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Iroquois Haudenosaunee
Total population
approx. 125,000 (80,000 in the U.S. 45,000 in Canada)
Regions with significant populations
Canada (southern Quebec, southern Ontario)  United States (New York, Wisconsin, Oklahoma)
Language(s)
Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, Tuscarora, English, French
Religion(s)
Longhouse Religion,, others

The Iroquois Confederacy (also known as the "League of Peace and Power", the "Five Nations"; the "Six Nations"; or the "People of the Long house") is a group of First Nations/Native Americans that originally consisted of five nations: the Mohawk, the Oneida, the Onondaga, the Cayuga, and the Seneca. A sixth tribe, the Tuscarora, joined after the original five nations were formed. Although frequently referred to as the Iroquois, the Nations refer to themselves collectively as Haudenosaunee.

At the time Europeans first arrived in North America, the Confederacy was based in what is now the northeastern United States and southern Canada, including New England, upstate New York, Pennsylvania, Ontario, and Quebec.

The word Iroquois has two potential origins. First, the Haudenosaunee often ended their oratory with the phrase hiro kone^[1]; hiro translates as "I have spoken", and kone can be translated several ways, the most common being "in joy", "in sorrow", or "in truth". Hiro kone to the French encountering the Haudenosaunee would sound like "Iroquois", pronounced iʁokwe in the French language of the time.

Another version is however supported by French linguists such as Henriette Walter and historians such as Dean Snow^[2]. According to this account, "Iroquois" would derive from a Basque expression, Hilokoa, meaning the "killer people". This expression would have been applied to the Iroquois because they were the enemy of the local Algonquians, with whom the Basque fishermen were trading. However, because there is no "l" in the Algonquian languages of the Saint-Lawrence Gulf region, the name became "Hirokoa", which is the name the French like Cartier understood when Algonquians referred to the same pidgin language as the one they used with the Basque. The French then transliterated the word according to their own phonetic rules, thus providing "Iroquois".

Yet another alternate possible origin of the name Iroquois is reputed to come from a French version of a Huron (Wyandot) name—considered an insult—meaning "Black Snakes". The Iroquois were enemies of the Huron and the Algonquin, who allied with the French, due to their rivalry in the fur trade.

Iroquois in Buffalo, New York, 1914.

The members of this Confederacy speak different languages of the same Iroquoian family, suggesting a common historical and cultural origin, but diverging enough so that the languages have become different.

The union of nations was established prior to major European contact, complete with a constitution known as the Gayanashagowa (or "Great Law of Peace"), with the help of a memory device in the form of special beads called wampum that have inherent spiritual value (wampum has been inaccurately compared to money in other cultures). Most anthropologists have traditionally speculated that this constitution was created between the middle 1400s and early 1600s. However, recent archaeological studies have suggested the accuracy of the account found in oral tradition, which argues that the federation was formed around August 31, 1142, based on a coinciding solar eclipse (see Fields and Mann, American Indian Culture and Research Journal, vol. 21, #2). Some Westerners have also suggested that the Great Law of Peace was written with European help,^{[citation needed]} although this has been largely discredited by the academic community.

The two prophets, Ayonwentah (frequently thought to be Hiawatha due to the Longfellow poem) and Dekanawidah, The Great Peacemaker, brought a message of peace to squabbling tribes. The tribes who joined the League were the Seneca, Onondaga, Oneida, Cayuga and Mohawks. Once they ceased most infighting, they rapidly became one of the strongest forces in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century northeastern North America.

According to legend, an evil Onondaga chieftain named Tadadaho was the last to be converted to the ways of peace by The Great Peacemaker and Ayonwentah and became the spiritual leader of the Haudenosaunee. This event is said to have occurred at Onondaga Lake near Syracuse, New York. The title Tadadaho is still used for the league's spiritual leader, the fiftieth chief, who sits with the Onondaga in council, but is the only one of the fifty chosen by the entire Haudenosaunee people. The current Tadadaho is Sid Hill of the Onondaga Nation.

Haudenosaunee flag, representing the original five nations that were united by the Peacemaker.Hiawatha helped as well in the process of uniting the tribes. The tree symbol in the center represents an Eastern White Pine, the needles of which are clustered in groups of five.^[3] The flag is based on the "Hiawatha Wampum Belt ... created from purple and white wampum beads centuries ago to symbolize the union forged when the former enemies buried their weapons under the Great Tree of Peace."^[4]

By 1677, the Iroquois formed an alliance with the English through an agreement known as the Covenant Chain. Together, they battled the French to a standstill who were allied with the Huron, another Iroquoian people, but a historic foe of the Confederacy.

