INTRODUCTION / THE
HISTORICAL POCAHONTAS
Hers is the one Indian name that every school child
knows. Today, Pocahontas is best
remembered as a romantic heroine who rescued Captain John Smith, the leader of
the colonists in Jamestown, Virginia, from execution by her father's
people. But her brief life also
illustrates the broader collision of cultures that occurred when English
settlers arrived in colonial America.
She was born about 1595, the daughter of the Indian chief
Powhatan, the leader of a powerful Indian confederacy. Comprised of some 30 tribes totaling about
20,000 people, the confederacy occupied much of what is now known as Virginia.
She was about twelve years old when the English established their first
permanent America settlement at Jamestown.
During her life, she would play a pivotal role in maintaining friendly
relations between the Indians and the English.
According to a story told by Captain John Smith in his book True
Relation of Virginia, Smith was captured by local Indians while exploring
the countryside. Powhatan, the Indian
chief, was about to have him executed with a stone club. But Pocahontas, Smith claimed, placed her
head upon his and begged her father to spare him. No one knows for sure if the story is true, because Smith did not
mention the incident in the earliest edition of his book. But it appears that Pocahontas remained
Smith's friend, warning him of at least one Indian plan to attack Jamestown.
When she was about 14, she reportedly married a chief in her
tribe. Temporarily, she disappears from
the colonial records only to reappear in 1613, when she was lured aboard an
English ship and held captive. It isaround this time that she is said to have
fallen in love with her future husband.
Her marriage in 1614 to John Rolfe, the Virginia settler who
learned how to cure tobacco, helped bring peace between the the English and the
Powhatan confederacy. In a letter to
his patron, Rolfe addresses some of the concerns raised by his marriage, the
first important English-Indian marriage in colonial American history:
...[I am] in no way
led (so farre forth as mans weaknesse may permit) with the unbridled desire of
carnall affection: but for the good of this plantation, for the honour of our
countrie, for the glory of God, for my owne salvation, and for the converting to the true knowledge
of God and Jesus Christ, an unbelieving creature, namely Pokahuntas....
This letter documents the
mixture of motives that led him to marry someone (in his words) "whose
education hath bin rude, her manners barbarous...and so discrepant in all
nurtriture from my selfe." After her marriage, Pocahontas converted to
Christianity and adopted an English name, Rebecca.
Pocahontas's story ends tragically. In 1616 she went with her
husband to London to help raise funds for the struggling colonists in
Virginia. The English celebrated her as
an Indian "princess," but while she was waiting to return to America,
she contracted smallpox and died in 1617--one of countless Indians to die from
European diseases.
Her husband's life also had an unhappy ending. After her death, he returned to Virginia,
where he became a member of the Virginia council. But in 1622, he was one of several hundred colonists killed during
an uprising led by Pocahontas' uncle.
An important cultural intermediary between two cultures,
Pocahontas's life demonstrates the difficulty of achieving an accommodation
between the Indian and English ways of life.
While most Americans are
familiar with Columbus's initial impressions of the Indians, far fewer know how
Indians perceived the arrival of European explorers. The three following extracts offer readers a sense of the
Indians' first impressions and reactions.
William Wood (1634)
An English colonist who
lived in Massachusetts Bay Colony from 1629 to 1633 describes the Indian
reaction to the arrival of the first European ships.
These Indians being strangers to arts and sciences, and being
unacquainted with the inventions that are common to a civilized people, are
ravished with admiration at the first view of any such sight. They took the first ship they saw for a
walking island, the mast to be a tree, the sail white clouds, and the
discharging of ordnance for lightning and thunder, which did much trouble them,
but this thunder being over and this moving-island steadied with an anchor,
they manned out their canoes to go and pick strawberries there. But being saluted by the way with a
broadside, they cried out, "What much hoggery, so big walk, and so big
speak, and by and by kill"; which caused them to turn back, not daring to
approach till they were sent for.
Source: William Wood, New
England's Prospect (orig. 1634; Boston, 1897).
The Gentleman of Elvas
(1557)
"Think...of what
must be the effect...of the sight of you"
A member of Hernando de
Soto's expedition (perhaps Alvaro Fernandez) recorded the reaction of a Creek
Chief to de Soto's Arrival at the Village of Achese in Georgia.
Very high, powerful, and good master. The things that seldom happen bring
astonishment. Think, then, what must be
the effect, on me and mine, of the sight of you and your people, whom we have at
no time seen, astride the fierce brutes, your horses, entering with such speed
and fury into my country, that we had no tidings of your coming--things so
altogether new, as to strike awe and terror into our hearts, which it was not
our nature to resist, so that we should receive you with the sobriety due to so
kingly and famous a lord. Trusting to
your greatness and personal qualities, I hope no fault will be found in me, and
that I shall rather receive favors, of which one is that with my person, my country,
and my vassals, you will do as with your own things; and another, that you will
tell me who you are, whence you come, whither you go, and what it is you seek,
that I may the better serve you.
Source: A Relation of the Invasion and Conquest
of Florida by the Spanish (London, 1686).
Joseph Nicolar (1893)
"They take...[our]
hand in their own"
Nicolar, a Penobscot,
recorded a Penobscot oral tradition about the arrival of the first Europeans.
...exciting news was brought from the extreme north to the
effect that the white man's big canoe had come, and had landed its people who
are still remaining on the land...and have planted some heavy blocks of wood in
the form of a cross. These people are
white and the lower part of the faces of the elder ones are covered with hair,
and the hair is in different colors, and the eyes are not alike, some have dark
while others have light colored eyes, some have eyes the color of the blue
sky. They have shown nothing only
friendship, they take...[our] hand in their own and bow their heads down and
make songs in the direction of the stars; and their big canoe is filled with
food which they eat and also give some to those that come to them and make
signs of friendship.
Source: Joseph Nicolar, The
Life and Traditions of the Red Man (Bangor, 1893), 128.
Chrestien Le Clercq
(1676)
A French missionary
relates the response of a Micmac chief to French criticisms of his peoples' way
of life.
...I am greatly astonished that the French have so little
cleverness, as they seem to exhibit in the matter of which thou hast just told
me on their behalf, in the effort to persuade us to convert our poles, our
barks, and our wigwam into those houses of stone and of wood which are tall and
lofty, according to their account, as these trees. Very well! But why now do men of five to six feet in height need
houses which are sixty to eighty?...hast thou as much ingenuity and cleverness
as the Indians, who carry their houses and their wigwams with them so they may
lodge wheresoever they please, independently of any seignior whatsoever?...Thou
sayest of us also that we are the most miserable and unhappy of all men, living
without religion, without manners, without honour, without social order, and,
in a word, without any rules, like the beasts in our woods and our forests,
lacking bread, wine, and a thousand other comforts which thou hast in
superfluity in Europe....I beg thee now to believe that, all miserable as we
seem in thine eyes, we consider ourselves nevertheless much happier than thou
in this, that we are very content with the little that we have; and believe
also once for all, I pray, that thou deceivest thyself greatly if thou thinkest
to persuade us that thy country is better than ours. For if France, as thou sayest, is a little terrestrial paradise,
art thou sensible to leave it?...Now tell me this one thing, if thou hast any
sense: Which of these two is the wisest and happiest--he who labours without
ceasing and only obtains, and that with great trouble, enough to live on, or he
who rests in comfort and finds all that he needs in the pleasure of hunting and
fishing?
Source: Chrestien Le
Clercq, New Relations of Gaspesia, with the Customs and Religion of the
Gaspesian Indians (1691), translated and edited by William F. Ganong
(Toronto, 1910), 103-6.
THE DIVERSITY OF NATIVE
AMERICA
The Southwest
Juan de Onate (1599)
"Their government
is one of complete freedom"
In February 1598, Juan de
Onate, a Mexican mine owner, led 130 soldiers, many slaves, eight Franciscan
missionaries, and 7,000 cattle north of Mexico into what is now the American
Southwest. In this letter, he describes
the people he encountered.
The people are as a rule of good disposition, generally of the
color of those of New Spain, and almost the same in customs, dress, grinding of
meal, food, dances, songs, and in many other respects. This is not true of their languages, which
here are numerous and different from those in Mexico. Their religion consists in worshipping of idols, of which they
have many; in their temples they worship them in their own way with fire,
painted reeds, feathers, and general offerings of almost everything: little
animals, birds, vegetables, etc. Their
government is one of complete freedom, for although they have some chieftains
they obey them badly and in very few matters.
We have seen other nations, such as Querechos or Vaqueros, who
live among the Cibola [Pueblo Indians] in tents of tanned hides. The Apaches, some of whom we also saw, are
extremely numerous. Although I was told
that they lived in rancherias, in recent days I have learned that they live in
pueblos the same as the people here.... They are a people that has not yet publicly
rendered obedience to his majesty....Because of failure to exercise as much
caution as was necessary, my maese de campo and twelve companions were killed
at a fortress pueblo named Acoma, which must have contained three thousand
Indians more or less. In punishment of
their wickedness and treason to his majesty...and as a warning to others, I
razed and burned their pueblo....
