The Susquehanna Indian Tribe of Pennsylvania - Essay Example

The Susquehanna Indian Tribe of Pennsylvania The Rise and Fall of the Susquehanna Indian Tribe of Pennsylvania, I Introduction a. This paper is written to research a local historical topic or culture of which I have chosen. b. My interest in the topic was generated by the discovery that a powerful Indian tribe had existed in this area that held most of the other tribes in awe of them, yet disappeared before most of the colonists arrived, leaving behind just their name to mark the river along which they lived. c. Research was conducted through a variety of library books and internet sources to determine what was known about the tribe as well as what was known about how various tribes necessarily made their living in this region. Although little is known about the Susquehanna Indian tribe itself, much about the way in which they must have lived can be deduced by examining the traditions and customs of other tribes that lived in their region. A great deal of the early history of the American continent has been lost thanks to the annihilation of great Indian nations such as the Susquehanna, forcing us to examine other tribes for clues as to their way of life. I. In early 17th century, three distinctive groups of Indian tribes, representing three different linguistic stocks, occupied the region that is now Virginia. Along the coast were many settlements of the Algonquian group, the Powhatan confederacy, enemy of the Siouan stock composed of the Monacan and Manahoac groups that spread from the banks of the upper James and the headwaters of the Potomac and Rappahannock Rivers to the Allegheny Mountains (UV, 2006). The bellicose and scattered Iroquoian stock was represented by the Conestoga or Susquehanna tribe of about 600 able warriors that lived in palisaded towns to defend themselves from the Massawomeckes. The six Susquehanna towns are Sasquesahanough, Quadroque, Attaock, Tesinigh, Utchowig, and Cepowig; the earlier names obviously conventionalized forms of the original native terms (AG, 2006). Ever since, the Susquehannock apparently had been in good alliance with the Huron. It was probable they migrated to the Susquehanna Valley from the north. The earliest town sites recognized as Susquehannock were sited on the upper Susquehanna River and date from about 1550, but they probably had occupied the region for at least four hundred years before this. Even though they inflicted a major defeat on the Mohawk shortly before 1600, conflicts with the Iroquois had by 1570 forced the Susquehannock south into the lower Susquehanna Valley. Toughened by years of constant warfare, they besieged the Algonquin tribes along the shores of Chesapeake Bay and began extending their control southward. The first European contact with the Susquehannock was in 1608 when Captain John Smith an explorer from Jamestown was traveling the northern end of Chesapeake Bay (Shovel, 2006). The Powhatan also knew the Susquehannock from painful experience, and when the English first established Virginia, the Powhatan had placed their villages well-inland to defend them from Susquehannock war parties that ranged the coastline by canoes. One basis the Powhatan were not completely conflicting to English settlement at first was that they provided additional defense, but the Susquehannock still attacked the Powhatan villages in northern Virginia during 1610 (Cadzow, 1936). III. During the early 1600s, drawn by the potential profits from furs, other Europeans came to the New World. Friendly dealings with the Susquehannock were particularily valuable to the French, not just for the purposes of trade, but because they fascinated the Iroquois between two powerful enemies. Unluckily, the new coalition alarmed Dutch traders on the Hudson River, and they vigorously supported the Mohawk in 1615 against the Susquehannock. Even though they were relatively few in number and isolated by their inland location, the Susquehannock managed to turn out to be an important trading partner with all of the competing European powers. As well handicapped by their inland location, the Iroquois first had to compete with the powerful Mahican confederacy in order to deal with the Dutch, and it took 4 years of war from1624 to 1628 before the Mohawk emerged as the most excellent trading partner of the Dutch in the Hudson Valley. In 1626, the Susquehannock assaulted the Delaware and by 1630 had forced many of them either south or across the river into New Jersey from Delaware. The Dutch established the outcome, but when they began to trade with the Susquehannock, they were pleased to find out that the Susquehannock had more and better furs than the Delaware. The Swedes made their first settlements on the Delaware River in 1638; the Delaware were utterly subject to the Susquehannock and required permission from the Minqua to sign any treaties. To the south in Virginia, the English colonists in 1625 had overpowered the Powhatan, the only Algonquin confederacy strong enough to have challenged the Susquehannock. It took another war from 1644 to 1646 for the English to completely defeat the Powhatan and take control of eastern Virginia. Unconcealed, the Susquehannock extended their control to the Potomac River and claimed the area as hunting territory (Shovel, 2006). The English in Virginia were soon fascinated in fur trade with the Susquehannock, and in 1631 William Claiborne set up a trading post on Kent Island in upper Chesapeake Bay. The Susquehannock were able to trade with the French in Canada, the Dutch on Delaware Bay, and the English in Virginia (Garbarino, 1985). The sociable trade relationship with the English became more and more strained after the settlement of Maryland. In 1634, the Conoy and Patuxent welcomed the new colonists, and a Jesuit mission was opened at their village at Piscataway. The reaction of the Susquehannock was not nearly as pleasant, especially when settlements began to move progressively up the western side of Chesapeake Bay. A common desire to trade kept the