The Confederation of the Haudenosaunee
(more commonly known by the French name, Iroquois, or by the English,
Six Nations) was a remarkable political achievement. This confederation,
developed prior to any European contact, turned five (later six)
small Native American nations into a political and military power
on the North American continent, holding a balance between French
and English interests.
This was a genuine confederation,
not simply an ad hoc alliance. They had a formal Constitution
and successfully coordinated their wars, foreign policy and trade
policy. The long success of the Iroquois Confederation is in marked
contrast to the short, unhappy run of the U.S. Articles of Confederation.
For purposes of internal communication, the Six Nations developed
a system of relay runners. The runners ran in pairs and ran day
and night, navigating by the stars at night. This system was as
good or better than anything the colonists had for the first hundred
years. By concerted action, the Six Nations acquired an empire:
"At its maximum in 1680,
their empire extended west from the north shore of Chesapeake
Bay through Kentucky to the junction of the Ohio and Mississippi
Rivers; then north following the Illinois River to the south
end of Lake Michigan; east across all of lower Michigan, southern
Ontario and adjacent parts of southwestern Quebec; and finally
south through northern New England west of the Connecticut River
through the Hudson and upper Delaware Valleys across Pennsylvania
back to the Chesapeake. With two exceptions - the Mingo occupation
of the upper Ohio Valley and the Caughnawaga migration to the
upper St. Lawrence - the Iroquois did not, for the most part,
physically occupy this vast area but remained in their upstate
New York villages.
[Lee Sultzman, "Iroquois
History," in Indian Histories. See also: Paul Redmond
Drew, "Sir
William Johnson — Indian Superintendent."
The Early American Review, Fall 1996.]
The expulsion of the French from
Canada and the growth of the American colonies, however, highlighted
the fundamental numerical weakness of the Six Nations. The total
Iroquois population in 1763 was estimated to be 12,000 persons.
This compares with more than 50,000 whites west of the Appalachians
in 1775 with more coming. The total U.S. population reported by
the first census in 1790 was almost four million (see Growth
& Expansion of U.S., Part II).
Given U.S. expansionist pressures
and military power, it is unlikely that the Six Nations could
ever have done more than delay the expansion of the U.S. into
the Northwest territories. Political problems, moreover, undermined
the Haudenosaunee efforts. Unable to agree upon a common strategy
for the Revolutionary War, the Nations split — the majority
siding with England and the minority with the colonies. In a highly
symbolic act, the council fire was extinguished as the Confederacy
broke into factions.
During the Revolutionary War in
1779, General Washington dispatched General Sullivan and 4,000
troops in a punitive, retaliatory expedition against the hostile
faction:
"The principal expedition
of this kind, was directed against the Six Nations of Indians,
who inhabited the fertile country between the western settlements
of New York and Pennsylvania, and the lakes of Canada…To
them, many refugee Tories had fled, and directed them to the
settlements, which they laid waste, and at the same time massacred
the inhabitants.
…
The instructions he gave to Gen.
Sullivan…were very particular, and much more severe than
was usual. Sullivan, with a considerable force, penetrated into
the country of the Indians in three directions, laid wasted
their crops, and burnt their towns…The late residence
of the savages was rendered so far uninhabitable, that they
were reduced to the necessity of seeking an asylum in the more
remote western country."
[From the Life
of George Washington, written by David Ramsay,
a contemporary of Washington. Both this and the following quote
from Washington himself are from the Archiving
Early America site.]
One of the Six Nations, the Oneida,
aided the Americans in this expedition. They earlier supported
the colonists at the critical Battles of Fort Stanwix and Saratoga
coming into direct conflict with other Iroquois tribes, and supplied
food to Washington's army at Valley Forge. [For an Oneida Nation
account of their role in the Revolutionary War, see Oneida
Indian Nation: Cutlure and History.] However, the
Oneida suffered terribly from the retaliation led by the Mohawk
sachem and commissioned British Army Captain, Joseph Brant (Thayendanega):
"Brant…enlisted a large
war party that winter to punish the Oneida and attacked their
villages. Hundreds were killed in this Iroquois civil war, and
the Oneida fled to the Americans at Schenectady. They spent
the rest of the war in brutal poverty and misery but continued
to serve as American scouts." [Sulzman.]
By the end of the war, the Iroquois
population had fallen to less than 5,000 with 2,000 of these in
Canada [Sulzman],
and the Confederation remained divided. In 1784 the U.S. negotiated
a [Source: Kahonwes
Mohawk & Iroquois Homepage] with the New York State
Iroquois in which the Iroquois relinquished their claims to the
Ohio Valley. In 1787 the Northwest Ordinance formally opened the
Northwest territory for expansion.
The Six Nations had paid a
quick and terrible price for disunity.
