The Iroquois believed their league originated from the efforts of a man named Deganawida, or “Great Peacemaker.” From his efforts, he bound the five powerful tribes of the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca of what is now upstate New York and French Canada into a powerful Confederacy of the through a system of kinship and consensus. It is fitting, then, that diplomacy was one of the Iroquois’ (or Haudenosaunee, as they called themselves) greatest strengths, allowing them to maintain power and prestige even while surrounded by the great colonial powers of Great Britain and France. While Europeans overran neighboring Indian nations, the Haudenosaunee stood firm, adapting their diplomatic strategies as necessary to maintain their
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The 17th century was an unstable chapter in the League’s history, when the five tribes fought the Algonquian peoples for control of the Ohio River valley. Both belligerent’s main objective during these “Beaver Wars” was control of the fur trade. This, coupled with disease and famine caused the Haudenosaunee’s population to rapidly decline from 20,000 to 5,000 by 1700. The Haudenosaunee realized this continued path would lead to their decline. A neutralist movement led by Onondaga chief Teganissorens grew in the 1690s, and his efforts culminated in 1701 when the five nations signed Great Peace of Montreal with the French, and the Nanfan Treaty with the English in Albany. In addition to ceding land gained by conquest during the beaver wars, these treaties created a “Covenant Chain,” or a statement of friendship (although not a military alliance), between the French, English, and Haudenosaunee. This created a situation which greatly benefitted the Haudenosaunee by placing themselves as middlemen, where the tribes could curry the favor of the Europeans for iron, muskets, and gifts of wampum. Both colonial powers attempted to gain a diplomatic advantage over the other by constantly renewing, or “brightening,” the Covenant chain by giving more gifts to the
The 17th century was an unstable chapter in the League’s history, when the five tribes fought the Algonquian peoples for control of the Ohio River valley. Both belligerent’s main objective during these “Beaver Wars” was control of the fur trade. This, coupled with disease and famine caused the Haudenosaunee’s population to rapidly decline from 20,000 to 5,000 by 1700. The Haudenosaunee realized this continued path would lead to their decline. A neutralist movement led by Onondaga chief Teganissorens grew in the 1690s, and his efforts culminated in 1701 when the five nations signed Great Peace of Montreal with the French, and the Nanfan Treaty with the English in Albany. In addition to ceding land gained by conquest during the beaver wars, these treaties created a “Covenant Chain,” or a statement of friendship (although not a military alliance), between the French, English, and Haudenosaunee. This created a situation which greatly benefitted the Haudenosaunee by placing themselves as middlemen, where the tribes could curry the favor of the Europeans for iron, muskets, and gifts of wampum. Both colonial powers attempted to gain a diplomatic advantage over the other by constantly renewing, or “brightening,” the Covenant chain by giving more gifts to the