treaty of Canandaigua 1794: 200 Years of Treaty Relations between the Iroquois Condederacy and the United States (2000).

Iroquois Haudenosaunee
Total population
approx. 125,000 (80,000 in the U.S. 45,000 in Canada)
Regions with significant populations
Canada (southern Quebec, southern Ontario)  United States (New York, Wisconsin, Oklahoma)
Language(s)
Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, Tuscarora, English, French
Religion(s)
indigenous

The Iroquois Confederacy (also known as the "League of Peace and Power", the "Five Nations"; the "Six Nations"; or the "People of the Long house") is a group of First Nations/Native Americans that originally consisted of five nations: the Mohawk, the Oneida, the Onondaga, the Cayuga, and the Seneca. A sixth tribe, the Tuscarora, joined after the original five nations were formed. Although frequently referred to as the Iroquois, the Nations refer to themselves collectively as Haudenosaunee.

At the time Europeans first arrived in North America, the Confederacy was based in what is now the northeastern United States and southern Canada, including New England, upstate New York, Pennsylvania, Ontario, and Quebec.

Name

The word Iroquois has two potential origins. First, the Haudenosaunee often ended their oratory with the phrase hiro kone^[1]; hiro translates as "I have spoken", and kone can be translated several ways, the most common being "in joy", "in sorrow", or "in truth". Hiro kone to the French encountering the Haudenosaunee would sound like "Iroquois", pronounced iʁokwa in French.

Another version is however supported by French linguists such as Henriette Walter and historians such as Dean Snow^[2]. According to this account, "Iroquois" would derive from a Basque expression, Hilokoa, meaning the "killer people". This expression would have been applied to the Iroquois because they were the enemy of the local Algonquians, with whom the Basque fishermen were trading. However, because there is no "l" in the Algonquian languages of the Saint-Lawrence Gulf region, the name became "Hirokoa", which is the name the French like Cartier understood when Algonquians referred to the same pidgin language as the one they used with the Basque. The French then transliterated the word according to their own phonetic rules, thus providing "Iroquois".

Yet another alternate possible origin of the name Iroquois is reputed to come from a French version of a Huron (Wyandot) name—considered an insult—meaning "Black Snakes". The Iroquois were enemies of the Huron and the Algonquin, who were allied with the French, due to their rivalry in the fur trade.

History

Pre-Contact period

The members of this Confederacy speak different languages of the same Iroquoian family, suggesting a common historical and cultural origin, but diverging enough so that the languages have become different. Every Indian tribe has at least one other language than just their home tribe language.

The Union of Nations was established prior to major European contact, complete with a constitution known as the Gayanashagowa (or "Great Law of Peace"), with the help of a memory device in the form of special beads called wampum that have inherent spiritual value (wampum has been inaccurately compared to money in other cultures). Most anthropologists have traditionally speculated that this constitution was created between the middle 1400s and early 1600s. However, recent archaeological studies have suggested the accuracy of the account found in oral tradition, which argues that the federation was formed around August 31, 1142, based on a coinciding solar eclipse (see Fields and Mann, American Indian Culture and Research Journal, vol. 21, #2). Some Westerners have also suggested that the Great Law of Peace was written with European help,^{[citation needed]} although some dismiss this notion as racist.

The two prophets, Ayonwentah (frequently misspelled as Hiawatha due to the Longfellow poem) and Dekanawidah, The Great Peacemaker, brought a message of peace to squabbling tribes. The tribes who joined the League were the Seneca, Onondaga, Oneida, Cayuga and Mohawks. Once they ceased most infighting, they rapidly became one of the strongest forces in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century northeastern North America.

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

Dealing with Europeans

By 1677, the Iroquois formed an alliance with the English through an agreement known as the Covenant Chain. Together, they battled the French to a standstill who were allied with the Huron, another Iroquoian people, but a historic foe of the Confederacy.

