Essay On Iroquois Tribe

The Iroquois settled and dominated the region of modern northern New York in several ways. For one, they spoke a number of distinct languages to communicate to each other and different tribes (Klein 4). Second, the Iroquois tribe was more formally structured, socially and politically then most of the other tribes. Starting around 1000 ad, the Iroquois colonized Lawrence Valley and cultivated maize. By 1300 ad they moved away from hunting and gathering and started to build longhouses to obtain more people in. By the fifteenth century they moved their villages frequently and in search of resources such as wood and food due to dense populations. When the Iroquois moved from one village to the next they became a “warrior culture” because they had a …show more content…
At the top was the political leaders followed by different clans (Klein 4). Between clans, murders and fights would break out often. In order to deplete these arguments the Iroquois came up with a plan to reduce domestic warfare and maintain peace. Moving into the sixteenth century, while in New York the Iroquois created confederacies (Klein 5). The confederacy contained five North American Indian tribes: the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca (Reid 1). Confederacy’s made the Iroquois the most intimidating threat to European colonization’s (Klein 6). In this confederacy, chiefs met regularly to plan how to resolve any issues. They had great control of the fur trade, which stated by Reid, “strengthen the confederacy because tribal interests often complemented one another” and were a fierce representation of warriors as compared to other tribes of the time and raised a strong sense of cultural superiority (Klein 6). The Iroquois dominated northern New York because of their long history of resistance to other tribes and fierce reputation as warriors. This is what helped them survive throughout the years of European