Source: George P. Hammond
and Agapito Rey, eds., Don Juan de Onate:Colonizer of New Mexico, 1595-1628
(Albuquerque: University of New Mexico, 1953), Vol. 1, 480-85.
The Plains
Pedro de Castenada
(1542)
"There was such a
multitude of cows [buffalo] that they were numberless"
This extract offers one of
the earliest Spanish accounts of the Plains Indians.
...in these plains there was such a multitude of cows that
they were numberless. These cows are
like those of Castile, and somewhat larger, as they have a little hump on the
withers, and they are more reddish, approaching black....Having proceeded many
days through these plains, they came to a settlement of about 200 inhabited
houses. The houses were made of the
skins of cows, tanned white, like pavilions or army tents. The maintenance or sustenance of these
Indians comes entirely from the cows, because they neither sow nor reap
corn. With the skins they make their
houses, with the skins they clothe and shoe themselves; of the skins they make
rope, and also of the wool; from the sinews they make thread, with which they
sew their clothes and also their houses; from the bones they make awls; the
dung serves them for wood, because there is nothing else in that country; the
stomachs serve them for pitchers and vessels form which they drink; they live
on the flesh.... These people have dogs like those in this country, except that
they are somewhat larger, and they load these dogs like beasts of burden, and
make saddles for them like our pack saddles; and they fasten them with their
leather thongs, and these make their backs sore on the withers like pack
animals. When they go hunting, they
load these with their necessities, and when they move--for these Indians are
not settled in one place, since they travel wherever the cows move, to support
themselves--these dogs carry their houses and they have the sticks of their
houses dragging along tied on to the pack-saddles besides the load which they
carry on top, and the load may be, according to the dog, from thirty-five to
fifty pounds.
Source: George P. Hammond
and Agapito Rey, Narratives of the Coronado Expedition, 1540-42
(Albuquerque: University of New Mexico, 1940), 208-9.
The Middle Colonies
William Penn (1683)
"In liberality
they excel"
Pennsylvania's founder
offers a vivid description of the indigenous people of that area.
The natives I shall consider in their persons, language,
manners, religion and government....For their persons, they are generally tall,
straight, well-built, and of singular proportion; they tread strong and clever,
and mostly walk with a lofty chin....They grease themselves with bear's fat
clarified, and, using no defense against sun or weather, their skins must needs
be swarthy....
Their language is lofty, yet narrow, but like the Hebrew; in
signification full, like short-hand in writing; one word serveth in the place
of three, and the rest are supplied by the understanding of the hearer....
Of their customs and manners there is much to be said; I will
begin with children. So soon as they
are born, they wash them in water, and while very young and in cold weather to
choose they plunge them in the rivers to harden and embolden them. Having wrapped them in a clout [cloth] they
lay them on a straight, thin board, a little more than the length and breath of
the child, and swaddle it fast upon the board to make it straight.... The
children will go [walk] very young, at nine months commonly; they wear only a
small clout round their waist till they are big; if boys, they go fishing till
ripe for the woods, which is about fifteen; then they hunt, and, after having
given some good proofs of their manhood by a good return of skins, they may
marry....The girls stay with their mothers and help to hoe the ground, plant
corn, and carry burdens....The age they marry at, if women, is about thirteen
and fourteen; if men, seventeen and eighteen....
Their houses are mats or barks of trees set on poles in the
fashion of an English barn....
Their diet is maize or indian corn, divers ways prepared;
sometimes roasted in the ashes, sometimes beaten and boiled with water, which
they call "homine"....
But in liberality they excel; nothing is too good for their
friends. Give them a fine gun, coat, or
other thing, it may pass twenty hands before it sticks....Wealth circulateth
like the blood, all parts partake....
If they die, they bury them with their apparel, be they man or
woman, and the nearest of kin fling something precious with them as a token of
their love: their mourning is blacking of their faces, which they continue for
a year....
Their worship consists of two parts, sacrifice and cantico:
their sacrifice is their first fruits; the first and fattest buck they kill
goeth to the fire where he is all burnt....The other part is their cantico,
performed by round dances, sometimes words, sometimes songs, then shouts....In
the fall, when the corn cometh in, they begin to feast one another....
Their government is by kings, which they call
"Sachems" and those by succession, but always of the mother's
side....
Every king hath his council, and that consists of all the old
and wise men of his nation, which perhaps is two hundred people. Nothing of moment is undertaken, be it war,
peace, selling of land, or traffic, without advising with them, and which is
more, with the young men too....
The justice they have is pecuniary. In case of any wrong or evil fact, be it murder itself, they
atone by feasts and presents of wampum, which is proportioned to the quality of
the offence or person injured, or of the sex they are of: for in case they kill
a woman they pay double....
Source: William Penn, A
Letter from William Penn (London, 1683).
The Northeast
Pierre de Charlevoix
(1761)
"Amongst the Huron
nations, the women name the counselors"
Europeans expressed utter
astonishment at women's important economic and political role within many
Indian societies. A Jesuit priest describes life among Iroquoian-speaking
Hurons whom he encountered.
It must be agreed Madam, that the nearer we view our Indians,
the more good qualities we discover in them: most of the principles which serve
to regulate their conduct, the general maxims by which they govern themselves,
and the essential part of their character, discover nothing of the
barbarian....
In the northern parts, and wherever the Algonquin tongue
prevails, the dignity of chief is elective; and the whole ceremony of election
and installation consists in some feasts, accompanied with dances and songs:
the chief elect likewise never fails to make the panegyrick of his predecessor,
and to invoke his genius. Among the
Hurons, where this dignity is hereditary, the succession is continued through
the women, so that at the death of a chief, it is not his own, but his sister's
son who succeeds him; or, in default of which, his nearest relation in the
female line. When the whole branch happens
to be extinct, the noblest matron of the tribe or in the nation chuses the
person she approves of most, and declares him chief.... These chiefs generally
have no great marks of outward respect paid them, and if they are never
disobeyed, it is because they know how to set bounds to their authority. It is true that they request or propose,
rather than command; and never exceed the boundaries of that small share of
authority with which they are vested....
Nay more, each family has a right to chuse a counselor of its
own, and an assistant to the chief, who is to watch for their interest; and
without whose consent the chief can undertake nothing.... Amongst the Huron
nations, the women name the counselors, and often chuse persons of their own
sex....
The women have the chief authority amongst all the nations of
the Huron language.... But if this be their lawful constitution, their practice
is seldom agreeable to it. In fact, the
men never tell the women anything they would have to be kept secret; and rarely
any affair of consequence is communicated to them, though all is done in their
name, and the chiefs are no more than their lieutenants....
Source: Pierre de Charlevoix, Journal of a Voyage
to North America (London, 1761).
INDIGENOUS CUSTOMS
Childbirth and Infancy
Adriaen Van der Donck
(1655)
"They depart...to
a secluded place"
The legal officer of a
Dutch estate in New Netherlands describes childbirth in that area.
...When the time of their delivery is near...they depart alone
to a secluded place near a brook, or stream of water, where they can be
protected from the winds, and prepare a shelter for themselves with mats and
covering, where, provided with provisions necessary for them, they await their
delivery without the company or aid of any person. After their children are born, and if they are males, although
the weather be ever so cold and freezing, they immerse them some time in the
water, which, they say, makes them strong brave men and hardy hunters. After
the immersion they wrap their children in warm clothing....
The native Indian women of every grade always nurse their own
children, nor do we know of any who have trusted that parental duty to
others....When they suckle or are pregnant, they in those cases practice the strictest
abstinence, because, as they say, it is beneficial to their offspring, and to
nursing children. In the meantime,
their women are not precise or offended, if their husbands have foreign
associations, but they observe the former custom so religiously, that they hold
it to be disgraceful for a woman to recede from it before her child is weaned,
which they usually do when their children are a year old, and those who wean
their children before that period are despised. During a certain season, their women seclude themselves, and do
not appear abroad or permit themselves to be seen of men.
Source: Adriaen Van der
Donck, Description of the New Netherlands (1655), trans. by Jeremiah
Johnson, Collections of the New-York Historical Society, 2nd series, volume 1
(1841).
John Long (1791)
"From their infant
state they endeavor to promote an independent spirit"
A resident of North
Carolina describes childrearing customs among the indigenous people of that
area.
A mother suckles her child till it attains the age of four or
five years, and sometimes till is is six or seven. From their infant state they endeavor to promote an independent
spirit. They are never known either to
beat or scold them, lest the martial disposition which is to adorn their future
life and character should be weakened; on all occasions they avoid everything
compulsive, that the freedom with which they wish them to think and act may not
be controlled. If they die, they lament
their death with unfeigned tears, and even for months after their decease will
weep at the graves of their departed children.
