In a country like ours, whose institutions rest on the popular will, we
must rely for our social and literary means and honors, exclusively on
personal exertions, springing from the bosom of society. We have no
external helps and reliances, sealed in expectations of public
patronage, held by the hands of executive, or ministerial power. Our
ancestors, it is true, were accustomed to such stimulants to literary
exertions. Titles and honors were the prerogatives of Kings, who
sometimes stooped from their political eminences, to bestow the reward
upon the brows of men, who had rendered their names conspicuous in the
fields of science and letters. Such is still the hope of men of letters
in England, Germany and France. But if a bold and hardy ancestry, who
had learned the art of thought in the bitter school of experience, were
accustomed to such dispensations of royal favors, while they remained in
Europe, they feel but little benefit from them here; and made no
provision for their exercise, as one of the immunities of powers, when
they came to set up the frame of a government for themselves.
No ruler, under our system, is invested with authority to tap, his
kneeling fellow subject on the crown of his head, and exclaim, "Arise,
Sir, Knight!" The cast of our institutions is all the other way, and the
tendency of things, as the public mind becomes settled and compacted,
is, to take away from men the prestige of names and titles; to award but
little, on the score of antiquarian merit, and to weigh every man's
powers and abilities, political and literary, in the scale of absolute
individual capacity, to be judged of, by the community at large. If
there are to be any "orders," in America, let us hope they will be like
that, whose institution we are met to celebrate, which is founded on the
principle of intellectual emulation, in the fields of history, science
and letters.
Such are, indeed, the objects which bring us together on the present
occasion, favored as we are in assembling around the light of this
emblematic COUNCIL FIRE. Honored by your notice, as an honorary member,
in your young institution, I may speak of it, as if I were myself a
fellow laborer, in your circle: and, at least, as one, understanding
somewhat of its plan, who feels a deep interest in its success.
Adopting one of the seats of the aboriginal powers, which once cast the
spell of its simple, yet complicated, government, over the territory, a
central point has been established HERE. To this central point,
symbolizing the whole scheme of the Iroquois system, other points of
subcentralization tend, as so many converging lines. You come from the
east and the west, the north and the south. You have obeyed ONE
impulse--followed ONE principle--come to unite your energies in ONE
object. That object is the cultivation of letters. To give it force and
distinctness, by which it may be known and distinguished among the
efforts made to improve and employ the leisure hours of the young men of
Western New York, you have adopted a name derived from the ancient
confederacy of the Iroquois, who once occupied this soil. With the name,
you have taken the general system of organization of society, within a
society, held together by one bond. That bond, as existing in the
TOTEMIC tie, reaches, with a peculiar force, each individual, in such
society. It is an idea noble in itself, and worthy of the thought and
care, by which it has been nurtured and moulded into its present
auspicious form.--The union you thus form, is a union of minds. It is a
band of brotherhood, but a brotherhood of letters. It is a confederacy
of tribes, but a literary confederacy. It is an assemblage of warriors,
but the labor to be pursued is exclusively of an intellectual character.
The plumes with which you aim to pledge your literary arrows, are to be
plucked from the wings of science. It is a council of clans, not to
consult on the best means of advancing historical research; of promoting
antiquarian knowledge; and of cultivating polite literature. The field
of inquiry is broad, and it is to be trodden in various ways. You seek
to advance in the paths of useful knowledge, but neglect not the flowers
that bedeck the way. You aim at general objects and results, but pursue
them, through the theme and story of that proud and noble race of the
sons of the Forest, whose name, whose costume and whose principles of
association you assume. Symbolically, you re-create the race. Thus
aiming, and thus symbolizing your labors, your objects to resuscitate
and exhume from the dust of by-gone years, some of those deeds of valor
and renown which marked this hardy and vigorous race. There is in the
idea of your association, one of the elements of a peculiar and national
literature. And whatever may be the degree of success, which
characterizes your labors, it is hoped they will bear the impress of
American heads and American hearts. We have drawn our intellectual
sustenance, it is true, from noble fountains and crystal streams. We
have all England, and all Europe for our fountain head. But when this
has been said, we must add, that they have been off-sets from foreign
fountains and foreign streams. And nurtured as we have been, from such
ample sources, it is time, in the course of our national developments,
that we begin to produce something characteristic of the land that gave
us birth. No people can bear a true nationality, which does not
exfoliate, as it were, from its bosom, something that expresses the
peculiarities of its own soil and climate. In building its intellectual
edifice, we must have not only suitable decorations, but there must come
from the broad and deep quarries of its own mountains, foundation
stones, and columns and capitals, which bear the impress of an
indigenous mental geognosy.
And where! when we survey the length and breadth of the land, can a more
suitable element, for the work be found, than is furnished by the
history and antiquities and institutions and love, of the free, bold,
wild, independent, native hunter race? They are, relatively to us, what
the ancient Pict and Celt were to Britain, or the Teuton, Goth and
Magyar to Continental Europe. Looking around, over the wide forests, and
transcendent lakes of New York, the founders of this association, have
beheld the footprints of the ancient race. They saw here, as it were, in
vision, the lordly Iroquois, crowned by the feathers of the eagle,
bearing in his hand the bow and arrows, and scorning, as it were, by the
keen glances of his black eye, and the loftiness of his tread, the very
earth that bore him up. History and tradition speak of the story of this
ancient race.--They paint him as a man of war--of endurance--of
indomitable courage--of capacity to endure tortures without
complaint--of a heroic and noble independence. They tell us that these
precincts, now waving with yellow corn, and smiling with villages, and
glittering with spires, were once vocal with their war songs, and
resounded with the chorusses of their corn feasts. We descry, as we
plough the plain, the well chipped darts which pointed their arrows, and
the elongated pestles, that crushed their maize. We exhume from their
obliterated and simple graves, the pipe of steatite, in which they
smoked, and offered incense to these deities, and the fragments of the
culinary vases, around which, the lodge circle gathered to their forest
meal. Mounds and trenches and ditches, speak of the movement of tribe
against tribe, and dimly shadow forth the overthrow of nations. There
are no plated columns of marble; no tablets of inscribed stone--no gates
of rust-coated brass. But the MAN himself survives, in his generation.
