Iroquois

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For other uses, see Iroquois (disambiguation).

Iroquois
Total population	125,000 (incl. 30,000 - 80,000 in U.S., 45,000 in Canada)
Regions with significant populations	Canada (southern Quebec, southern Ontario) United States (New York Wisconsin, Oklahoma)
Language	English, French, Mohawk
Religion	Christianity, Longhouse religion
Related ethnic groups	other Iroquoians

The Iroquois Confederacy (Haudenosaunee, also known as the League of Peace and Power, Five Nations, or Six Nations) is a group of First Nations/Native Americans. It was made up of six tribes: the Mohawks, the Oneidas, the Onondagas, the Cayugas, and the Senecas. A sixth tribe, the Tuscarora, joined after the original five nations were formed. They are also sometimes called the people of the Long house. They are often referred to as Iroquois, a term that some members of the group consider derogatory.

The Confederacy was based, at the time of the arrival of the Europeans, in the northeastern U.S. in what is now upstate New York, as well as parts of Pennsylvania, Ontario, and Quebec.

[edit] Protohistoric period

Iroquois, in Buffalo, New York, 1914

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, although some dismiss this notion as racist.

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

The two prophets, Ayonwentah (frequently misspelled as Hiawatha due to the Longfellow poem) and "Deganawidah, 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 17th and 18th century northeastern North America.

According to legend, an evil Onondaga chieftan 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.

Haudenosaunee flag, representing the original five nations that were united by the Peacemaker. The tree symbol in the center represents an Eastern White Pine, the needles of which are clustered in groups of five.[1] The flag 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." [2]

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 boreal Canadian Shield region of Canada and not infrequently fought the English colonies as well. During the 17th 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 17th century, with a population of around 12,000 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.

[edit] The 18th century

In 1720, the Tuscarora fled north from the European 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 fighting 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 overun, 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 English 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 favourable 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.

[edit] Beliefs

These tribes, mostly members of the Iroquois nation, 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. 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.

[edit] 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. The word "Iroquois" has two potential origins. First, the Haudenosaunee often ended their oratory with the phrase "hiro kone"; "hiro" which translates as "I have spoken", "kone" which 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. An 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. 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 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 writes: "The voluminous records we have for the constitutional debates of the late 1780s contain no significant references to the Iroquois." Researcher Brian Cook 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.

[edit] Member nations

Note 1: Member of Original Five Nations (listed from west to north)

Note 2: Sixth Nation (Joined in 1720)

[edit] 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.

Note 1: Six Nations of the Grand River Territory

Note 2: Seneca-Cayuga Tribe of Oklahoma

[edit] 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.

[edit] Government

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

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

[edit] 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

[edit] References

• "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

[edit] See also

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

• Iroquois Nationals
• Red Jacket
• Sir William Johnson
• Smoke Johnson
• Ely S. Parker
• Sullivan Expedition
• History of New York
• Economy of the Iroquois
• Iroquoian languages
• Iroquois mythology
• Six Nations of the Grand River
• Covenant Chain
• Ganondagan State Historic Site
• False Face Society
• Mohawk Chapel
• David Cusick

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Iroquois

• 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