Seneca Indians: Allies and Enemies
Seneca are among the most respected and feared. The Seneca are culturally similar to their Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, an Mohawk confederates.
The five tribes were known as the Five Nations or the League of Five Nations.
Sometime between 1715 and 1722 the Tuscaroras from North Carolina joined the confederacy and changed the name to the Six Nations.
In their relations with white settlers the Seneca played the role of an independent power and were this way from the very start. During the colonial period they held the balance of power between the French and English.
Particulary around the Canadian border. The Seneca opposed the extension of
French settlement southwards from Canada, and were responsible for prevention the English colonies from being forced on the west by the French.
During the American Revolution the Seneca sided with the British.
SOCIETY
Each town in the tribe contained several long, bark covered communal houses that had both tribal and political significance. Inside each house several families lived in semi-private rooms or areas and the center areas were used as social and political meeting places. They lived in scattered villages that were organized by a system of matrilineal clans.
A calendar cycle of ceremonies reflected their agricultural, hunting, and gathering. The men hunted, cleared fields, traded and made war. The woman gathered various wild plant foods and tended gardens.
They had a great agricultural economy. Their man crop was corn, but they also grew pumpkins, beans, tobacco, maize, squash and later on they grew orchard fruits like apples and peaches.
Crafts were also made. Fine pottery, splint baskets, mats of corn husk and used wampum as a medium of exchange.
FAMOUS TRIBE MEMBERS
There were many famous Indians from the Seneca tribe.
Ely S. Parker- His Indian ...
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...termined the outcome and the ways of our country.
CONCLUSION PAGE
The Seneca Indians were a great tribe. Through themselves and five other tribes they formed the Six Nations. The Six Nations were an almost indomitable clan. They participated in the Revolutionary War and in the colonial wars. The tried to keep the French from coming down from Canada into the now United States.
The Seneca had a great agricultural and hunting economy. The men and women each had specific jobs they were to do in order to keep things running.
The Seneca was the tribe that was the most intensely studied by the white people. It is also believed that their democratic ways were an influence on the writers of the United States Constitution.
Many of the famous Indians came from the Seneca tribe. Some were Red
Jacket, Ely S. Parker and Cornplanter. There were also many others from their league tribes, the Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, Mohawk, and later joiners the
Tuscarora.
local chief. The chief was the focus of power in the settlement. The local chief
His name is Wautheeweela. It means Bright Horn, referring to horns on a deer. He is ten years old, and ready to make his journey to prove his manhood. He and other boys from his Shawnee tribe have been physically toughened and taught to be independent since an age of around six. In winters, they have had to break the ice to jump into the freezing river to continue their daily routine of learning to survive with Nature and its elements. Now will be his test of endurance. He is sent into the woods with a bow and arrow and told not to come back until he had shot something to eat. His face is blackened with charcoal, a sign to all who saw him that he is on his quest and cannot be helped. He would not end up like his friend, Little Wildcat Alford, who went two days alone in the woods without food, and became to weak too shoot, but did manage to kill a quail and return as a man (Wallace, 1970). Bright Horn was better then that, mentally and physically, and has waited for this day to come. Face blackened and weapon in hand, he heads out of his tribe's settlement. He must be smart. He walks along the creek with many bends, the Conodoguinet, until the sun reaches the land. Now he rests on the bank, throwing pebbles into the creek, watching little fish swim around with no apparent direction what so ever. He waits until nightfall to move inland a little bit, to scout out a spot where animals might come to the creek. He sets himself up against a tree and falls asleep. He awakes with a crackling of a twig. A full moon is shining, creating many eerie shadows on the ground. He waits patiently to see what is approaching. He sees a reflection of an eye, a greenish glow coming from it. It is deer comin...
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.
