You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in French. (July 2024)Click [show] for important translation instructions.
Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia.
Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 1,548 articles in the main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization.
Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article.
You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing French Wikipedia article at [[:fr:Économie des Iroquois]]; see its history for attribution.
You may also add the template {{Translated|fr|Économie des Iroquois}} to the talk page.
Iroquois women grinding corn or dried berries; note infant on cradleboard in background (1664 engraving)
The Haudenosaunee (also known as The Iroquois Confederacy) was formed around the Great Law of Peace Kaianere'kó:wa, a constitution detailing a shared value system which informs the policy and economics of their society.
Historically, the Haudenosaunee economy was based on communal production and combined elements of both horticulture and hunter-gatherer systems. Some have described the Iroquois economy as primitive communism.[1] The tribes of the Iroquois Confederacy and other Northern Huron had their traditional territory in what is now New York State and the southern areas bordering the Great Lakes. The confederacy was originally composed of five tribes; the Mohawk, Onondaga, Oneida, Cayuga, and Seneca, who had created an alliance long before European contact. The Tuscarora were added as a sixth nation in the early eighteenth century after they migrated from North Carolina. The Huron peoples, located mostly in what is now Canada, were also Iroquoian-speaking and shared some culture, but were never part of the Iroquois.
The Iroquoian people were predominantly agricultural, harvesting the "Three Sisters" commonly grown by Native American groups: corn, beans, and squash. They developed certain cultural customs. Among these developments were ideas concerning the nature and management of property. The Iroquois developed a system very different from the now-dominant Western variety. This system was characterized by such components as common ownership of land, division of labor by gender, and trade mostly based on gift economy.
Contact with Europeans in the early 17th century had a profound impact on the economy of the Iroquoians. At first, they became important trading partners, but the expansion of European settlement upset the balance of the Iroquois economy. By 1800, following the American Revolutionary War, in which most of the nations supported the British and had to share their defeat, the Iroquois were reduced to reservations, primarily in New York in the United States, and Quebec and Ontario in Canada. They had to adapt their traditional economic system to dramatic changes. In the 20th century, some of the Iroquois nations in the United States have benefited from their sovereign status by founding gambling and recreation facilities, which have yielded greater revenues than some other enterprises. Individually, Iroquois has also become part of the larger economies in cities off the reservation.
Land ownership
Latter-day Iroquois longhouse housing several hundred people.
The Iroquois had an essentially communal system of land ownership. The French Catholic missionary Gabriel Sagard described the fundamentals. The Huron had "as much land as they need[ed]."[2] As a result, the Huron could give families their own land and still have a large amount of excess land owned communally. Any Huron was free to clear the land and farm on the basis of usufruct. He maintained possession of the land as long as he continued to actively cultivate and tend the fields. Once he abandoned the land, it reverted to communal ownership, and anyone could take it up for themselves.[3] While the Huron did seem to have lands designated for the individual, the significance of this possession may be of little relevance; the placement of corn storage vessels in the longhouses, which contained multiple families in one kinship group, suggests the occupants of a given longhouse held all production in common.[4]
The Iroquois had a similar communal system of land distribution. The tribe owned all lands but gave out tracts to the different clans for further distribution among households for cultivation. The land would be redistributed among the households every few years, and a clan could request a redistribution of tracts when the Clan Mothers' Council gathered.[5] Those clans that abused their allocated land or otherwise did not take care of it would be warned and eventually punished by the Clan Mothers' Council by having the land redistributed to another clan.[6] Land property was really only the concern of the women, since it was the women's job to cultivate food and not the men's.[5]
The Clan Mothers' Council also reserved certain areas of land to be worked by the women of all the different clans. Food from such lands, called kěndiǔ"gwǎ'ge' hodi'yěn'tho, would be used at festivals and large council gatherings.[6]
Division of labor: agriculture and forestry
The division of labor reflected the complementary aspects common in Iroquois culture: The twin gods Sapling (East) and Flint (West) embodied the two complementary halves. Each gender had defined roles in labor to support the people, which complemented each other. Women did all work involving the field, including planting, cultivating and harvesting the crops; while men did all work involving the forest, including the manufacture of anything involving wood.[7] The Iroquois men carried out hunting and fishing, trading, and fighting, while the women took care of farming, food gathering and processing, rearing of children, and housekeeping. This gendered division of labor was the predominant means of dividing work in Iroquois society.[8] At the time of contact with Europeans, Iroquois women produced about 65% of the goods and the men 35%.[9] The combined production of food made famine and hunger extremely rare; early Europeans settlers often envied the success of Iroquois food production.[9]
The Iroquois system of work reflected their communal land system. Since the Iroquois owned property together, they worked together as well. The women performed difficult work in large groups, going from field to field helping one another work each other's land. Together they would sow the fields as a "mistress of the field" distributed a set amount of seeds to each of the women.[10] The Iroquois women of each agricultural group would select an old but active member of their group to act as their leader for that year and agree to follow her directions. The women performed other work cooperatively as well. The women individually cut wood for family use, but their leader would oversee the collective carrying of the wood back to the village.[11] The women's clans performed other work. According to Mary Jemison, a white woman who assimilated with the Seneca while young, the collective effort averted "every jealousy of one having done more or less work than another."[11]
Samuel de Champlain's sketch of a Huron deer hunt; Huron men make noise and drive animals along a V-shaped fence towards an apex where they are captured and killed.