Source: John Long, Voyages
and Travels of an Indian Interpreter and Trader (London, 1791).
Waiyautitsa (1922)
"It is the duty of
Waiyautitsa's mother-in-law, the child's paternal grandmother, to look after
mother and child during the confinement"
In 1922, Elsie Clews
Parsons, one of the nation's leading anthropologists and sociologists,
published a biography of a Zuni woman, which presents a vivid picture of the
persistence of Zuni lifeways into the twentieth century.
Waiyautitsa is now...an
expectant mother....On her husband fall a number of...pregnancy tabus....If he
hunts and maims an animal, the child will be similarly maimed--deformed or
perhaps blind. If he joins in a masked
dance, the child may have some mask-suggested misshape or some eruption like
the paint on the mask. If he sings a
great deal, the child will be a cry-baby....
Perhaps Waiyautitsa has wished to determine the sex of the
child. In that case she may have made a
pilgrimage with a rain priest to Corn Mesa to plant a prayer stick which has to
be cut and painted in one way for a boy, in another way for a girl....Wanting a
girl--and girls are wanted in Zuni quite as much as boys, if not
more--Waiyautitsa need not make the trip to the mesa; instead her husband may
bring her to wear in her belt scrapings from a stone in a phallic shrine near
the mesa. When labor sets in and the
pains are slight, indicating, women think, a girl, Waiyautitsa may be told by her
mother, "Don't sleep, or you will have a boy." A nap during labor effects a change of
sex....
After the birth, Waiyautitsa will lie in for several days,
four, eight, ten or twelve, according to the custom of her family. Whatever the custom, if she does not observe
it, she runs the risk of "drying up" and dying....
It is the duty of Waiyautitsa's mother-in-law, the child's
paternal grandmother, to look after mother and child during the confinement,
and at its close to carry the child outdoors at dawn and present him or her to
the Sun. Had Waiyautitsa lost children,
she might have invited a propitious friend, some woman who had many children
and lost none, to attend the birth and be the first to pick up the child and
blow into his mouth....
Left alone, a baby runs great risk--some family ghost may come
and hold him, causing him to die within four days. And so a quasi-fetichistic ear of corn, a double ear thought of
as mother and child, is left alongside the baby as a protector. That the baby may teethe promptly, his gums
may be rubbed by one who has been bitten by a snake--"snakes want to
bite." To make the child's hair
grow long and thick, his grandfather or uncle may puff the smoke of native
tobacco on his head. That the child may
not be afraid in the dark, water-soaked embers are rubbed over his heart the
first time he is taken out at night....
Source: Elsie Clews
Parsons, ed., American Indian Life (New York: B.W. Huebsch, 1922), 167-69.
Gabriel Sagard (1632)
He will reply to her
that this is a girl's work and will do none of it"
A French missionary
describes boyhood and girlhood among the Huron.
The usual and daily practice of the young boys is none other
than drawing the bow and shooting the arrow, making it rise and glide in a
straight line a little higher than the ground.
They play a game with curved sticks, making them slide over the snow and
hit a ball of light wood, just as is done in our parts; they learn to throw the
prong with which they spear fish, and practice other little sports and
exercises, and then they put in an appearance at the lodge at meal-times, or
else when they feel hungry. But if a
mother asks her son to go for water or wood or do some similar household
service, he will reply to her that this is a girl's work and will do none of
it....
Just as the little boys have their special training and teach
one another to shoot with the bow as soon as they begin to walk, so also the
little girls, whenever they begin to put one foot in front of the other, have a
little stick put into their hands to train them and teach them early to pound
corn, and when they are grown somewhat they also play various little games with
their companions, and in the course of these small frolics they are trained
quietly to perform trifling and petty householdduties, sometimes also to do the
evil that they see going on before their eyes...They vie with one another as to
which shall have the most lovers....
Source: Gabriel Sagard, The
Long Journey to the Country of the Hurons (1632), ed. by George M. Wrong,
trans. by H.H. Langston (Toronto: Champlain Society, 1939).
John Heckewelder (1819)
"A strong
sentiment of respect for their elders"
A Moravian minister
describes childrearing practices among the Indians of Pennsylvania.
The first step that parents take toward the education of their
children, is to prepare them for future happiness, by impressing upon their
tender minds, that they are indebted for their existence to a great, good and
benevolent Spirit, who not only has given them life, but has ordained them for
certain great purposes. That he has
given them a fertile extensive country well stocked with game of every kind for
their subsistence, and that by one of his inferior spirits he has also sent
down to them from above corn, pumpkins, squashes, beans and other vegetables
for their nourishment; all which blessings their ancestors have enjoyed for a
great number of ages. That this great
Spirit looks down upon the Indians, to see whether they are grateful to him and
make him a due return for the many benefits he has bestowed, and therefore that
it is their duty to show their thankfulness by worshipping him, and doing that
which is pleasing to his sight....
They are then told that their ancestors, who received all this
from the hands of the great Spirit...must have been informed of what would be
most pleasing to this good being...and they are directed to look up for
instruction to those who know all this, to learn from them, and revere them for
their wisdom and the knowledge which they possess; this creates in the children
a strong sentiment of respect for their elders, and a desire to follow their
advice and example. Their young
ambition is then excited by telling them that they were made the superiors of
all other creatures, and are to have power over them; great pains are taken to
make this feeling take early root, and it becomes in fact their ruling passion
through life; for no pains are spared to instill into them that by following
the advice of the most admired and extolled hunter, trapper or warrior, they
will at a future day acquire a degree of fame and reputation, equal to that
which he possesses; that by submitting to the counsels of the aged, the chiefs,
the men superior in wisdom, they may also rise to glory, and be called Wisemen,
an honourable title, to which no Indian is indifferent. They are finally told that if they respect
the aged and infirm, and are kind and obliging to them, they will be treated in
the same manner when their turn comes to feel the infirmities of old age....
When...instruction is given in the form of precepts, it must
not be supposed that it is done in an authoritative or forbidding tone, but, on
the contrary, in the gentlest and most persuasive manner: nor is the parent's
authority ever supported by harsh or compulsive means; no whips, no
punishments, no threats are ever used to enforce commands or compel
obedience. The child's pride is the
feeling to which an appeal is made, which proves successful in almost every
instance. A father needs only to say in
the presence of his children: "I want such a thing done; I want one of my
children to go upon such an errand; let me see who is the good child that will
do it!" The word good operates, as
it were, by magic, and the children immediately vie with each other to comply
with the wishes of their parent....
In this manner of bringing up children, the parents, as I have
already said, are seconded by the whole community....The whole of the Indian
plan of education tends to elevate rather than depress the mind, and by that
means to make determined hunters and fearless warriors....
They are to learn the arts of hunting, trapping, and making
war, by listening to the aged when conversing together on those subjects, each,
in his turn, relating how he acted, and opportunities are afforded to them for
that purpose. By this mode of
instructing youth, their respect for the aged is kept alive....
[Initiation ceremonies]
By certain methods which I shall presently describe, they put
the mind of a boy in a state of perturbation, so as to excite dreams and
visions; by means of this they pretend that the boy receives instructions from
certain spirits or unknown agents as to his conduct in life, and he is informed
of his future destination and of the wonders he is to perform in his future
career through the world.
When a boy is to be thus initiated, he is put under an
alternate course of physic and fasting, either taking no food whatever, or
swallowing the most powerful and nauseous medicines, and occasionally he is
made to drink decoctions of an intoxicating nature, until his mind becomes
sufficiently bewildered, so that he sees or fancies that he sees visions, and
has extraordinary dreams, for which, of course, he has been prepared before
hand. He will fancy himself flying
through the air, walking under ground, stepping from one ridge or hill to the
other across the valley beneath, fighting and conquering giants and monsters,
and defeating whole hosts by a single arm.
Then he has interviews with the Mannitto [Manitou] or with spirits, who
inform him of what he was before he was born and what he will be after his
death. His fate in this life is laid
entirely open before him, the spirit tells him what is to be his future
employment, whether he will be a valiant warrior, a mighty hunter, a doctor, a
conjurer, or a prophet. There are even
those who learn or pretend to learn in this way the time and manner of their
death.
When a boy has been thus initiated, a name is given to him
analogous to the visions that he has seen, and to the destiny that is supposed
to be prepared for him. The boy,
imagining all that happened to him while under perturbation, to have been real,
sets out in the world with lofty notions of himself, and animated with courage
for the most desperate undertakings.
Source: John
Heckewelder, Account of the History,
Manners, and Customs of the Indian Natives who once inhabited Pennsylvania and
the Neighboring States in Transactions of the American Philosophical
Society (1819), 98-103, 238-41.