He is a WALKING STATUE before us. His looks and his gestures and his
language remain. And he is himself, an attractive _monument_ to be
studied. Shall we neglect him, and his antiquarian vestiges, to run
after foreign sources of intellectual study? Shall we toil amid the
ruins of Thebes and Palmyra, while we have before us the monumental
enigma of an unknown race? Shall philosophical ardor expend itself, in
searching after the buried sites of Nineveh, and Babylon and Troy, while
we have not attempted, with decent research, to collect, arrange and
determine, the leading data of our aboriginal history and
antiquities?--These are inquiries, which you, at least, may aim to
answer.
No branch of the human family is an object unworthy of high philosophic
inquiry. Their food, their language, their arts, their physical
peculiarities, and their mental traits, are each topics of deep
interest, and susceptible of being converted into evidences of high
importance. Mistaken our Red Men clearly were, in their theories and
opinions on many points. They were wretched theologists, and poor
casuists. But not more so, in three-fourths of their dogmas, than the
disciples of Zoroaster, or Confucius. They were polytheists from their
very position. And yet, there is a general idea, that under every form,
they acknowledged but one DIVINE INTELLIGENCE under the name of the
GREAT SPIRIT.
They paid their sacrifices, or at least, respects, to the imaginary and
phantastic gods of the air, the woods and water, as Greece and Rome had
done, and done as blindly before them. But they were a vigorous, hardy
and brave off-shoot of the original race of man. They were full of
humanities. They had many qualities to command admiration. They were
wise in council, they were eloquent in the defence of their rights. They
were kind and humane to the weak, bewildered and friendless. Their
lodge-board was ever ready for the way farer. They were constant to a
proverb, in their _professed_ friendships. They never forgot a kind act.
Nor can it be recorded, to their dispraise, that they were a terror to
their enemies. Their character was formed on the military principle, and
to acquire distinction in this line, they roved over half the continent.
They literally carried their conquests from the gulf of St. Lawrence to
the gulf of Mexico. Few nations have ever existed, who have evinced more
indomitable courage or hardihood, or shown more devotion to the spirit
of independence than the Iroquois.
But all their efforts would have ended in disappointment, had it not
been for that principle of confederation, which, at an early day,
pervaded their councils, and converted them into a phalanx, which no
other tribe could successfully penetrate, or resist. It is this trait,
by which they are most distinguished from the other hunter nations of
North America; and it is to their rigid adherence to the verbal compact,
which bound them together, as tribes and clans, that they owe their
present celebrity, and owed their former power.
It is proposed to inquire into the principles of this confederacy, and
to make a few brief suggestions on its origin and history. In the time
that has been given me, I have had but little opportunity for research,
and even this little, other engagements, have not permitted me, fully to
employ. The little that I have to offer, would indeed have been confined
to the reminiscence of former reading, had I not been called, the
present season, to make a personal visit to the reservation still
occupied by the principal tribes.
1. Prominent in its effects on the rise and progress of nations, in the
geographical diameter of the country they occupy. And in this respect,
the Iroquois were singularly favored. They lived under an atmosphere the
most genial of any in the temperate latitude. Equally free from the
extremes of heat, and humidity, it has been found eminently favorable to
human life. Inquiries into the statistics of vitality will abundantly
denote this. Many of the civil sachems lived to a great age. And the
same may be said of those warriors who escaped the dart and club, until
they came to the period, not a very advanced one, when they ceased to
follow the war path.
They possessed a country, unsurpassed for its various advantages, not
only on this continent, but on the globe.--It afforded a soil of the
most fruitful kind, where they could, with ease and certainty, always
cultivate their maize. Its forests abounded in the deer, elk, bear and
other animals, whose flesh supplied their lodges. It was irrigated by
some of the sublimest rivers of the continent, whose waters ran south
and north, east, and by the Alleghanies, west, till they all found their
level, at distant points, either in the Gulfs of St. Lawrence and
Mexico, or in the intermediate shores of the Atlantic. Lakes of an
amazing size, compared to those of Europe, bounded this territory on the
north and north east. Its own bosom, was spotted, with secondary sheets
of water, like that of the Cayuga, upon whose banks we are assembled.
These added freshness and beauty to the thick, and almost unbroken
continuity of these forests.
Nations doubtless owe some of their characteristics to the natural
scenes of their country, and if we grant the same influence to the red
sons of the forest, they had sources of animating and elevating thoughts
around them.--Men who habitually cast their views to the Genesee and the
Niagara--who crossed in their light canoe, the Ontario and Erie, wending
their way into the sublime vista of the upper lakes: men, who threaded
these broad forests in search of the deer, or who descended the powerful
and rapid channels of the Alleghany, the Susquehanna, the Delaware and
the St. Lawrence, in quest of their foes, must have felt the influence
of magnitude and creative grandeur, and could not but originate ideas
favorable to liberty and personal independence. Their very position,
became thus the initiatory step in their assent to power.
