Long before the Europeans began their invasion of North America, five Iroquois-speaking Indian nations had come together to form a democratic confederacy. These five nations included: Seneca (the big hill people, or the people of the big mountain); Cayuga (the people at the landing, in reference to portaging a canoe); Mohawk (the people of the flint, in reference to the flint quarries in their territory); Onondaga (the people of the hill, in reference to the hill where a woman long ago had appeared to give the people corn, beans, squash, and tobacco); and Oneida (the people of the standing stone, in reference to the supernatural stone which followed them).
In the parlance of the Confederacy, the Onondagas are known as the Firekeepers; the Mohawks and the Senecas as the Elder Brothers; and the Oneidas and Cayugas as Younger Brothers. Issues that are brought to the Great Council are considered first by the Elder Brothers and then by the Younger Brothers. In discussing issues, there is an effort to reach unanimity.
During the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, one of the important leaders of the Confederacy was Cornplanter (Gy-ant-wa-ka). Cornplanter was born in the village of Conewaugus in New York between 1732 and 1740. His mother was Seneca, and his father was a Dutch trader, John Abeel (O’Beil). The Seneca are matrilineal and therefore he was considered to be a Seneca.
Cornplanter’s mother also had two other children with a Seneca husband: Handsome Lake who became an important Seneca prophet and a daughter who became the mother of Seneca leader Blacksnake.
Cornplanter’s early years are unknown, but it appears that he was a warrior during the French and Indian War and was probably present at the defeat of Edward Bradock in 1755.
Revolutionary War
The Revolutionary War divided the Indian nations as both the British and the newly formed United States tried to obtain Indian allies.
For the six nations of the Iroquois Confederacy, the divided loyalties led to the ritual covering of their council fire so that each nation was free to choose sides. Historian Collin Calloway, in his book The American Revolution in Indian Country: Crisis and Diversity in Native American Communities, writes:
“For the Iroquois, the Revolution was a war in which, in some cases literally, brother killed brother.”
In 1777, the British met with many of the Iroquois nations at Oswego and formally asked them to go to war against the rebellious colonies. In the Iroquois warriors’ council, Joseph Brant argued in favor of going to war, while Red Jacket, Handsome Lake, and Cornplanter felt that this was a family quarrel among the Europeans and Iroquois interference would be a mistake.
Some of the Seneca and Cayuga warriors joined with the British in 1778 to attack the towns of Wyoming and Forty Fort in Pennsylvania. Among the prominent Seneca chiefs and warriors are Cornplanter, Handsome Lake, Jeskaka (Little Billy), Honeyewus (Farmer’s Brother), Dahgonwasha (Twenty Canoes), Blacksnake, Donnegoesha (Jack Berry), and Gahgeote (Half Town). After the battle, the Americans called it “The Wyoming Massacre.” Historian Barbara Graymont, in her book The Iroquois in the American Revolution, writes:
“White have always been prone to label any overwhelming Indian victory a massacre and to call any of their own battle triumphs over Indians a great victory.”
The Indians were falsely accused of committing many atrocities.
Seneca and British forces also invaded Cherry Valley in New York. Among the prominent Seneca chiefs and warriors were Cornplanter, Jeskaka (Little Billy), Honeyewus (Farmer’s Brother), Dahgonwasha (Twenty Canoes), Blacksnake, Wundungohteh, Hiadeoni, Coneuesut, Souetdo, Hohnogwus, Onoongadaka, Donnegoesha (Jack Berry), and Gahgeote (Half Town).
The United States
With the end of the Revolutionary War, Indian nations and Indian leaders such as Cornplanter had to deal with the newly formed United States. When it came to the Indians, the new government followed the British model which involved fighting “just wars” (those caused when Indian nations refused to yield to American demands), to purchase “surplus” land (those lands not being farmed in the British fashion) from the Indians, and finally segregating the people on lands reserved for them where they were to go extinct. The formation of the United States began a new chapter in cultural imperialism, racism, and genocide.