Charles Eastman (1902)
Dr. Charles Eastman, a
member of the Santee Sioux, was around forty years old when he wrote a book
describing his boyhood in the Dakota Territory and Minnesota.
It is commonly supposed that there is no systematic education
of their children among the aborigines of this country. Nothing could be farther from the
truth. All the customs of this
primitive people were held to be divinely instituted, and those in connection
with the training of children were scrupulously adhered to and transmitted from
one generation to another.
The expectant parents conjointly bent all their efforts to the
task of giving the new-comer the best they could gather from a long line of
ancestors. A pregnant Indian woman
would often choose one of the greatest characters of her family and tribe as a
model for her child. This hero was
daily called to mind. She would gather
from tradition all of his noted deeds and daring exploits, rehearsing them to
herself when alone. In order that the
impression might be more distinct, she avoided company....
The Indians believed, also, that certain kinds of animals
would confer peculiar gifts upon the unborn, while others would leave so strong
an adverse impression that the child might become a monstrosity. A case of hare-lip was commonly attributed
to the rabbit....Even the meat of certain animals was denied the pregnant
woman, because it was supposed to influence the disposition or features of the
child.
Scarcely was the embryo warrior ushered into the world, when
he was met by lullabies that speak of wonderful exploits in hunting and
war....He is called the future defender of his people, whose lives may depend
upon his courage and skill. If the child
is a girl, she is at once addressed as the future mother of a noble race....
Very early, the Indian boy assumed the task of preserving and
transmitting the legends of his ancestors and his race. Almost every evening a myth, or a true story
of some deed done in the past, was narrated by one of the parents or
grandparents....On the following evening, he was usually required to repeat
it....
All the stoicism and patience of the Indian are acquired
traits, and continual practice alone makes him master of the art of
wood-craft. Physical training and
dieting were not neglected. I remember
that I was not allowed to have beef soup or any warm drink. The soup was for the old men. General rules for the young were never to
take their food very hot, nor to drink much water.
Source: C.A. Eastman, Indian
Boyhood (New York: McClure, Phillips, 1902), 49-60.
Cries-for-salmon (1922)
An Alaskan informant
describes childbirth, childrearing, and girlhood in that culture area.
When Cries-for-salmon was to be born, they called
in...Their-little-grandmother, an old woman of experience, to help. For three days after the birth
Their-little-grandmother stayed by the side of the bed of skins, nor might the
mother leave her bed without the permission of Their-little-grandmother....The
boys and men do not stay in the house at this time; the go to the kadjim (the
men's house). All I know is that the
after-birth is wrapped in a cloth, and placed in the fork of a tree....
The baby's cord is tied around the wrist or the neck of the
baby with sinew, and left on for two or three years. An ax head is placed on the body of a baby boy for a certain
number of days....
For twenty days after Cries-for-salmon was born, her father
had to stay at home, indoors, "under his smoke hole" as people used
to say when they lived in igloos or underground houses.... During these twenty
days a man is not to touch any object made by white people, more particularly
things of steel or iron, knife or ax or ice pick. Copper, got in trade from the
coast, which has been melted down and hand beaten, a man may use; and he would
eat out of dishes of wood or bone. Work
tools of any kind he would not handle....
As with work after a birth in his family, so with
amusements--a man should not take part.
He should sit quiet, with his head down, for at this time he is supposed
to be in connection with his spirits....
A young man is rated by his ability in making snowshoes and in
running down game, fox, deer and, before the portaging of the whites drove them
out, caribou. A girl is rated by her
ability in handicrafts and in providing food, but she is also esteemed for her
household behavior....
Cries-for-salmon was taught, like other little girls and boys,
never to sing or whistle when eating, and never to imitate at any time in the
winter the birds of summer--that would prolong the winter....
Little girls and boys together play at fishing and
housekeeping. The boys will gather
willows and make them into a great bundle, a foot and a half thick and fifteen
feet long. They choose a shallow place
in the river where there are little fish, and they lay the willow trap in an
oval. After the catch the girls take
the fish to cook, and boys and girls pair off together to make fish camps like
their elders....
We go on now to when Cries-for-salmon is a big girl. When she
first menstruated, she was placed in the corner of her father's house to be out
of sight of young men, and to stay so for a year, as we count by moons. The space assigned to Cries-for-salmon was
just long enough to lie down in. In
this corner Cries-for-salmon had to keep all the things she used, more
particularly her own cup and bucket of water.
When no one was about, she went to fill the bucket, but, as with other
things, she had to be scrupulous about not leaving the bucket where young men
could by any chance come in contact with it.
Girls are supposed not to go outdoors at all; but if a girl has to go,
she must walk with head bent so that if she passed by a young man her eyes
would not get a direct line on his eyes, or his eyes on hers....
In the corner, a girl wears continually a beaded forehead band
to which bear claws are attached. Her
behavior during this time determines whether or not she is to be a worthy woman
for life, and how skilled she will be in the domestic arts. For at this time she makes everything she is
going to use after she marries....She learns to sew, to make beadwork and
porcupine-quill work, to make baskets, and fish nets. The first few months she is not allowed to cook, but towards the
close of the period the cooking, the bulk of the housework, indeed is put upon
her. And it is then that suitors take
notice of her work and accomplishments.
They notice whether the seams of the boots and mittens she has made look
strong and durable; whether her bead embroidery is fine, whether she is
industrious and competent, how she carries herself. A man knows how important to his welfare the character of his
wife is. A man has to run his chase,
but, after he marries, that is all; his wife does all the hard work. She gets wood and water, she snares grouse
and rabbits, she sets fish traps, and she prepares all the clothing and all the
food, not only for the family but for the ceremonies at which the man is called
upon to contribute.
Source: T.B. Reed and
Elsie Clews Parsons, "Cries-for-salmon, a Ten'a Woman" in E.C.
Parsons, ed., American Indian Life (New York: B.W. Huebsch, 1922),
337-345.
Chrestien Le Clercq
"The girl will
never approve the suit, unless it be agreeable to her father"
A French missionary
describes courtship and marriage customs among the Micmac.
A boy has no sooner formed the design to espouse a girl than
he makes for himself a proposal about it to her father, because he well knows
that the girl will never approve the suit, unless it be agreeable to her
father. The boy asks the father if he
thinks it suitable for him to enter into his wigwam, that is to say, into
relationship with him through marrying his daughter....If the father does not
like the suit of the young Indian, he tells him so without other ceremony than
saying it cannot be; and this lover, however enamoured he may be, receives this
reply with equanimity as the decisive decree of his fate and of his courtship,
and seeks elsewhere some other sweetheart....If the father finds that the
suitor who presents himself is acceptable...he tells him to speak to his
sweetheart....For they do not wish...to force the inclinations of their
children in the means of marriage, or to induce them, whether by use of force,
obedience, or affection, to marry men whom they cannot bring themselves to
like....
The boy, then, after obtaining the consent of the father,
addresses himself to the girl, in order to ascertain her sentiments. He makes her a present from whatever
important things he possesses; and the custom is such that if she is agreeable
to his suit, she receives and accepts it with pleasure, and offers him in
return some of her most beautiful workmanship....
The presents having been received and accepted by both
parties, the Indian returns to his home, takes leave of his parents, and comes
to live for an entire year in the wigwam of his sweetheart's father, whom,
according to the laws of the country, he is to serve, and to whom he is to give
all the furs which he secures in hunting.... The girl, for her part, also does
her best with that which concerns the housekeeping, and devotes herself wholly,
during this year...to making snowshoes, sewing canoes, preparing barks,
dressing skins of moose or of beaver, drawing the sled--in a word, to doing
everything which can give her the reputation of being a good housewife....
When, then, the two parties concur in disposition and tastes,
at the end of the year the oldest men of the nation, and the parents and
friends of the future married couple, are brought together to the feast which
is to be made for the public celebration of their marriage....If it turns out
that the disposition of one is incompatible with the nature of the other, the boy
or the girl retires without fuss, and everybody is as content and satisfied as
if the marriage had been accomplished, because, say they, one ought not to
marry only to be unhappy the remainder of one's days.
There is nevertheless much instability in these sorts of
alliances, and the young married folks change their inclinations very easily
when several years go by without their having children. ...It can be said with truth that the
children are then the indissoluable bonds, and the confirmation of the marriage
of their father and mother, who keep faithful company without ever separating,
and who live in so great a union with one another, that they seem not to have
more than a single heart and a single will....
One cannot express the grief of a Gaspesian when he loses his
wife. It is true that outwardly he
dissimulates as much as he can the bitterness which he has in his heart,
because these people consider it a mark of weakness unworthy of a man, be he ever
so little brave and noble, to lament in public.
Source: Chrestian Le
Clercq, New Relations of Gaspesia, with the Customs and Religion of the
Gaspesian Indians (1691), translated and edited by William F. Ganong
(Toronto, 1910).