The League engaged in a series of wars against the French and their Iroquoian-speaking Wyandot ("Huron") allies. They also put great pressure on the Algonquian peoples of the Atlantic coast and what is now the boreal Canadian Shield region of Canada and not infrequently fought the English colonies as well. During the seventeenth century, they are also credited with having conquered and/or absorbed the Neutral Indians and Erie Tribe to the west as a way of controlling the fur trade, even though other reasons are often given for these wars.

According to Francis Parkman, the Iroquois were at the height of their power in the seventeenth century, with a population of about twelve thousand people. League traditions allowed for the dead to be symbolically replaced through the "Mourning War", raids intended to seize captives to replace lost compatriots and take vengeance on non-members. This tradition was common to native people of the northeast and was quite different from European settlers' notions of combat.

Four delegates of the Iroquoian Confederacy, the "Indian kings", travelled to London, England, in 1710 to meet Queen Anne in an effort to cement 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.^[5]

Eighteenth century

Sometime during the first quarter of the eighteenth century, the Tuscarora fled north from the British colonization of North Carolina and petitioned to become the sixth nation. This is a non-voting position, but places them under the protection of the Confederacy.

During the French and Indian War, the Iroquois sided with the British against the French and their Algonquin allies, both traditional enemies of the Iroquois. The Iroquois hoped that aiding the British would also bring favors after the war. Practically, few Iroquois joined the galloping, and the Battle of Lake George found a group of Mohawk and French ambush a Mohawk-led British column. The British government issued the Royal Proclamation of 1763 after the war, which restricted white settlement beyond the Appalachians, but this was largely ignored by the settlers and local governments.

During the American Revolution, many Tuscarora and the Oneida sided with the Americans, while the Mohawk, Seneca, Onondaga and Cayuga remained loyal to Great Britain. This marked the first major split among the Six Nations. After a series of successful operations against frontier settlements, led by the Mohawk leader Joseph Brant and his British allies, the United States reacted with vengeance. In 1779, George Washington ordered Col. Daniel Brodhead and General John Sullivan to lead expeditions against the Iroquois nations to "not merely overrun, but destroy," the British-Indian alliance. The campaign successfully ended the ability of the British and Iroquois to mount any further significant attacks on American settlements.

In 1794, the Confederacy entered into the Treaty of Canandaigua with the United States. After the American Revolutionary War, Captain Joseph Brant and a group of Iroquois left New York to settle in Canada. 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, Ontario. The original Mohawk settlement was on the south edge of the present-day city at a location favorable for landing canoes. Prior to this land grant, Iroquois settlements did exist in that same area and elsewhere in southern Ontario, extending further north and east (from Lake Ontario eastwards into Quebec around present-day Montreal). Extensive fighting with Huron meant the continuous shifting of territory in southern Ontario between the two groups long before European influences were present.

The Haudenosaunee

The combined leadership of the Nations is known as the Haudenosaunee. It should be noted that "Haudenosaunee" is the term that the people use to refer to themselves. Haudenosaunee means "People of the Long House." The term is said to have been introduced by The Great Peacemaker at the time of the formation of the Confederacy. It implies that the Nations of the confederacy should live together as families in the same longhouse. Symbolically, the Seneca were the guardians of the western door of the "tribal long house," and the Mohawk were the guardians of the eastern door.

The Iroquois nations' political union and democratic government has been credited by some^[6] as one of the influences on the United States Constitution. However, that theory has fallen into disfavor among many historians and is regarded by others as mythology. Historian Jack Rakove^[7] writes: "The voluminous records we have for the constitutional debates of the late 1780s contain no significant references to the Iroquois." Researcher Brian Cook^[8] writes: "The Iroquois probably held some sway over the thinking of the Framers and the development of the U.S. Constitution and the development of American democracy, albeit perhaps indirectly or even subconsciously... However, the opposition is probably also correct. The Iroquois influence is not as great as [some historians] would like it to be, the framers simply did not revere or even understand much of Iroquois culture, and their influences were European or classical - not wholly New World."

However, in 2004 the U.S. Government acknowledged the influence of the Iroquois Constitution on the U.S. Framers.^[9] The Smithsonian also noted the similarities between the two documents, as well as the differences. One significant difference noted was the inclusion of women in the Iroquois Constitution, one group among many that the framers of the U.S. Constitution did not include.