The League engaged in a series of wars against the French and their Iroquoian-speaking Wyandot ("Huron") allies. They also put great pressure on the Algonquian peoples of the Atlantic coast and what is now the boreal Canadian Shield region of Canada and not infrequently fought the English colonies as well. During the seventeenth century, they are also credited with having conquered and/or absorbed the Neutral Indians and Erie Tribe to the west as a way of controlling the fur trade, even though other reasons are often given for these wars.

According to Francis Parkman, the Iroquois were at the height of their power in the seventeenth century, with a population of about twelve thousand people. League traditions allowed for the dead to be symbolically replaced through the "Mourning War", raids intended to seize captives to replace lost compatriots and take vengeance on non-members. This tradition was common to native people of the northeast and was quite different from European settlers' notions of combat.

Four delegates of the Iroquoian Confederacy, the "Indian kings", travelled to London, England, in 1710 to meet Queen Anne in an effort to cement an alliance with the British. Queen Anne was so impressed by her visitors that she commissioned their portraits by court painter John Verelst. The portraits are believed to be some of the earliest surviving oil portraits of Aboriginal peoples taken from life.^[5]

Sometime during the first quarter of the eighteenth century, the Tuscarora fled north from the British colonization of North Carolina and petitioned to become the sixth nation. This is a non-voting position, but places them under the protection of the Confederacy.

During the French and Indian War, the Iroquois sided with the British against the French and their Algonquin allies, both traditional enemies of the Iroquois. The Iroquois hoped that aiding the British would also bring favors after the war. Practically, few Iroquois joined the galloping, and the Battle of Lake George found a group of Mohawk and French ambush a Mohawk-led British column. The British government issued the Royal Proclamation of 1763 after the war, which restricted white settlement beyond the Appalachians, but this was largely ignored by the settlers and local governments.

During the American Revolution, many Tuscarora and the Oneida sided with the Americans, while the Mohawk, Seneca, Onondaga and Cayuga remained loyal to Great Britain. This marked the first major split among the Six Nations. After a series of successful operations against frontier settlements, led by the Mohawk war chief Joseph Brant, other war chiefs, and British allies; the United States reacted with vengeance. In 1779, George Washington ordered the Sullivan Campaign lead by Col. Daniel Brodhead and General John Sullivan against the Iroquois nations to "not merely overrun, but destroy," the British-Indian alliance.

After the war, the ancient central fireplace of the confederacy was reestablished at Buffalo Creek. Captain Joseph Brant and a group of Iroquois left New York to settle in Canada. As a reward for their loyalty to the British Crown, they were given a large land grant on the Grand River. (see Haldimand Proclamation) Brant's crossing of the river gave the original name to the area: Brant's ford. By 1847, European settlers began to settle nearby and named the village Brantford, Ontario. The original Mohawk settlement was on the south edge of the present-day city at a location favorable for landing canoes. Prior to this land grant, Iroquois settlements did exist in that same area and elsewhere in southern Ontario, extending further north and east (from Lake Ontario eastwards into Quebec around present-day Montreal). Extensive fighting with Huron meant the continuous shifting of territory in southern Ontario between the two groups long before European influences were present.

The combined leadership of the Nations is known as the Haudenosaunee. It should be noted that "Haudenosaunee" is the term that the people use to refer to themselves. Haudenosaunee means "People of the Long House." The term is said to have been introduced by The Great Peacemaker at the time of the formation of the Confederacy. It implies that the Nations of the confederacy should live together as families in the same longhouse. Symbolically, the Seneca were the guardians of the western door of the "tribal long house," and the Mohawk were the guardians of the eastern door.

The Iroquois were a mix of farmers, gatherers, and hunters. The main crops they farmed were corn, beans and squash, which were called the three sisters and were considered special gifts from the Creator. These crops are grown strategically. The cornstalks grow, and the bean plants climb the stalks, and the squash grew beneath, warding off the weeds. In this combination, the soil remained fertile for several decades. The food was stored during the winter, and it lasts for two to three years. When the soil eventually lost its fertility, the Iroquois migrated.

Gathering was the job of the woman and children. Wild roots, greens, berries and nuts were gathered in the summer. During spring maple syrup was tapped from the trees, and herbs were gathered for medicine.

The Iroquois mostly hunted deer, but also other game such as wild turkey and migratory birds. Muskrat and beaver were hunted during the winter. Fishing was also a significant source of food, as the Iroquois were located near a large river. They fished salmon, trout, bass, perch and whitefish. In the spring the Iroquois netted, and in the winter fishing holes were made in the ice.^[6]

This section does not cite any references or sources. Please improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed. (September 2007)

Central to the Iroquois beliefs was a formless Great Spirit or Creator, from whom all other spirits were derived. Spirits animated all of nature and controlled the changing of the season. Key festivals coincided with the major events of the agricultural calendar, including a harvest festival of thanksgiving.