Marital Relations and
Gender Roles
John Heckewelder (1819)
A Moravian missionary
discusses the division of labor within Indian families in colonial
Pennsylvania.
There are many persons who believe, from the labour that they
see the Indian women perform, that they are in a manner treated as slaves. These labours, indeed are hard, compared
with the tasks that are imposed upon females in civilised society; but they are
no more than their fair share...of the hardships attendant on savage life. Therefore they are not only voluntarily, but
cheerfully submitted to; and as women are not obliged to live with their
husbands any longer than suits their pleasure or convenience, it cannot be
supposed that they would submit to be loaded with unjust or unequal burdens.
Marriages among the Indians are not, as with us, contracted
for life; it is understood on both sides that the parties are not to live
together any longer than they shall be pleased with each other. The husband may put away his wife whenever
he pleases, and the woman may in like manner abandon her husband....
When a marriage takes place, the duties and labours incumbent
on each party are well known to both.
It is understood that the husband is to build a house for them to dwell
in, to find the necessary implements of husbandry, as axes, hoes, &c. to
provide a canoe, and also dishes, bowls, and other necessary vessels for
house-keeping. The woman generally has
a kettle or two, and some other articles of kitchen furniture, which she brings
with her....
When a couple is newly married, the husband...takes
considerable pains to please his wife, and by repeated proofs of his skill and
abilities in the art of hunting, to make her sensible that she can be happy
with him, and that she will never want while they live together....
[The wife's] principal occupations are to cut and fetch the
fire wood, till the ground, sow and reap the grain, and pound the corn in
mortars for their pottage, and to make bread which they bake in the ashes....
The tilling of the ground at home, getting of the fire wood,
and pounding of corn in mortars, is frequently done by female parties, much in
the manner of those husking, quilting and other frolics (as they are called,)
which are so common in some parts of the United States....
When the harvest is in, which generally happens by the end of
September, the women have little else to do than to prepare the daily victuals,
and get fire wood, until the latter end of February or beginning of
March...when they go to their sugar camps, where they extract sugar from the maple
tree. The men having built or repaired
their temporary cabin, and made all the troughs of various sizes, the women
commence making sugar, while the men are looking out for meat, at this time
generally fat bears, which are still in their winter quarters. When at home, they will occasionally assist
their wives in gathering the sap, and watch the kettles in their absence, that
the syrup may not boil over....
The husband generally leaves the skins and peltry, which he
has procured by hunting to the care of his wife, who sells or barters them away
to the best advantage for such necessities as are wanted in the family; not
forgetting to supply her husband with what he stands in need of....
Source: John Heckewelder,
Account of the History, Manners, and Customs of the Indian Natives who once
inhabited Pennsylvania and the Neighboring States in Transactions of the
American Philosophical Society (1819), 142-52.
Gabriel Sagard (1632)
"Just as the men
have their special occupation...so also the women and girls keep their
place"
A French missionary
describes the economic activities of Huron men and women.
The occupations of the savages are fishing, hunting, and war;
going off to trade, making lodges and canoes, or contriving the proper tools
for doing so. The rest of the time they
pass in idleness, gambling, sleeping, singing, dancing, smoking or going to
feasts, and they are reluctant to undertake any other work that forms part of
the women's duty except under strong necessity....
During winter with the twine twisted by the women and girls,
they make nets and snares for fishing and catching fish in summer, and even in
winter under the ice by means of lines or the seine-net through holes cut in
several places. They make also arrows
with the knife, very straight and long, and when they have no knives they use
sharp-edged stones; they fledge them with feathers from the tails and wings of
eagles, because these are strong and carry well in the air, and at the point
with strong fish-glue they attach sharp-pointed stones or bones, or iron heads
obtained in trade with the French. They
also make wooden clubs for warfare, and shields which cover the whole body, and
with animals' guts they make bow-strings and rackets for walking on the snow
when they go for wood and to hunt....
Just as the men have their special occupation and understand
wherein a man's duty consists, so also the women and girls keep their place and
perform quietly their little tasks and functions of service. They usually do more work than the men,
although they are not forced or compelled to do so. They have the care of the cooking and the household, of sowing
and gathering corn, grinding flour, preparing hemp and tree-bark, and providing
the necessary wood. And because there
still remains plenty of time to waste, they employ it in gaming, going to
dances and feasts, chatting and killing time, and doing just what they like
with their leisure....
They make pottery, especially round pots without handles or
feet, in which they cook their food, meat or fish. When winter comes, they make mats of reeds, which they hang in
the doors of their lodges, and they make others to sit upon, all very
neatly.... They dress and soften the skins of beaver and moose and others, as
well as we could do it here, and of these they make their cloaks and
coverings.... Likewise they make reed baskets, and others out of birchbark, to
hold beans, corn and peas...meat, fish, and other small provender.... They
employ themselves also in making bowls of bark for drinking and eating out of,
and for holding their meats and soups.
Moreover, the sashes, collars, and bracelets that they and the men wear
are of their workmanship; and in spite of the fact that they are more occupied
than the men, who play the noblemen among them and think only of hunting,
fishing, or fighting, still they usually love their husbands better than the
women here....
Clearing [land] is very troublesome for them, since they have
no proper tools. They cut down the
trees at the height of two or three feet from the ground, then they strip off
all the branches, which they burn at the stump of the same trees in order to
kill them, and in course of time they remove the roots. Then the women clean up the ground between
the trees thoroughly, and at distances a pace apart dig round holes or
pits. In each of these they sow nine or
ten grains of maize, which they have first picked out, sorted, and soaked in
water for a few days, and so they keep on until they have sown enough to
provide food for two or three years, either for fear that some bad season may
visit them or else in order to trade it to other nations for furs and other
things they need....
The grain ripens in four months, or in three in some
places. After that they gather it, and
turning the leaves up and tying them round the ears arrange it in bundles hung
in rows, the whole length of the lodge from top to bottom, on poles which they
put up as a sort of rack....When the grain is quite dry and fit for storing the
women and girls shell it, clean it, and put it into their great vats or casks
made for the purpose and placed in the porch or some corner of the lodge.
Source: Gabriel Sagard,
The Long Journey to the Country of the Hurons (1632) ed. by George M. Wrong,
trans. by H.H. Langton (Toronto: Champlain Society, 1939).
CULTURES IN CONFLICT
INTRODUCTION / TECUMSEH
AND THE SHAWNEE PROPHET
During the last years of the eighteenth century, defeat,
disease, and death were the lot of Indians living in the Old Northwest. In 1794, an American force crushed an
opposing Indian army at the Battle of Fallen Timbers near present-day Toledo,
Ohio. This victory forced native
Americans to give up 25,000 square miles of land north of the Ohio River.
Some 45,000 land-hungry white settlers poured into the Ohio
country during the next six years. They
spread a variety of killer diseases, including smallpox, influenza, and
measles. Aggressive frontier settlers
infringed on Indian hunting grounds, and rapidly killed off the game that provided
Indians with subsistence. Deprived of
their homelands, faced with severe food shortages and a drastic loss of
population, Native Americans in the Old Northwest saw the fabric of their
society torn apart.
One of the Native Americans who suffered from the breakdown of
Indian society was a Shawnee youth named Laulewasika. A few months before he was born, white frontiersmen, who crossed
into Indian territory in violation of a recent treaty, killed his father. Shortly thereafter, his despondent mother, a
Creek, fled westward, leaving behind her children to be raised by relatives.
As a young man Laulewasika lacked direction. Then in 1805 he underwent a powerful
transformation. Overcome by images of
his own wickedness, he fell into a deep trance during which he met the Indian
Master of Life. On the basis of this
mystical experience, he embarked on a crusade "to reclaim the Indians from
bad habits." Adopting a new name, Tenskwatawa ("the open door"),
he called on Indians to stop drinking alcohol.
Then, like other Indian prophets before and after, he demanded an end to
intertribal fighting and a return to ancestral ways. His central message was Indian unity as the key to blocking white
encroachment on tribal lands.
His older brother, the famed Shawnee war chief Tecumseh
(1768-1813), also advocated a broad-based Indian alliance. In 1808, he and his brother relocated their
tribal village in northwestern Indian along the shoreline of the Tippecanoe
River. William Henry Harrison, the
territorial governor challenged the growing influence of the Shawnee
brothers. He conducted negotiations
with local chiefs, and forced them to turn over title to 3 million acres in
Indiana for $7000 and an annuity of $1750.
Tecumseh needed time to build his alliance. Before he set off on a journey to the South
to rally support, he warned Tenskwatawa to avoid any conflict with
Harrison. Tenskwatawa did not listen.
Harrison approached the Indian village with a 1,000 man army. Tenskwatawa authorized 450 warriors to
attack the Americans. What followed was
a rout. Harrison's troops drove off the
Indians and burned their village, destroying Tenskwatawa's power and prestige.