2. Such was the country occupied, at the era of the discovery, by the
Iroquois. They lived, to employ their own symbolic language, in a long
lodge extending east and west, from the waters of the Ca-ho-ha-ta-tea[A]
to those of Erie. Their most easterly tribe, the Mohawks, extended their
occupancy to a point which they still call, with dialectic variations,
Skan-ek-ta-tea, being the present site of Albany. To this place, or, as
is more generally thought, to this geographical vicinity, the commercial
enterprize of Holland, sent an exploring ship in 1609. Here begins the
certain and recorded history of the Iroquois. We have only known them
200 years. All beyond this, is a field of antiquarian inquiry.
[A] Hudson.
From the historical documents recently obtained by the State from
France, and deposited in the public offices at the capitol, it is seen
that this people are sometimes called the NINE nations of the Iroquois.
Algonquin tradition, which I have recently published, denotes that they
originally consisted of EIGHT tribes. (ONEOTA.) Whatever of truth or
error, there may be in these terms, it is certain that, at the period of
the Dutch discovery and settlement referred to, they uniformly described
themselves as the FIVE NATIONS, or United People, under the title of
AKONOSHIONI.[B] The term Ongwe Honwee, which Colden mentions as
peculiarly applied to themselves, as proudly contradistinguished from
others, is a mere equivalent, in the several dialects, at this day, for
the term Indian, and applies equally to other tribes, throughout the
continent, as well as to themselves. By the admission of the Tuscaroras
into the confederacy, they became known as the Six Nations. The
principles of their compact, were such as to admit of any extension.
They might as well, for aught that is known, have consisted of Sixteen
as Six Tribes, and like our own Union, they would have been stronger and
firmer in their power, with each admission.
[B] Or Ho-de-no-son-ne.
I have directed some few inquiries to their plan of union. It appears to
have originated in a proposal to act in concert, by means of a central
council, in questions of peace and war. In other respects, each tribe
was an independency. It had no right to receive ambassadors from other
tribes.--Messages delivered to a frontier tribe, were immediately
transmitted to the next tribe in position, and by them passed on, to the
central councils. They affirm that these messages were forwarded, with
extraordinary celerity, by runners who rested not, night or day. The
power to convene the general council, for despatch of public business,
was in the presiding or executive chief of the Central Tribe.
This power to make war or peace, or cession of sovereignty, was given
up, on the principle of an equal union in all respects, without regard
to numbers. It was strictly federative, or a union of tribes. The assent
to a measure, was given by tribes. Whether all were required to assent,
or a majority was sufficient, is not known. It is believed they
_required_ entire unanimity.
3. But another principle, of the deepest importance, ran throughout the
organization of all the tribes, more remote in its origin, and still
more influential, it may be thought, in forming a more perfect union,
and giving strength and compactness to the government. It was the plan
of the TOTEMIC BOND. This bond was a fraternity of separate clans in
each tribe. It was based on original consanguinity, and marked by a
heraldic device, as the figure of a quadruped, or bird. This appears to
be an ancient feature in their organization, and is also found among
other North American tribes. The Algonquin tribes, who possess the same
organization, and from whose vocabulary we take the name, call it the
Totem. The institution of the totem, or inter-fraternity of clans,
existed, and is also found, with well marked features, among the
Iroquois. It had, however, one characteristic, which was peculiar, to
these nations.--It was employed to mark the descent of the chiefs, which
ran exclusively by the female. The law of marriage, interdicting
connexions within the clan, and limiting them to another, was probably
established in ancient times, among the other nations who adhere to this
institution, but, if so, it has dropped, or dwindled into mere
tradition.
Totem, is a term denoting the device, or pictorial sign, which is used
by each individual, to determine his family identity. As many as have
the same totem are admitted to be of the same family or clan. In this
respect, it is analogous to coats of arms. It differs from them in this,
that no person can marry another of the same arms and totem. They are
related. The reason for keeping up this interdict, in cases where the
degree of relationship must often be very small, or is entirely lost,
appears to be one of policy, and will be, as far as possible, explained.
Originally, there appears to have been three leading families or clans,
among all the North American Indians, whose devices were, respectively,
the TURTLE, the WOLF, and the BEAR. This triad of honored clans, existed
and still exists among nations diverse in their languages, and remote in
position, and may be considered as a proof of their common origin. These
totems were regarded as of the highest authority--a fact which may
denote either original paternity in these clans, or some distinguished
action or services, analogous, perhaps, to the well known events of the
Curatii and Horatii.
It is certain, at least, that amongst each of the Iroquois tribes, as
well as the great Algonquin family, there existed the totem or clan of
the turtle, the wolf, and the bear. I will take, however, as an
illustration of the Totemic organization of the tribes, the instance of
the NUN-DO-WA-GA, or Senecas. The facts here employed have recently been
communicated to me by their distinguished chief DE-O-NE-HO-GA-WA. The
tribe consists of eight clans. They are, in the order communicated, the
wolf, the turtle, the bear, the beaver, the snipe or plover, the falcon
or hawk, the deer and the cranes. The present reigning clan is the wolf,
the clan to which the noted orator, Red Jacket, and my informant, both
belonged. We may assume, that what appear to have been fundamental
principles, were actually so, and are to be regarded as the
constitutional basis.
Each clan is entitled to a chief. Each chief has a seat in council. The
chiefs are hereditary, counting by the female line. By this law of
descent, no chief could beget an immediate successor. And herein
consisted one of the marked points of political wisdom in their system.
It is this law of descent which best distinguishes it from the system of
government of other nations on this continent, and in Asia. No such rule
is known to exist, but may exist, among the Mongol race, or other
Asiatic stocks, to whom these people have usually been traced. If so,
the law of descent, in this regard, is indigenous and original. What
disquisitions have we not seen, that a certain Iroquois chief was in the
regular line of the chieftainship, by the father? whereas, it is clear,
that the son of a chief could never, in any case, succeed his father.