Beliefs

These tribes, comprising what is now the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, lived in the Northeastern territories of what is now the U.S. and Canada, from the St. Lawrence River down to the Delaware Bay and inland to the Great Lakes. Their close contact with Europeans makes investigation of their original mythology and religion extremely difficult, but core beliefs included a conception of life as a struggle between the forces of good and evil^{[citation needed]}. The "All-Father," an all-embracing deity, was formless and had little contact with humans. Spirits animated all of nature and controlled the changing of the season. Key festivals coincided with the major events of the agricultural calendar.^{[citation needed]}

Features of Confederacy

The general features of the Confederacy may be summarized in the following propositions:

The confederacy was a union of Five Tribes, composed of common gentes, under one government on the basis of equality; each Tribe remaining independent in all manners pertaining to local self-government. It created a Great Council of Sachems, who were limited in number, equal in rank and authority, and invested with supreme powers over all matters pertaining to the Confederacy. Fifty Sachemships were created and named in perpetuity in central gentes of the several Tribes; with power in these gentes to fill vacancies, as often as they occurred, by election from among their respective members, and with the further power to depose from office for cause; but the right to invest these Sachems with office was reserved to the General Council. The Sachems of the Confederacy were also Sachems in their respective Tribes, and with the Chiefs of these Tribes formed the Council of each, which was supreme over all matters pertaining to the Tribe exclusively. Unanimity in the Council of the Confederacy was made essential to every public act. In the General Council the Sachems voted by Tribes, which gave to each Tribe a veto over the others. The Council of each Tribe had power to convene the General Council; but the latter had no power to convene itself. The General Council was open to the orators of the people for the discussion of public questions; but the Council alone decided. The Confederacy had no chief Executive Magistrate, or official head. Experiencing the necessity for a General Military Commander, they created the office in a dual form, that one might neutralize the other. The two principal War-chiefs were made equal in powers. Equality between the sexes had a strong adherence in the Confederacy, and the women held real power. The Grand Council of Chiefs were chosen by the Clan Mothers and if any leader failed to comply with the Great Law of Peace, he could be removed by the Clan Mothers.^[10]

Originally, the principal object of the council was to raise up sachems to fill vacancies in the ranks of the ruling body occasioned by death or deposition; but it transacted all other business which concerned the common welfare. Eventually the council fell into three kinds, which may be distinguished as Civil, Mourning, and Religious. The first declared war and made peace, sent and received embassies, entered into treaties with foreign tribes, regulated the affairs of subjugated tribes, as well as other general welfare issues. The second raised up sachems and invested them with office, termed the Mourning Council (Henundonuhseh) because the first of its ceremonies was the lament for the deceased ruler whose vacant place was to be filled. The third was held for the observance of a general religious festival, as an occasion for the confederated tribes to unite under the auspices of a general council in the observance of common religious rites. But as the Mourning Council was attended with many of the same ceremonies, it came, in time, to answer for both. It became the only council they held when the civil powers of the confederacy terminated with the supremacy over them of the state.^[10]

Member nations

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

English	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	Onundagaono	"People of the Hills"	Onondaga Lake
Oneida	Onayotekaono	"People of Upright Stone"	Oneida Lake
Mohawk	Kanien'kéhaka	"People of the Flint"	Mohawk River
Tuscarora1	Ska-Ruh-Reh	"Shirt-Wearing People"	From North Carolina²

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

Modern population

The total number of Iroquois today is hard to establish. About 45,000 Iroquois lived in Canada in 1995. In the 2000 census, 80,822 people in the United States claimed Iroquois ethnicity, with 45,217 of them claiming only Iroquois background. However, tribal registrations in the United States in 1995 numbered about 30,000 in total.

Populations of the Haudenosaunee tribe

Location	Seneca	Cayuga	Onondaga	Tuscarora	Oneida	Mohawk	Combined
Ontario					.	.	.1
Quebec						.
New York	.	448	1596	.	.	.
Wisconsin					.
Oklahoma							.2

Source: Iroquois Population in 1995 by Doug George-Kanentiio [6].
¹ Six Nations of the Grand River Territory.
² Seneca-Cayuga Tribe of Oklahoma.