When Tecumseh returned home from his trip, he was shocked and
enraged, and "swore...eternal hatred" against white settlers. When
the War of 1812 broke out, he allied himself to the British. In October 1813, after U.S. troops forced
the British to retreat from Detroit, the Shawnee warrior tried to halt an
American advance along the Thames River in eastern Ontario in Canada. The day before the climactic encounter,
Tecumseh told his followers: "Brother warriors, we are about to enter an
engagement from which I will not return."
His premonition was correct. He
died the next afternoon from multiple wounds.
His vision of pan-Indian resistance to white encroachment into the Old
Northwest likewise perished.
EARLY ENCOUNTERS
COEXISTENCE AND
CONFLICT AND IN THE SPANISH SOUTHWEST
The Pueblo Revolt of
1680
Pedro Naranjo (1680)
"Why they burned the
images, temples, crosses, rosaries, and things of divine worship"
In 1680, the Pueblo
Indians of New Mexico rose up against the Spanish missionaries and soldiers,
destroying every Catholic church in the region. Pedro Naranjo, an Indian prisoner, explains the reasons behind
the revolt.
Asked whether he knows the reason or motives which the Indians
of this kingdom had for rebelling...and why they burned the images, temples,
crosses, rosaries, and things of divine worship, committing such atrocities as
killing priests, Spaniards, women, and children...he said...they have planned
to rebel on various occasions through conspiracies of the Indian sorcerers....
Finally, in the past years, at the summons of an Indian named Pope who is said
to have communication with the devil, it happened that in an estufa [Indian
temple] of the pueblo of Los Taos there appeared to the said Pope three figures
of Indians who never came out of the estufa.
They gave the said Pope to understand that they were going underground
to the lake of Copala. He saw these
figures emit fire from all the extremities of their bodies.... They told him to
make a cord of maguey fiber and tie some knots in it which would signify the
number of days that they must wait before the rebellion. He said that the cord was passed through all
the pueblos of the kingdom so that the ones which agreed to it [the rebellion]
might untie one knot in sign of obedience, and by the other knots they would
know the days which were lacking.... The said cord was taken from pueblo to
pueblo by the swiftest youths under the penalty of death if they revealed the
secret. Everything being thus arranged,
two days before the time set for its execution, because his lordship had learned
of it and had imprisoned two Indian accomplices...it was carried out
prematurely that night, because it seemed to them that they were now
discovered; and they killed religious, Spaniards, women, and children. This being done, it was proclaimed in all
the pueblos that everyone in common should obey the commands of their father
whom they did not know, which would be given through...Pope.... As soon as the
Spaniards had left the kingdom an order came from the said Indian, Pope, in
which he commanded all the Indians to break the lands and enlarge their
cultivated fields, saying that now they were as they had been in ancient times,
free from the labor they had performed for the religious and the Spaniards, who
could not now be alive. He said that
this is the legitimate cause and the reason they had for rebelling....
Asked for what reason they so blindly burned the images,
temples, crosses, and other things of divine worship, he stated that the said
Indian, Pope...ordered in all the pueblos through which he passed that they
instantly break up and burn the images of the holy Christ, the Virgin Mary and
the other saints, the crosses, and everything pertaining to Christianity, and
that they burn the temples, break up the bells, and separate from the wives
whom God had given them in marriage and take those whom they desired. In order to take away their baptismal names,
the water, and the holy oils, they were to plunge into the rivers and wash
themselves with amole, which is a root native to the country, washing even
their clothing, with the understanding that there would thus be taken from them
the character of the holy sacraments.... They thereby returned to the state of
their antiquity...that this was the better life and the one they desired,
because the God of the Spaniards was worth nothing and theirs was very strong,
the Spaniard's God being rotten wood.... [Pope] saw to it that they at once
erected and rebuilt their houses of idolatry which they call estufas, and made
very ugly masks in imitation of the devil...; and he said likewise that the devil
had given them to understand that living thus in accordance with the law of
their ancestors, they would harvest a great deal of maize, many beans, a great
abundance of cotton, calabashes, and very large watermelons and cantaloupes;
and that they could erect their houses and enjoy abundant health and
leisure.
Source: Charles Wilson
Hackett, Revolt of the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico and Otermin's Attempted
Reconquest, 1680-1682 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico, 1942),
245-49.
The California Missions
Alexander Forbes (1839)
"Some of these
means [of obtaining converts] go far beyond the bounds of legitimate
persuasion"
In California, the most
important Spanish colonial institution was the religious mission. As Alexander Forbes, an English traveler
explains, the mission was not only supposed to convert the Indians to
Christianity, but also to teach them the skills of "civilization."
Each mission has allotted to it...a tract of land of about
fifteen miles square, which is generally fertile and well-suited for
husbandry. This land is set apart for
the general uses of the mission, part being cultivated, and part left in its
natural condition and occupied as grazing ground....The Indian population generally
live in huts at about two hundred yards distant from the principal edifices;
these huts are sometimes made of adobes, but the Indians are often left
to raise them on their own plan; viz. of rough poles erected into a conical
figure, of about four yards in circumference at the base, covered with dry
grass and a small aperture for the entrance.
When the huts decay, they set them on fire, and erect new ones....In
these huts the married part of the community live, the unmarried of both sexes
being kept, each sex separate, in large barn-like apartments, where they work
under strict supervision....
The object of the whole of the Californian or missionary
system being the conversion of the Indians and the training of them up, in some
sort, to a civilized life, the constant care of the fathers is and ever has
been directed towards these ends....
There can be no doubt that some of these means [of obtaining converts]
go far beyond the bounds of legitimate persuasion....It must be admitted that
with their particular views of the efficacy of baptism and ceremonial
profession of Christianity in saving souls, the conversion of the Indians even
by force, can hardly be otherwise regarded by them as the greatest of benefits
conferred on these people and therefore justifying some severity in effecting it.
Source: Alexander Forbes, California
(London, 1839).
CONFLICT AND
ACCOMMODATION IN THE NORTHWEST
Samuel De Champlain
(1604)
"They might in the
future more than ever before engage in hunting beavers"
Although Jacques Cartier
established France's claim in the St. Lawrence Valley in 1534, it would not be
until the early seventeenth century that France founded its first permanent
settlements. Here, the explorer Samuel
De Champlain describes how he encouraged Indians to participate in the fur
trade.
...I went on shore with my companions and two of our savages
who served as interpreters. I directed
the men in our barque to approach near the savages, and hold their arms in
readiness to do their duty in case they notice any movement of these people
against us. Bessabez [the chief],
seeing us on land, bade us sit down, and began to smoke with his companions....
They presented us with venison and game.
I directed our interpreter to say to our savages that...Sieur
de Monts [Champlain's patron] had sent me to see them, and...that he desired to
inhabit their country and show them how to cultivate it, in order that they
might not continue to lead so miserable a life as they were doing....They
expressed their great satisfaction, saying that no greater good could come to
them than to have our friendship, and that they desired to live in peace with
their enemies, and that we should dwell in their land, in order that they might
in the future more than ever before engage in hunting beavers, and give us a
part of them in return for our providing them with things which they wanted....
William L. Grant, ed., The
Voyages of Samuel De Champlain (New York: 1907), 49-50.
The Pilgrims from the
Indian Perspective
William Apes (1836)
"Without asking
liberty from anyone, they possessed themselves of a potion of the country"
In his autobiography,
William Apes, a Pequot, offers an Indian perspective on the early history of
relations between the English colonists and the native peoples of New England.
December, 1620, the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth, and without
asking liberty from anyone, they possessed themselves of a portion of the
country, and built themselves houses, and then made a treaty and commanded them
[the Indians] to accede to it.... And yet for their kindness and resignation
towards the whites, they were called savages, and made by God on purpose for
them to destroy....
The next we present before you are things very appalling. We turn our attention to dates, 1623,
January and March, when Mr. Weston Colony, came very near to starving to death;
some of them were obliged to hire themselves to the Indians, to become their
servants in order that they might live.
Their principal work was to bring wood and water; but not being
contented with this, many of the white sought to steal the Indians' corn; and
because the Indians complained of it, and through their complaint, some one of
their number being punished, as they say, to appease the savages. Now let us see who the greatest savages
were; the person that stole the corn was a stout athletic man, and because of
this, they wished to spare him, and take an old man who was lame and
sickly...and because they thought he would not be of so much use to them, he
was, although innocent of any crime, hung in his stead....Another act of
humanity for Christians, as they call themselves, that one Capt. Standish,
gathering some fruit and provisions, goes forward with a black and hypocritical
heart, and pretends to prepare a feast for the Indians; and when they sit down
to eat, they seize the Indians' knives hanging around their necks, and stab
them in the heart....
The Pilgrims promised to deliver up every transgressor of the
Indian treaty, to them, to be punished according to their laws,and the Indians
were to do likewise. Now it appears
that an Indian had committed treason, by conspiring against the king's
[Massasoit's] life, which is punishable with death...and the Pilgrims refused
to give him, although by their oath of alliance they had promised to do so....