The Iroquois men also organized in a cooperative fashion. The men acted collectively during military actions.[12] The other jobs of men, such as hunting and fishing, also involved cooperative elements. The men more often organized as a whole village rather than as a clan.[13] The men organized hunting parties where they used extensive cooperation to kill a large amount of game. One firsthand account told of a hunting party that built a large brush fence in a forest to form a V. The hunters set a fire across from the open side of the V, forcing the animals to run towards the point where the hunters awaited them. They could kill one hundred deer at a time by such a plan.[14]
Native Americans of unknown tribe fishing in fashion similar to Iroquois.
The men also fished in large groups. Fishing expeditions included men in canoes using weirs and nets to cover entire streams and harvest large amounts of fish, sometimes a thousand in half of a day.[15] A hunting or fishing party's takings were considered common property; they were divided among the party by the leader or taken to the village for a feast.[16] Hunting and fishing were not always cooperative efforts, but the Iroquois generally did better in parties than as individuals.[17]
Trade
The Iroquois traded excess corn and tobacco for the pelts from the tribes to the north and the wampum from the tribes to the east.[18] The Iroquois used present-giving more often than any other mode of exchange. Present-giving reflected the reciprocity in Iroquois society. The exchange would begin with one clan giving another tribe or clan a present with the expectation of some sort of needed commodity being given in return. This form of trade ties to the Iroquois culture's tendency to share property and cooperate in labor. In all cases no explicit agreement is made, but one service is performed for the community or another member of the community's good with the expectation that the community or another individual would give back.[19] External trade offered one of the few opportunities for individual enterprise in Iroquois society. A person who discovered a new trading route had the exclusive right to trade along the same route in the future. Often clans collectivized trading routes to gain a monopoly on a certain type of trade.[20]
Iroquois with Western goods, presumably acquired through trade (French engraving, 1722)
The arrival of Europeans created the opportunity for greatly expanded trade. Furs were in demand in Europe, and they could be acquired cheaply from Indigenous Peoples in exchange for manufactured goods the Indigenous Peoples could not make themselves.[21] Trade did not always benefit the Natives. The British took advantage of the gift-giving culture. They showered the Iroquois with European goods, making them dependent on such items as rifles and metal axes. For a time, the access to guns gave the Mohawk and other Iroquois advantages over other tribes, and they entered trading seriously. The British primarily used these gifts to gain support among the Iroquois for fighting against the French.[22]
The Iroquois also traded for alcohol, which the Europeans introduced. Eventually, this would have a very negative influence on their society, as they suffered a high rate of alcoholism. By 1753 Scarouady, an Oneida chief, petitioned the Governor of Pennsylvania to intervene in trade:
"Your Traders now bring scarce anything but Rum and Flour; they bring little powder and lead, or other valuable goods . . . and get all the skins that should go to pay the debts we have contracted for goods bought of the Fair Traders; by this means we not only ruin ourselves but them too. These wicked Whiskey Sellers, when they have once got the Indians in liquor, make them sell their very clothes from their backs. In short, if this practice be continued, we must be inevitably ruined."[21]
Effect on Iroquois culture and society
The structure of the Iroquois economy created a unique property and work ethic. The threat of theft was almost nonexistent, since little was held by the individual except basic tools and implements that were so prevalent they had little value. The only goods worth stealing would have been wampum.[23] In order for the Iroquois to succeed without an individual incentive, they had to develop a communal work ethic. Virtue became synonymous with productivity. The idealized Iroquois man was a good warrior and productive hunter while the perfect woman excelled in agriculture and housekeeping.[24] By emphasizing an individual's usefulness to society, the Iroquois created a mindset that encouraged their members to contribute even though they received similar benefits no matter how hard they worked.
