Early Iroquois history: Mohawk pottery
Haudenosaunee
Early Iroquois history starts when the Iroquois originally came to America with the other Native Americans. They may have first settled around what’s now Maryland around 1000 AD.
Iroquois since colonization
What was Iroquois food like?
Iroquois longhouses
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The Iroquois didn’t call themselves “Iroquois”, which is an Algonquin insult meaning “snakes”. They called themselves the “Haudenosaunee“, meaning “people who live in longhouses.” Or they called themselves by the kind of Iroquois they were – the Cayugas, the Mohawks, the Oneida, or the Seneca, for example.
The Iroquois move north
Global warm weather between 1000 and 1300 AD may have encouraged the Iroquois (EAR-oh-koi) to move northward. They moved up the Susquehanna river into what’s now Pennsylvania and New York. When the Iroquois moved north, they ran into a smaller group of Woodland nomadic people and took their land.
What’s the Woodland period?
Medieval warming period
In the 1200s AD, for instance, the Allegans controlled a trade town where two important trails crossed at the north end of Owasco Lake. It’s now the town of Auburn. Cayugas (a kind of Iroquois) drove the Allegans away and took it over.
Iroquois wampum belt
Iroquois farming: the Three Sisters
The Iroquois probably brought farming with them when they arrived in this area. Iroquois farmers grew corn and beans and squash– the Three Sisters – and also sunflowers and tobacco. The Iroquois traded in canoes north up the Hudson River to the St. Lawrence. They bought copper that came from Lake Superior. In return, they sold rare seashells, dried fish, and tobacco.
The Iroquois controlled the Hudson River to their west and Lake Erie to their east. Canoes could easily get from Lake Erie to Lake Superior, to trade with people living along the Mississippi River. So the Iroquois traded with people across all of North America.
Where does corn come from?
More about the Three Sisters
Why did they grow sunflowers?
History of tobacco
Native American economy
Little Ice Age
Around 1350 AD, the warm weather ended, and the environment began a “Little Ice Age“, with colder weather. The Iroquois started to fight a lot of wars around this time. They built their villages on high ground and surrounded them with strong log walls. One of their main enemies was the Algonquin, who were trying to move further south where the weather would be warmer.
The Little Ice Age
Who were the Algonquin?
Iroquois Confederacy
At some point around the 1400s AD, the Iroquois formed a confederacy (con-FED-ur-ah-see), which is a sort of club or organization. This was an agreement between the different groups of Iroquois – the Mohawk, the Oneida, the Cayuga, the Seneca, and the Onandaigua – to get along and fight as allies against their enemies, instead of fighting each other. Iroquois leaders recorded their agreement with wampum.
History of money
Wampum was a kind of decoration made by fastening thousands of tiny seashell beads together. It was super hard to make wampum. So Iroquois people used wampum to mark very important occasions like marriages, or treaties. But wampum was also a kind of money, because it was rare and hard to get, like gold.
Learn by doing: making a wampum belt
More about the Iroquois
Bibliography and further reading about early Iroquois history:
The Iroquois: The Six Nations Confederacy, by Mary Englar (2006).
If You Lived With The Iroquois, by Ellen Levine (1999). Written – very lively and with a lot of good detail about daily life. I really liked it.
The Iroquois, by Barbara Graymont (2004). More detailed information.
I would like to know how the longhouse evolved.and also how the concept of matrilineality was conceived.
Yes, a lot of people would like to know that! Those are areas where archaeologists still have a lot of work to do.
Karen, Hello, my name is Edward I have been working on Haudenosaunee studies for many years. I’m currently building an understanding about the farming methods used by the people, and have found other than the early 1600’s information about how they farmed there is no first hand descriptions of the farming skills used by the 6 Nations in the 1750’s. As contact with White culture had impacted many things, did it also impact and change the farming methods used is unclear. Can you offer any source information I can read to improve my understanding of what farming methods were used in 1750’s.
Hi Edward,
Wow, that is a hard question, but a good one. I think that of course contact with Europeans must have changed Haudenosaunee farming methods, for instance by providing the Haudenosaunee with iron shovels and scythes, when before they only had wooden ones. Europeans also brought new crops, like apples, which I would think Haudenosaunee people probably started to grow. I’m afraid I don’t know offhand of any sources about this, but I’ll get back to you on that.