After the arrival of the Europeans, many Iroquois became Christians, among them Kateri Tekakwitha, a young woman of mixed birth who was later recognized as a saint. Tradional religion was revived to some extent in the second half of the 18th century by the teachings of the Iroquois prophet Handsome Lake.

The general features of the Confederacy may be summarized in the following propositions:

The confederacy was a union of Five Tribes, composed of common gentes, under one government on the basis of equality; each Tribe remaining independent in all manners pertaining to local self-government. It created a Great Council of Sachems, who were limited in number, equal in rank and authority, and invested with supreme powers over all matters pertaining to the Confederacy. Fifty Sachemships were created and named in perpetuity in central gentes of the several Tribes; with power in these gentes to fill vacancies, as often as they occurred, by election from among their respective members, and with the further power to depose from office for cause; but the right to invest these Sachems with office was reserved to the General Council. The Sachems of the Confederacy were also Sachems in their respective Tribes, and with the Chiefs of these Tribes formed the Council of each, which was supreme over all matters pertaining to the Tribe exclusively. Unanimity in the Council of the Confederacy was made essential to every public act. In the General Council the Sachems voted by Tribes, which gave to each Tribe a veto over the others. The Council of each Tribe had power to convene the General Council; but the latter had no power to convene itself. The General Council was open to the orators of the people for the discussion of public questions; but the Council alone decided. The Confederacy had no chief Executive Magistrate, or official head. Experiencing the necessity for a General Military Commander, they created the office in a dual form, that one might neutralize the other. The two principal War-chiefs were made equal in powers. Equality between the sexes had a strong adherence in the Confederacy, and the women held real power. The Grand Council of Chiefs were chosen by the Clan Mothers and if any leader failed to comply with the Great Law of Peace, he could be removed by the Clan Mothers.^[7]

Originally, the principal object of the council was to raise up sachems to fill vacancies in the ranks of the ruling body occasioned by death or deposition; but it transacted all other business which concerned the common welfare. Eventually the council fell into three kinds, which may be distinguished as Civil, Mourning, and Religious. The first declared war and made peace, sent and received embassies, entered into treaties with foreign tribes, regulated the affairs of subjugated tribes, as well as other general welfare issues. The second raised up sachems and invested them with office, termed the Mourning Council (Henundonuhseh) because the first of its ceremonies was the lament for the deceased ruler whose vacant place was to be filled. The third was held for the observance of a general religious festival, as an occasion for the confederated tribes to unite under the auspices of a general council in the observance of common religious rites. But as the Mourning Council was attended with many of the same ceremonies, it came, in time, to answer for both. It became the only council they held when the civil powers of the confederacy terminated with the supremacy over them of the state.^[7]

The Iroquois nations' political union and democratic government has been credited by many^[8] as one of the influences on the United States Constitution. However, that theory has fallen into heated debate among many historians and is regarded by others as mythology. Historian Jack Rakove^[9] writes: "The voluminous records we have for the constitutional debates of the late 1780s contain no significant references to the Iroquois." Researcher Brian Cook^[10] writes: "The Iroquois probably held some sway over the thinking of the Framers and the development of the U.S. Constitution and the development of American democracy, albeit perhaps indirectly or even subconsciously... However, the opposition is probably also correct. The Iroquois influence is not as great as [some historians] would like it to be, the framers simply did not revere or even understand much of Iroquois culture, and their influences were European or classical - not wholly New World." However, Brian Cook himself concedes that much of the heated debate around the influence of Amerindians on the United States constitution amounts to academic knee-jerk reactions and protectionist turf-wars. Brian Cook further notes "The National Endowment for the Humanities rejected a number of research proposals that dealt with the Iroquois influence theory... [and] Johansen's first book on the Iroquois influence, Forgotten Fathers, was ordered removed from the shelves of the bookstore at Independence Hall." Although hotly debated, it is a historical fact that a number of founding fathers had direct contact with the Iroquois and prominent figures such as Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin were closely involved with their stronger and larger native neighbor, the Iroquois. Whether this was purely politics for protection or admiration can never be fully determined, since they didn't say.

In 2004 the U.S. Government acknowledged the influence of the Iroquois Constitution on the U.S. Framers.^[11] The Smithsonian also noted the similarities between the two documents, as well as the differences. One significant difference noted was the inclusion of women in the Iroquois Constitution, one group among many that the framers of the U.S. Constitution did not include.

The first five nations listed below formed the original Five Nations (listed from west to north); the Tuscarora became the sixth nation in 1720.