As a result of their communal system, the Iroquois had a strong tradition of autonomous responsibility. Iroquois men were taught to be self-disciplined, self-reliant, and responsible as well as stoic.[25] The Iroquois attempted to eliminate any feelings of dependency during childhood and foster a desire for responsibility. At the same time, the child would have to participate in a communal culture, children were taught to think as individuals but work for the community.[26]
Land management after the Europeans arrived
The Iroquois system of land management changed somewhat after encounter with the Europeans. The Mohawk were the first to deal with them and "sold" some land to settlers, although it is unlikely either side understood the other's conception of property.
After the American Revolutionary War, the victorious Americans forced the nations into reservations much reduced in size from their former territories, even those two, the Oneida and Onondaga, that had supported them. Most of the other Iroquois nations were forced to give up their territory and retreated to Canada, where they received some land in compensation from the Crown, in addition to existing settlements along the St. Lawrence River.
The Iroquois had a system of collectively owned land free to be used as needed by their members. While this system was not wholly collective, as land was distributed for use to individual family groups, the Iroquois lacked the Western conception of property as a commodity.[27] Despite the influence of Western culture, the Iroquois have maintained a unique view of property over the years.
The contemporary Mohawk Doug George-Kanentiio sums up his perception of the Iroquois property view: The Iroquois have
"no absolute right to claim territory for purely monetary purposes. Our Creator gave us our aboriginal lands in trust with very specific rules regarding its uses. We are caretakers of our Mother Earth, not lords of the land. Our claims are valid only so far as we dwell in peace and harmony upon her."[28]
In 1981 the Iroquois Council of Chiefs (or Haudenosaunee) expressed similar ideas. The Council distinguished the
"Western European concepts of land ownership" from the Iroquois view that "the earth is sacred" and "was created for all to use forever—not to be exploited merely for this present generation." Land is not just a commodity and "In no event is land for sale." The statement continues, "Under Haudenosaunee law, 'Gayanerkowa,' the land is held by the women of each clan. It is principally the women who are responsible for the land, who farm it, and who care for it for the future generations. When the Confederacy was formed, the separate nations formed one union. The territory of each nation became Confederacy land even though each nation continued to have a special interest in its historic territory."[29]
The council's statement reflects its unique view of property among the Iroquois.
The system of the Grand River Iroquois (two Iroquois reservations in Canada) integrated the traditional Iroquois property structure with the new way of life after being confined to a reservation. The reservation was established under two deeds by the Crown in the 18th century following the American Revolutionary War. These deeds gave corporate ownership of the lands to the Six Nations of the Iroquois.[30] Individuals were granted leases for a specific plot by the Confederacy.[31] The Iroquois idea that land came into one's possession if cared for and reverted to public control if left alone was used in reservation property law. In one property dispute case, the Iroquois Council sided with a claimant who had made improvements and cultivated the land over one who had left it alone.[31]
The natural resources of the land are considered to belong to the tribe as a whole and not to those who possessed the particular parcel.[32] The Iroquois leased the right to extract stone from the lands in one instance and fixed royalties on all the production.[33] After natural gas had been discovered on the reservation, the Six Nations took direct ownership of the natural gas wells. They paid persons who had wells on their land compensation only for damages done by gas extraction.[33] This setup closely resembled the precontact land distribution system where the tribes owned the land and distributed it for use, but not unconditional ownership.
