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Iroquois
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Powhatan
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Cherokee
Creek
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Two competing theories
A) Tribal histories
B) Beringa
B) Two developments made migration to Americas
possible
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1. Human adaptation to frigid environment near arctic circle
2. Changes in climate
After migrating north from Asia into Siberia people then
migrated over a Land bridge, now submerged, that links
Siberia and Canada.
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1930s, archaeologists discovered spear points in
the New Mexico town of Clovis
dated around 13,000 years old
Individuals who made them have since become
known as the 'Clovis people’.
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'Clovis first‘ proposes that around 14,000 years ago
people travelled across a land bridge that existed
between Siberia and Alaska.
Once in North America
Journey took them through a corridor that opened up
between the ice sheets in Western Canada first to enter
the interior of the continent.
French aristocrat ConstantinFrancois de Chasseboeuf
 meets Miami Chief Little
Turtle
 Chasseboeuf notices facial
similarities between Little
Turtle and Asians and points
out small gap between
continents
 ‘Isn’t it possible’ asked
Little Turtle that the
Tartars, who resemble us
so closely, came from
America? Why shouldn’t
we have been born here?’
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 Questions
and conversations
such as this occurred
frequently in early America,
and up to the present day.
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Iroquois
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Powhatan
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Cherokee
Creek
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Gälûñ'lätï
Dâyuni'sï, "Beaver's
Grandchild,"
Great Buzzard
Tsiska'gïlï', the Red
Crawfish
Gûlkwâ'gine
Di'gälûñ'lätiyûñ', "the
seventh height,"
Tsalagi
A
name the Spanish
rendered as Chalaque
The English Cherokee
Early entries into the Cherokee
homeland by Spanish
 Disease hit the Cherokee at this time
 Left Cherokee with time to recover
and develop some resistance
 Before the English would turn up in
the late 17th and early 18th Centuries
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Cherokee lived in diverse region
 A variety of elevations
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 From
the peaks of Appalachia to
the lower levels leading towards
the coast
Running through it all was the
“Long man”
 The Tennessee River
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The Cherokee
lived in distinct
regions
Overhill Towns
Middle Towns
Lower Towns
Occasionally
listed as 4
Valley Towns
separated
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The centre of a Cherokee
town was the council
house
7 Sided
1 for each clan
Outside - Uku standard
Behind - Treasury
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Blue, or Panther, Clan (AniSahoni)
Long Hair Clan ( AniGilohi)
Bird Clan ( AniTsisqua)
Paint Clan ( Ani Wodi)
Deer Clan (Ani Awi)
Wild Potato Clan ( Ani Gatogewi)
Wolf Clan (Ani Waya)
(Eighth clan – left humans to become bears)
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Cherokee were Matrilineal
Each clan was descended from an
original clan mother
Attakullakulla talking to the British in
18th C
“It is customary among [us] to admit
women to our councils”
“[Since] the white people, as well as
the red, are born of women, is not that
the custom among them, also”
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Creek life based around institution
of the talwa – town or community
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Situated along a stream or a river
The society was matri-focal and
matri- local
Families often had two houses a
winter and summer house along
with a storage crib
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The center point of
each town was the
square ground which
contained:
Four house surrounded
the square
 Town chief
 Warriors
 Youths
 Assistant to the chief
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Ball court
Ceremonial
ground
Council house
Creek Nation a confederacy
 alliance of separate and
independent tribes
 gradually became, over a long
period, a single political
organization.
 Each town was independent
 Yet their organization allowed
for temporary loose alliances
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Complimentarity
not equality
 The central aspect
of this played out
with the gender
structure of creek
society
 “separate people”
 Detailed in the
Busk ceremony
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During the busk or "poskito."
houses were cleaned and the
temple and grounds were repaired.
 Fires were extinguished and all
debts and grievances were
resolved.
 People gathered at the ceremonial
center for rituals of purification
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The towns spiritual leader and firemaker spoke to the community
 men inside the square ground
 women outside the square
 After talking to each group
separately
 women carried the new fire back to
each household
 the new year began.
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Gender division also seen in the
roles each group took.
