Instability in the Pays d'en Haut

I. Destruction of Huronia

A. The New Way of War--The invasion of Huronia and the near total destruction of the Hurons created a great deal of instability in the Great Lakes regions--the pays d'en haut, as the French referred to it. This new style of war (and the technology that accompanied it) introduced by the Iroquois frightened other native peoples, who often sought to keep as much distance between themselves and the Iroquois as possible.

1. Continued Iroquois incursions--native peoples terror of the Iroquois was founded on the fact that for much of the next decade after wiping out the Hurons, they continued to return to the region to ensure that they maintained a monopoly over its resources--and to seek captives to replace the population that was lost in this operation, and to disease.

a. Miami-Seneca clash--the Miami thought they had made an alliance with the Seneca, but while Miami warriors were off fighting southern rivals, a contingent of Seneca wiped out their village, killing or kidnapping everyone but one old woman. The Miami pursued the Seneca, who left a trail of gruesome dead children as trail markers. The Miami were able to catch and ambush most of the Seneca party--except those they torture and maimed to send back to the Seneca village they came from.

2. Finding Allies--the threat of attack from the Iroquois led other Indian peoples seeking allies to assist them in resisting the Iroquois. It was the need to seek allies that led many Algonquin people into the arms of the French.

B. Creation of the Mingoes--Not everyone in Iroquoia approved of this new way of war. A group of dissident Seneca and other (smaller) numbers of Iroquois separated from the main body, set up their own village in northeastern Ohio, and began to be referred to as the Mingo.

II. The Migration of the Shawnee

A. Shawnee in the Ohio Valley Region--As we've already briefly discussed, many scholars now believe that the ancestors of the Shawnee were long-time occupants of the Ohio Valley. The Shawnee were among the native people most widely dispersed by the Iroquois invasions, however, moving as far south as the Savannah River, and far west as the Mississippi River, and as far east as eastern Pennsylvania--the Shawnee were represented at the negotiation conducted by William Penn held with native peoples in 1701 as he attempted to consolidate his hold on the land he called Pennsylvania.

1. Shawnee and pan-nativism--Much of the difficulty Native Americans experienced with Euro-Americans was that they had great difficulty seeing themselves as a single people--as Indians. That was a label given to them by Europeans, not one they labeled themselves with (until much later, that is). Euro-Americans made little or no distinction between various Native peoples; as we will see later in this course, for many Euro-Americans living near the "frontier," they felt no compulsion to differentiate between various native groups when they retaliated for some perceived wrong. During their travels--or, perhaps, because of their travels--the Shawnee developed a larger consciousness that all Native Americans were somehow related to one another, that they were at root one people. This heritage defined the work of Tenskwatawa and Tecumseh, as we will see.

2. Algonquin identity--we tend to think that ethnic identity is a static thing, but in the late 17th century that was not the case. Algonquin people--particularly the Shawnee--might incorporate through adoption many different people. Although the Shawnee did on occasion torture captives, they most often adopted them into their kin groups. These adoptees were often so well treated that on occasions when the Shawnee were forced to turn over these adoptees, many tears were shed by both sides because of the separation.

3. Allies of convenience--Both Algonquin peoples and the French were forced to become allies in order to resist the threat posed by the Iroquois. This meant that ways of reconciling differences had to be found (like the calumet ceremony) and that sometimes these differences re-emerged when the Iroquois threat seemingly diminished.

B. The Shawnee Return to Ohio--As the pressure of Iroquois incursions receded, the Shawnee returned to their ancestral home. In part this probably was a product of the increased pressure caused by European settlement of the East Coast of North America, but also perhaps it was a product of the Shawnee wearing out their welcome among their erstwhile neighbors. In any case, it was just a few years after this return when the Shawnee had to face a new threat to their way of life from the east.