By the end of the Revolutionary War, the American revolutionaries were discussing ideas for removing the Indians from their land. In her biographical sketch of Cornplanter in Notable Native Americans, Martha Symes reports:
“They not only wanted to punish them for their aid to the British by destroying the political importance of the confederacy, they also looked at the monetary gain to be had by first confiscating, then selling, Indian land to help pay the expenses of the war.”
In 1784, the United States met with the Iroquois at Fort Stanwix in New York. The Americans refused to recognize the Iroquois Confederacy (Six Nations) and insisted on dealing with each nation by itself. At Fort Stanwix, the Iroquois ceded large amounts of land to the United States. Martha Symes reports:
“Because of his conciliatory stance and the great loss of land with this treaty, Cornplanter became very unpopular with his tribe and his rivals, including the influential Red Jacket, who began to work against him politically.”
Following the war, in 1785, Cornplanter’s Seneca established two new villages in New York on the Allegheny River near the border with Pennsylvania. The principal village, Jenuchshadago contained about 350 people living in 40 houses. The village had a council house for its political and ritual life. There was also an effigy of the spirit Tharonhiawagon.
In 1790, a delegation of Seneca leaders—Cornplanter, Big Tree, and Halftown--traveled to Philadelphia to complain to President George Washington about non-Indian encroachment on tribal lands. Referring to their 1784 treaty, they asked Washington:
“Does this promise bind you?”
President Washington guaranteed their boundaries and control of their lands by telling them that
“…all the lands secured to you, by the treaty of fort [sic] Stanwix, excepting such parts as you may since have fairly sold, are yours, and that only your own acts can convey them away.”
At this meeting the federal government agreed to provide Cornplanter with an annual pension of $250.
Following his visit with President George Washington Seneca leader Cornplanter wrote to the President complaining that four Seneca, including one woman, had been killed by patrolling rangers who killed first and then asked questions. In addition, most of his federal presents had been stolen by American ruffians. According to historian Alan Taylor, in his book The Divided Ground: Indians, Settlers, and the Northern Borderland of the American Revolution:
“Cornplanter had to make the best of his uneasy position as an Indian favorite of a federal government unable to control its own people.”
In 1791, Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson wrote:
“The Indians have a right to the occupation of their Lands independent of the States within those chartered lines they happen to be until they cede them by Treaty or other transaction equivalent to the Treaty, no act of a State can give a right to such Lands.”
In spite of Jefferson’s words and the U.S. Constitution, the New York state legislature pursued its own Indian policy by authorizing emissaries to visit the Seneca and open up land negotiations. President George Washington raged about this action:
“The interferences of States and the speculations of Individuals will be the bane of all our public measures.”
At this same time, the government was attempting to deal with the Shawnee uprising in Ohio. The federal government held a council in New York with the Iroquois Six Nations. The American emissary, Timothy Pickering, pressured the Iroquois to provide the United States with warriors for the Indian wars in Ohio. Pickering boasts of American military supremacy and unwittingly insults the Iroquois. According to historian Alan Taylor:
“Such vaunting rhetoric did not belong at a public council, which for the Iroquois was meant to nurture a friendly, peaceful frame of mind shared by all.”
The following year, three Seneca chiefs—Red Jacket, Cornplanter, and Farmer’s Brother—attended a council in Ohio with the Shawnee, Miami, Delaware, and Wyandot in which they presented a peace proposal from the Americans. Shawnee leader Painted Pole reminded the Seneca that while the Iroquois were doing nothing, the Shawnee and their allies had defeated the American army twice. Ridiculing the Seneca, the Shawnee hurled the written copy of the American peace proposal into the fire. In his biographical sketch of Cornplanter in the Encyclopedia of North American Indians, John Mohawk writes of the Shawnees:
“They treated Cornplanter and his delegation with contempt for what they saw as their subservience to the Americans and issued a demand that white settlers evacuate the lands they were occupying northwest of the Ohio River.”
While Cornplanter’s peace attempt failed, the State of Pennsylvania gave him a grant of one square mile of land for his peace efforts and his role in persuading the Iroquois Confederacy to decline joining the Shawnees.