English and Susquehannock from open conflict for a while, but steady infringement eventually led to a series of incidents and arguments, including battles with the Conoy and Wicomese. In1642 the ruler of Maryland had confirmed the Susquehannock were enemies of the colony to be shot on sight. In 1644, the Susquehannock trade with the English momentarily sputtered to a halt. In 1645, the Susquehannock ended their warfare with Maryland and signed an agreement ceding their claims in Maryland between the Choptank and Patuxent Rivers. IV. Dealing with all four European powers during the early 1640s required Susquehannock to produce a lot of fur. Skilled hunters and trappers, huge demand kept them so busy hunting they had little time left to persist their war of invasion against the Delaware and Chesapeake Algonquin tribes. One can only wonder where and how the Susquehannock got so much fur. As the Susquehannock wore out the beavers in central and western Pennsylvania; they were forced to look outside their territory for more. Some were obtained from deals with the Erie and Shawnee, but the rest probably came at the expense of infringement and warfare with unknown tribes in the Ohio Valley. The Beaver Wars in 1630 to 1700 were an era of intense intertribal warfare in the Great Lakes and Ohio Valley shaped by rivalry in the fur trade. The Susquehannock were visibly a major participant, but the most important disagreement was between the Huron confederation which traded with the French and the Iroquois League which traded with the Dutch (Shovel, 2006). In the beginning, Europeans had been unwilling to trade firearms to natives and limited the number and amount of ammunition. This restriction break up as the competition increased. When English dealers from Boston tried to lure the Mohawk from the Dutch by selling firearms and ammunitions, the Dutch countered by providing them in limitless amounts. Unexpectedly much-better equipped than the Huron and their allies, the Iroquois began a major offensive, and the level of aggression in the Beaver Wars escalated radically. In the arms race that followed, no tribe had a more beneficial position than the Susquehannock. By playing on the doubts of the rival European traders, they had admittance to whatever weapons in any amount they wished. One of the Susquehannock towns even had cannons to defend itself; they were the only Native Americans ever to use this sort of heavy armaments. The Susquehannock were associates of the Huron and enemies of the Iroquois. Susquehannock alliances and trade were also inclusive to the Erie and Neutrals, with the result that the Iroquois were bounded by hostile tribes. Having worn out the beaver in their native soil, the Iroquois were running out of the fur they needed to trade for Dutch firearms. Or else, with European epidemics decimating their territory, it was only a matter of time before they were annihilated. Their enemies were well-aware of this problem and refused consent for Iroquois hunters to pass through their territories. Faced with a barrier, the Iroquois were enforced into a war where they needed to either overpower or be destroyed. They concentrated their offences on the Huron after 1640, and in 1645 they had succeeded in isolating them from the Algonkin, Montagnais, and French in the east. There was a two year quiet period in the fighting following a ceasefire that year, but in 1647 the Iroquois launched enormous attacks into the Huron territory and destroyed the Arendaronon villages (Shovel, 2006).. Sensing that the circumstances was becoming severe, Susquehannock warriors fought as Huron allies, while their ambassadors sent to the Iroquois assembly flatly demanded a halt to the war. For some incomprehensible reason the Huron refused further offers of help from the Susquehannock and were overrun by the Iroquois during the winter from1648 to 1649. The Tionontati met a related fate a year later, and as the Iroquois fascinated thousands of captured warriors into their ranks, the Susquehannock were in serious danger. In 1650 the western Iroquois that include Seneca, Cayuga, and Onondaga attacked the Neutrals, and the Susquehannock entered the war against the Iroquois. In 1651, suchlike help they could have given the Neutrals was cut short when the Mohawk attacked the Susquehannock villages. With the Susquehannock incapable, and the Erie disinclined to help, the Neutrals were quickly defeated. The Mohawk, still, found the well-armed Susquehannock a dangerous and stubborn rival. The war dragged on until 1656 with the Mohawk unhurriedly pushing the Susquehannock down the eastern branch of the Susquehanna River (Shovel, 2006). The Susquehannock were abruptly alone. The French were immobilized after Iroquois victories over the Huron and Neutrals, and the Erie soon had their own war of survival against the western Iroquois from 1653 to 1656. Pushed by the Mohawk, the Susquehannock tried to reinforce their ties to the Dutch in 1651 by selling them some of their territory on the Delaware River, but the Dutch remained impartial. The Swedes sustained to supply them with anything they wanted, but the Susquehannock had become implicated in fighting with Virginia Puritans that had settled in northern Maryland in 1649. Not capable to fight two wars at the same time, the Susquehannock signed a treaty with Maryland ceding much of the lower Susquehanna Valley to secure peace and trade with English in 1652. During 1654, Smallpox hit their villages but this affected the Mohawk as much as the Susquehannock and slowed the war. Susquehannock's major blow came in September 1655 when the Dutch seized the Swedish colonies. Without their primary supplier, the Susquehannock were forced to ask the Mohawk for peace in 1656. The Mohawk never fought the Susquehannock again, but peace with them did not extend to the rest of the Iroquois League. After the Erie, the western Iroquois turned their attention to their only left behind Iroquian-speaking enemy. The Iroquois first attacked the Susquehannock's associates: dispersing the Shawnee