User:RichardDadelus

The Mourning Wars aka Beaver Wars were a series of ongoing battles between the Five Nations of the Iroquois and their Iroquoian brethren to the East, South and West. The essence of these raids was to capture enemy peoples in order to adopt them into the tribe or ritualistically kill them. This was done to replenish numbers and avenge personal loss at the hands of that tribe or a stronger group, and in some cases, evil spirits (i.e. disease).

Five Nations

The early Native American populations, after developing farming, show archeological evidence of building palisades which indicate that there were intertribal conflicts. Communities within several miles of each other developed alliances. They spread out so as to not exhaust local resources and also to prevent both internal and external hostilities. This is the genesis of what would become the Five Nations of the Iroquois aka the Iroquois League. They occupied the land of modern-day New York from Lake Champlain and the Hudson River in the East to the Genesee River in the West, below Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River. From East to West:

Mohawk: People Possessors of the Flint Oneida: Granite People Onondaga: People on the Hills Cayuga: People at the Mucky Land Seneca: Great Hill People

Motivations

Economics

On the economic side, there were strong motives for the Five Nations to attack their neighboring tribesmen. The newly arrived European settlers were after beaver pelts, hence the name, Beaver Wars. While the English were present the two main European powers with which the Natives traded in close proximity were the Dutch who replaced the Swedes and the French. Because the Hurons developed trade with the French, the Five Nations were influenced to trade with the Dutch who supplied them with a limited number of arquebuses.

The French, who settled in the Northwest were closer to the Hurons. Yet, they were still in contact with the Five Nations. Tales of a small black box, left with the Mohawks by Father Isaac Jogues, was believed to be the cause of a plague among the people and corn worms, that killed their crops. They killed Father Jogues and broke the treaty forthwith. For a long time this was pronounced the cause of the war between the Mohawks and French allied Hurons. Another reason given was that the French had made a treaty with the Mohawks for peace between the two tribes and in return the French would extend them trade rights. Upon receipt of one of the largest fleets of beaver furs, the Mohawks received not a single skin. This economic betrayal carries more weight as the true cause of conflict.

Disease

Another cause for the severity and lengthy nature of the Mourning Wars was the invisible hand of disease. From the earliest contact between European settlers and the Native American peoples, the viral and bacterial contaminants that had ravaged the Old World for centuries now found fresh hosts with absolutely no antibodies with which to defend against the widespread infection that would tear apart villages and destroy entire populations. Pathogens crossed the Atlantic Ocean on the ships and reached epidemic proportions within just a few years. With no previous exposure, the natives were subjected to a near 100 percent infection rate of diseases like typhus, influenza, measles and perhaps the most well-known, smallpox. Within a decade the mortality rate reached 50 to 55 percent, and with recurring as well as new infections over forty years later it peaked at 90 or 95 percent before populations stabilized.

The worst of it came when families began to migrate across the ocean. The children specifically were the most common breeding grounds for those diseases. While their parents had already built up immunities the kids brought new strains. It wasn’t the native children that received the brunt of the infection, though. The diseases incur the most violent reactions in adults aged 15 to 50 years old. Because of the huge hit to the productive members of the indigenous people, villages were unable to secure food and other resources that would have allowed many of those infected, including children whose immune systems were otherwise resilient enough, to recover.

Unfortunately, because of the lack of experience with the European diseases, the Native Americans treated the sick the same as they would for the illnesses they had already known. They would treat by way of sweating, purging and fasting to purify the body of the supposed evil spirits. Smallpox especially is best treated by keeping the sick dry, warm and well nourished. Their techniques only made the situation worse.

In the 1620’s Thomas Morton recorded that infected people:

“died on heaps as they lay in their houses; and the living, those that were able to shift for themselves, would run away and let them die, and let their carcasses lie above ground without burial… the bones and skulls upon their several places of their habitations made such a spectacle.”

Even if they did not die, the pocks would burst and leave disfiguring scars all over a body for life, and if it crossed over to the eyes, would render that person blinded.

