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Mohawk Indian Tribe History
Mohawk (cognate with the Narraganset Mohowaùuck,
'they eat (animate) things,' hence 'man-eaters') The most easterly tribe
of the Iroquois confederation. They called themselves Kaniengehaga,
'people of the place of the flint.'
In the federal council and in other intertribal
assemblies the Mohawk sit with the tribal phratry, which is formally
called the "Three Elder Brothers" and of which the other members are the
Seneca and the
Onondaga. Like the
Oneida, the Mohawk have only 3
clans, namely, the Bear, the Wolf, and the Turtle. The tribe is
represented in the federal council by 9 chiefs of the rank of roianer (see
Chiefs), being 3 from every clan.
These chiefships were known by specific names, which were conferred with
the office. These official titles are Tekarihoken, Haienhwatha, and
Satekarihwate, of the first group; Orenrehkowa, Deionhehkon, and
Sharenhowanen, of the second group; and Dehennakarine, Rastawenserontha,
and Shoskoharowanen, of the third group. The first two groups or clans
formed an intratribal phratry, while the last, or Bear clan group, was the
other phratry. The people at all times assembled by phratries, and each
phratry occupied aside of the council fire opposite that occupied by the
other phratry. The second title in the foregoing list has been Anglicized
into Hiawatha. From the Jesuit Relation for 1660 it is learned that
the Mohawk, during a period of 60 years, had been many times both at the
top and the bottom of the ladder of success; that, being insolent and
warlike, they had attacked the
Abnaki and their congeners at the east, the
Conestoga at the south, the Hurons at the west and north, and the
Algonquian tribes at the north; that at the close of the 16th century the
Algonkin had so reduced them that there appeared to be none left, but that
the remainder increased so rapidly that in a few years they in turn had
overthrown the Algonkin. This success did not last long. The Conestoga
waged war against them so vigorously for 10 years that for the second time
the Mohawk were overthrown so completely that they appeared to be extinct.
About this time (?1614) the Dutch arrived in their country, and, being
attracted by their beaver skins, they furnished the Mohawk and their
congeners with firearms, in order that the pelts might be obtained in
greater abundance. The purpose of the Dutch was admirably served, but the
possession of firearms by the Mohawk and their confederates rendered it
easy for them to conquer their adversaries, whom they routed and filled
with terror not alone by the deadly effect but even by the sound of
these weapons, which hitherto had been unknown. Thenceforth the Mohawk and
their confederates became formidable adversaries and were victorious most
everywhere, so that by 1660 the conquests of the Iroquois confederates,
although they were not numerous, extended over nearly 600 leagues of
territory. The Mohawk at that time numbered not more than 500 warriors and
dwelt in 4 or 5 wretched villages.
The accounts of Mohawk migrations previous to the
historical period are largely conjectural. Some writers do not clearly
differentiate between the Mohawk and the Huron tribes at the north and
west and from their own confederates as a whole. Besides fragmentary and
untrustworthy traditions little that is definite is known regarding the
migratory movements of the Mohawk.
In 1603, Champlain, while at Tadousac, heard of the
Mohawk and their country. On July 30, 1609, he encountered on the lake to
which he gave his own name a party of nearly 200 Iroquois warriors, under
3 chiefs. In a skirmish in which he shot two of the chiefs dead and
wounded the third, he defeated this party, which was most probably largely
Mohawk. Dismayed by the firearms of the Frenchman, whom they now met for
the first time, the Indians fled. The Iroquois of this party wore
arrow-proof armor and had both stone and iron hatchets, the latter having
been obtained in trade. The fact that in Capt. Hendricksen's report to the
States General, Aug. 18, 1616, he says that he had "bought from the
inhabitants, the Minquaes [Conestoga], 3 persons, being people belonging
to this company," who were "employed in the service of the Mohawks and
Machicans," giving, he says, for them, in exchange, "kettles, beads, and
merchandise," shows how extensively the inland trade was carried on
between the Dutch and the Mohawk. The latter were at war with the Mohegan
and other New England tribes with only intermittent periods of peace. In
1623 a Mohegan fort stood opposite Castle island in the Hudson and was
"built against their enemies, the Maquaes, a powerful people." In 1626 the
Dutch commander of Ft Orange (Albany), and 6 of his men, joined the
Mohegan in an expedition to invade the Mohawk country. They were met a
league from the fort by a party of Mohawk armed only with bows and arrows,
and were defeated, the Dutch commander and 3 of his men being killed, and
of whom one, probably the commander, was cooked and eaten by the Mohawk.