The descent ran, so to say, in the line of the queen-mother. If a chief
die, his brother, next in age, would succeed him. These failing, his
daughter's male children, if connected with the reigning totem, would
succeed. Her children constituted the chain of transmission; but the
heir to the chieftainship, whether by acknowledged succession, or by
choice in case of dispute or uncertainty, had his claims uniformly
submitted to a called council, and if approved, the sachem was regularly
installed to the office. Councils had this right from an early day, and
are known to have ever been very scrupulous and jealous in its
exercise, and continue to be so, at this time.
By the establishment of this law of descent, the evils of a hereditary
chieftainship were obviated. And the succession was kept in healthy
channels, by the right of the council to decide, in all cases, and to
set aside incompetent claimants. This right was so exercised, as to give
the nation the advantages of the elective power, and to avail itself of
all its talent.
We perceive in this system, an effective provision for breaking
dynasties, and securing at each mutation of the chieftainship, a fresh
line of chiefs, who were subject to a life limit. Each clan having the
same right to one chief, a perpetual, yet constantly changing body of
sachems, was kept up, which must necessarily change the body entirely in
one generation. Yet, like the classes in our senatorial organization,
the change was effected so slowly and gradually, that the body of chiefs
constituted a political perpetuity.
In contemplating this system, there is more than one point to admire.
History gives us no example of a confederacy in which the principle of
political and domestic union, were so intimately bound together. By the
establishment of the Totemic Bond, the clans were separated on the
principle of near kindred, between which all marriage was inhibited.
Every marriage between these separated clans, therefore, bound them
closer together, and the consequence soon must have been, their entire
amalgamation, had it not been provided, that each clan, through the
female line, should preserve inviolate forever, its own Totemic
independency. In other words, the female was never so incorporated into
a new relation by the matrimonial tie, as to lose her family name, and
her mother's ancestral rights. If, for example, a deer totem female,
married a wolf or hawk male, she was still counted in the clan of the
deer, and never gave up her political rights, to the wolf or hawk
clans, which had provided for her a husband. Her position may, perhaps,
be better understood, by observing that the married woman, still
retained her maiden name--the sir name of her family. By this means she
preserved the identity of her clan, and with it, its heraldic and
political rights. Not only so, the property of a female, never vested
in, or belonged to the husband. This trait is still in full vogue, among
each of the tribes. Its operation has been witnessed the present year.
Matrons had also the right to attend and sit in council, and there were
occasions, in which they were permitted to speak. For this purpose, a
speaker was assigned to them, and this person became a standing officer
in the council.--It might pertain to the nations to bring in
propositions of peace. Such propositions might prejudice the character
of a warrior, but they were appropriate to the female, and the wise men
knew how to avail themselves of this stroke of policy. We speak of the
general and burdensome subjection of the female, among our Red Men--a
condition, indeed, inseparable from the hunter state, but here is a
trait of power and consideration, which has not yet been reached by
refined nations.
With respect to the cause of descent through the female line, it is
believed there are sound and politic reasons for such a custom, in the
nomadic state; but we have not time to examine them. The whole subject
of the separation of the tribes into a fixed member of original clans;
the connexion of these clans, preserved by the totems, and the selection
of the female as the preserver of these totemic ties, is one of deep
interest, and worthy of your inquiries. So far as the investigation has
been carried, it appears, that the primary object of this organization
was to preserve the NAMES of the original founders of the nation.--These
founders are said to have been the children of two brothers, and were
cousin-germans. But why preserve their names? What object was to result
from it? Were the persons who bore the names of the wolf, and the
turtle and the falcon and other species, famed as hunters or warriors?
Had they delivered their people, from imminent peril, or performed any
noble act? Had they conducted their people across the sea, from other
countries? Did they expect to return, and was _this_ the object of
preserving their names, in the line of their descendants? Or was the
institution, as it does not appear to have been, mere caprice? Nothing
could give more interest to your enquiries than a search into these
obscure matters. They are, in fact, at the foundation of their system of
government, and will enable you, with more clearness, to ascertain and
fix its principles.
4. Of this government itself, we know very little, beyond the fact, that
it had attained great celebrity among the other tribes. It was evidently
founded on the overthrow of that of the ancient Alleghans. It appears to
have been full of intricacies, yet simple. A republic, yet embracing
aristocratic features. A mere government of opinion; yet fixed,
effective, and powerful. It would be well to sift it, by the best lights
yet within reach. These are verbal and traditionary. There is little to
be had from books.
If we look at the political theory of this government it had traits both
peculiar and prescient. Their councils were not constituted, primarily,
by elective representation. Yet they secured the chief benefits of it.
The chiefs, had a life office, and were incapable of transmitting it to
their descendants. The organic council was a representation of tribes,
not of members. This aristocratic feature, was balanced and its tendency
to absorb authority prevented, by permitting the warriors to sit in
these primary councils. In these councils, there was free discussion and
full deliberation. But there was no formal vote taken, nor any measure
carried by counting persons, or ascertaining a majority or plurality.
Tradition declares against any such test. The popular sense appears to
have been secured alone by the scope and tenor of the debates. I cannot
learn that there ever was any formal expression, equivalent to the
modern practice of taking of the sense of the council on a measure.
Perhaps something of this kind is to be found in the approbatory
response, from which the French are said to have made up the word
IROQUOIS.
