Re: Contributions of the Iroquois [long]

thomas w kavanagh (tkavanag@INDIANA.EDU)
Mon, 26 Aug 1996 23:02:39 -0500

Hi, Karl:
I have spent the summer -- besides dancing with Pawnees and Comanches,
and writing the text and captions for a book on our Wanamaker collection
of Indian photographs -- checking some sources on the question of how
much the colonial English knew of the Hodenausaunee political system.

As should be obvious from my previous posts, I am approaching this
question "positivistically," rather than "impressionistically." That is,
I want to know who knew what when. If someone wrote about the League, I
want to know if the author had first-hand knowledge of the events or
institutions reported. More specifically, I am looking for documents of
the kind asked for in 1786 by Joseph Antonio Rengel, Comandante Inspector
of the Provincias Internas of the Viceroyalty of New Spain from Texas
governor Antonio Cabello:

When you go among the Comanches, try to find in their combinations all the
news possible on the mutual customary interest of their ranchermas; the
force of each one; the territory which they ordinarily occupy; the names
of the captains which govern them; which ones are distinguished in
authority and following; the principles on which the superiority of their
command is established, if by election or by inheritance; the personal
character of their chiefs, with respect to the influence which they have
and could have on the negotiations of their nation.

In that case, Cabello answered with details that can be used to infer a
degree of knowledge -- or lack thereof -- held by Texas Spaniards about
the Comanches. That is what I am now looking for from the English about
the Hodenausaunee.

This summer I have been reading the 1944 biography of Conrad Weiser by
Paul A.W. Wallace [relation to A.F.C.W.?]. It is sometimes hard going, as
Wallace includes extensive quotations from Weiser's correspondence. But
that is also a benefit, as it suggests that if Wallace could find a
reason to include a detail, he would include it, and if a detail wasn't
included, it wasn't there.

Weiser was a Palatine German, born in 1696 in Wurtemberg, emigrated to
America in 1710, settling first in New York, then moving to Pennsylvania.
At age 14 [1712], he went with the Mohawk sachem chief Hendrick, recently
returned from London, to learn the Mohawk language. Weiser spent the next
fifty years in more or less continual contact with the Iroquois,
ultimately receiving the name "Tarachiawagon" 'You must hold up the sky
for us'. Sir William Johnson, later appointed single intermediary between
the Six Nations and the English, thought that name was 'too high' and
sought to keep the Mohawks from using it. Canasatego said of him, "When
we adopted him, we divided him onto two equal parts, one we kept for
ourselves and one we left for you."

According to biographer Wallace, he was a major player in Pennsylvania
politics with the Six Nations, directly participating in both the public
and the behind the scenes negotiations. This was assisted by the
Hodenausaunee council tradition that a question raised was never
immediately addressed, but was postponed until a formal and considered
answer could be given. During such deliberations Weiser was often on both
sides, offering advice on wording and strategy to both Pennsylvanian and
Hodenausaunee.

Wallace's book is full of evidences that Weiser knew about council
protocol, about condolence councils -- "wiping the sweat from your brow,"
"cleaning your ears," etc.-- the pragmatics of wampum, about councils "in
the bush" and "by the fire." But there is no evidence that Weiser knew
about the social structure that lay behind those rituals.

So far, the best single evidence I have found of Weiser's knowledge of
the League is a letter -- part of a set -- written in August 1744 to
Thomas Lee, Governor of Virginia, in response to questions by Lee.

Weiser, Conrad
1878 [Letter to Thomas Lee] Compiled by Abraham H. Cassell, translated
by Helen Bell. Pennsylvania Magazine 1:319-323. [Also "Translation of a
German Letter wrote by Conrad Weiser, Esq, Interpreter, on Indian
Affairs, for the Province of Pennsylvania." Philadelphia: Printed and
Sold by B. Franklin & D. Hall).

There is very little to say about their government or manner of
governing and justice, excepting what pertains to their transactions and
demeanor with other nations, for in that respect they take great pains:
Each nation of the six tribes send Deputies to the great Council at
Onontago once or twice a year to confer with each other; they are very
slow in coming to a decision in the Counil, and have good rules which are
looked to and kept inviolably, and when the deliberations are at an end,
these rules are repeated once more, and the people are admonished to heed
them.
In this council they treat each other in a very friendly and
moderate manner: The wisest men among each nation are sent thither to
bring forward any business in the name of the nation.
The young people are certainly allowed to listen to the others,
but even if 100 were present, no would speak a word.
One of them makes a statement, there upon each of the envoys
considers it in silence by itself, and afterwards they meet and decide the
affair.
All the other nations are as in fear of the Council at Onontago;
and, because they find out what their neighbors are doing through their
spies or reconnoiterers (whom they always have for they are very
distrustful and suspicious), on this account they hold their old Councils
before people who have intercourse with spirits, or before sorcerers and
such.
They are very just in keeping their contracts or promises but
there is little justice among them, for they cannot punish any one for an
offence, except with death, which very seldom happens. When any one has
done anything that is considered worthy of death, the most eminent men of
the nation meet and examine into it, whether the charge is true or false,
for no one is charges with or accused of anything among except of murder
and robbery. If it is found to be true, the friends of the guilt person
try to appease the injured party with gifts and then they are present at
the tribunal. When the crime is too great, and the guilty party is
notorious murderer or thief, that is, has been guilt several times before,
then they council his own tribe to kill him, his tribe advise his own
family to tell him the sentence and then his nearest friend, and very
seldom any else, kills him.
The criminal is made drunk, and perhaps a quarrel is begun with
him by the one who is appointed to do it, who then charges him with his
offence, and at the same time informeds him of the cause of his death. And
in the ensuing quarrel he is killed, and the rum bears the blame, so that
the avenger of blood has no power over the doer of the deed.

