Information AboutIroquois |
The Iroquois Confederacy (also known as the "League of Peace and Power"; the "Five Nations"; the "Six Nations"; or the "People of the , 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 . NAME The word Iroquois has two potential origins. First, the Haudenosaunee often ended their oratory with the phrase hiro kone; 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. 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. HISTORY Prehistoric period , New York , 1914.]] 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. 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 Culture s). Most Anthropologist s 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. 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 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. , 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. {Link without Title} The flag is based on the " 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 Indian s 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."The Four Indian Kings" in Virtual Vault , an online exhibition of Canadian historical art at Library and Archives Canada Eighteenth century In 1720, 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 . 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 word ''Iroquois'' has two potential origins. First, the Haudenosaunee often ended their oratory with the phrase ''hiro kone'' ; ''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 iokwa 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. The Iroquois nations' political union and . 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 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." 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. 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. 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. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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