If the aristocratic feature of life-sachemship, was counteracted by the
influence of the warriors in council, at the Council Fire of the Tribes;
this feature was shorn still more of its objectionable tendencies in the
General or Central Council of the Confederacy. Chiefs attended this
national assemblage, as delegates or representatives, although not
elected representatives, of their tribes. The number depended on
circumstances; and varied with the occasion. They were sent, or went, to
deliberate on a specific question, or questions, for which, the tribe
was summoned, by the Executive Sachem of the Nation holding the high
office of Attotarho,[C] or Convener of the Council. This central
council, headed by this kind of a Presidency, was in fact, more purely
democratic in its structure, than the home councils. It consisted
essentially of a Congress of Chiefs, having a right as chiefs to attend,
or delegated for the purpose, and aided also, by the warriors. It had
the character of being a representative national body, delegated for a
single session; and of a local body of life chiefs constituting the home
sachemry, or a limited senate.
[C] The corresponding word in the Seneca dialect is Tod-o-dah-hoh.
Such I apprehend to have been the structure of the Iroquois government.
It was strong, efficient and popular.--It had its fixity in the life
tenure of the chiefs and the customs of proceeding. The voice of the
warriors constituted a counterbalance, or species of second estate. But
practically, whatever the theory, the chief and warriors, acted as one
body. They came, generally, to advocate, or announce what had already
been decided on, in the body of the tribe.
It is evident, in viewing this scheme of a native federative
government, that its tendencies were always in favor of the power of the
separate tribes. No people ever existed, who watched more narrowly the
existence of power, and its innate tendency to centralize, and usurp.
Suspicious to a fault, their eyes and ears were ever open to the least
tone or gesture of alarm. They had only confided, to the Central
Council, the power to make war or peace, and to regulate public policy.
This Central Council, received embassies, not only from the numerous
nations with whom they warred; but the delegates of the crowns of France
and England, often stood in their presence.
The assent of each tribe is believed to have been requisite to an
alliance, or rupture. When this had been given at the central council,
it was explained before the local council, and the concurrence of the
body of the tribe, was essential to make it binding and effective. In
case of war, there was no fixed scale by which men were to be raised. It
was deemed obligatory for each tribe to raise men according to its
strength. But each was left free to its own action, being responsible
for such action, to PUBLIC OPINION. All warriors were volunteers, and
were raised for specific expeditions, and were bound no longer. To take
up the war club, and join in the war dance, was to enlist. There was no
other enlistment--no bounties--no pay--no standing force--no public
provisions--no public arms--no clothing--no public hospital. The martial
impulse of the people was sufficient. All was left to personal effort
and provision. Self dependence was never carried to such height. The
thirst for glory--the honor of the confederacy--the strife for personal
distinction, filled their ranks; and led them, through desert paths, to
the St. Lawrence, the Illinois, the Atlantic seaboard and the southern
Alleghanies. Nor did they need the roll of the river to animate their
courage, or regulate their steps. Theirs was a high energetic devotion,
equal or superior to even that of ancient Sparta and Lacedaemon. They
conquered wherever they went. They subdued nations in their immediate
vicinity. They exterminated others. They adopted the fragments of
subjugated tribes into their confederacy, sunk their national homes into
oblivion, and thus repaired the irresistable losses of war. They had
eloquence, as well as courage. Their speakers maintained a high rank
along side of the best generals and negotiators of France, England and
America. We owe this tribute to their valor and talents. One thousand
such men, equipped for war as _they_ were, and led by _their_ spirit,
would have effected more in battle, than the tens of thousands of
effeminate Aztecks and Peruvians who shouted, but often did no more than
_shout_, around the piratical bands of Cortez and Pizarro.
5. I have left myself but little time to speak of the origin and early
history of this people--topics which are of deep interest in themselves,
but which are involved in great obscurity. They are subjects which
commend themselves to your attention, and offer a wide field for your
future research. There are three periods in our Indian history:
1. THE ALLEGORIC AND FABULOUS AGE. This includes the creation, the
deluge, the creation of Holiness and Evil, and some analogous points, in
the general and shadowy traditions of men, which our hunter race, have
almost universally concealed under the allegoric figures, of a creative
bird or beast, or the exploits of some potent personage, endowed with
supernatural courage or power. In this era, the earth was also covered
with monsters and giants, who waged war, and drove men into caves and
recesses; until the interposition of the original creative power, for
their relief.
2. THE ANTE-HISTORICAL PERIOD, in which tradition begins to assume the
character of truth, but is still obscured by fable. This period includes
the early discoveries by the Northmen, the reputed voyage of Prince
Madoc, &c.
3. THE PERIOD OF ACTUAL HISTORY, dating from the earliest voyage of
Columbus and his companions.
I have alluded, in a preceding part of this address, to the mode of
studying their early history. Where little or nothing is to be obtained
from books, it requires a cautious investigation of these traditions and
antiquities. Ethnology, in all its branches, has a direct and practical
bearing on this subject. The physical type of man, the means of his
subsistence, the state of his arts, the language he speaks, the
hieroglyphics he carves, the mounds he builds--the fortifications he
erects,--his religion, his superstitions, his legendary lore--the very
geography of the country he inhabits, are so many direct and palpable
means of acquiring historical evidence. It is from the investigation of
these, that tribes and nations are grouped and classified, and the
original stocks of mankind denoted, and the track of their dispersion
over the globe traced. And they constitute so many topics of study and
investigation.
