ambiguous Iriqouis quotes
My last two quotes from The Ambiguous Iriquois Empire from Francis Jennings, 1984. He leads a chapter with quotes from two previous authors on the subject of relations between the natives and the invaders. This week I saw a normal sight with new eyes. A sign post on the street declared a settlement date of 1613, or thereabouts. Ok, but, what about the non-Europeans who had lived and fished and hunted and farmed there thousands of years before? By these signs, they are historical nobodies.
Having established strong and vigorous colonies in the trying years of the seventeenth century, the English extended their power over the Indians as occasion warranted and as the weakness of the Indians permitted. Smaller, dependent tribes were gradually amalgamated or destroyed by the eroding effects of white contact. Disease – of which the frequent smallpox epidemics were the most costly – swept away many of the smaller tribes and decimated many of the larger nations. Yet throughout the eighteenth century and into the period of the American Revolution the Indians in several areas, most notably the Six Nations in the present area of New York State, and the Cherokee, Creek, and Choctaw of the southern interior, maintained a power and an independence which kept the colonies adjacent to them watchful and respectful of their needs and rights.
Wilcomb E. Washburn, Red Man’s Land/ White Man’s Law
(214)
In many cases, rival segments within both the indigenous society and the intrusive one compete with each other in a frontier zone. Indeed, in every contact situation, even where relationships are predominantly violent, crosscutting ties quickly develop across the major cleavage. Thus intruders acquire allies among indigenous peoples.
The Frontier in History: North America and Southern Africa Compared eds. Howard Lamar and Leonard Thompson.
(214)
Having established strong and vigorous colonies in the trying years of the seventeenth century, the English extended their power over the Indians as occasion warranted and as the weakness of the Indians permitted. Smaller, dependent tribes were gradually amalgamated or destroyed by the eroding effects of white contact. Disease – of which the frequent smallpox epidemics were the most costly – swept away many of the smaller tribes and decimated many of the larger nations. Yet throughout the eighteenth century and into the period of the American Revolution the Indians in several areas, most notably the Six Nations in the present area of New York State, and the Cherokee, Creek, and Choctaw of the southern interior, maintained a power and an independence which kept the colonies adjacent to them watchful and respectful of their needs and rights.
Wilcomb E. Washburn, Red Man’s Land/ White Man’s Law
(214)
In many cases, rival segments within both the indigenous society and the intrusive one compete with each other in a frontier zone. Indeed, in every contact situation, even where relationships are predominantly violent, crosscutting ties quickly develop across the major cleavage. Thus intruders acquire allies among indigenous peoples.
The Frontier in History: North America and Southern Africa Compared eds. Howard Lamar and Leonard Thompson.
(214)
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