PART 3 of AN ANALYSIS OF THE 1613 TAWAGONSHI TREATY
by Robert Venables
Fenton assume that the 1613 silver chain was only a metaphor? The silver chain may have been both a symbol and an actual object. In the 1613 treaty, the silver chain was exchanged for a wampum belt. The valuable wampum belt was a fathom in length, perhaps as long as six feet – the meaning is basically “outstretched arms” and is from “Old English” and “Old Frisian,” Frisian being a reference to the Frisian Islands right along the northern shores of The Netherlands and Germany. (Editors of the Oxford English Dictionary, The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary: Complete Text Reproduced Micrographically, 2 vols.; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971, I, 969). The Mohawks and the Dutch who exchanged gifts in 1613 were practical traders. It is unlikely that the Mohawks would have exchanged a valuable, fathom-long wampum belt just to be able to hear the kind words of two Dutch traders describing a metaphor, an invisible chain. Thus this silver chain was more likely to have been an actual object. In this context, the exchange of an actual, economically valuable silver chain for a long wampum belt would have made the exchange at Tawagonshi both a symbol of friendship and an actual, economically-balanced exchange of gifts. Very likely, the silver chain was relatively small — hardly a chain large enough to hold a ship to the shore. And if this was indeed the case, it is interesting to contemplate the possibility that the later use of “chain” and “silver chain” in subsequent Haudenosaunee-Euro-American relations was a remembrance of this first valuable silver chain which simultaneously served as a metaphor of alliance and friendship.
Why would the Dutch gift have been of valuable silver? In 1613, the gift of silver may have reflected the extreme competition among Dutch traders on the Hudson. In the spring of 1613, for example, one Dutch trader Thije Vokckertsz Mossel, was so eager to attract Native fur traders that he offered the Indians goods that were twice the value of what another trader, Adriaen Block, was offering (“Declarations of some members of the crew of Adriaen Block’s and Thijs Volckertsz. [sic] Mossel’s ships,” August 20, 1613, in Simon Hart, The Prehistory of the New Netherland Company: Amsterdam Notarial Records of the first Dutch voyages to the Hudson, Amsterdam, The Netherlands: City of Amsterdam Press, 1959, 74-75). One of Block’s associates in that era was Hendrick Christiaensen, one of the two Dutch signers of the 1613 treaty. In such a competitive atmosphere, the exchange at Tawagonshi of a silver chain for a fathom-long wampum belt does not seem out of the question. (Simon Hart, The Prehistory of the New Netherland Company: Amsterdam Notarial Records of the first Dutch voyages to the Hudson (Amsterdam, The Netherlands: City of Amsterdam Press, 1959, 19-22). In this context of extravagant Dutch competition, a special gift of real silver does not seem extraordinary. In 1618, another event indicates just how spirited the competition among the Dutch was: the two Dutchmen who had signed the 1613 treaty parted ways. Hendrick Christiaensen was shocked to learn that Jacob Eelkens was sailing for a competitor of Christiaensen (Simon Hart, The Prehistory of the New Netherland Company: Amsterdam Notarial Records of the first Dutch voyages to the Hudson, Amsterdam, The Netherlands: City of Amsterdam Press, 1959, 54).
As a metaphor among the Haudenosaunee, the imagery of the “chain” – no matter what size – refers to the links that make up any chain. Thus the emphasis is on the individual links that allow the chain to be strong, and not just an emphasis on the whole chain. Haudenosaunee “root words” for the symbol of a chain are “arms linked together,” such as the Onondaga “dehudadnetsháus” meaning “they link arms,” (Hanni Woodbury, Onondaga-English/English-Onondaga Dictionary, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2003, 1207) and Cayuga “teHonane:tosho:t” meaning “they have joined hands/arms” (Francis Jennings, William N. Fenton, Mary A. Druke, and David R. Miller, eds., The History and Culture of Iroquois Diplomacy, Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press, 1985, 116). The New York English colonial official Cadwallader Colden noted in 1747 that “The Indians always express a League by a Chain by which two or more things are kept fast together.” (Cadwallader Colden, The History of the Five Indian Nations Depending on the Province of New-York in America, Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1958, 30). If subsequent Haudenosaunee speakers referred to a sequence of relations that evolved from ropes to chains, and then finally to a silver chain, the question arises whether this sequence be interpreted only as an accurate chronological sequence, or is it possible that this sequence was intended to emphasize that the relationship had grown stronger. In fact, as noted above, a speaker for the Five Nations (name unknown) told the English in 1694 that a chain was used at the very first meeting, and emphasized that this was not just a rope, but a chain. In addition, the symbol of a “chain” meant something very significant to the Europeans as well. European philosophy included “The Great Chain of Being” which was a spiritually-based environmental viewpoint of the interconnectedness of all life.