and thinning out them to Illinois, Tennessee, and South Carolina. During 1660s, they struck the Delaware throughout the Delaware Valley and successfully took them out of the war. The worst blow for Susquehannock was the smallpox epidemic in 1661 that wrecked their population to a point from which it never recovered (Shovel, 2006). A treaty signed with Maryland ruined the lingering antagonism with the English. With English help, the Susquehannock were competent to turn back a major Iroquois assault in 1663. The subsequent year the English took New York from the Dutch, and afterwards formed their alliance with the Iroquois. Though, Maryland did not feel completely assured by this and in 1666 renewed its treaty with the Susquehannock. In another outbreak of smallpox in 1667, the Iroquois made peace with the French and their native allies and this permitted them to concentrate on their war with the Susquehannock. With the support of Maryland, the Susquehannock fought on in an escalating bitter struggle, but by the fall of in 1669, they were down to only three hundred warriors and were forced to ask the Iroquois for peace. The Iroquois reply to their offer was to torture and kill the Susquehannock diplomats who brought it. IV. It took the Iroquois until 1675 to overpower the Susquehannock. The survivors settled on the upper Potomac River at the invitation of the Maryland's governor. After several depredations, a thousand of armed man army assembled under Colonel John Washington. In direct disobedience of the orders of Virginia's governor, Washington's mercenaries besieged the Susquehannock in an old fort on the Potomac which they had engaged to defend themselves against the Iroquois. Eventually the Susquehannock were able to pledge the colonists they were peaceful and even offered six of their sachems as hostages for proof. Pleased, the English took the hostages and left, but they learned of other attacks in the area and killed the hostages. The Susquehannock deserted the fort, but launched a series of disciplinary raids on the Virginia and Maryland frontier. Most of the guilt for these raids fell on the Virginians' Pamunkey and Occaneechee associates and led to their near total destruction by the colonists throughout Bacon's Rebellion the subsequent year. The Susquehannock moved north but were attacked by Maryland armed force near Columbia. Some managed to reach safety with the Meherrin in the North Carolina, but in 1676, left behind Susquehannock had little choice but to surrender to the Iroquois. Under the conditions, they were treated well. Under the terms of the peace agreement, the Susquehannock were settled amongst the Mohawk and Oneida, became affiliate of the Iroquois "covenant chain," and their authority over the Delaware and other former allies was also surrendered to the League. During the following years, some Susquehannock rose to leadership as Iroquois war chiefs. Although treated well, the Susquehannock were not free. William Penn attempted to sign a treaty with them only to learn that the Susquehannock first required Iroquois approval to sign in 1683. Successive dealings by the Pennsylvania government intense on the Iroquois and ignored the submissive tribes. In 1706 the Iroquois had relented rather and allowed three hundred Susquehannock to go back to the Susquehanna Valley in Pennsylvania. No longer a powerful group, they became known as the Conestoga. The Iroquois kept a watchful eye on them and used their homeland as a kind of supervised reservation for the displaced Algonquin and Siouan tribes who were allowed to settle there as associate of the covenant chain (Shovel, 2006). Quaker missionaries moved inwards and made many conversions among the Susquehannock. As Conestoga they became a Christian village, but the more traditional Susquehannock left. In 1763 there were only 20 members of this last certain group of the Susquehannock. They were totally peaceful, but killings committed by others during the Pontiac rebellion of that year outraged the white settlers in the area who just wanted to kill Indians in revenge. Fourteen Conestoga were detained in the jail at Lancaster for their own security. The mob group known as Paxton boys preceded to the village at Conestoga and killed the six Susquehanna they found there. Then the Paxton boys went to the jail, broke in, took the last fourteen Susquehannock and killed them (Shovel, 2006). V Conclusion The Susquehanna tribe was once a very powerful American Indian tribe that resided in what would become Pennsylvania. Little is known about the tribe, but much can be deduced both from studying other tribes, the natural environment in which the Susquehanna lived and the records that have been left behind regarding interactions between colonists and members of this tribe. The tribe was eventually annihilated through a combination of natural native enemies and hostile colonists. As Conestoga, the Susquehannock may have intermarriages with other tribes but this was not explicitly indicated as focus on the records archived was on warriors. What had been quite amazing about the Susquehannock were their trading abilities and resourcefulness as fur suppliers. Likewise, their immense power as Indian natives had also been notable, but these would remain as part of the annals of American history of which only mixed races of Indians and pure ones could be proud of. References: Access Genealogy (AG): Indian Tribal Records "Susquehanna Indian Tribe History." http://www.accessgenealogy.com/native/tribes/susquehanna/susquehannahist.htm Native American Heritage (2nd Edition). Merwyn Garbarino. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press, 1985. Shovel, Dick "Susquehannock History." The Eastern Shore Guide. Accessed 2006. From: http://www.easternshore.com/esguide/hist_susquehannock.html Susquehannock Indians. Donald A. Cadzow. Harrisburg, PA: Pennsylvania Historical Commission, 1936. University of Virginia (UV). American Studies. "Indians". Accessed 2006 From: http://xroads.virginia.edu/HYPER/VAGuide/Indians.html Read More