This intermittent warfare continued until the Mohegan were finally forced
to withdraw from the upper waters of the Hudson. They did not however
relinquish their territorial rights to their native adversaries, and so in
1630 they began to sell their lands to the Dutch. The deed to the Manor of Renssalaerwyck, which extended west of the river two days' journey, and was
mainly on the F. side of the river, was dated in the year named. In 1637 Kilian Van Renssalaer bought more land on the east side. Subsequently the
Mohegan became the friends and allies of the Mohawk, their former
adversaries. In 1641, Ahatsistari, a noted Huron chief, with only 50
companions, attacked and defeated 300 Iroquois, largely Mohawk, taking
some prisoners. In the preceding summer he had attacked on Lake Ontario a
number of large canoes manned by Iroquois, probably chiefly Mohawk, and
defeated them, after sinking several canoes and killing a number of their
crews.
In 1642, 11 Huron canoes were attacked on Ottawa river
by, Mohawk and Oneida warriors abort 100 miles above Montreal. In the same
year the Mohawk captured Father Isaac Jogues, two French companions, and
some Huron allies. They took the Frenchmen to their villages, where they
caused them to undergo the most cruel tortures. Jogues, by the aid of the
Dutch, escaped in the following year; but in 1646 he went to the Mohawk to
attempt to convert them and to confirm the peace which had been made with
them. On May 16, 1646, Father Jogues went to the Mohawk as an envoy and
returned to Three Rivers in July in good health. In September he again
started for the Mohawk country to establish a mission there; but, owing to
the prevalence of an epidemic among the Mohawk, and to the failure of
their crops, they accused Father Jogues of "having concealed certain
charms in a small coffer, which he had left with his host as a pledge of
his return," which caused them thus to be afflicted. So upon his arrival
in their village for the third time, he and his companion, a young
Frenchman, were seized, stripped, and threatened with death. Father Jogues
had been adopted by the Wolf clan of the Mohawk, hence this clan, with
that of the Turtle, which with the Wolf formed a phratry or brotherhood,
tried to save the lives of the Frenchmen. But the Bear clan, which formed
a phratry by itself, and being only cousins to the others, of one of which
Father Jogues was a member, had determined on his death as a sorcerer. On
Oct. 17, 1646, the unfortunates were told that they would be killed, but
not burned, the next day. On the evening of the 18th Father Jogues was
invited to a supper in a Bear lodge. Having accepted the invitation, he
went there, and while entering the lodge a man concealed behind the door
struck him down with an ax. He was beheaded, his head elevated on the
palisade, and his body thrown into the river. The next morning Jogues'
companion suffered a similar fate. Father Jogues left an account of a
Mohawk sacrifice to the god Aireskoi (i. e., Jregwěns' gwǎ',
' the Master or God of War'). While speaking of the cruelties exercised by
the Mohawk toward their prisoners, and specifically toward 3 women, he
said: "One of them (a thing not hitherto done) was burned all over her
body, and afterwards thrown into a huge pyre." And that "at every burn
which they caused, by applying lighted torches to her body, an old man, in
a loud voice, exclaimed, 'Daimon, Aireskoi, we offer thee this victim,
whom we burn for thee, that thou mayest be filled with her flesh and
render us ever anew victorious over our enemies.' Her body was cut up,
sent to the various villages, and devoured." Megapolensis (1644), a
contemporary of Father Jogues, says that when the Mohawk were unfortunate in war they would kill,
cut up, and roast a bear, and then make an offering of it to this war god
with the accompanying prayer: "Oh, great and mighty Aireskuoni, we know
that we have offended against thee, in as much as we have not killed and
eaten our captive enemies-forgive us this. We promise that we will kill
and eat all the captives we shall hereafter take as certainly as we have
killed and now eat this bear." he adds: "Finally, they roast their
prisoners dead before a slow fire for some days and then eat them up. The
common people eat the arms, buttocks, and trunk, but the chiefs eat the
head and the heart."
