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Iroquois and the constitution
Essay on the iroquois confederacy
Iroquois and the constitution
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In the story about Dekanawida who is a leader who founded the Iroquois Confederacy or the Five nations. Dekanawida means “wo rivers flowing together” was born to a mother that was supposed to be a virgin to the people in Canada. The fact that he would ruin his people the mother tried several times to kill him, but he survived. As her grew up he left Canada ad headed south where he met Hiawatha. They bother made a plan for uniting the five nations into one confederacy. The Iroquois Unity is now a model for founders of the Government of the U.S. The message that Deganawida is trying to send out is that all mean are brothers and they should stop killing and make peace and join an alliance of friendship instead of destroying each other.
When considering the birth of America, most people look to Christopher Columbus and the Pilgrims who landed at Plymouth Rock. In An Infinity of Nations, Michael Witgen looks to shed light on the role Native Americans played in the formation of early America. Witgen analyzes the social relationships between the European settlers and the indigenous tribes of the Anishinaabeg and the Haudenosaunee in order to tell the story of the westward expansion of early American civilization. Witgen depicts agreement and conflict between the colonizing groups while also explaining the formation of power within them – but his analysis is incomplete. The incorporation of Joan Scott’s and Michael Foucault’s definitions of gender and power relationships into
It is the perspective of the Natives and how they feel they have been wrongfully treated. All perspectives must be looked at to figure out where the truth lies. Pokagon gives a very strong one-sided story. He does give way too few who stood up for the Native way of life, but remains not to believe it was all in the name of progression. He believes very adamantly that is was all in the name of greed. The greed for gold drove out his kind, not the need to progression. He proves his point by sharing what happened to the lives of the Natives, using such things as alcohol and railroad systems. Those two things were used to break treaties and push out tribes from their native lands. The strongest point he uses is slavery. Recalling how the Natives accepted and helped the settlers, but weren’t repaid with the same kindness. He is specifically speaking to the pale face who stole everything from his people. While history books portray Natives as the problem, he uses all he knows to repaint a different story. He does not shy away from the eventuality of progression, but rather believes it could have been another
Powhatan was the chief of a large Confederacy consisting of around thirty-two tribes living in the Virginia area. He was viewed as a strong and powerful leader who wants the best for his people. He explains that the reason for his speech is that he is near the end of his life and is concerned about their relationship when his successor takes place. Chief Powhatan wants peace between the English and the Powhatan people. “I exhort you to peaceable councils…” Willing to Chief uses the phrase “I wish their experience was equal to mine,” meaning he wants his children to have the same relationship with the colonists as his generation has enjoyed. Chief Powhatan states that Native Americans have the love for colonists, “not be less than ours to you”.
local chief. The chief was the focus of power in the settlement. The local chief
The rhetor for this text is Luther Standing Bear. He was born in 1868 on the Pine Ridge Reservation. He was raised as a Native American until the age on eleven when he was taken to Carlisle Indian Industrial School: an Indian boarding school. After graduating from the boarding school, he returned to his reservation and now realized the terrible conditions under which they were living. Standing Bear was then elected as chief of his tribe and it became his responsibility to induce change (Luther Standing Bear). The boarding schools, like the one he went to, were not a fair place to be. The Native American children were forced to go there and they were not taught how to live as a European American; they were taught low level jobs like how to mop and take out trash. Also, these school were very brutal with punishment and how the kids were treated. In the passage he states, “More than one tragedy has resulted when a young boy or girl has returned home again almost an utter stranger. I have seen these happenings with my own eyes and I know they can cause naught but suffering.” (Standing Bear 276). Standing Bear is fighting for the Indians to be taught by Indians. He does not want their young to lose the culture taught to them from the elders. Standing Bear also states, “The old people do not speak English and never will be English-speaking.” (Standing Bear 276). He is reinforcing the point that he believes that they
This philosophy was at the core of the powerful Iroquois League of Five Nations. The League of Five Nations, or Iroquois Confederacy as it is more commonly called, was a thriving and well-functioning form of government very similar to that of the United States Government. Hundreds of years before "civilized" man arrived in the New World -- historians think as early as 1400 A.D.-- the Iroquois had created a radically new and well-organized form of government unlike any other before it. This new form of government was the idea of two peaceful men named Hiawatha and Deganawida (McClard 47). Hiawatha and Deganawida realized that the five Iroquois tribes were constantly fighting with one another resulting in many innocent deaths and ongoing tribal wars. As a solution to the constant stream of violence between the Iroquois people, they proposed a union between the five tribes that would make the Iroquois nation as a whole stronger and more powerful, while uniting their "brothers" together in friendship. The Iroquois Confederacy was a lasting union between the five Iroquois tribes: the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca. This union of five Iroquois tribes would prove to have a great deal of impact on the founding fathers of the United States. The grounding principles of unity, freedom of the people, and democracy that defined the Iroquois Confederacy very much impressed certain men who were charged with designing the new government of the United States.
Have you ever heard of the Powhatan tribe? If not let me share a little fact about them. Powhatan means “waterfall” in the Virginia Algonquian language. The Powhatans didn't live in tepees. They lived in small roundhouses called wigwams, or in larger Iroquois-style longhouses. Another fact is Powhatan warriors used tomahawks or wooden war clubs. They also carried shields. Powhatan hunters used bows and arrows. If you would like to learn more about the Powhatan tribe please continue reading this paper. You will learn all about the Powhatan and how they lived. Enjoy.