Gehring, Starna, and Fenton also contended that there was a sequence of metaphors to describe the alliance between the Haudenosaunee and the Europeans: a chronological progression from a rope, to an iron chain, to a silver chain (GSF 1987: 387). That sequence of metaphors was used, but not always. In 1694, a speaker for all “the 5 Nations” repeated the description expressed in 1691 that the first link between the Dutch and Haudenosaunee was a chain, not simply a rope and/or a chain of iron. In a speech to New York’s Governor Benjamin Fletcher, this spokesman noted:
“When the Christians first arrived in this Country we received them Kindly tho they were but a small People & entered into a Leage [sic]with them to protect them from all Enemies whatsoever, We were so desirous of their Friendship & Society, that we tied the Great Canoe wch brought them hither, not with a Piece of Back or Rope to a Tree, but with a Chain to a Great Mountain.”
(Five Nations spokesman speech to Benjamin Fletcher at Albany, May 5, 1694, in Peter Wraxall, An Abridgment of the Indian Affairs Contained in Four Folio Volumes, Transacted in the Colony of New York, from the year 1678 to the Year 1751, Charles Howard McIlwain, ed. (1754; reprint of the 1915 edition; New York: Benjamin Bloom, 1968), 24.)
Assume for a moment that the silver chain of the 1613 treaty was only a metaphor, not an actual object. As a metaphor, does the silver chain have to appear in a metaphorical sequence such as a rope, followed by an iron chain, followed by a silver chain? No. On July 18, 1701, the Algonquin “River Indians” of the Hudson River Valley met at Albany. Evidently, no Haudenosaunee were present, but a treaty was mentioned that could be the 1613 treaty. At the beginning of the negotiations, their spokesman, Sacquans, noted:
“Itt is now ninety years since the christians came first here, when there was a covenant chain made between them and the Mahikanders [Mahicans] the first inhabitants of this River, and the chain has been kept inviolable ever since.”
(Sacquans, speech at Albany, July 18, 1701, in E.B. O’Callaghan, ed., The Documentary History of the State of New York (4 vols.; Albany: Weed, Parsons, 1849-1851), IV, 902.)
“Ninety years” would date that treaty as occurring in the year 1611, or thereabouts – say, the year “1613” perhaps?
A treaty made in 1613 is consistent with the recitation of treaties given by the Onondaga spokesman Canasatego in 1744.
Canasatego was born in the l680s. Thus he was about sixty years old ‑‑ tall, strong, vigorous, and broad chested ‑‑ when he gave his Lancaster speeches. Canasatego’s words were translated by the white interpreter Conrad Weiser. Canasatego’s reference to the metaphors of a rope, an iron chain, and then a silver chain as linking the Haudenosaunee with the Dutch have been used to cast doubt on the 1613 treaty by those scholars who only focus on metaphor. But if the 1613 negotiation involved an actual gift of silver jewelry, it should be noted that Canasatego does not describe any exchange of gifts, gifts such as a fathom of wampum for silver jewelry. The speech of Canasatego is worth reading to prove that he only uses a rope, an iron chain, and a silver chain as metaphors, and not as actual physical objects. References to Wampum are also used as metaphors for protection, hospitality, and sincere commitment. But Canasatego does not describe a gift of wampum at the first negotiation. Because actual wampum belts were so often presented as affirmations, Canasatego evidently wanted to stress metaphors rather than evoke actual recreations of reality — “mental pictures” — of what had transpired.
The two speeches quoted below were printed by Benjamin Franklin as a part of the record of the negotiations. The first is from Canasetego’s speech on June 26, 1744. This speech is not as well known as the second speech on July 4, 1744. This second speech is included just to put Canasatego in the context of better-known Haudenosaunee history. [The underlining is in the original as printed by Benjamin Franklin.]
