Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume IX.djvu/427

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

IROQUOIS 413 hostilities. Their next operations were against southern tribes, the Conoys, Tuteloes, Choc- taws, and Catawbas ; but they took in the kin- dred Tuscaroras as a sixth nation, though with- out sachems. The French gave up all claim to the Iroquois in 1713, gathering their converts in villages on the St. Lawrence, where they still exist at Caughnawaga, Lake of the Two Mountains, and St. Regis. In the wars between England and France, which deprived the latter of Canada, the Iroquois were generally neutral, although, influenced by Sir William Johnson, they joined in the campaign against Dieskau, in which the Mohawks lost their chief Hen- drick, and also served against Niagara. Alarm- ed at the progress made by the English, the Iroquois joined Pontiac and slaughtered many of them at Beaver Creek, Venango, Fort Pitt, and on the Niagara. Johnson finally renewed treaties with them in 1764 and 1766, and in 1768 by the treaty of Fort Stanwix obtained, for 10,460 7s. 3d., a grant of all lands not within a line which whites were not to pass, running from the mouth of the Tennessee to the Delaware. English authority being now supreme, vigorous attempts were made to con- vert them to Christianity, the previous efforts having met with little success. The Episcopal church made an enduring conquest in the Mo- hawk tribe. Yet the Iroquois were not all peaceful. A part of the western Iroquois were in arms in 1774, and fought against the whites at the battle of Point Pleasant, one of the fiercest in border history. When the Ameri- can revolution began, the Iroquois led by the Johnsons adhered to the crown, while the French Iroquois in Canada inclined to the cause of the United States. Led by Brant, the Iroquois defeated several parties of troops and massacred the people at Wyoming and Cherry Valley. Col. Butler retaliated by de- stroying Unadilla and Oghkwaga, and Gen. Sullivan in 1779 ravaged their western can- tons ; but Brant in turn scourged the frontiers and punished the Oneidas, who were friendly to the Americans. The close of the war left the Iroquois at the mercy of the exasperated Americans, and nearly all emigrated except the Oneidas and Tuscaroras, settling on Grand riv- er, Canada. By the treaty of Fort Stanwix, Oct. 23, 1784, the United States confirmed the Oneidas and Tuscaroras in their lands, and guaranteed to the other tribes the lands in their actual possession, on their ceding to the general government all W. of a line beginning on Lake Ontario at the mouth of Oyonwayea 'creek, running 8. to the mouth of Buffalo creek, and thence to the N. line of Pennsylva- nia, which it followed W. and S. to the Ohio. This was confirmed by the treaties of 1789, 1790, and 1794. New York in 1785 and 1788 purchased the lands of the Oneidas, Tuscaroras, Onondagas, and Cayugas, except a reservation for each. The Mohawks had removed to Cana- da; the Cayugas broke up in 1795, some joining the Senecas, some going to Canada, and some to the west. In 1826 and 1839 all the Seneca land except the Tonawanda reservation was sold, it is asserted, by persons holding no power in the tribe. In 1 840, 430 Oneidas and 500 Sene- cas emigrated to Canada. In 1820 some Oneidas settled at Green bay, where they purchased lands. A party of several tribes was lured beyond the Missouri in 1846, but nearly all perished. Some Senecas who had joined the Shawnees were more fortunate. The war of 1812 arrayed the English and American Iro- quois against each other ; hut they have since been at peace. While the league subsisted, each tribe was divided into families, those of the Bear, Wolf, and Tortoise in all the tribes, and others in some only. Each family had certain sachemships hereditary in the female line. These sachems formed the ruling body of the league, Onondaga being the central point or council fire, and the Atotarho or Sagochienda- guete, the head Onondaga sachem, being the chief of the league. No one could marry in his own tribe; the children belonged to the mother's tribe. Their cosmogony was that of the Hurons, and they worshipped Agreskoi by offerings of flesh, tobacco, and human sacrifice. They honored genii or spirits, especially those of maize, pumpkins, and beans. After the la- bors of the French missionaries, God, under the name Niio (Dieu) or Hawenniio (He is the mas- ter), seems to have been the object of worship among the so-called pagan party. They interred the dead temporarily, and every tenth year col- lected all the remains in one long grave lined with furs, adding kettles, arms, &c. Prisoners were either adopted or tortured and put to death at the stake. The men wore a breech cloth, the women a short petticoat, and both wore moc- casons, leggins, and in colder weather a fur mantle. The houses were of bark laid over an arched arbor-like frame. In their greatest prosperity they numbered not more than 15,- 000, and they are now, according to the offi- cial American and Canadian reports of 1873, 13,660, distributed as follows: 7,034 in Can- ada, viz., 759 Mohawks on Quinte bay, 2,992 of the Six Nations on Grand river, 633 Onei- das on the Thames, 1,491 Caughnawagas at Sault St. Louis, 911 at St. Regis, and about 250 at the lake of the Two Mountains; 6,626 in the United States, viz., 5,141 Senecas, Ononda- gas, Oneidas, Oayugas, Tuscaroras, and St. Re- gis in New York, 1,279 Oneidas at Green bay, and 206 Senecas in the Quapaw agency. The most eminent men of the nation were Garakon- thie, the friend of the French, Dekanisora, Ta- werahe, Kryn or the Great Mohawk, Hendrick, Cornplanter, Farmer's Brother, Brant, Red Jacket, Ganeodiyo, the prophet and reformer of the heathen band, Dr. Wilson, Col. Ely S. Par- ker, who served on Grant's staff and became commissioner of Indian affairs, and Cusick, a Tuscarora, who wrote a curious account of early Iroquois traditional history. The missions of various bodies have made most of the Iro- quois Christians; the Mohawks and Oneidas