Mohawk-Iroquois Leaders in History

©by Doug George-Kanentiio

Over the course of our history, we have had many leaders during peace and war. Most of us know of Captain Joseph Brant, Cornplanter, Hendricks, Red Jacket, Handsome Lake, Leon Shenandoah, Mary Jemison, Clinton Rickard, Levi General-Deskahe, Audrey Shenandoah, Maisie Shenandoah, Laura Cornelius Kellogg, Arthur C. Parker and Ely Parker but there have been many others who have been eclipsed by the settler writers of Native history. Their version of our story would have us accept that we did not have people of great intellectual stature and but for the colonists, the missionaries and the ruling elite our past would be eclipsed. By doing so we have been deprived of that which is of greatest importance to any people and that is who we are according to our own telling.

I will begin a series of profiles based upon the stories I know and from other sources. To start, I will summarize important people of our past citing the work of the Akwesasronon Charles Cooke, a linguistic genius who was born in 1870 and died in 1958. He worked with the editor Charles Martin Barbeau to record and transcribe over 6,200 Iroquois personal names with clan and national affiliation. Included are sections which highlight those Native people who rose to leadership at specific instances, events and times. The Charles Cooke collection is held by the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia.

The first cite regards Kryn, the Mohawk spokesperson from the homelands in the Mohawk Valley and then Kahnawake. As written by Mr. Cooke his report (with actual words) reads:

ATARSATA ( a.fa-eSa..da_, )• m. lio.

Shadow. Shade. Umbra. Eclipse.

Thie name, co1apa.ra.tively unknown to the Whites of his day, wae borne by “The Great llohawk, l:nown widely amon & his European con- tempoTaries as “Kryn”,a Dutch name. He was born at Kahnawake, on the banks of the Mohawk River. Early in life he became famous as when he led hie tribesmen against the Mohigane inAugust,1669, and utterly them in battle. He left hie native fillaie about the year of 1674 to join the then newly found mission of Iroquois tribes, at La Prairie,where he lived for nearly twenty years. On reaching the new mission he yielded to the influence I of became a fervent neophyte. In 1683, the Indian chap! at Pa demolished by a ldlirlwind, and

Chief ATAHSATA

ha• juet built a house for himeelf, allowed the pe•ple to use it ae a chapel until a new one was built. In .a 1686,he was asked by his people, at La Prairie, to &O on an embassy, to the Mohawks and the Enalish, with the Tiew of pereuadina them to allow the ‘black robes• to settle them; and if the tion were acceptable to them the Mohawks of La.Prairie (Canada) would all return and settle in their old homes alona the banks of the Mohawk River. Thia mission waa thwarte4 by fears and three.ts that Kryn would be made a pi;ieoner by the En&lish. In 1687,he wascaptain of a company of over a hundred warriors of Christian Iroquois under Governor Denonville in his unwise ex.- pedition aiainet the Seneoas. In FeSX’uary,I690,he was prominant,

with hie floowers of Prayi na Indiana, in the attack on Schenec- tady. In the ewnmer of tha’ year,he,with his chrietian another French raidini expedition &iainet the Enilia settlements; &.nd on their return journey,Kryn was killei.,June, 4th . 1 I6901 atSalmon River ,near Lake Champlain, by a small maraud- ing band Abenakis Indians, Who took him as Chief AT.AHSATA had worthily won fame to aaorn the pages of colon6al history. Re was a man of areat ability and outstandine character. He possessed far-reachin & influence with hie tribes-

men,on this aecount, he wae often sent as envoy to the Council Fire of the Chiefs of the ereat Iroquois Confederacy, livina under the En&lieh,by French official, by whom he was held in

highest esteem.

Chief ATAHSATA was truly noble scion of the great Flint People.

He had two nephews. both were prominent i n their day. One, La Plaque.was e. Lieut. in the French army, and a party of Indians in forays for the French. He visited the King of France in I692.