Modern economy
This article needs to be updated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information.(April 2015)
Many Iroquois have been fully integrated into the surrounding Western economy of the United States and Canada. For others, their economic involvement is more isolated in the reservation. Whether directly involved in the outside economy or not, most of the Iroquois economy is now greatly influenced by national and world economies. The Iroquois have been involved in the steel construction industry for over a hundred years, with many men from the Mohawk nations working on such high-steel projects as the Empire State Building and the World Trade Center.[34]
Inside the reservations, which are sometimes isolated from larger cities, the economic situation has often been bleak. For instance, the U.S. side of the Mohawk St. Regis reservation in northern New York has had unemployment as high as 46 percent.[35] However, in April 1999, the St Regis Mohawks opened the Akwesasne Mohawk Casino. It was renovated in 2011 and 2012 to enlarge the hotel, amenities and gaming floor. The casino also employs tribal members and local community members.
The Oneida also operate casinos on their reservations in New York and Wisconsin. The Oneida are one of the largest employers in northeastern Wisconsin with over 3,000 employees, including 975 people in tribal government. The Tribe manages more than $16 million in federal and private grants, and a wide range of programs, including those authorized by the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act.[39] The Oneida business ventures have brought millions of dollars into the community and improved the standard of living in the region.[citation needed]
The Mohicans are an Eastern Algonquian Native American tribe that historically spoke an Algonquian language. As part of the Eastern Algonquian family of tribes, they are related to the neighboring Lenape, whose indigenous territory was to the south as far as the Atlantic coast. The Mohican lived in the upper tidal Hudson River Valley, including the confluence of the Mohawk River and into western New England centered on the upper Housatonic River watershed. After 1680, due to conflicts with the powerful Mohawk to the west during the Beaver Wars, many were driven southeastward across the present-day Massachusetts western border and the Taconic Mountains to Berkshire County around Stockbridge, Massachusetts.
Hiawatha, also known as Ayenwatha or Aiionwatha, was a precolonial Native American leader and cofounder of the Iroquois Confederacy. He was a leader of the Onondaga people, the Mohawk people, or both. According to some accounts, he was born an Onondaga but adopted into the Mohawks.
Among the Haudenosaunee the Great Law of Peace, also known as Gayanashagowa, is the oral constitution of the Iroquois Confederacy. The law was represented by symbols on wampum belts which functioned as mnemonic devices for storytellers, conceived by Dekanawidah, known as the Great Peacemaker, and his spokesman Hiawatha. The original five member nations ratified this constitution near modern-day Victor, New York, with the sixth nation being added in 1722.
The Mohawk, also known by their own name, Kanien'kehà:ka, are an Indigenous people of North America and the easternmost nation of the Haudenosaunee, or Iroquois Confederacy.
The Beaver Wars, also known as the Iroquois Wars or the French and Iroquois Wars, were a series of conflicts fought intermittently during the 17th century in North America throughout the Saint Lawrence River valley in Canada and the Great Lakes region which pitted the Iroquois against the Hurons, northern Algonquians and their French allies. As a result of this conflict, the Iroquois destroyed several confederacies and tribes through warfare: the Hurons or Wendat, Erie, Neutral, Wenro, Petun, Susquehannock, Mohican and northern Algonquins whom they defeated and dispersed, some fleeing to neighbouring peoples and others assimilated, routed, or killed.
The Seneca are a group of Indigenous Iroquoian-speaking people who historically lived south of Lake Ontario, one of the five Great Lakes in North America. Their nation was the farthest to the west within the Six Nations or Iroquois League (Haudenosaunee) in New York before the American Revolution. For this reason, they are called “The Keepers of the Western Door.”
The Onondaga people are one of the five original nations of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy in the Northeastern Woodlands. Their historical homelands are in and around present-day Onondaga County, New York, south of Lake Ontario.
The Oneida people are a Native American tribe and First Nations band. They are one of the five founding nations of the Iroquois Confederacy in the area of upstate New York, particularly near the Great Lakes.
Six Nations is demographically the largest First Nations reserve in Canada. As of the end of 2017, it has a total of 27,276 members, 12,848 of whom live on the reserve. These nations are the Mohawk, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, Seneca and Tuscarora. Some Lenape live in the territory as well.
The Iroquoian languages are a language family of indigenous peoples of North America. They are known for their general lack of labial consonants. The Iroquoian languages are polysynthetic and head-marking.