In relating their traditions, our Red Men are prone, to connect, (as if
these were portions of a continuous and consistent narrative) the most
_recent_ and most _remote_ events, which dwell in their memory. And from
their present residence and recent history, to run back, by a few
sentences, into purely fabulous and allegoric periods. Fiction and fact,
are mingled in the same strain. In listening to those relations, it is
important to establish in the mind, historical periods, and to separate
that which is grotesque or imaginative from the narration of real
events. The latter, may be sometimes distorted by this juxtaposition,
but it is, in general, easy to separate the two, and to re-adopt them,
on their own principles. The early nations of Europe and Asia, pursued
the same system. Their men were soon traced into gods, and their gods,
soon ended in sensualists, or demons. Greek and Roman history, before
the period of Herodotus, must have been little better than a jargon of
such incongruities, and nearly all the earlier part of it, is no better
now. To teach our children these nonsensical fables, is to vitiate their
imagination, and the thing would never have been dreamt of, in a moral
age, were not the ancient mythology, inseparably mixed up with the
present state of ancient history, poetry and letters. We must teach it
as a fable, and rely on truth to counteract its effects.
The Iroquois have their full share in the fabulous and allegoric
periods, and an examination of their tales and traditions will be found,
I apprehend, to give ample scope to poetry and imagination. In their
fabulous age, as recorded by Cusick, they have their war, with flying
Heads, the Stone Giants, the Great Serpent, the Gigantic Musquito, the
Spirit of Witchcraft, and several other eras, which afford curious
evidences of the way-farings and wanderings of the human intellect,
unaided by letters, or the spirit of truth.
Actual history plants its standard close on the confines of these
benighted regions of fable and allegory. It is not proposed to enter
into much detail on this topic. The modern facts are pretty well known,
but have never been thoroughly investigated or arranged. Of the earlier
facts in their origin and history, we know very little. The first
writers on the subject of the Indians generally, after the settlement of
America, dealt in wild speculations, and were carried away with
preconceived theories, which destroy their value. Colden, who directed
his attention to the Iroquois, scarcely attempted any thing beyond a
specific relation of transactions, which are intended for the
information of the Board of Trade and Plantations, and these do not come
down beyond the peace of Ryswick. There is a large amount of printed
information, adequate for the completion of their history in the 18th
and 19th centuries, but most of the works are of rare occurrence, and
are only to be found in large libraries at home and abroad. Other facts
exist in manuscript official documents, numbers of which, have recently
been obtained by the State, from foreign offices, and are now deposited
in the Secretary's office at Albany. The lost correspondence on Indian
affairs, of Sir William Johnson, may yet come to light, and would
necessarily be important. Private manuscripts and the traditions of aged
Indians, still living, would further contribute to their history. They
are a people worthy the separate pen of a historian, and it may be hoped
that an elaborate and full work, may be produced.
Where the Iroquois originated? is a question, which involves the prior
and general one, of the origin of the Red Race. So far as relates to
their proximate origin, on this continent, I am inclined to think, that
it was in the tropical latitudes extending west from the Gulf of
Mexico.--Facts indicate the great tide of our migration, to have been
from that general race. The zea maize which is a southern plant, came
from that quarter, and was spread, as the tribes moved from the south to
the north, the east, and northeast, and north west. Which of the
ancient Indian stocks came first we know not. The Iroquois, if we follow
one of their own authors, have strong claims to antiquity, but we cannot
accept this in full. That they migrated up the valley of the
Mississippi, and the Ohio to its extreme head (they call the Alleghany
Oheo) is probable. Our actual knowledge on this subject, historically
speaking, is very small, and we must grope our way through dark and
shadowy traditions. These, however, sustain the general fact stated,
which is helped out by other accessions. That they had crossed the great
artery of the continent, (the Mississippi river) prior to the Algonquin
race, but after the Alleghans, is shown by the traditions of the latter.
[P.W.][D] With this race, tradition asserts, that they formed an
alliance, at a remote era, and maintained a bloody war, for many years,
against the ancient Alleghans, who are supposed, in these wars, to have
erected the fortifications and mounds, of the Mississippi valley. That
this ancient Alleghanic empire of the West, so to call it, fell before
the combined courage and energy of the Iroquois and Algonquins, and that
the defeated tribes either retired down the waters of the Mississippi,
or were in part incorporated with themselves, or yet exist in the Far
West, under other names, we have various traditions for asserting or
believing.
[D] Indian Picture Writing.
Thus far we are speaking of the ante-historical period. When the
colonies came to be planted, and our ancestors spread themselves along
the Atlantic coast, from the initial points of settlement in Virginia,
Nova Belgica, and New England, the Iroquois were already well seated,
and spoke and acted, whenever they desired to make allusion to the
matter, as if they had been _forever_ seated on the soil they then
occupied. To conceal the fact of their title being held by right of
conquest, or to supply the actual want of history, one tribe, the
Oneidas, asserted that they had sprung from a rock. Another, the
Wyandots, alleged that they came out of the ground by the fiat of the
great spirit. [Oneota.] None of them acknowledged a _foreign origin_
beyond seas. None of them acknowledged, at first, that they knew aught
of the ancient mound-builders and people who built the old
fortifications in the West, or in their own country; but they
subsequently connected, or accommodated these mounds, to their war with
the Alleghans. This is in accordance with Indian policy, and suspicious
foresight. When closely questioned, they told Gov. Clinton that these
old works were by an _earlier_ people, and that their oldest traditions
related to their wars with the Cherokees, and the people of the extreme
south. That they originally dwelt in those latitudes--that they migrated
north through the Ohio valley, around the Alleghanies, and came into
Western New-York from the borders of the Lakes and the St. Lawrence, are
points very well denoted by their languages, vestiges of arts,
geographical nomenclature and history, so far as we have had the means
of recording it.
Cartier, in 1535, found them seated at Hochelaga, the present site of
Montreal. They had an ancient station, as low down the Connecticut at
least, as Northfield. Towards the north of lakes Ontario and Erie, they
extended to the chain of lakes which stretches through from the northern
shores of the former to lake Huron. It is seen from Le Jeune, that they
ordered the Wyandots of the ancient Hochelaga Canton, who had formed an
alliance with the French and with the Algonquins, to quit that spot, and
remove into the territory south of the lakes. And in default of this,
they warred against them, and drove them west, through the great chain
of lakes to Michilimackinac, and even to the western extremity of lake
Superior.