Considering historical evidence, the notion: Native –Americans was not the first inhabitant of America is a complete false. For centuries, history kept accurate and vivid accounts of the first set of people who domiciled the western hemisphere. Judging by those records, below are the first set of Native-American people who inhabited America before the arrival of another human race; the Iroquois: The Iroquois of Native Americans was one of the tribes that lived in America before other people came. Based on historical evidence, it is believed that the Native Americans came from Asia way back during the Ice Age through a land bridge of the Bering Strait. When the Europeans first set foot in America, there were about 10 million Native Americans
They were mostly in charge of raising children and keeping the house clean and properly functioning. They were mostly financially dependent on their husbands because it was it was considered odd for them to earn money themselves. When factories and new machines begin to revolutionize the American economy, women's roles were changed entirely. The Marketing Revolution creates opportunities for women to earn their own wages and buy things, like clothes and food, which they may not have been able to buy previously themselves without the permission of their husbands to use their money. Women were trying to change the views of gender roles that was implied in society. Most of these women had left their families and worked to achieve a future for themselves while only a small portion of them decided to stay with family back
Seneca has a strong opinion on the liberal arts and the liberal study’s in general. He thinks students are only focused on the worldly skills, and not the skills of life. Students are lacking the common knowledge on how to treat others and losing sight in what it takes to become a decent human being. In “Liberal Studies and Education” by Seneca, the path to virtue is through self-awareness. Throughout Seneca’s letter he states his views on liberal education and how important it is in life, students can’t just focus on worldly things, they need to focus on the things we take with us after death. The mind is important, but in Seneca’s letter, he feels the soul should get the most attention in the education field, virtue being his main idea. The effects of virtue are illustrated through the characteristics of, kindness, love for the common man, and inner strength.
Women used to be the mothers who always took care of the family.
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 "Five Tribes" that first joined to form the Iroquois Confederacy, or League, were the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca (listed in order from east to west according to where they lived in an area that roughly corresponds to central New York state). They called themselves Haudenosaunee (pronounced "hoo-dee-noh-SHAW-nee"), or people of the longhouse, referring to the construction of their homes, in which extended families of up to 50 people lived together in bark-covered, wooden-framed houses that were 50 to 150 feet long. They also envisioned their extended community as occupying a symbolic longhouse some 300 miles long, with the Mohawk guarding the eastern door and the Seneca the western.
advantage of the rich black soil for farming. Corn was their main source of food,
The Apache Indians of North America prospered for years throughout Kansas, New Mexico, and Arizona. They were a religious society who believed in a “giver of life';. As any complex society today, The Apache had many inter-tribal differences, although the tribe as a whole was able to see through these conflicts. Women and the extended family played an important role in the society and also in the lives of young children. Groups of different extended families, called bands, often lived together and functioned democratically. The Apache also evolved as the coming of the white man changed their lives. These Indians became adept at using horses and guns, both introduced to them by the coming settlers. As with most Indian tribes in North America the lives of the Apache were destroyed as their life-blood, the buffalo were slaughtered by the whites. The Apache were forced into surrender after years of struggle. One leader, Geronimo, was especially hard for the whites to capture. After years of evading white soldiers Geronimo was taken to Florida and treated as a prisoner of war. Government sponsored assimilation saw English forced upon the Apache robbing them of their culture. In 1934 The Indian Recognition Act helped establish the Indian culture as a recognized way of life. This act gave the Apache land, which the Apache in turn used for ranching. The destruction of the Apache culture was not recoverable and saw the Apache lose much of their language.
The Sioux Indians are a tribe of Native Americans that have endured persecution, segregation, and isolation. Though they suffered greatly, they stuck together and fought for their beliefs and religion. They are a diverse people ranging from warriors to holy men to farmers. The Sioux were a culturally rich and kindhearted people who were not afraid to stand up for what they believed in.
The Native American Indians have faced so many adversities of which some have kept them from flourishing. For example placing them in reservations has greatly decreased their chance to progress in life. They always have had to evolve their lives due to the changes of the environment due to the settlers. This inhibited them from having a solid place where they could settle and setup a foundation for their lives. The concept of freedom had been carried on throughout the history of the United States, yet it has failed to be carried with treating the American Indians. Reservations have been seen as the United States showing their gratitude towards the American Indians, but Carlos Motezuma who wrote What Indians Must do sees it as a wall of progress for them and must be done away with.
Many people today know the story of the Indians that were native to this land, before “white men” came to live on this continent. Few people may know that white men pushed them to the west while many immigrants took over the east and moved westward. White men made “reservations” that were basically land that Indians were promised they could live on and run. What many Americans don’t know is what the Indians struggled though and continue to struggle through on the reservations.
Why do Indian college students have high dropout rates? Why do Indian college students have hard times in college, and university atmospheres? Why do Indian college students have difficult times when it comes to making good grades? Maybe it’s because they have no role models in the home. Maybe they can’t relate to individuals with different cultures and backgrounds? Perhaps it is something simple as having poor study habits. The answers could Possibly be that Indian college students are just uncomfortable in a college environment, and don’t have an Indian studies program to go to, as in Reyhner’s essay. Whatever the reason may be Indian college students are scarce within the college scene, just as Indian people are in the United States of America.