Although the work is 40 years old, “Custer Died for Your Sins” is still relevant and valuable in explaining the history and problems that Indians face in the United States. Deloria book reveals the Whites view of Indians as false compared to the reality of how Indians are in real life. The forceful intrusion of the U.S. Government and Christian missionaries have had the most oppressing and damaging effect on Indians. There is hope in Delorias words though. He believes that as more tribes become more politically active and capable, they will be able to become more economically independent for future generations. He feels much hope in the 1960’s generation of college age Indians returning to take ownership of their tribes problems.
“Quantie’s weak body shuddered from a blast of cold wind. Still, the proud wife of the Cherokee chief John Ross wrapped a woolen blanket around her shoulders and grabbed the reins.” Leading the final group of Cherokee Indians from their home lands, Chief John Ross thought of an old story that was told by the chiefs before him, of a place where the earth and sky met in the west, this was the place where death awaits. He could not help but fear that this place of death was where his beloved people were being taken after years of persecution and injustice at the hands of white Americans, the proud Indian people were being forced to vacate their lands, leaving behind their homes, businesses and almost everything they owned while traveling to an unknown place and an uncertain future. The Cherokee Indians suffered terrible indignities, sickness and death while being removed to the Indian territories west of the Mississippi, even though they maintained their culture and traditions, rebuilt their numbers and improved their living conditions by developing their own government, economy and social structure, they were never able to return to their previous greatness or escape the injustices of the American people.
The Algonquians on the other hand had tried to take over the Iroquoian territory. The Iroquois had fought and won a battle with the Algonquians for the territory they had lost for 20 years. Other than these two main groups, the Iroquois people were well rounded. All of the many families in a clan, many clans in a tribe, and many tribes make what is known as the one Iroquois Confederacy. Some of the famous people who were a big part of the Iroquoian culture were Deganawida and Hiawatha. Deganawida along with Hiawatha were the two founders of the Iroquoian Confederacy. They both organized a few of the Native American tribes and made it into a political and cultural confederacy. Another famous Iroquoian person is Dina A. John, who was a resident of the Onondaga tribe and survived the Van Shaik Expedition. She had also served in the War of 1812 and became an artist and entrepreneur in New York. These famous people are representing for what the Iroquois Confederacy has become. Contrary to what many historians believed, based on the narratives of this essay one would unequivocally conclude that indeed Native-Americans were never impoverish nor culturally
The Native Americans of the southeast live in a variety of environments. The environments range from the southern Appalachian Mountains, to the Mississippi River valley, to the Louisiana and Alabama swamps, and the Florida wetlands. These environments were bountiful with various species of plant and animal life, enabling the Native American peoples to flourish. “Most of the Native Americans adopted large-scale agriculture after 900 A.D, and some also developed large towns and highly centralized social and political structures.” In the first half of the 1600s Europeans encountered these native peoples. Both cultures encountered new plants, animals, and diseases. However, the Indians received more diseases compared to the few new diseases to the Europeans. The new diseases resulted in a massive loss of Native Americans, including the Southeast Indians which had never encountered the new diseases. Three of the main tribes in the southeast were the Cherokee and the Creek. They were part of a group of southeast tribes that were removed from their lands. These tribes later became known as “The Five Civilized Tribes because of their progress and achievements.”
The Iroquois includes many Indian tribes speaking a language of the Iroquoian family, such as the Huron, Mohawk, Onondaga, and Seneca among others. However, the Huron is often spoken of separately. The Iroquois differs from the Iroquois Confederacy, also known as the Iroquois League. All of them were affected by the arrival and colonization by Europeans. While Iroquois have a reputation of being violent, they were at times peaceful and were employed by different European companies; they also spread their culture and some European ideas with them. The Iroquois League has been said to have influenced the Founding Fathers, but is that true? Another question is whether the Iroquois were cannibals. They believed in witchcraft, but witchcraft
The formation of the confederacy goes back to when the peacemaker formed the 5 nations into “The Great League of Peace”. These five nations that were in the region between the Great Lakes they consisted of the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas. The confederacy formed because it wanted to keep the peace from internal raids and to stop the fighting between one another. The groups fought many fight until a Mohawk man named Hiawatha taught his people the condolence rituals from a spirit he went back home and spoke to the people about peace and this later became the foundation of the Iroquois confederacy. The goal of the Iroquois was to create a peaceful relationship with the nations and to strengthen the alliance against invasions
Everyone loves to think about Indians in a stereotypical way or assume that they are all crazy worshippers of land or rocks. Everyone thinks they are all the same. They probably can’t even name a legit tribe. The Indians lost their home to the settlers, and many people never think about it how strong these Indians actually are. In fact, an Indian tribe called the Seminoles are very strong. Settled in Florida as far back as 10,000 B.C (“Seminole Indians”). Being indigenous to Florida (“Seminole Indians”) the Seminoles stay grounded as the European settlers later took interest in Florida as the they kill the Seminoles; “many Seminole Indians were kidnapped, tortured, or killed. But the Seminoles held their own ground and
Like the Mohawk tribe they were united when they went to war, but they believed that by conquering the other tribes they would achieve greatness. Their chief however, viewed going to war differently; he believed there should be peace. Deganawida had in mind that if