The period of the settlement of Canada, ripened causes of hostility to
the entire Algonquin, or as they called them, Adirondak race, into
maturity. The Wyandot alliance with the French gave an edge to this
contest, and having soon been supplied with guns and ammunition by the
Dutch, they defeated this race in several sanguinary battles between
Montreal and Quebec, and drove them out of this valley, by the way of
the Ontario river, and pursued them to their villages and hunting
grounds in area of lakes Huron, Michigan and Algoma. They defeated the
Kah Kwahes or Eries. They pushed their war parties, from the lakes,
through to the MIAMI, the WABASH, and the ILLINOIS, on the latter of
which they were encountered by La Salle and his people, in his early
expedition, in the seventeenth century. Their great avenue to the west,
the avenue by which, in part at least, they appear to have migrated at
an early day, was the Alleghany river, through which, they continued to
exercise their ancient or acquired authority in the Ohio valley, and the
Alleghanian range.
Back on this route, they continued their war expeditions against the
tribes of the southern Alleghanies _at_ and, for some time, _after_ the
era of the first settlement of the country. The point of their
hostility, was directed against the Catawbas, the Cherokees, and their
allies, the Abiecas, Hutchees and others. Smith encountered them on
these wars, in the interior of Virginia, in 1608. And it is well known,
that they brought off their brothers, the Tuscaroras, after the
settlement of North Carolina, and gave them a location among themselves,
and a seat at their council fire, in Western New-York.
Launching their war canoes on the Delaware and the Susquehanna, they
extended their sway over the present area of New-Jersey, Pennsylvania,
Delaware and Maryland, bringing under their sovereign power, that member
of the great Algonic family of America, who call themselves Lenni
Lenapees, but who are better known in our history as Delawares. Go which
way the traveler will, even at this day, for a thousand miles west,
southwest and northwest of their great council fire at Onondaga, and the
inquirer will find that the name of a NADOWA, which is the Algonquin
term for Iroquois, was a word of terror to the remotest tribes. Writers
tell us it was the same throughout New England. By the peaceful and wise
policy of the Dutch prior to 1664, and of the English subsequent to that
date, this confederacy was kept in our interest; and he must be a
careless reader of our history, who does not know, that they formed a
perfect wall of defence against the encroachments of the French Crown
upon our territories. It was to curb this power, and gain some permanent
foot-hold on the soil, that La Salle built fort Niagara in 1678.
Vaudruiel, the Governor General of New France, could give no stronger
reason to his King, for taking post on the straits of Detroit, and
fortifying that point, in 1701, than that it would enable him to "curb
the Iroquois." [Oneota.]
But, I do not stand before you to enter into a critical history of the
Iroquois' powers. Who has not heard of their fame and prowess--of their
indomitable courage in war,--of their admirable policy in peace: of
their eloquence in council: of the noble fire of patriotic
independence, which led them to defend the integrity of their soil
against all invaders; and of the triumphs they achieved, throughout
ABORIGINAL AMERICA, by the wisdom of their principles of confederation.
The history of their rise and early progress, we shall probably never
satisfactorily know. It is said by early writers, that the origin of
their confederation was not very remote. But so much as we know of
them--so much of their career as has passed while we have been their
neighbors, proves that they had well established claims to
antiquity--that they were a free, bold and valorous stock of the human
race--that they had thought to plan, language to express, and energy to
execute.--Compared to other races north of the tropics, there were two
principles, apparent in their history, which give them the palm, as
statesmen and warriors, although in some other departments of
intellectual attainment, they were probably excelled by certain of the
Algonquins. I allude to the principles of political union; and the wise
and humane policy, which led them to adopt, into their body, the
remnants of the nations whom they conquered. Here were two elements of
political power, in which they were not only a century in advance of
_all_ the other stocks of the north; but they were in advance of the
most prominent examples of the semi-civilized Indian tribes of _this_
day.--Neither the Choctaws, the Cherokees, or other expatriated tribes
now assembled on the Neosho territory, west of the Mississippi, although
they adopted governments for themselves, have had the wisdom to adopt a
general union.--The worst and most discouraging fact to the friends of
the aboriginal race, in these Tribes, is, that they will not
confederate. Discord, internal and external, has assailed them with
great power, in late years, and threaten even to defeat the humane
policy of the government, in their colonization.
So superior were the Iroquois, in this particular, so deeply imbued were
their minds with the wisdom of union; that had the discovery of the
continent, been postponed half a century longer, they would have
presented a compact representative empire in North America, far more
stable, energetic and sound, if not so brilliant as that of Mexico. They
were a people of physically better nerve and mould. Of ample stature and
great personal activity and courage, they were capable of offering a
more efficient resistance to their invaders. The climate itself was more
favorable to energetic action; and it can scarcely be deemed fanciful to
assert, that had Hernando Cortez, in 1519, entered the Mohawk Valley,
instead of that of Mexico, with the force he actually had, his ranks
would have gone down under the skillfulness of the Iroquois' ambuscades,
and himself perished ingloriously at the stake.
The number of warriors they could bring into the field, was large,
although it has probably been over-rated. Let it not be overlooked, in
estimating the ancient vigor and military power of this race, that in
1677, one year after the _final_ transfer of political power, in
New-York, from the Stadtholder of Holland to the British crown, the
Iroquois wielded more than 2000 hatches. [Clint's Dis. N. Y. Col. Vol.
2, p. 80.] Sixteen hundred of these warriors, are estimated to have
ranged themselves on the side of Great Britain, in the memorable contest
of the Revolution.
