Huron Alliance Belt

After the Hurons were conquered by the Five Nations in 1650, many were taken in by the Iroquois. Whole villages were adopted by the Senecas and Mohawks. This belt became a Seneca belt and was taken to Grand River Lands (Ohsweken) after the American Revolution. Its meaning is lost.

To read the history of the Hurons written by non-Indians one is led to believe that all of the Hurons were massacred by the Five Nations, that none were given any quarter, that all died at the stake, etc. These stories of the savagery and cruelties of the Iroquois were especially spread by the Jesuit missionaries. These early missionaries were a people convinced that they had a special monopoly on revealed truth, at least of such “truth” as they alone were prepared to recognize. Their accounts of Iroquois tortures, almost always second or third hand, are told with the usual zest for horror that was not actually witnessed by the writer. These early writers had a keen nose for terror stories about the “heathen” Indians, especially the Iroquois, whom they could not conquer. The horror detailed in their tales strangely read like the accounts of European tortures practiced by their own people, including those inflicted by their church. Perhaps the words of a modern historian, Harry Dever of Cedarville, Michigan, will throw a little light on this subject. He says:

“Our historians have done the Iroquois a great injustice. Canadian and American historians have been unanimous in showing the Iroquois as a bunch of blood thirsty fiends who ravaged the far north, northwest, and west. Through a by far more thorough study of the voluminous Jesuit Relations than has probably been made before I have discovered that for the latter two thirds of the seventeenth century the French cruelly libeled the Iroquois, that the Iroquois had to stay pretty close to northern New York State to protect themselves against a ring of troublesome neighbors, including the Mohicans, the Conestogas, the Eries, the Neutrals, the Hurons, the Montagnais, and especially the French, who were the instigators of all of their friction, with the Iroquois. The French invented a lot of Iroquois atrocities to excuse to the English their intention to take over the Iroquois territory, which they correctly considered superior to Quebec. Every time they attempted to do so of course the Iroquois clobbered them. The only authentic Iroquois “atrocity” was the so—called LaChine Massacre, which was in retaliation for a far worse act of treachery by the French.

All of the other “atrocities”, including the purported destruction of the Hurons, rested entirely on the imagination of French propagandists. The Hurons were largely destroyed by famine and disease, and most of the survivors joined the Iroquois, from whom they could expect the utmost generosity all Indians extended the starving no matter how ill—fed they were themselves.

The truth of it is that the Jesuits had become so hated by the Hurons that their lives were no longer safe outside of their fort at Ste. Marie. Yes, only toward the end did the Jesuit Superior admit that what for years he had been calling a “residence” was really a fort, garrisoned by French soldiers. The Jesuit Superior had to explain why they were abandoning all of their fictitious Huron converts, and conceived the brilliant idea of reporting them massacred by the Iroquois. Most of our naive historians have made fools of themselves by swallowing French propaganda that has misled most of our historians for two or three centuries. I can assure you that I can substantiate my statements by quotations from the Jesuit Relations and other 17th century sources, of which I have a plethora. This gross injustice to the memory of the old Iroquois should be corrected.”

The following recorded statement of an early French governor reveals just how the Iroquois were regarded in those days: [Memoir of M. De LaBarre, Quebec, Oct.1, 1684) “RESOLUTION: First, to endeavor to divide the Iroquois among themselves, and for this purpose to send persons expressly to communicate my sentiments to the Reverend Jesuit Fathers who are missionaries there and to request them to act.” (Paris Document II).

The founders of the Great Peace did not intend that it include the Five Nations alone. The great Tree of Peace had branches large enough to include all of mankind. All Indian peoples, including the Hurons, were invited to sit beneath its branches. The following words of one of the Iroquois speakers inviting the Hurons to become members of the Iroquois Confederacy has been recorded: “Brothers, with this wampum belt I deliver a message from the Five Nations, assembled at their Council Fire at Onondaga Hill. They recommend that we be friends. They advise you not to listen to any bad reports, not to anything that would disturb your minds. Onondiio (French Governor) has sent evil birds among you. They speak with forked tongues.

Onondiio would not like to see us live together as brothers.”