In this history of Massasoit we find that his own head men
were not satisfied with the Pilgrims; that they looked upon them to be
intruders, and had a wish to expel those intruders out of their coast. A false report was made respecting one
Tisquantum, that he was murdered by an Indian.... Upon this news, one Standish,
a vile and malicious fellow, took fourteen of his lewd Pilgrims with him...at
midnight....At that late hour of the night, meeting at house in the wilderness,
whose inmates heard--Move not, upon the peril of your life. At the same time some of the females were so
frightened, that some of them undertook to make their escape, upon which they
were fired upon.... These Indians had not done one single wrong act to the
whites, but were as innocent of any crime, as any beings in the world. But if the real suffers say one word, they
are denounced, as being wild and savage beasts....
We might suppose that meek Christians had better gods and
weapons than cannon. But let us again
review their weapons to civilize the nations of this soil. What were they: rum and powder, and ball,
together with all the diseases, such as the small pox, and every other disease
imaginable; and in this way sweep of thousands and tens of thousands.
Source: William Apes, Eulogy
on King Philip (Boston, 1836), 10 ff.
Destruction of the
Pequots
William Bradford (1636)
"Horrible was the
stinck and sente"
In this extract, William
Bradford, a leader in the founding of Plymouth and the colony's longtime
governor, describes the destruction by fire of the Pequots' major village, in
which at least 400 Indians were burned to death. In his epic novel Moby-Dick, Herman Melville called his
doomed whaling ship The Pequod, which was sacrificed by its captain,
Ahab, out of greed and pride--a clear reference to earlier events in New
England.
Those that scaped the fire were slaine with the sword; some
hewed to peeces, other rune throw with their repaiers, so as they were quickly
dispatchte, and very few escaped. It
was conceived they thus destroyed about 400, at this time. It was a fearful sight to see them thus
frying in the fyer, and the streams of blood quenching the same, and horrible
was the stinck and sente there of; but the victory seemed a sweete sacrifice,
and they gave the prayers thereof to God, who had wrought so wonderfully for
them, thus to inclose their enemise in their hands, and give them so speedy a
victory over so proud and insulting an enimie.
Source: William Bradford, History
of Plymouth Plantation (Boston, 1856)
Miantonomo (1642)
"We must be as one
as the English are"
A Narragansett chief calls
on other Indian tribes to join him in repulsing the English colonists. Note his observations about the ways that
the English had transformed the natural environment.
Brothers, we must be as one as the English are, or we shall
all be destroyed. You know our fathers
had plenty of deer and skins and our plains were full of game and turkeys, and
our coves and rivers were full of fish.
But, brothers, since these Englishmen have seized our country,
they have cut down the grass with scythes, and the trees with axes. Their cows and horses eat up the grass, and
their hogs spoil our bed of clams; and finally we shall all starve to death;
therefore, stand not in your own light, I ask you, but resolve to act like
men. All the sachems both to the east
and the west have joined with us, and we are resolved to fall upon them at a
day appointed, and therefore I come secretly to you, cause you can persuade
your Indians to do what you will.
Source: Herbert Milton
Sylvester, Indian Wars of New England (Cleveland, 1910), I, 386.
King Philip's War
Edmund Randolph (1675)
"There having been
about 1200 houses burned"
The last major Indian war
in New England, King Philip's War was the most destructive conflict, relative
to the size of the population, in American history. England dispatched Edmund Randolph to determine the conflict's
causes and assess the damage.
Various are the reports and conjectures of the causes of the
present Indian warre. Some impute it to
an imprudent zeal in the magistrates of Boston to christianize those heathen
before they were civilized and injoying them the strict observation of their
lawes, which, to a people so rude and licentious, hath proved even
intollerable, and that the more, for that while the magistrates, for their
profit, put the lawes severely in execution against the Indians, the people, on
the other side, for lucre and gain, intice and provoke the Indians to the
breach thereof, especially to drunkennesse, to which those people are so
generally addicted that they will strip themselves to their skin to have their
fill of rume and brandy....
Some beleeve there have been vagrant and jesuiticall priests,
who have made it their businesse, for some yeares past, to goe from Sachim to
Sachim, to exasperate the Indians against the English and to bring them into a
confederacy, and that they were promised supplies from France and other parts
to extirpate the English nation out of the continent of America. Others impute the cause to some injuries
offered to the Sachim Philip; for he being possessed of a tract of land called
Mount Hope...some English had a mind to dispossesse him thereof, who never
wanting one pretence or another to attain their end, complained of injuries
done by Philip and his Indians to their stock and cattle, where upon Philip was
often summoned before the magistrate, sometimes imprisoned, and never released
but upon parting with a considerable part of his land.
But the government of the Massachusets...do declare there are
the great evills for which God hath given the heathen commission to rise
against them....For men wearing long hayre and perewigs made of womens hayre;
for women...cutting, curling, and laying out the hayre....For profanesse in the
people not frequenting their meetings....
With many such reasons...the English have contributed much to
their misfortunes, for they first taught the Indians the use of armes, and
admitted them to be present at all their musters and trainings, and shewed them
how to handle, mend and fix their muskets, and have been furnished with all
sorts of armes by permission of the government....
The loss to the English in the severall colonies, in their
habitations and stock, is reckoned to amount to 150,000 l. there having been
about 1200 houses burned, 8000 head of cattle, great and small, killed, and
many thousand bushels of wheat, pease and other grain burned...and upward of
3000 Indians men women and children destroyed....
Source: Albert B. Hart,
ed., American History Told by Contemporaries (New York, 1897), Vol. 1,
458-60.
CONFLICT AND
COOPERATION IN THE SOUTHEAST
Powhatan (1609)
"I knowe the
difference of peace and warre better then any in my Countrie"
Responding to rumors that
the English were intent on destroying his confederacy, Powhatan, Virginia's
leading chief, asked the English to cease threatening to use force against the
Indians. Otherwise, Powhatan threatened
to cut off the food supply that the English depended on for subsistence.
Captaine Smith, you may understand that I, having seene the
death of all my people thrice, and not one living of those 3 generations but my
selfe, I knowe the difference of peace and warre better then any in my
Countrie. But now I am old, and ere
long must die. My brethren, namely
Opichapam, Opechankanough, and Kekataugh, my two sisters, and their two
daughters, are distinctly each others successours. I wish their experience no lesse then mine, and your love to
them, no less then mine to you: but this brute [rumor] from Nansamund, that you
are come to destroy my Countrie, so much affrighteth all my people, as they
dare not visit you. What will it availe
you to take that perforce, you may quietly have with love, or to destroy them
that provide you food? What can you get
by war, when we can hide our provision and flie to the woodes, whereby you must
famish, by wronging us your friends?
And whie are you thus jealous of our loves, seeing us unarmed, and both
doe, and are willing still to feed you with that you cannot get but by our
labours? Think you I am so simple not
to knowe it is better to eate good meate, lie well, and sleepe quietly with my
women and children, laugh, and be merrie with you, have copper, hatchets, or
what I want being your friend; then bee forced to flie from all, to lie cold in
the woods, feed upon acorns roots and such trash, and be so hunted by you that
I can neither rest eat nor sleepe, but my tired men must watch, and if a twig
but breake, everie one crie, there comes Captaine Smith: then must I flie I
knowe not whether and thus with miserable feare end my miserable life, leaving
my pleasures to such youths as you, which, through your rash unadvisednesse,
may quickly as miserably ende, for want of that you never knowe how to
find? Let this therefore assure you of
our loves, and everie yeare our friendly trade shall furnish you with corn; and
now also if you would come in friendly manner to us, and not thus with your
gunnes and swords, as to invade your foes.
Source: Samuel G. Drake,
Biography and History of the Indians of North America (Boston, 1841), 353.
Beginnings of the Fur
Trade in the Carolinas
Dr. Henry Woodward
(1674)
"They presented
mee diverse deare skins"
In 1674, Dr. Henry
Woodward, an early Carolina colonist, began to trade furs with the Westos
Indians. Here he describes how European
traders reached accommodation with the area's Indian population. Note that much
of the initiative for establishing the fur trade comes from the Indians.
As we travelled...I saw...where these Indian had drawne uppon
trees (the barke being hewed away) the effigies of a bever, a man, on horseback
and guns. Intimating thereby...their desire
for freindship, and comerse with us....Wee met two Indians with their fowling
peeces, sent by their cheife to congratulate my arrivale into their parts, who
himself awaited my comeing with diverse others at the Westoe River....I was
carried to the Captains hutt, who courteously entertained mee with a good
repast of those things they counte rarietys amonge them....The cheife of the
Indians made long speeches intimateing their own strength (and as I judged
their desire of freindship with us).
