Basic Call to Consciousness

Policies of Oppression in the Name of “Democracy”

Economic History of the Haudenosaunee

Continued from last week.

European Churches, especially in colonial practice, take on their feudal roles as economic institutions. Among natural world people, they are the most dangerous agents of destruction. They invariably seek to destroy the spiritual/economic bonds of the people to the forests, land, and animals. They spread both ideologies and technologies which make people slaves to the extractive system which defines colonialism.

In 1704, the first Anglican missionaries were sent by England to the Mohawks living along the Mohawk River. In 1710, a delegation of Mohawk chiefs received an invitation to visit England. They returned bearing four bibles, a prayer book and a communion plate for the Anglican chapel, gifts from Queen Anne. But the missionaries also brought behind them a long, long tail. To house themselves they needed a mission, to protect the mission they needed a fort, and to propagate the faith, they needed a school. Missionaries spread more than the word of God. The British Empire was fast entering the Haudenosaunee territories. And there was more to come.

The warlike European kingdoms were constantly fighting among themselves. There were three wars during the 18th Century just between France and England. Queen Anne’s War (1701 to 1713), King George’s War (1744 to 1748), and the “French and Indian War,” known to the European world as the “War of the Spanish Succession,” (1754 to 1763.) It is clear from the records of the time that the People of the Longhouse remained neutral throughout these conflicts. Although individuals on the road to assimilation, such as the Anglicized Mohawks, who had been coerced into roles as British Peasants, could be counted on to aid the colonizers.

If France was unsuccessful in her attempts at military penetration of the territory of the Longhouse, England was far more successful in her social and religious colonization of the Eastern part of our territories. William Johnson was an Irish immigrant who became famous for his influence over certain Mohawks. As an agent of the British Crown, he maintained an embassy as an operation base close to the Mohawk Country. He took several Native women as concubines and had several children by them, none of which he ever recognized as his heirs. His position was known as “British Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the Northern Department.” He is widely credited, by the European historians, as a successful manipulator of events and developments on the frontier during his tenure. In today’s context, Johnson would be working as an ambassador to a Third World country, executing simultaneously diplomatic, military, intelligence, and foreign aid operations.

During his tenure he engineered the establishment of a beachhead from which immigrants could move Westward to broaden the colony. Mohawk lands along the Susquehanna and Mohawk Rivers were increasingly encroached upon by the British settlers, including Johnson himself. By the spring of 1765, the carefully managed Longhouse environment was in trouble as ignorant and destructive peasant settlers almost eradicated the deer herds.

There was so much trouble with the peasant settlers that the Mohawks, who had so generously allowed them to share their lands, were actually considering moving Westward into Oneida territories to gain some peace. By the spring of 1765, many Mohawks had already been displaced and were living as refugees among the other nations.

William Johnson was a master public relations man for the King. He would, on the one hand, apologize for the behavior of the frontiersmen and urge the Mohawks to be patient, and on the other hand encourage more settlers to move into the Mohawk lands. He would make a great show of protecting Haudenosaunee interests, and in that way encourage the People of the Longhouse to seek a resolution at the bargaining table where they invariably ended up trading land to gain a temporary peace.

Continued next week.