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Iroquois Indians
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The Iroquois Indians were the most important Native American tribe throughout North American history and the Mohawk were the largest tribe of Iroquois Indians with over 35,000 members. Over time though war and disease took its and by 1691 the Mohawk Indian tribe had less than 800 people. Before this time agriculture was extremely important to the Iroquois. Corn, beans, and squash were the main staples of their diets. The importance of agriculture to the Iroquois tribes was clearly seen with the six annual festivals they held with prayers of gratitude for their bountiful harvests. The Iroquois women usually tended the fields while the Iroquois men would take care of all the hunting duties, and during the winter they would sometimes go out on long hunting expeditions.
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Among the Iroquois Indians, there was a strong division of labor between men and women, although they based their ancestry on matrilineal descent and women were involved in political meetings. Women mainly tended to the home and grew crops such as corn, squash, beans and pumpkins and men went hunting. Like many Indians, Iroquois Indians lived in longhouses which sheltered many families. In longhouses, they shared resources, fire and other commodities. The Iroquois Indians were astute at adopting other tribes into their fold, and this policy enabled them to steadily grow in numbers and in political power.
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The Iroquois Indians originally lived near Lake Ontario and along the Mohawk River in New York State. Around 1600, five tribes, the Mohawks, the Oneidas, the Onondagas, the Cayugas, and the Senecas, banded together to form a confederacy. A sixth tribe -- the Tuscaroras -- joined in 1722. These people called themselves "Haudenosaunee" or "people of the long house". The name "Iroquois" is a French variant on a term for "snake" given these people by the Hurons. There were other tribes who spoke a similar language, but who were not part of the confederacy.
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Pictured here are two Iroquois Indians pounding corn into cornmeal. Maize was first introduced into eastern North America around A.D.200, but remained a minor crop until about 800. Because it required heavy labor for land clearing and field maintenance, corn was cultivated only by the more settled, socially structured tribes. For those Indians, corn became a crucial part of their livelihood. When the first European settlers arrived, they depended on the growing of corn for their survival in the wilderness, which they learned from the Indians. They quickly recognized the benefits of a crop that could feed both livestock and people and that produced a consistently high yield per acre.
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Relations between the Dutch and the Indians were realistic. Each side knew that it needed the other. The Dutch around Fort Oranje had come primarily to trade and although Kiliaen van Rensselaer had bought his estate from the defeated Mahicans in 1630, it was not until 1661 that Arent van Curler actually bought land from the Mohawk.16
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Town Destroyer... translated as Town Taker, Burner of Towns, or Devourer of Villages, was a nickname given to George Washington by Iroquois Indians. The name in its original language(s) has been given variously as "Caunotaucarius", "Conotocarious", and "Hanadahguyus." Historians have given different origins of the nickname.
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Iroquois Indians