Brother, the Governor of Maryland,
“WHEN you mentioned the Affair of the Land Yesterday, you went back to old Times, and told us, you had been in Possession of the Province of Maryland above One Hundred Years; but what is One Hundred Years in Comparison of the Length of Time since our Claim began? since we came out of this Ground? For we must tell you, that long before One Hundred Years our Ancestors came out of this very Ground, and their Children have remained here ever since. You came out of the Ground in a Country that lies beyond the Seas, there you may have a just Claim, but here you must allow us to be your elder Brethren, and the Lands to belong to us long before you knew any thing of them. It is true, that above One Hundred Years ago the Dutch came here in a Ship, and brought with them several Goods; and we were so well pleased with them, that we tied their Ship to the Bushes on the Shore; and afterwards, liking them still better the longer they staid with us, and thinking the Bushes too slender, we removed the Rope, and tied it to the Trees; and as the Trees were liable to be blown down by high Winds, or to decay of themselves, we, from the Affection we bore them, again removed the Rope, and tied it to a strong and big Rock [here the Interpreter said, They mean the Oneido [sic] Country] and not content with this, for its further Security we removed the Rope to the big Mountain [here the Interpreter says they mean the Onondago Country] and there we tied it very fast, and rowll’d Wampum about it; and, to make it still more secure, we stood upon the Wampum, and sat down upon it, to defend it, and to prevent any Hurt coming to it, and did our best Endeavours that it might remain uninjured for ever. During all this Time the New‑comers, the Dutch, acknowledged our Right to the Lands, and solicited us, from Time to Time, to grant them Parts of our Country, and to enter into League and Covenant with us, and to become one People with us.
“AFTER this the English came into the Country, and, as we were told, became one People with the Dutch. About two Years after the Arrival of the English, an English Governor came to Albany, and finding what great Friendship subsisted between us and the Dutch, he approved it mightily, and desired to make as strong a League, and to be upon as good Terms with us as the Dutch were, with whom he was united, and to become one People with us: And … he found that the Rope which tied the Ship to the great Mountain was only fastened with Wampum, which was liable to break and rot, and to perish in a Course of Years; he therefore told us, he would give us a Silver Chain, which would be much stronger, and would last for ever. This we accepted, and fastened the Ship with it, and it has lasted ever since.”
(Treaty of Lancaster, June 26, 1744, in Indian Treaties Printed by Benjamin Franklin, 1736-1762, with an introduction by Carl Van Doren and Historical & Bibliographical Notes by Julian P. Boyd (Philadelphia: The Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 1938), pp. 50-52.)
On July 4, 1744, Canasatego gave his concluding remarks to the English colonial subjects of King George II, urging them to consider the example of the Haudenosaunee. It is this speech that is especially well-known in history.
“We heartily recommend Union and a good Agreement between you our Brethren. Never disagree, but preserve a strict Friendship for one another, and thereby you, as well as we, will become stronger.
“OUR wise Forefathers established Union and Amity between the Five Nations; this has made us formidable; this has given us great Weight and Authority with our neighboring Nations.
“WE are a powerful Confederacy; and, by your observing the same Methods our wise Forefathers have taken, you will acquire fresh Strength and Power; therefore whatever befalls you, never fall out one with another.”
(Treaty of Lancaster, July 4, 1744, in Indian Treaties Printed by Benjamin Franklin, 1736-1762, with an introduction by Carl Van Doren and Historical & Bibliographical Notes by Julian P. Boyd (Philadelphia: The Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 1938), p. 78.)
The Meaning of the Word “Tawagonshi,” the location of the 1613 treaty.
According to the Canadian scholar Ted Braser, Tawagonshi is on “Normans Kill” [“Kill” means stream in Dutch], Albany County, New York. George T. Hunt also notes this location for a possible treaty made in 1618, but Hunt rejected the validity of that 1618 treaty (George T. Hunt, The Wars of the Iroquois: A Study in Intertribal Trade Relations, Madison, University of Wisconsin Press, 1940, 26). Normans Kill flows into the Hudson just below present-day Albany. Braser also states that the treaty was made at “Tawasgunshi Hill” during a council of Dutch, Mohawks, and Mahicans. The inclusion of the Mahicans would be consistent with Haudenosaunee history, because the Mahicans lived in the area of Tawagonshi. The Mahicans often fought the Mohawks, but there were also times of peace. Because trade with the Dutch would have been attractive to both Mohawks and Mahicans, it is possible that representatives of both peoples were at the 1613 treaty. Eventually, most of the Mahicans were conquered and adopted into the Mohawk Nation. Although these Mahicans became “Mohawks,” they also retained their Mahican identities. (T. [Ted] J. Braser, “Mahican” in Northeast, Bruce Trigger, editor, Volume 15 of the Handbook of North American Indians, William C. Sturtevant, general editor, Washington, D.C., Smithsonian Institution, 1978, 202.)