The Jesuit Relation for 1646 says that, properly
speaking, the French had at that time peace with only the Mohawk, who were
their near neighbors and who gave them the most trouble, and that
the Mohegan (Mahingaus or Mahiuganak), who had had firm alliances with the
Algonkin allies of the French, were then already conquered by the Mohawk,
with whom they formed a defensive and offensive alliance; that during this
year some Sokoki (Assok8ekik) murdered some Algonkin, whereupon the latter
determined, under a misapprehension, to massacre some Mohawk, who were
then among them and the French. But, fortunately, it was discovered from
the testimony of two wounded persons, who had escaped, that the murderers
spoke a language quite different from that of the Iroquois tongues, and
suspicion was at once removed from the Mohawk, who then hunted freely in
the immediate vicinity of the Algonkin north of the St Lawrence, where
these hitherto implacable enemies frequently meet on the best of terms. At
this time the Mohawk refused Sokoki ambassadors a new compact to wage war
on the Algonkin. The introduction of firearms by the Dutch among the
Mohawk, who were among the first of their region to procure them, marked
an important era in their history, for it enabled them and the cognate
Iroquois tribes to subjugate the Delawares and Munsee, and thus to begin a
career of conquest that carried their war parties to the Mississippi and
to the shores of Hudson bay. The Mohawk villages were in the valley of
Mohawk river, N. Y., from the vicinity of Schenectady nearly to Utica, and
their territory extended north to the St Lawrence and south to the
watershed of Schoharie creek and the east branch of the Susquehanna. On
the east their territories adjoined those of the Mahican, who held Hudson
river. Front their position on the east frontier of the Iroquois
confederation the Mohawk were among the most prominent of the Iroquoian
tribes in the early Indian wars and in official negotiations with the
colonies, so that their name was frequently used by the tribes of New
England and by the whites as a synonym for the confederation. Owing to
their position they also suffered much more than their confederates in
some of the Indian and French wars. Their 7 villages of 1644 were reduced
to 5 in 1677. At the beginning of the Revolution the Mohawk took the side
of the British, and at its conclusion the larger portion of them, under
Brant and Johnson, removed to Canada, where they have since resided on
lands granted to them by the British government. In 1777 the Oneida
expelled the remainder of the tribe and burned their villages.
In 1650 the Mohawk had an estimated population of
5,000, which was probably more than their actual number; for 10 years
later they were estimated at only 2,500. Thence forward they underwent a
rapid decline, caused by their wars with the Mahican, Conestoga, and other
tribes, and with the French, and also by the removal of a large part of
the tribe to Caughnawaga and other mission villages. The later estimates
of their population have been: 1,500 in 1677 (an alleged decrease of 3,500
in 27 years), 400 in 1736 (an alleged decrease of 1,100 in 36 years), 500
in 1741, 800 in 1765, 500 in 1778, 1,500 in 1783, and about 1,200 in 1851.
These estimates are evidently little better than vague guesses. In 1884
they were on three reservations in Ontario: 965 at the Bay of Quinté near
the east end of Lake Ontario, the settlement at Gibson, and the reserve of
the Six Nations on Grand river. Besides these there are a few individuals
scattered among the different Iroquois tribes in the United States. In
1906 the Bay of Quinté, settlement contained 1,320; there were 140
(including ''Algongnins") at Watha, the former Gibson band which was
removed earlier from Oka; and the Six Nations included an indeterminate
number. The Mohawk participated in the following treaties with
the United States:
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Ft Stanwix, N. Y., Oct. 22, 1784, being a treaty of peace between the
United States and the Six Nations and defining their boundaries;
supplemented by treaty of
Ft Harmar, O., Jan. 9, 1789.
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Konondaigua (Canandaigua), N. Y., Nov. 11, 1794, establishing peace
relations with the Six Nations and agreeing to certain reservations and
boundaries.
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Albany N. Y, Mar. 29, 1797, by which the United States sanctioned the
cession by the Mohawk to the state of New York of all their lands therein.
The books presented are for their
historical value only and are not the
opinions of the Webmasters of the site.
Sources: Handbook of American Indians, 1906.
Handbook of American Indians, 1912,
Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin
30, part 1 and 2.
Index of Tribes or Nations
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