So, what we know is that Weiser knew that:

- "Each nation of the six tribes send Deputies to the great Council at
Onontago once or twice a year to confer with each other." He says nothing
about how those "deputies" were selected.

-"they are very slow in coming to a decision in the Counil, and have good
rules which are looked to and kept inviolably." He says nothing about
what those rules were.

-"and when the deliberations are at an end, these rules are repeated once
more, and the people are admonished to heed them." He does say that there
was a ritual recitation of the rules, probably similar to the modern
recitations of the Code of Handsome Lake.

-"The wisest men among each nation are sent thither to bring forward any
business in the name of the nation." He says nothing about how the
"wisest" are chosen.

-"The young people are certainly allowed to listen to the others, but
even if 100 were present, no would speak a word." That is, some voices
were not heard.

-"One of them makes a statement, there upon each of the envoys considers
it in silence by itself, and afterwards they meet and decide the affair."
That is, there were tribal caucases before the Council decision.

-"All the other nations are as in fear of the Council at Onontago; and,
because they find out what their neighbors are doing through their spies
or reconnoiterers (whom they always have for they are very distrustful
and suspicious), on this account they hold their old Councils before
people who have intercourse with spirits, or before sorcerers and such."
Political intrigue is not new. But it is not clear is this means that the
other nations (Delawares, etc) sent spies to Onondaga, and/or that the
Grand Council was indeed held "before sorcerers and such" of which there
is no further description.

-"They are very just in keeping their contracts or promises but there is
little justice among them, for they cannot punish any one for an offence,
except with death, which very seldom happens. ..." That is, there is a
difference between the public and political and the private and domestic.
The League was strictly public and political, and had no domestic and
private concerns. This difference between what was public and what was
private was to be a continuing reference point between Indian and
Euroamerican [and within Euroamericans] for the next several centuries.
[Some Anglo, and I cannot find the reference, once said, "The Indians
have no law, what law shall we give them." The reference was to the
positioning of the line between that which was public and that which was
private.]

-"The criminal is made drunk, and perhaps a quarrel is begun with him by
the one who is appointed to do it, who then charges him with his offence,
and at the same time informeds him of the cause of his death. And in the
ensuing quarrel he is killed, and the rum bears the blame, so that the
avenger of blood has no power over the doer of the deed." An interesting
form of execution, but one for which there seems to be little other
documentation. [Wallace (p 441) implies that the Delaware "King"
Teedyuscung was disposed of by the Hodenausaunee ca 1763 in this way, but
did not elaborate. ]

That is, while most of what Weiser wrote seems to be valid, it is a
generalized validity, and the evidence for the kind of knowledge that we
are looking for is not there. We do not have any evidence that Weiser
knew about the structure of the League -- that the "wisest men among each
nation" were chosen within clan affiliation, and that there was a
differential representation among the nations.

Thus if Weiser did not know it, who did?

-0-
Weiser and Franklin

It may be noted that although Wallace states, "[Weiser] bought books from
Benjamin Franklin, and taught Poor Richard what he knew about the Six
Nations," in his later years, ca. 1755-60, Weiser was often opposed to the
"Quaker Party," itself opposed to the "Proprietaries," that is, the Penns.
The public voice of the Quaker Party was Benjamin Franklin (at least as of
1756 [Wallace 1944:433]).

This is not to say that Weiser, as an opponent of the Quakers, was a
supporter of the Proprietaries; while he was a religious experimenter --
now with Zenzendorf's Moravians, now the Lutherans [Wallace's biography is
also a journey into the variety of Pennsylvania Germans -- those people
Franklin thought were Germanizing the colony] -- he was grounded in
political pragmatics and had an informed opinion -- moreso than anyone
else in Pennsylvania -- on how to maintain the Covenant Chain with the
Hodenausauenee -- and thus guarantee the safety of all of Pennsylvania. As
described by Wallace, in Weiser's late life, both the Proprietary Governor
and the Quakers were fools in the Indian diplomacy.

Wallace makes an interesting comment on Franklin's story, allegedly via
Weiser, of Canasatego's "good things" visit to Albany:

Franklin's account is not very trustworth, and it is difficult to date the
conversation here described. How are we to explain Canasatego's mention of
"the many years since they had seen each other"? During Canasatego's
lifetime, Conrad Weiser visited Onondaga in 1737, 1743, and 1745. There is
no reason to suppose that Weiser had seen Canasatego before 1737. When he
met him in Onondaga in 1743, it was after seeing him only a few months
before in Philadelphia. When he met him at Onondaga in 1745,m it was after
seeing him a few months before at lancaster. It would appear that Benjamin
Franklin, who wrote this in his old age, was inventing detail for
verisimilitude. [Wallace 1944:592 n25]

That indeed is the question: How much other detail did Franklin invent, or
have invented for him, by later commentators?

tk