According to William M. Beauchamp, Tawagonshi is from the Mohawk “Ta-wa-sen’-tha” and means “waterfall.” The word may symbolize “the place of many dead” or a place “to lament or shed tears.” (William M. Beauchamp, Aboriginal Place Names of New York. Bulletin 108, May 1907, New York State Museum, Albany, New York: New York State Education Department, 1907, 23-24.) These meanings reinforce the fact that when the treaty was made, the Mohawks and Mahicans may have been at peace, but they were often at war. At the end of each struggle, a condolence ceremony, including tears shed by both sides in solemn memory for the losses of their enemies, might therefore be integrated into the place name. A condolence ceremony would have also been symbolic as a “place of many dead.”
Selective, Biased Criticism.
In their 1987 article, the late William N. Fenton, Charles Gehring, and William Starna failed to examine the evidence with an open mind. Their narrow attitude is immediately apparent in the subtitle: “The Final Chapter” (GSF 1987). This betrays an arrogance not in keeping with the ever-evolving nature of scholarship. Research never ends, as each generation of scholars and all open-minded people constantly find new resources and develop new insights.
In their 1987 article, Gehring, Starna, and Fenton note that while the 1613 treaty is in Dutch, there are linguistic errors or idiosyncrasies that cast doubt on its seventeenth century origin. (GSF 1987: 385-388). But because L.G. Van Loon stated that the document surfaced at the Mississauga reservation in Ontario, Canada, another possible explanation to account for the treaty’s linguistic errors or idiosyncrasies is that the document was copied by someone who tried to duplicate the original Dutch but whose first language was not Dutch. This might explain the linguistic variations.
Regarding the Mississauga location, L.G. Van Loon noted that the treaty
“was procured through an individual who was the agent on the Missisaqua [sic] Reservation in Canada many years ago.”
(L.G. Van Loon, “The Treaty of Tawagonshi,” in Jeannette Henry, ed., The American Indian Reader (5 volumes: Anthropology (I), Education (II), Literature (III), History (IV), and Indian Treaties (V); San Francisco: The Indian Historian Press, 1972-1977), IV [ “History” 1974], 40.)
As noted by Gehring, Fenton, and Starna, the agent was Major William C. Van Loon, a relative of L. G. Van Loon. Major Van Loon served as the agent at the Mississauga reserve from 1903 to 1927 (GSF 1987: 381).
The negotiations that led to the treaty are missing from the 1613 record. This is not unique. Europeans often only recorded the terms, and not the preliminaries, of Indian treaties. This practice was continued by the newly independent United States after the Revolution. And even when preliminary negotiations are included, the negotiations and the treaty terms are all only in a European language. This is unfortunate, because it is in the preliminaries that the Haudenosaunee would have stressed spiritual orientations such as ceremonies and songs. It is within these preliminaries that the integration of human life with the rest of the environment might have been stressed.
One of the reasons Gehring, Starna, and Fenton rejected the 1613 treaty was that the imagery in the treaty “so long as the grass is green” (“soolangh t’ gras groen is”) “is a metaphor familiar to present-day Americans from film and fiction but is not a seventeenth century form.” (GSF 1987: 385). Gehring, Starna, and Fenton evidently did not know about, or they chose to omit their knowledge of, the following phrases: “so long as Grass shall grow or waters run” and “so long as the sun shines.” Both of these phrases appear in one of the most significant colonial records of treaty negotiations: the 1768 Treaty of Fort Stanwix (now Rome, New York). Those phrases occur in the negotiations that led to the treaty, although they are not in the actual treaty (Treaty of Fort Stanwix 1768 in E. B. O’Callaghan, ed., Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York, 15 vols.; Albany, NY: Weed, Parsons, and Co., 1854-1883, Volume VIII, 118 and 128). Because the Haudenosaunee eloquently repeated phrases in their negotiations, but because many preliminary negotiations are missing from non-Native records, there is no reason to suppose that suddenly, in 1768, a Haudenosaunee speaker decided to create new metaphors. In fact, the analytical technique of “upstreaming” suggests that such metaphors could have existed in 1613.