Handsome Lake was a Seneca religious leader of the Iroquois people. He was a half-brother to Cornplanter, a Seneca war chief.
There are four treaties of Buffalo Creek, named for the Buffalo River in New York. The Second Treaty of Buffalo Creek, also known as the Treaty with the New York Indians, 1838, was signed on January 15, 1838 between the Seneca Nation, Mohawk nation, Cayuga nation, Oneida Indian Nation, Onondaga (tribe), Tuscarora (tribe) and the United States. It covered land sales of tribal reservations under the U.S. Indian Removal program, by which they planned to move most eastern tribes to Kansas Territory west of the Mississippi River.
The Treaty of Canandaigua, also known as the Pickering Treaty and the Calico Treaty, is a treaty signed after the American Revolutionary War between the Grand Council of the Six Nations and President George Washington representing the United States of America.
The Great Peacemaker, sometimes referred to as Deganawida or Tekanawí:ta in Mohawk was by tradition, along with Jigonhsasee and Hiawatha, the founder of the Haudenosaunee, commonly called the Iroquois Confederacy. This is a political and cultural union of six Iroquoian-speaking Native American tribes governing parts of the present-day state of New York, northern Pennsylvania, and the eastern portion of the provinces of Ontario, and Quebec Canada, recognized as sovereign by both the USA and Canada.
The Cayuga Nation of New York is a federally recognized tribe of Cayuga people, based in New York, United States. Other organized tribes with Cayuga members are the federally recognized Seneca-Cayuga Tribe of Oklahoma and the Canadian-recognized Six Nations of the Grand River First Nation in Ontario, Canada.
The Seneca–Cayuga Nation is one of three federally recognized tribes of Seneca people in the United States. It includes the Cayuga people and is based in Oklahoma, United States. The tribe had more than 5,000 people in 2011. They have a tribal jurisdictional area in the northeast corner of Oklahoma and are headquartered in Grove. They are descended from Iroquoian peoples who had relocated to Ohio from New York state in the mid-18th century.
The Iroquois, also known as the Five Nations, and later as the Six Nations from 1722 onwards; alternatively referred to by the endonym Haudenosaunee are an Iroquoian-speaking confederacy of Native Americans and First Nations peoples in northeast North America. They were known by the French during the colonial years as the Iroquois League, and later as the Iroquois Confederacy, while the English simply called them the "Five Nations". The peoples of the Iroquois included the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca. After 1722, the Iroquoian-speaking Tuscarora people from the southeast were accepted into the confederacy, from which point it was known as the "Six Nations".
Tadodaho was a Native American Hoyenah (sachem) of the Onondaga nation before the Deganawidah and Hiawatha formed the Iroquois League, or "Haudenosaunee". According to oral tradition, he had extraordinary characteristics and was widely feared, but he was persuaded to support the confederacy of the Five Nations.
The Seneca Nation of Indians is a federally recognized Seneca tribe based in western New York. They are one of three federally recognized Seneca entities in the United States, the others being the Tonawanda Band of Seneca and the Seneca-Cayuga Nation of Oklahoma. Some Seneca also live with other Iroquois peoples on the Six Nations of the Grand River in Ontario.
John Arthur Gibson (1850–1912) was a chief of the Seneca nation of the North American Iroquois confederation. Part Onondaga and part Seneca, he resided within the reserve of the Six Nations of the Grand River in Ontario, Canada. Knowledgeable about Iroquois (Haudosaunee) culture, he is best known for the versions he provided of the Iroquois oral constitution, the Great Law of Peace. He acted as an advisor to the Canadian Department of Indian Affairs in matters relating both to Iroquois and non-Iroquois indigenous people. He was a well-respected player of the traditional Iroquois sport of lacrosse until he was blinded during a game when he was 31.
References
Adams, Jim (24 November 2002). "Oklahoma Native Tribe Buys Land in New York State". Indian Country Today.
Axtell, James, ed. (1981). The Indian Peoples of Eastern America: A Documentary History of the Sexes. New York: Oxford University Press.
Caskey, Micki M.; Rapida, Theresa J.; Wubbold, Mark (2001). "Fur Trader". Iroquois Confederacy and the US Constitution. Graduate School of Education, Portland State University. Archived from the original on 5 January 2006.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