FRANCAIS	Iroquoian	Meaning	17th/18th century location
Seneca	Onondowahgah	"People of the Great Hill"	Seneca Lake and Genesee River
Cayuga	Guyohkohnyoh	"People of the Great Swamp"	Cayuga Lake
Onondaga	Onundagaono	"People of the Hills"	Onondaga Lake
Oneida	Onayotekaono	"People of Upright Stone"	Oneida Lake
Mohawk	Kanien'kéhaka	"People of the Great Flint"	Mohawk River
Tuscarora1	Ska-Ruh-Reh	"Shirt-Wearing People"	From North Carolina²

¹ Not one of the original Five Nations; joined 1720.
² Settled between Oneidas and Onondagas.

The total number of Iroquois today is hard to establish. About 45,000 Iroquois lived in Canada in 1995. In the 2000 census, 80,822 people in the United States claimed Iroquois ethnicity, with 45,217 of them claiming only Iroquois background. However, tribal registrations in the United States in 1995 numbered about 30,000 in total.

Within each of the six nations, people are divided into a number of matrilineal clans. The number of clans varies by nation, currently from three to eight, with a total of nine different clan names.

Mohawk leader John Smoke Johnson (right) with John Tutela, and Young Warner, two other Six Nations War of 1812 veterans.

The Iroquois have a representative government known as the Grand Council. Each tribe sends chiefs to act as representatives and make decisions for the whole nation. The number of chiefs has never changed.

• 14 Onondaga
• 10 Cayuga
•   9 Oneida
•   9 Mohawk
•   8 Seneca
•   0 Tuscarora

• Canada
  • Kahnawake Mohawk in Quebec
  • Kanesatake Mohawk in Quebec
  • Mohawk Nation of Akwesasne in Ontario
  • Onyota'a:ka First Nation of Oneida in Ontario
  • Six Nations of the Grand River Territory in Ontario
  • Tyendinaga Mohawk in Ontario
  • Wahta Mohawk in Ontario

• United States
  • Cayuga Nation in New York
  • Ganienkeh Mohawk — not federally (US/CAN) controlled
  • Kanatsiohareke Mohawk — not federally recognized
  • Onondaga Nation in New York
  • Oneida Indian Nation in New York
  • Oneida Tribe of Indians in Wisconsin
  • St. Regis Band of Mohawk Indians in New York
  • Seneca Nation of New York
  • Seneca-Cayuga Tribe of Oklahoma
  • Tuscarora Nation of New York

• Frederick Alexcee, artist (also of Tsimshian ancestry)
• Ki Longfellow, novelist (also of French and Irish ancestry)
• Jay Silverheels, actor, of Canadian Mohawk origin
• Angelina Jolie, actress (also of German and Czechoslovakian on the father's side and French-Canadian and Iroquoian on the mother's side)
• Ely S. Parker, Union officer during American Civil War, Commissioner of Indian Affairs during Ulysses S. Grant's first term as President.
• Graham Greene (actor), actor, of Canadian Oneida ancestry
• Joanne Shenandoah, singer, songwriter, actress and educator of Oneida ancestry
• Kateri Tekakwitha, Catholic patron saint of ecology of Mohawk and Algonquin ancestry

• "The Four Indian Kings" in Virtual Vault, an online exhibition of Canadian historical art at Library and Archives Canada
• "The Ordeal of the Longhouse", by Daniel K. Richter
• The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twain
• For a detailed account of Iroquois actions during the American Revolution, see: Williams, Glenn F. Year of the Hangman: George Washington's Campaign Against the Iroquois. Yardley: Westholme Publishing, 2005.
• Who Are the Haudenosaunee?
• Oldest Living Participatory Democracy
• Iroquois Indian Museum, Howes Cave, NY
• Wright, Ronald. (2005) "Stolen Continents: 500 Years of Conquest and Resistance in the Americas." Mariner Books. ISBN-10: 0618492402; ISBN-13: 978-0618492404

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Iroquois

• Ganienkeh.net
• Haudenosaunee Home Page : the official source of news and information from the Haudenosaunee.
• Gayanashagowa
• History and origin of the Five Nations
• Long list of Iroquois links
• The Sullivan-Clinton Campaign Hits Iroquoia, 1779
• David Cusick's Sketches of Ancient History of the Six Nations (1828)
• Iroquois Home Page
• Iroquois Confederacy and the Influence Thesis : an examination of theories for and against Iroquois influence on American democratic thought.
• The Wampum Chronicles: Mohawk Territory on the Internet
• The Documentary History of the State of New York, Vol. 1, Ch. I. Papers relating to the Iroquois and other Indian Tribes. 1666—1763

v • d • e Iroquois Confederacy
Nations	Seneca · Cayuga · Onondaga · Oneida · Mohawk · Tuscarora
Topics	Economy · Languages · Mythology · Great Law of Peace · The Great Peacemaker