 Men were warriors and hunters
and dealt with external factors
 Women were nurturers and
growers and held sway of town
policy
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There was also a recognized
generational split
 The mature or old warriors were
often more focused on peace
whereas the younger warriors
were more reckless.
 This was more than just youthful
rebellion it was a political
decision
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Two
cars colliding
One just happens
to be parked
 End
colonial period
 Indians of the eastern
woodlands numbered aprox.
150,000
 The population of British North
America doubled every 25years
 Increased 400 percent between
1700 and 1750.
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Not just whites affecting native society
Indian people:
served in colonial armies as soldiers and
scouts
traveled to colonial capitals as ambassadors
attended colonial colleges as students
walked the streets of Colonial towns as
visitors
came to settlements as peddlers
and they worked as slaves, servants,
interpreters, guides, laborers, carpenters,
whalers, and sailors.
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Carolina
backcountry had
begun to
‘wear a new
face”
by the 1760s
As colonists
carved farms and
fields out of the
forest.
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For Indian people
new world that
Europeans created
also a graveyard.
Smallpox, plague,
measles, influenza,
pneumonia,
tuberculosis,
diphtheria yellow
fevers
Took hold in Indian
America
World in wake of European contact
also one of unprecedented violence.
 Social disruption created random
individual violence
 warfare reached new levels of
intensity.
 Indians fought each other for access
to European guns
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Warfare became common
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created a stereotype of Indians as warlike
European eyes justified treating them as
‘savages.’
In a world of escalating violence, war
chiefs rose in status as civil chiefs lost
influence.
Chiefs struggled to maintain peace
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knowing the alternative was a bloodbath.
 Alcohol
deafened young men
to the wisdom of their elders
 leaders lamented their
inability to control their
warriors in this new world of
chaos
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Indian country world of villages, bands,
and clans
need to deal with distant capitals
demanded unified responses at a time
when traditional structure often in flux.
As traditional bases of power weakened,
European agents and traders cultivated
client chiefs
giving medals and gifts to buy and
bolster their support
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Indian people
became tied to trade
networks of western
Europe
also became
participants in a
consumer revolution
that brought the
products of
industrializing
Europe to frontier
America.
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Fur and deerskin trade not only
introduced new commodities to Indian
America
also introduced alien systems of value
and meaning.
New economic incentives undermined
old spiritual relationships between
hunters and their prey
Consumption outstripped productions
Indians who had become commercial
hunters often became debtor-hunters.
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Dependency rendered Indian people
vulnerable to abuse:
Choctaws at the Mobile Congress in the
winter of 1771-2 complained that the
flaps of cloth provided as loin cloths
“don’t cover our secret parts, and we are
in danger of being deprived of our
manhood by every hungry dog that
approaches.”
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Change challenged
people’s spiritual
lives.
Missionaries from
different countries
and denominations
entered Indian county
to compete for a
harvest of Indian
souls.
They promoted social
revolution and
produced factions in
Indian communities.
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Everywhere, though, there was
continuity in the midst of
change.
Indians who donned European
clothes often retained
traditional hairstyles, slit eats,
and facial tattoos.
New trade goods were
fashioned into traditional
motifs
Basket making and wood
carving survived
stimulated by European
demand.
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People still found guidance in
dreams and believed in the efficacy
of spirits
Ancient rituals continued to renew
the world and maintain harmony
Old ways made strong crutches as
people ventured down new paths.
Economies affected each other and
became interdependent
 In New England Indians not only
worked in the colonial economy
but also lived with white families
 In areas of the South they worked
alongside Africans as plantation
slave laborers.
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Colonial hunters
pulled on Indian leggings,
breechclouts, and moccasins,
 dressed their long hair with bear grease
and sometimes
 donned war paint.
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Anglican preacher Charles
Woodmason denounced settlers on
the Carolina backcountry as being
‘ hardly one degree removed from
their Indian neighbors.’
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Land
Became the main source of contention
between Indian people and their new
neighbors.
In the seventeenth century
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some colonial governments passed laws to protect Indian
lands
others used deeds to legitimize the acquisition
of Indian lands by trickery coercion, and
corruption
What Historian Francis Jennings refers to as
“the deed game.”
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Creek Indians called their Georgian neighbors
“Ecunnaunuxulgee” –
“people greedily grasping after the lands of
the red people.”