The Iroquois
From the dust jacket:
This book traces the development of Iroquois culture from its beginnings a thousand years ago to its vibrant survival in the contemporary United Sates and Canada. It opens with an account of the origins of the Iroquois and of the graduate development of Iroquoian power and pre-eminence during the five centuries to around 1500. The author describes the rise of the great League of the Iroquoian nations in the sixteenth century. Founded through the diplomatic skills of the legendary Hiawatha, this was at first a confederacy of the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga and Seneca, and was joined two centuries later by the Tuscarora. Relations between the League, it's American Indian neighbors, and the new colonial communities were tempestuous. This was a time when war was the natural state of affairs and peace the exception to be declared. By the end of the seventeenth century, Iroquois relations with other nations, whether Indian or European, cycled between vigorous trade and convulsive warfare. In the eighteenth century Iroquois military power began to weaken. European diseases had decimated their populations and land was their only capital. They now began to lose this. They were able for a time to tip the power balance of competing colonial interests, but the defeat of the French weakened them politically and the American Revolution tore their confederacy apart. Whether or not they supported the British all the Iroquois suffered from American Independence. Their land was exchanged for money and they were shut out of their traditional hunting grounds. By the end of the century they had been reduced to an impotent and desperate state, confined to reservations a fraction of the size of their previous territory. But the story does not end here: in the final part of the book Dean Snow describes the gradual revival of the League, of self-respect and education and the achievement of hard-won independence and pride. This vivid and moving history of a great and fascinating people draws together evidence from a wide range of sources, including the Iroquois people themselves. It is fully illustrated with maps and photographs and its detailed endnotes and bibliography provided a clear guide to the specialist literature. This is the book with which serious readers should start.
