The Mourning Wars

The Iroquois also noted that their style of warfare needed to change due to the Europeans. Daniel K Richter, author of War and Culture: The Iroquois Experience, wrote:
After the 1620s, when the Five Nations first made sustained contact with Europeans, the role of warfare in Iroquois culture changed dramatically. By 1675, European diseases, firearms, and trade had produced dangerous new patterns of conflict that threatened to derange the traditional functions of the mourning-war.
Even the most powerful of the Native American tribes knew that an adaptation needed to be made in order to attempt to fight the Europeans. Be mindful that this was still 100 years before the United States was even formed. However, the Iroquois tried to prolong their

existence for as long as possible by even siding with the French or the English at points against other Native American Tribes. Later in history, the Iroquois changed their stance due to the fact that they realized that the Europeans would not stop until all tribes were destroyed, including their own. In Tecumseh’s speech to the other tribesmen he continues to say, “Brothers – if you do not unite with us, they will first destroy us, and then you will fall an easy prey to them. They have destroyed many nations of red men because they were not united, because they were not friends to each other.” He goes on to say that the Europeans have been cheating the Indians all along, and even though the tribes helped them in the past, that representation of friendship would not hold strong and would be destroyed. He insisted they join together when he speaks:
The red men have borne many and great injuries; they ought to suffer them no longer. My people will not; they are determined on vengeance; they have taken up the tomahawk; they will make it fat with blood; they will drink the blood of the white people. Brothers – My people are brave and numerous; but the white people are too strong for them alone. I wish you to take up the tomahawk with them. If we all unite, we will cause the rivers to stain the great waters with their blood.
There is not choice but to join together or all will be destroyed. The Native Americans old fighting ways must be tossed out for any chance of survival against the European nations.
The Mourning Wars was a large tradition of the Iroquois nation.

This was not an actual war between the Iroquois and an opposing tribe. It was a form of ritual by the Iroquois. They were called the Mourning Wars because it was when a member of an individual Iroquois tribe was killed. John Parmenter, author of After the Mourning Wars: The Iroquois as Allies in Colonial North American Campaigns, 1676-1760, writes:
Mourning wars, which arose from a cultural mandate to replace deceased relatives and involved far-ranging, often large-scale raids on rival native nations to procure captives to either adopt or ritually torture and execute, typified pre- and early contact era Iroquois military history. Supplying not only captives but also plunder in the form of pelts and trade goods and an avenue for young men to gain military experience and honors, these campaigns continued through the 1750s.
The Mourning Wars were a means to replace a lost member. If a member of the tribe died, the tribe would go out to another community, normally the enemy tribe, of which the member was lost to, and would kidnap one or multiple members of their community. This prisoner would either be tortured or killed. On occasion, the prisoner was given an option to become accustomed to the hosts tribe and become a normal member of their society. This primarily happened to women and

children.
The Mourning wars was a traditional ritual for the Iroquois and other Native American tribes at the time. It was well balanced and one never exceeded the other. Warfare was not advanced enough to take too many lives resulting in massive capturing. However this all changed once the Europeans arrived. The Europeans were much more advanced with their technology in warfare. For starters, they had guns. At this period in time, guns may not of been the most efficient of weapons, as it took time to reload, but it was definitely one of the most effective and destructive. Due to this, more of the Indians were killed quicker and in larger numbers. Also it was more difficult and some what frowned upon for the Iroquois tribes to capture European people for the mourning wars because their communities were heavily guarded and it was a different type of person they were taking. Not someone who understood their culture and language. Not one who could assimilate and fit into the culture of the Indians. It did not sit right with many of the Indian chiefs. However, it still did happen sometimes, just the captives would be killed instantly rather than the opportunity to live. Instead, what the Indians would do would just attack various villages. In the book, At the Edge of Empire, Eric Hinderaker and Peter Mancall write:
During the course of the war, they attacked fifty-two of New England’s ninety two towns and destroyed twelve of them. They killed between eight hundred and one thousand colonists, perhaps as many as 10 percent of the colonies’ adult males, and took many others captives.