Misled in this contest, they certainly were--doubting long which of two
branches of the same white race, they should side with, but overpowered
by external pomp, by specious promises, and by false appearances, they
committed a fatal mistake. They fought, in fact, against the very
principles of republican confederation, which they had so long upheld in
their own body, and which, I may add, had so long upheld them. They
perilled all upon the issue; and the issue went against them. Their
great and eloquent leader Thayendanegea, better known as Joseph Brant,
had been educated in British schools, he could speak two tongues, and
his counsels prevailed. He was not in the old line of the
chieftainship, but had placed himself at the head of the confederacy by
his brilliant talents, and by favorable circumstances. That line fell
with the great Mohawk sachem Hendrick, at the battle of lake George, in
1755, and with the wise civilian Little Abraham, who in right of his
mother, succeeded him, and died at his Castle at Dionderoga. Brant was,
however, a man of great energy of character, of shrewd principles of
policy, and of great personal, as well as moral courage. As a war
captain and a civil leader, the Red Race of America has produced no
superior. He led 1580 tomahawks against the armies of the Revolution--at
his war cry 15,000 arrows were launched from their fatal bows. The voice
of Kirkland--the voice of Schuyler--the voice of Washington were exerted
in vain. Had he hearkened to these friendly voices, the Iroquois
confederacy would now have stood in the plenitude of power, and we
should not have assembled to-day to light the fires of this Young
Institution from its dying embers.
These things are past. The contest of the revolution was one, which our
fathers waged. Many of you may have heard the graphic recitals of those
days of peril, as I have, from the lips of actors, who now rest from
their toils.--They were days of high and sanguinary import. The deeds of
daring which they brought forth, came like a mighty tempest over the
face of this fair land. It prostrated many a noble trunk. It swept for
seven long years, over the beauteous lakes and forests, which now
constitute our homes. It left them almost denuded and desolate. But the
mild airs and gentle summer winds of peace succeeded. The hoarse voice
of the Iroquois, O-WAY-NE-O, has been transformed into the soft and
silver tones of GOD. Flowers and fruits, and fields of waving grain,
soon rose up in every valley, and shed their fragrance along every
sylvan shore. Joy and prosperity succeeded the arrowy storm of war. And
it has been given to us, to carry out scenes of improvement, and of
moral and intellectual progress, which providence, in its profound
workings, has deemed it best for the prosperity of man, that _we_, and
not _they_, should be entrusted with. We have succeeded to their
inheritance: but we regard them as brothers. We cherish their memory: we
admire their virtues; and we aim to rescue from oblivion their noble
deeds.
I have merely alluded to the importance of the Iroquois decision at the
critical period, 1776. The erroneous policy they adopted, with some
exceptions, is among the events of past times, which wiser and more
learned and resplendent nations, than they professed to be, have
committed. We regret the error of the decision, but we hold fellowship
with the man. He is our brother; and we meet this day to consecrate a
literary institution in the land, more enduring, we trust, than deeds of
strife and battle, and better suited to elicit studies to exalt the
heart and dignify the understanding. Your weapons are not spears and
clubs, but letters. Your means are the quiet and peaceful paths of
inquiry. If these paths are often obscured by the foot of time and
tangled by the interlacings of history and antiquity, be it yours to put
the branches aside, and lead the right way. Truth is your aim, and
justice and benevolence your guides. They hold before you the lamp of
science so clearly, that you cannot mistake your way. While you essay,
with modesty and diligence to tread in this path, and render justice to
a proud and noble branch of the aboriginal race, your ultimate ends are
moral improvement, the accumulation of useful facts, and the general
advancement of historical letters.
You have selected, out of a wide field of aboriginal nations, the
history and ethnography of the Iroquois, as the theme of your particular
inquiries. To us, at least, these Tribes, stand in the most interesting
relations. They occupied our soil; they gave names to our rivers and
mountains. They figure in the foreground of our history. The very names
of the minor streams and lakes we dwell beside, bring up, by
association, the free and bold race, who once claimed them as their
patrimony. Before Columbus set out, on his solitary mule, to solicit the
patronage of Ferdinand and Isabella, they were here. Before Hudson
dropped anchor north of the, to him, wonderful peaks of the Ontiora, or
Highlands, they were here. Other Indian races have left their names on
other portions of the continent. The names of the Missouri and
Mississippi, the Alleghany and the Oregon, we trace to other stocks of
red men. But the Akonoshioni, or Iroquois, has consecrated the early
history of Western New-York. Their history is, to some extent, our
history; and we turn, with intellectual refreshment from the thread-bare
themes of Europe and the Europeans, to trace the humble sepulchres where
the Iroquois buried his dead--the mounds, which entombed his rulers or
his battle slain,--or lifted on high, his sacrificial lights--the long
and half obliterated trenches of embankments which encompassed his
ancient towns--the heaps of stone that lie at the angles and sally ports
of his simple fortresses, on the circular trenches, which enclosed his
beacon fires on the mountain tops. It is in localities of this kind,
that the ploughman turns up fragments of the Red Man's time wasted and
broken pottery--his stone pestles, his carved pipes, and his skilfully
chipped arrow heads, and spear heads, and tomahawks of stone. These, and
analogous remains, are the objects of our antiquarian researches.
Prouder monuments he had none. There was neither column, nor arch,
statue nor inscription. But we may trace, by a careful inspection of the
objects, the state and progress of his ancient and rude arts. We may
denote, by their occurrence, in the same localities, the era of the
arrival of the white man. We may establish other eras, from geological
changes,--the growth of forest trees, and other inductive means.
There are three eras in American antiquity.