Haudenosaunee clans

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.

Current clans

Seneca	Cayuga	Onondaga	Tuscarora	Oneida	Mohawk
Wolf	Wolf	Wolf	Wolf	Wolf	Wolf
Bear	Bear	Bear	Bear	Bear	Bear
Turtle	Turtle	Turtle	Turtle	Turtle	Turtle
Snipe	Snipe	Snipe	Snipe	—	—
Deer	—	Deer	Deer	—	—
Beaver	—	Beaver	Beaver	—	—
Heron	Heron	—	—	—	—
Hawk	—	Hawk	—	—	—
—	—	Eel	Eel	—	—

Government

The Iroquois have a representative government known as the Grand Council. Each tribe sends chiefs to act as representatives and make decisions for the whole nation. The number of chiefs has never changed.

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

Modern tribal communities

• Canada
  • Kahnawake Mohawk in Quebec
  • Kanesatake Mohawk in Quebec
  • Mohawk Nation of Akwesasne in Ontario
  • Onyota'a:ka First Nation of 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 (US/CAN) controlled
  • Kanatsiohareke Mohawk — not federally recognized
  • 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

Prominent people of Iroquois ancestry

• Frederick Alexcee, artist (also of Tsimshian ancestry)
• Ki Longfellow, novelist (also of French and Irish ancestry)
• Jay Silverheels, actor, of Canadian Mohawk origin
• Angelina Jolie, actress (also of German and Czechoslovakian on the father's side and French-Canadian and Iroquoian on the mother's side)
• Ely S. Parker, Union officer during American Civil War, Commissioner of Indian Affairs during Ulysses S. Grant's first term as President.
• Graham Greene (actor), actor, of Canadian Oneida ancestry
• Joanne Shenandoah, singer, songwriter, actress and educator of Oneida ancestry
• Kateri Tekakwitha, Catholic patron saint of ecology of Mohawk and Algonquin ancestry

Footnotes

References

• "The Four Indian Kings" in Virtual Vault, an online exhibition of Canadian historical art at Library and Archives Canada
• "The Ordeal of the Longhouse", by Daniel K. Richter
• The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twain
• For a detailed account of Iroquois actions during the American Revolution, see: Williams, Glenn F. Year of the Hangman: George Washington's Campaign Against the Iroquois. Yardley: Westholme Publishing, 2005.
• Who Are the Haudenosaunee?
• Oldest Living Participatory Democracy
• Iroquois Indian Museum, Howes Cave, NY

See also

Iroquois Nationals Red Jacket Sir William Johnson Smoke Johnson Ely S. Parker Sullivan Expedition

History of New York Economy of the Iroquois Gideon Hawley Iroquoian languages Iroquois mythology Six Nations of the Grand River Covenant Chain

Ganondagan State Historic Site False Face Society Mohawk Chapel David Cusick The Kahnawake Iroquois and the Rebellions of 1837-38

External links

• Ganienkeh.net
• Haudenosaunee Home Page : the official source of news and information from the Haudenosaunee.
• Gayanashagowa
• History and origin of the Five Nations
• Long list of Iroquois links
• The Sullivan-Clinton Campaign Hits Iroquoia, 1779
• David Cusick's Sketches of Ancient History of the Six Nations (1828)
• Iroquois Home Page
• Iroquois Confederacy and the Influence Thesis : an examination of theories for and against Iroquois influence on American democratic thought.
• The Wampum Chronicles: Mohawk Territory on the Internet
• The Documentary History of the State of New York, Vol. 1, Ch. I. Papers relating to the Iroquois and other Indian Tribes. 1666—1763

Iroquois Confederacy
Nations	Seneca · Cayuga · Onondaga · Oneida · Mohawk · Tuscarora
Topics	Economy · Languages · Mythology · Great Law of Peace · The Great Peacemaker

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