Methods

Attack

The biggest players in the Mourning Wars were the Seneca, the Mohawks and the Onondagas. Because of their trade, the Seneca and Mohawks carried more muskets than most other native tribes, which gave them a distinct advantage in battle. This was an advantage that they relied upon heavily throughout the wars. They often would fire one volley from an ambush position, disorienting the enemy and then would charge in with weapons such as clubs, axes and knives to finish the job. This tactic granted them success for the bulk of the Mourning Wars, until they fought with the Susquehannocks who, similarly stocked by the French, could equally oppose out that military strength.

While there were raiding parties of all sizes for ambush tactics as well as overwhelming numbers to swarm and ensure victory, the most destructive were the larger armies. This fact was obvious early in the spring of 1649. Over one thousand Iroquois warriors attacked 3 major Huron Towns, St. Ignace, St. Louis and St. Marie. The 5 Nations lost 200 of their men to either death or capture, but they drove many of the Hurons out of their land still. This victory was attributed to the fact that the warriors had spent the winter holed up in the forest near the Hurons, and were able to launch the attack much earlier than the Hurons would’ve expected. Again in 1651, when one thousand warriors comprised mainly of Senecas, but also some Mohawks went into the resource rich and excellent hunting land of the Neutrals, a linguistic cousin to the 5 Nations. The war party crossed the Niagra River to the Ontario Peninsula and decimated the Neutral village, Teoto’ntdinton.

The smaller war parties had different tactics. These were to wait in ambush for small groups of enemy tribes to leave forts and villages and attack from hidden positions. This was the most common and highly effective way in which the Iroquois League could triumph over their opposition.

Capture

The main purpose of the Mourning Wars was to gather as many captives as possible in order to offset the loss of one’s own tribesmen. This was a fact evidenced by the sheer number of other peoples captured versus how many of them were killed in those raids. On average the former number was two to three times that of the latter. In the smaller raids that ambushed their enemies the strategy was easily discernible. Women and children were most often taken as prisoners to be adopted into the tribe. They made for better captives as they were less resistant and more effectively offset the losses from European disease. Men on the other hand were much less desirable as captives. They often would be a source of resistance and they were the enemy’s source of military strength. In most cases these captives would be killed on the spot or taken back to the village for ritualistic torture.

There was another method of inducting new members of the Hurons into the tribe by the Oneidas and Onondagas as seen at the standoff of Christian Island, one of the most effective repellants of Iroquois by the Hurons. The League encouraged many of their enemies to lay down their arms and join the 5 Nations willingly. This tactic was a wise decision in several ways. The Iroquois thought that those who assimilated voluntarily would perhaps be less likely to resist assimilation. Considering that those who resisted were ultimately killed, gaining nothing for the aggressors, this would potentially cut down on unnecessary losses for them. Also without engaging in a fight to secure captives, they would lose less men in battle in the long run. Seeing as the initial fight as well as retaliatory battles resulted in many casualties on both sides, this strategy could reduce those losses and make it that much easier to replenish the populations killed by disease.

Killing

While women and children often avoided physical abuse, the men were tortured basically from the moment of capture. Most of the torture was intended on creating physical pain. The captors would strip their clothes, beat them with clubs, pull fingernails off and cut off fingernails. The last of these also most likely was intended for practically inhibiting the use of a weapon against the captors if the chance came about. When the party reached the Iroquois village the men would face traditional Mourning War tortures. They were forced to run the gauntlet, where villagers would make a tunnel of abuse that the captives would be forced to run through. And after that was a slow and extreme systematic execution.

Adoption

In the case of every captive, the clan matrons or village civil chief would decide on the captive’s fate. Either they were marked for death and the torture continued, or they were chosen for adoption. Those chosen would immediately be treated with affection. Requickening ceremonies would introduce them into a family or clan lineage. Once begun, this process would grant them a probation period. During that time the families surrounding them would watch closely. Those who were willing to accept their new lives would gain the rights and privileges of all the rest of the tribe. If that captive were reticent in accepting their new lives, they would be killed unceremoniously.