In 1797, American financier Robert Morris sought to eliminate all Seneca claims to four million acres in New York so that he could sell the land to a land company. He sent his son, Thomas Morris, to buy the Seneca rights for $100,000. Red Jacket and other tribal leaders refused the offer. In the end, the Seneca sold the land and Cornplanter was one of the signers of the agreement. This exacerbated the break between Cornplanter and other Seneca leaders, such as Red Jacket.
The Quakers
Another force for change among the Seneca arrived in Jenuchshadago in 1798 in the form of five Quakers. The Seneca, under the leadership of Cornplanter, were hungry because floods and frost had damaged their corn harvest. After consideration of the Quaker request to live among them and teach them, Cornplanter told them:
“Brothers, you never wished our lands, you never wished any part of our lands, therefore we are determined to try to learn your ways.”
In his chapter in the Handbook of North American Indians, anthropologist Anthony Wallace writes of the Quakers:
“The aim was not evangelical, for the Society of Friends was quite willing to accept the theological validity of non-Christian religious experience.”
The Quakers concentrated on teaching some of the young people how to read and write in English and to teach men and women modern farming techniques. Anthony Wallace reports:
“They also laced their practical instruction with moral advice, attempting to persuade them to be sober, clean, punctual, industrious, and so on—in a word, to take up the Protestant ethic without, necessarily, becoming Protestants.”
Handsome Lake and the Longhouse Religion
In 1799, the Seneca prophet Handsome Lake, Cornplanter’s brother, had his first vision which would lead to the creation of the Longhouse Religion. At this time, Handsome Lake was living with Cornplanter. In 1803, Cornplanter quarreled with Handsome Lake about the religious teachings that Handsome Lake had introduced to the Seneca. Handsome Lake moved to Coldwater on the Allegheny Reservation.
Among the Seneca, as among other American Indian cultures, dreams are important. In 1810, Cornplanter resigned his leadership role because of a dream. In a Dream Guessing Ceremony, Cornplanter went from house to house searching for someone who could guess his dream. According to the dream, Cornplanter was to giveup his name, Gy-ant’-wa-ka, and his chiefly title and assume the name O-no-no,meaning “cold.” He was to remove from his house all items associated with the Euroamericans. Following the dream, he took all of the gifts given to him by Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and others, placed them in a pile and burned them. In his book WhoWas Who in Native American History: Indians and Non-Indians From Early Contacts Through 1900, Carl Waldman reports it this way:
“Late in life, Cornplanter experienced a vision—perhaps influenced by his brother Handsome Lake’s religious experiences—telling him to end all relations with whites, whereupon he destroyed the gifts he had received from white officials over the years.”
Last years
In 1812, war broke out between England and the United States. Both sides sought Indian allies. In New York, the Americans called together a council of the Iroquois nations and invited them to join the United States in their war against the British. Cornplanter favored the Americans. Carl Waldman writes:
“Cornplanter’s influence among his people led them to support the Americans in the War of 1812. Although he was too old to serve, his son Henry participated and was eventually commissioned a major.”
Having lived more than a century, Cornplanter died in 1835. Carl Waldman writes:
“Cornplanter encouraged acculturation to white customs among his people, especially the adoption of agricultural techniques.”
Indians 101
Twice each week—on Tuesdays and Thursdays—this series presents American Indian topics. Biography is an important part of this series as it illustrates both history and American Indian cultures. More biographies from this series:
Indians 101: Gertrude Simmons Bonnin, Writer, Musician, and Activist
Indians 101: Kicking Bird, Kiowa leader
Indians 101: Kennekuk, Kickapoo Leader and Prophet
Indians 101: Ilchee, a Powerful Chinook Woman
Indians 101: Sacagawea (Sacajawea)
Indians 201: Sealth (Seattle), Suquamish/Duwamish Leader
Indians 201: Dr. Susan LaFlesche, Omaha Physician
Indians 201: D'Arcy McNickle, Novelist, Bureaucrat, Activist
Many of these Indian leaders, particularly women and twentieth-century leaders, are unknown to many Americans.