This night first haveing oyled my eyes and joynts with beares oyl, they
presented mee diverse deare skins, setting befoore me sufficient of their food
to satisfy at least half a dozen of their own appetites. Here takeing my first nights repose, the
next day I veiwed the Towne, which is built in a confused maner, consisting of
many long houses whose sides and tops are both artifitially done with barke,
uppon the tops of most whereof fastened to the ends of long poles hang the
locks of haire of Indians they have slain....[Nearby] seldom ly less than one
hundred faire canoes ready uppon all occasions. They are well provided with arms, amunition, tradeing cloath and
other trade from the northward for which at set times of the year they truck
drest deare skins furrs and young Indian slaves.
Source: Alexander S.
Salley, ed., Narratives of Early Carolina (New York, 1911), 130-34.
NATIVE AMERICANS AND
THE GREAT WARS FOR EMPIRE
Between 1680 and 1763, the
French and English waged repeated wars to control the Indian trade. The struggle between the rival powers was
motivated not only by the prospects of economic profit, but also by religion,
national honor, and dreams of empire. A
major battleground in this contest for empire took place in upstate New York,
where the English formed an alliance with the Iroquois in order to disrupt
French trade in the interior.
The Iroquois and English
Form an Alliance
A Speech of the Onnodages
& Cajouga Sachems (1684)
"You must Protect us
against the French, which if you dont we shall loose all our Hunting &
Bevers"
You are a Mighty Sachem & we but a Small People. When the
English first came to New York to Virginia & Maryland, they were but a
small People & we a large Nation; & we finding they were good People
gave them Land & dealt Civilly by them; Now that you are grown Numerous
& we decreased, you must Protect us against the French, which if you dont
we shall loose all our Hunting & Bevers.
The French want all the Bevers & are angry that we bring any to the
English.
Source: Charles H.
McIlain, ed., Waraxall's Abridgement
of New York Indian Affairs, 1678-1751 (Cambridge, Mass., 1915), 10-17.
France and England, and
their Indian allies, fought four major wars between 1689 and 1763. King William's War (1689-1697) erupted when England's
Indian allies raided French settlements near Montreal. France and its allies retaliated by
attacking the Iroquois and English in New York and frontier New England. British attempts to seize Quebec in 1690 and
1691 failed. The Treaty of Ryswick restored the pre-war boundaries.
A new struggle, Queen
Anne's War (1702-1713) broke out when the French and their Indian allies raided
English settlements on the New England frontier. Fighting then spread to the
southern frontier, where English colonists in the Carolinas attacked Spanish
territory in Florida. An English
invasion of Quebec in 1710 failed, but in the Treaty of Utrecht ending the war,
France ceded Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and French territory around Hudson Bay
to England and abandoned its claim to sovereignty over the Iroquois. Following
the war conflict persisted in the South, where English settlers in the
Carolinas destroyed the Yamassee Indians, who were allies of the French, while
the French brutally put down an uprising by the Natchez Indians and their
Chickasaw allies.
The third war for empire,
King George's War (1744-1748) began when France attempted to recapture Nova
Scotia. With France forced to concentrate it military powers in Canana, English
traders were able to move into western Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio.
The stage was now set for
the climactic conflict, the French and Indian War (1754-1763), which ended
France's colonial empire in North America.
The war grew out of French efforts to control the fur trade north of the
Ohio River by expelling English traders from the region and building a chain of
forts along the Allegheny River.
British victories in the war led many Indian tribes to shift their
affiliations to the English. The
following speech by a Cherokee chief illustrates this change in allegiances.
Shifting Loyalties
Ostenaco (1765)
"The bloody
tommahawke...must now be buried"
The bloody tommahawke, so long lifted against our brethren the
English, must now be buried deep, deep in the ground, never to be raised again;
and whoever shall act contrary to any of these articles, must expect a
punishment equal to his offence. Should
a strict observance of them be neglected a war must necessarily follow, and a
second peace may not be so easily obtained.
I therefore once more recommend to you, to take particular care of your
behavior towards the English whom we must now look upon as ourselves, they have
the French and Spaniards to fight, and we enough of our own colour, without
meddling with either nation. I desire
likewise, that the white warrior, who has ventured himself here with us, may be
well used and respected by all, wherever he goes amongst us.
Source: Henry Timberlake, The
Memoirs of Lieut. Henry Timberlake (London, 1765), 2-6, 9-11, 28-41.
France's defeat at the
Battle of Quebec in 1759 crippled the French war effort, and led to the Treaty
of Paris (1763), which gave French territory east of the Mississippi River to
Britain. The French defeat led to a rapid influx of traders, land speculators,
and frontier farmers into the region west of the Allegheny Mountains. Instigated in part by French traders, a
group of Ottawa Indians led by Pontiac tried to stop this intrusion onto their
lands by laying siege to Detroit. A
frontier war followed, and within ninety days, Indians had driven English
settlers out of much of the Old Northwest.
Without the support of French arms, however, Pontiac was forced to make
peace in 1764.
Minavavana (1761)
"Although you have
conquered the French, you have not yet conquered us!"
In this address to an
English trader named Alexander Henry, Minavavana, a Chippewa or Ojibwa chief,
warns the English that France's defeats during the French and Indian War do not
mean that England can assert sovereignty over Indian lands.
Englishman!--You know that the French King is our father. He promised to be such; and we, in return,
promised to be his children. This
promise we have kept.
Englishman!--It is you that have made war with this our
father. You are his enemy; and how then
could you have the boldness to venture among us, his children? You know that his enemies are ours....
Englishman!--Although you have conquered the French, you have
not yet conquered us! We are not your
slaves. These lakes, these woods and
mountains, were left to us by our ancestors.
They are our inheritance, and we will part with them to none....
Englishman!--Our father, the king of France, employed our
young men to make war upon your nation.
In this warfare, many of them have been killed; and it is our custom to
retaliate, until such time as the spirits of the slain are satisfied. Now the spirits of the slain are to be
satisfied in either of two ways. The
first is by the spilling of the blood of the nation by which they fell; the
other, by covering the bodies of the dead, and thus allaying the resentment of
their relations. This is done by making
presents.
Englishman!--Your king has never sent us any presents, nor
entered into any treaty with us.
Wherefore he and we are still at war; and, until he does these things,
we must consider that we have no other father, nor friend, among the white men,
then the king of France. But, for you,
we have taken into consideration, that you have ventured your life among us, in
the expectation that we should not molest you.
You do not come armed, with an intention to make war. You come in peace, to trade with us, and
supply us with necessities, of which we are much in want. We shall regard you, therefore, as a
brother; and you may sleep tranquilly, without fear of the Chippewas. As a token of our friendship, we present you
with this pipe to smoke.
Source: B.B. Thatcher, Indian
Biography (New York, 1841), Vol. II, 76-77.
Advice from the Master
of Life
Pontiac (1763)
"Drive them out,
make war on them"
In this speech, Pontiac
tells a number of assembled tribes that the Indian Master of Life has commanded
them to stop drinking the white traders' alcohol, to take no more than one
wife, and overcome their dependency on whites.
I am the Master of Life, whom thou desirest to know and to
whom thou wouldst speak. Listen well to what I am going to say to thee and all
thy red brethren. I am he who made
heaven and earth, the trees, lakes, rivers, all men, and all that thou seest,
and all that thou hast seen on earth.
Because [I have done this and because] I love you, you must do what I
say and [not do] what I hate. I do not
like that you drink until you lose your reason, as you do; or that you fight
with each other; or that you take two wives, or run after the wives of others;
you do not well; I hate that. You must have but one wife, and keep her until
death. When you are going to war, you
juggle, join the medicine dance, and believe that I am speaking. You are mistaken, it is to Manitou to whom
you speak; he is a bad spirit who whispers to you nothing but evil, and to whom
you listen because you do not know me well. This land, where you live, I have
made for you and not for others. How comes it that you suffer the whites on
your lands? Can you not do without
them? I know that those whom you call
the children of your Great Father supply your wants, but if you were not bad,
as you are, you would well do without them. You might live wholly as you did
before you knew them. Before those whom
you call your brothers come on your lands, did you not live by bow and
arrow? You had no need of gun nor
powder, nor the rest of their things, and nevertheless you caught animals to
live and clothe yourselves with their skins, but when I saw that you inclined
to the evil, I called back the animals into the depths of the woods, so that
you had need of your brothers to have your wants supplied and I shall send back
to you the animals to live on. I do not
forbid you, for all that, to suffer amongst you the children of your
father. I love them, they know me and
pray to me, and I give them their necessities and all that they bring to you,
but as regards those who have come to trouble your country, drive them out,
make war on them. I love them not, they
know me not, they are my enemies and the enemies of your brothers. Send them back to the country which I made
for them. There let them remain.
Source: Pioneer Society of
the State of Michigan, Collections, 8 (1907), 268