First nations and the colonies
U.S. History · 11th grade
Native nations of North America
Today: Before Europeans came, North America was home to hundreds of distinct Native nations, with their own languages, governments, trade, wars, and alliances, among them the city of Cahokia and the league of the Haudenosaunee; because they did not write, historians learn about them from archaeology, the nations' own traditions, and the first accounts Europeans wrote, like Samuel de Champlain's account of a battle in 1609.
About 40 minutes to teach
Teach the idea
Read this together:The Great Law of Peace
332 words
The Haudenosaunee tell how their league began. The story was passed down by word of mouth for generations before anyone wrote it down, and its tellers do not all tell it the same way. Here is its outline as it is commonly told.
Long ago, the tradition says, the nations south of Lake Ontario were at war with one another. Killing led to revenge, and revenge led to more killing. Then a man came across the lake from the north, carrying a message of peace. The Haudenosaunee call him the Peacemaker.
The Peacemaker found a man named Hiawatha, who had lost his family in the fighting and was lost in grief. The Peacemaker comforted him, and Hiawatha joined his work. Together they went from nation to nation, the Mohawk, the Oneida, the Onondaga, the Cayuga, and the Seneca, and persuaded each to accept the Great Law of Peace. The hardest to win was an Onondaga leader named Tadodaho, whom the story describes as twisted and fearsome, with snakes in his hair. At last he too agreed, and the council fire of the league was set at Onondaga.
Under the Great Law, chiefs from each nation met in one council and decided matters of war and peace together. The women who led each clan chose the chiefs, and they could remove a chief who failed his people. The tradition says the Peacemaker planted a great white pine as the tree of peace, and the nations buried their weapons beneath it.
By the tradition, the Great Law ended war among the five nations. It did not end their wars with others. In the 1600s the league fought the Wendat, the French, and many other nations, and became a power in the region.
Historians cannot date the Peacemaker or prove the details of the story. But the league was real, and Europeans who met it in the 1600s and 1700s found a union of nations that governed itself through a council and its own laws.
Before any European ship reached North America, the land north of Mexico was home to hundreds of separate Native nations. They spoke hundreds of languages. Some farmed corn, beans, and squash in villages, some fished and hunted, and many did both. No one took a count, so scholars' estimates of how many people lived there range from about one million to as many as 18 million.
Cahokia, near present-day St. Louis, was a city built by the people archaeologists call Mississippians. Around AD 1050 to 1150 it may have held 10,000 to 20,000 people, and its largest earthen mound, Monks Mound, still rises about 100 feet. In what is now New York, five nations, the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca, joined in a league. They call themselves the Haudenosaunee; the French called them the Iroquois.
Native nations had their own governments, trade, wars, and alliances. Many took captives in war; some captives were adopted into families, and others were kept as slaves. Because these nations did not use writing, historians learn about them in three ways: archaeology, the nations' own traditions passed down by word of mouth, and the first accounts Europeans wrote.
"The Great Law of Peace" tells the Haudenosaunee tradition of how their league began. In Samuel de Champlain's own account of a war party in 1609, Marcus will read one of those first European accounts, and weigh what it can and cannot tell us.
Marcus reads:Samuel de Champlain, Voyages, his account of the war party of July 1609
247 words
Samuel de Champlain, Voyages, his account of the war party of July 1609, published in French in 1613, translated by Charles Pomeroy Otis.
When it was evening, we embarked in our canoes to continue our course; and, as we advanced very quietly and without making any noise, we met on the 29th of the month the Iroquois, about ten o'clock at evening, at the extremity of a cape which extends into the lake on the western bank. They had come to fight. We both began to utter loud cries, all getting their arms in readiness. We withdrew out on the water, and the Iroquois went on shore, where they drew up all their canoes close to each other and began to fell trees with poor axes, which they acquire in war sometimes, using also others of stone. Thus they barricaded themselves very well. … When they were armed and in array, they despatched two canoes by themselves to the enemy to inquire if they wished to fight, to which the latter replied that they wanted nothing else; but they said that, at present, there was not much light, and that it would be necessary to wait for daylight, so as to be able to recognize each other; and that, as soon as the sun rose, they would offer us battle. This was agreed to by our side. Meanwhile, the entire night was spent in dancing and singing, on both sides, with endless insults and other talk …
Do it together
1. Have Marcus write three words at the top of a sheet of paper, nation, archaeology, and tradition, and give each one a meaning from the explanation. Keep the paper out for the rest of the lesson.
2. Go back to the part of "The Great Law of Peace" where the Peacemaker and Hiawatha go from nation to nation. Ask Marcus why a story passed down by word of mouth can still be good evidence, and what a historian would want to check against it.
3. Ask Marcus to name two things Cahokia shows about the people who built it, using the explanation: a large city, and the work and planning it took to raise Monks Mound.
4. Ask Marcus why the first written accounts of Native nations came from Europeans, and what a European writer might miss or get wrong about a people whose language that writer barely knew.
Activity
Together: Marcus reads the source aloud to you. To barricade is to block with a wall; in array means lined up for battle; despatched means sent. Then talk through three questions. First: who is we in this passage, and who are the Iroquois? Listen for: Champlain, two other Frenchmen, and their allies of the Montagnais, Algonquin, and Wendat nations on one side; a war party of the Haudenosaunee, most likely Mohawk, on the other. The two sides were enemies before the French arrived. Second: what customs of war did both sides seem to share? Listen for: they sent canoes to ask whether to fight, agreed to wait for daylight so each side could recognize the other, and spent the night singing and trading insults. Third: Champlain wrote for French readers, a few years after the battle, and Champlain fought on one side of it. What can a historian trust here, and what not? Listen for: what Champlain saw firsthand, like the barricade and the canoes; less so the reports of what was said between the two sides, or what the Mohawks thought, since the account gives only one side's view. Last, Marcus makes three columns headed archaeology, the nations' own traditions, and European accounts, and writes one thing from the lesson in each. On your own this unit: Marcus reads two free texts from Project Gutenberg, about two hours in all: William Bradford's history of Plymouth (Bradford's History of the Plymouth Settlement, in Harold Paget's modern spelling, book 2, chapters 1 and 2, the first two years), and John Easton's account of the talks with the Wampanoag leader Metacom before King Philip's War (A Narrative of the Causes which Led to Philip's Indian War, Franklin B. Hough's 1858 edition, the Relacion itself). Then Marcus writes an essay of two to three pages answering: in the 1600s Native nations and English colonists met as neighbors, trading partners, allies, and enemies. Using the unit's sources, argue what most decided whether peace held, as it did at Plymouth for more than fifty years, or broke down, as it did in Virginia in 1622 and in New England in 1675. Look for a clear claim in the first paragraph, quotations from at least three of the unit's sources (Bradford, Smith, and Easton are good choices), choices made on both sides, and a fair answer to the strongest point on the other side.
Tip If Marcus decides Native nations lived in peace until Europeans came, point back to the explanation and to Champlain's account: Native nations had their own wars and alliances long before the French arrived.
On paper
Worksheet
Native Nations of North America
The worksheet, as it prints
U.S. History · Worksheet
Native Nations of North America
Answer each question in a sentence or two, and the last one in a paragraph.
Name: Marcus
Score: ____ / 6
1. Name the five nations of the Haudenosaunee league.
2. What was Cahokia, and when was it at its height?
3. What are the three ways historians learn about Native nations before Europeans came?
4. What happened to some captives Native nations took in war?
5. Why did Champlain join the war party of 1609?
6. Why do estimates of how many people lived in North America before Europeans came vary so widely? Answer in a paragraph.
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