Disease and Diplomacy

I. Disease and Medicine

A. Iroquois Medical Practices

1. Treating Mind and Body--Before European contact, many native peoples--especially the Iroquois--kept those who had fallen ill among them, rather than isolating them in a sick room or something approaching a hospital. In this way, those who had fallen ill or were injured were made to feel that they were still an integral part of the community, which undoubtedly helped to foster recovery from the kinds of illnesses native peoples suffered from in the years before European contact. With the introduction of European communicable diseases, however, this became a recipe for disaster; keeping people ill with smallpox, for instance, among those not already infected by the disease ensured wider infection of the populace.

2. Medical Practice--natives relied upon "natural" remedies--meaning those not dreamed up by European medical professionals, like bleeding, using purgatives, emetics, and blistering agents as antidotes for a variety of diseases, as well as medicines like tincture of mercury, which slowly poisoned the body (and by using on a long-term basis, could cause dementia--hence the term, "mad as a hatter").

3. Visions and Health--Again, in the readings in Jesuit Relations regarding health and medicine, we are reminded of the importance native peoples placed upon visions or things imagined while in a state of altered consciousness. Our Jesuit correspondents again emphasize their incredulity at the importance natives placed placed upon the visions that occurred to them--and at the lengths they would go to to make the dreams come true--particularly those that pertained to the erotic. Nonetheless, for the Huron (and other Iroquois people) these dreams and visions were very important--"more real the reality."

a. Alcohol and the Altered Conscious--most native peoples sought to achieve a state of altered consciousness, from which they would have visions that would tell them what their life's purpose would be. Often, native peoples ingested a variety of herbs and fungi (peyote, psilocybin mushrooms). When you read any account of native peoples and alcohol during this time period, you inevitably see descriptions of people being falling down drunk. Over the years, historians have attempted a variety of explanations for this behavior--a genetic intolerance for alcohol, depression over the changes to their lives, the massive loss of kin, etc. I argue, however, that the damage done to native communities by alcohol was largely the result of their need to seek these altered states of consciousness. Acts committed while drunk--even when severe--were largely forgiven by native communities, who recognized that a person who committed such a crime while drunk was not able to control themselves, and therefore not completely accountable for their actions.

II. Diplomacy and War

A. Native diplomacy--Diplomacy was facilitated by trade. Diplomacy was not always the favored tactic of native peoples, of course, who often resorted to war when trade negotiations broke down. While many people were killed during these disputes, they tended to be about territorial disputes--not, significantly, over "ownership" of a particular piece of land, and who held the rite to cell it.

B. Native Wars--Native wars tended to usually be low-grade conflicts. Men usually fought until they either overcame, or were themselves overcome by, their opponents. These men then would be marched back to the village, where they would slowly be tortured to death--or, on rare occasions, pardoned and given to a family who had recently lost a member. Families would be given this replacement as a way of renewing that family--and, by extension, renewing the tribe, anyway.

1. Pequot War--disputes between groups of Puritans and an Indian people called the Pequot broke out in 1637-1638. The Pequot in the early months of the dispute had run of the battlefield, won numerous victories over the groups of Puritans. The tide turned, however, when the Puritans began burning down Pequot villages, including all the buildings and the villages granary, where the Pequot stored their seed corn. The culmination of the fighting happened at Fort Mystic, which the Puritans burned to the ground and murdered everyone (noncombatants, among them women and children. This action the Mohawk observed from a safe distance, and began talks with the other Iroquois peoples to use those kinds of tactics against the Huron, who controlled a substantial amount of land with lots of beavers.

2. Mohawk leadership--the native people we know as the Mohawks were able to observe this conflict from a safe distance (from the far side of the Hudson Valley), and began to advocate for a change in tactics in order to cut off the Huron from any action on the turn trade.

3. The Destruction of the Huron--On March 16 of 1649, a small contingent of an Iroquois force in excess of 1,000 warriors attacked St. Ignace, killed many of he men attempted to save the settlement--including Fr. Brebeuf, who the Iroquois slowly tortured to death--used the woman and children as pack animals, and escaped south. Several other Huron settlements were likewise attacked during this period. These attacks were extraordinary for several reasons--the level of coordination among the various Iroquois nations and the logistics of moving that many men on foot. Just as significant, however, was the timing of the attack, in mid-March, when food supplies were at there lowest level. By destroying what they couldn't carry away, the Iroquois also prevented the Huron from planting food in the spring, and ensured they would have to leave what they considered their homeland in order to survive.

C. Unintended Consequences--while destroying most of the Huron, and therefore opening up the Huron lands for their own exploitation. The Iroquois had also hoped to eliminate the French from the area, since they sided with their enemies, the Hurons, in the struggle. The result of losing their allies among the Huron was that the French sent more trained military troops, and more French settlers, determined to maintain their presence in "New France." This development, along with the surrender of control by the Dutch to the English of New Amsterdam (which the English began calling "New York"), changed the trading relationships the Iroquois had developed, as well. The result of this is perhaps best exemplified by a woman on here way to becoming the newest saint in the Roman Catholic Church--Kateri Tekakwitha, a woman who grew up among the Mohawks, but chose to live her short life as virgin devoted to venerating Jesus Christ through the mortification of her own flesh.