Furthermore, Gehring, Starna, and Fenton apparently assume that if a phrase does not exist in European-generated documents, it cannot be credible. However, there is no doubt that environmental imagery was a constant in Haudenosaunee diplomacy. And in 1613, rather than only being part of a preliminary negotiation, the phrase was included in the treaty itself.
Missing Records
Whether or not the 1613 phrase “so long as the grass is green” (“soolangh t’ gras groen is”) existed in the 1600s has yet to be proved or disproved. The search for proof will be difficult. This is especially true because so many European and colonial documents have been lost or destroyed. By 1841, the treaties made between 1609 and 1615 that were stored in The Netherlands were already missing (E. B. O’Callaghan, ed., Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York, 15 vols.; Albany, NY: Weed, Parsons, and Co., 1854-1883, volume one, page xlix). A devastating 1911 fire in the Albany library destroyed other non-Native records of the Haudenosaunee and a considerable amount of cultural materials created by the Haudenosaunee (See, for example, James Sullivan, “Introduction” to James Sullivan et al., eds., The Papers of Sir William Johnson, 14 vols.; Albany, New York: University of the State of New York, 1921‑1965, I, vii; and Diana S. Waite, ed., with photographs by Gary Gold and Mark McCarthy, Albany Architecture: A Guide to the City, Albany: Mount Ida Press and the Preservation League of New York State, 1997, 80).
Environmental imagery among the Haudenosaunee is common. A significant example of environmental imagery was recorded in 1645 in lengthy treaty preliminaries. At Three Rivers in Canada, the Mohawk leader Kiosaeton asked the French and their Indian allies to make peace. He raised a wampum belt towards the sky “to dispel the clouds in the air, so that all might see quite plainly that our hearts and theirs were not hidden; that the Sun and the truth might light up everything.” (Kiosaeton, speech on July 12, 1645, in Reuben Gold Thwaites, ed., The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents (73 vols., Cleveland, Ohio: Burrows Brothers, 1896-1901, XXVII, 261-263). In 1684 at Albany, the Mohawk leader Odianne proclaimed “the [war] axe shall be thrown into the pit…. Let a strong stream run under the pit, to wash the evil all away” (Odianne, July 30, 1684, speech at Albany in Cadwallader Colden, The History of the Five Nations Depending Upon the Province of New‑York in America, one-volume edition of Part I, l727, and Part II, l747; Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, l958, 37).
L.G. Van Loon, M.D. and Amateur Historian
Gehring, Starna, and Fenton claim the 1613 treaty is a fake by discrediting L.G. Van Loon in his work as an amateur historian. As a part of their extensive critique of Van Loon’s work, Gehring, Starna, and Fenton cite three other examples of seventeenth century materials that Van Loon believed were valid but which were rejected by other scholars. But all four – a letter, a deed to Manhattan, and two maps – were evidently given to Van Loon by other people. Could Van Loon have accepted these in good faith and then attempted to get them published? If Gehring, Starna, and Fenton had at least raised this possibility, they would have alerted any reader, but evidently they preferred to conclude the worst and browbeat the reader with their circumstantial evidence. Furthermore, many Native Americans and non-Indians with a deep familiarity with Native issues have been approached by total strangers with the questions like “What is this? Is it valuable? I found it in my uncle’s attic.” Most of these leads go nowhere, but the negative results are – or should be — delivered politely to the overly enthusiastic inquirer. Is guilt by association – circumstantial evidence – acceptable as a definitive proof of Van Loon’s character as an amateur historian who set out to trick people? Gehring, Starna, and Fenton do not prove their case. For example, they state that the 1701 map of Albany was “bogus” based “on the evidence of visual examination” but provide no further documentation (GSF 1987: 381). What qualifications did the person have who did the “visual examination”? What was the procedure, and how long did it last? Why was a visual examination enough? The statements of Gehring, Starna, and Fenton would not stand up in court, and neither should their statements be enough to convince Native Americans and non-Indians.