Playoff system

The Iroquois played off British and French against one another for control of the trade.

Backfired because the French wanted to end it, so they couldn’t play off of the two sides.

They were able to do this because they controlled the Ohio Country, between the British and the French.

Why did British and French allow the Iroquois to dominate the area rather than contest Iroquois hegemony?

• Iroquois ability to make credible military threats
  
• Theory of “buffer” states
  
  

Why would Iroquois play this role?

• If you side with one or the other, run risk of being run over.
  
• Brits might allow more settlers in, which would reduce their ability to control their own territory.
  
• Gave Iroquois and their dependents more negotiating room
  
  

Breakdown of this balance led to French invading British forts. French and Indian Wars

Pressures on the system that held for most of a century? Iroquois did not want to be forced into taking sides – maintain business transactions.

• British said they wouldn’t send/allow more settlers into Indian lands – but settlers kept moving in. Brits may have lent a blind eye. This put a great deal of pressure on Iroquois and other Indian tribes
  
• French began to establish forts in what had been Indian territory – e.g., Ft. Duquesne. They felt the Iroquois gave the English too great trading privileges.
  
  

Delaware Prophet – Neolin. Syncretic prophesies that called people to return to old ways

“The Prophet spoke against drunkenness, disorderliness, and polygamy. He said native tribes should stop warring among themselves. Claiming he had learned the true way directly from the Great Creator - he condemned traditional spirituality, believing it to be inspired by evil spirits. Most of all, Neolin advocated an uncompromising return to traditional ways of life. Only by shunning all trade goods, including European cloth, tools, alcohol, and weaponry, he said, would native people gain the strength to resist European expansion into their territory.” http://www.american-native-art.com/publication/ottawa/ottawa1.html

• use of European tools created dependence on Europeans
  
• But – taught against many traditional beliefs and practices. – Why? What is it about revitalization movements that does this? (reprise of power/knowledge)
  
  

It’s useful to view revitalization movements as resulting in the encounter between two different cultures, in which one comes to conquer the other, causing severe dislocations and disruptions. (Conquest isn’t always necessary, but it is common, as it was in this case.) People’s fundamental notions of how the world is ordered and of their obligations to one another (fundamentally religious notions) are undermined. In the case of the Eastern Indians, English colonists were displacing them, they were afflicted by epidemic diseases, and they lacked the material or spiritual power to behave in ways through which they could recognize one another as moral human beings (especially, capable of discharging moral obligations of kinship – as parent, in-law, clan member, etc.). In this milieu, the Delaware Prophet Neolin encountered a “Supreme Being” comparable to the Christian god who told him to instruct his people to a) sever material dependency on European goods – especially tools and alcohol -- by returning to old technologies; b) repudiate the old demi-gods; and c) become monogamous.

Through this, we can theorize, he attempted to appropriate the foundational power of the Europeans (God, monogamous marriage), while becoming completely self-sufficient, thereby forcing the Europeans from their ancestral lands.

See Revitalization Movements , Anthony F. C. Wallace. American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 58, No. 2. (Apr., 1956), pp. 264-281. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0002-7294%28195604%292%3A58%3A2%3C264%3ARM%3E2.0.CO%3B2-I

Also New Heaven New Earth: A Study of Millenarian Activities. by Kenelm Burridge. Oxford: Basil Blackwell 1969.

Pontiac – 1760s. Onandaga Tried to instigate a mass rebellion against the British in the Ohio River with other tribes. Never fully materialized. 1761, 1763.

Delaware, Huron, Chippewa, Shawnee, more. Rebellion unsuccessful in uniting all the tribes. Iroquois remained largely neutral.

Some Iroquois and members of other tribes allied with French. Other Iroquois stayed neutral.

Results of French and Indian Wars – French driven out of Ohio territory – English began to establish forts.

1768 Treaty of Ft. Stanwick – Sold off land south of Ohio. Opened up parts of West Virginia, southern Pennsylvania – Shawnee lands. P. 122.

Iroquois during Revolutionary War: Oswego Council – tensions between Americans and 5-nations built up. They decided officially to side with British. Sept. 1776.

Many transgressions of Americans against Indians – freelancers.

Mutual destruction of settlements and property. By 1780 only 2 of the many Iroquois towns in the Mohawk Valley were left.

Oneida allied with Americans – they were then attacked by other Indians and English.

Colonial groups interested in opening the back country – esp. after revolutionary war

• land companies
  
• pay off soldiers, bolster currency
  
  

Americans extirpated Indian society.