ANTECEDENTS
The Stories of Us!
"Suddenly all my ancestors are behind me. Be still, they say. Watch and listen. You are the result of the love of thousands.”
― Linda Hogan, Dwellings: A Spiritual History of the Living World
The Nicolas Godé Story
Un Engagé, Pionnier, & Premier Colon de la Montréal
Part 2: The First Nations & Haudenosaunee Confederacy
Present Day
The Haudenosaunee Confederacy
People of the Long House
Ho-dé-no-sau-nee
The Haudenosaunee Confederacy has been called many names throughout its history: Iroquois Confederacy, Iroquois League and the League of Five Nations. According to the Haudenosaunee Confederacy website, the confederacy includes Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca and, later, Tuscarora Natives as a way to unite the nations and create a peaceful means of decision making. Today, its proper naming is the Haudenosaunee Confederacy.
Language has always been used to identify and depict peoples in historical reference. Naming of Native peoples as indians, savages, and aboriginals appear frequently in early recorded conversations, colonial writings, and historical documents. This naming is meant to establish the superiority of White North American & European perspectives, teachings, and sovereignty, while oppressing and indoctrinating others to their points of view. In this story, we refer to First Nations as Native or Indigenous peoples, the Iroquois or the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. As storytellers, we acknowledge the experiences of our Antecedents while respectfully narrating their historical journeys on Native and North American territories.
The Long House
Canadian archives and the Haudenosaunee Confederacy website explain that not all Native peoples lived in teepees. Since the beginning of time, the Haudenosaunee were Native peoples who built long bark-covered houses that included sleeping platforms and separate compartments for storage along the sides. The image to the left illustrates a typical longhouse. Fittingly, the Haudenosaunee people became known as the people who built longhouses, or the People of the Long House.
"The Peacemaker story of Iroquois tradition credits the formation of the confederacy....to Dekanawidah (the Peacemaker), born a Huron, who is said to have persuaded Hiawatha, an Onondaga living among Mohawks, to advance “peace, civil authority, righteousness, and the great law” as sanctions for confederation." SOURCE: Britannica
SOURCE: Quora.com
The long house provided more than communal shelter for families, who were often clans of related peoples. It sustained kinship and tribal bonds. It is no surprise, then, that this close familial living arrangement cultivated a sense of community and belonging, values at the heart of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy.
CHRONOLOGY
1535
Hochelaga
Along the St Lawrence River
Jacques Cartier Visits Hochelaga - 1535
The Haudensaunee populated an area that is now generally northeastern New York, Eastern Canada, and along the Great Lakes. While dates vary on the earliest arrival of Haudenosaunee, by the fifteenth century, North America was inhabited by hundred of thousands Indigenous peoples, each tribe with its own distinct culture, language. and customs. The Haudenosaunee entered into a confederacy before the arrival of the first European settlers for political and societal purposes, based on the Great Law of Peace, and united in the common goal of harmony.
Over the next hundred years, the arrival of European fur traders and colonists would shatter that harmony. And much more. Warfare among Indigenous tribes and, later, with Europeans as well as decades of European diseases wiped out many of the Native peoples, often resulting in he abandonment of villages and dislocation of the tribes, including the Haudenosaunee.
One such village was Hochelaga.
By the time the first colonists arrived in 1641, this village no longer existed.
1630
Much debate centers on Hochelaga's existence. The only evidence of Hochelaga is from a document presented to the King of France by Jacques Cartier after his second voyage to North America along the St Lawrence River in 1535, a narrative of the language and customs of the inhabitants. This commonly-used artist rendition, also highly debated for its authentic depiction, illustrates the welcoming of Cartier and his men to Hochelaga.
1642-1643
Two events would soon reach a critical turning point in early North America history and thrust Haudenosaunee Natives right in the heart of a territorial struggle for control of the area's natural resources.
The first were the Beaver Wars, also called the French & Iroquois Wars, that centered on the fur trade. What began as trade among Native peoples competing for animal pelts like beaver and deer quickly escalated with the arrival of European fur traders and European demand for beaver skins to meet its demand for fur fashion. Increasing hostilities between Native and European traders took place within the wider conflict between the French and British, resulting in wars that lasted until 1701 when the Haudenosaunee Confederacy signed a peace treaty and agreed to remain neutral in conflicts between the French and British.
The second was the founding of Ville-Marie, or Montreal, by the first colonists from France and the subsequent settlement of North America by Europeans and their mission to convert the 'aboriginals' to Christianity. The first group of pioneers, as they were also called, arrived in Quebec in 1641, and the following year, they traveled south to establish Fort Ville-Marie complete with lodging and a hospital. A few years later when the construction was complete, they gave thanks for their tiny outpost, according to historical archives. Sadly, the colonists were none the wiser in their understanding of the oppressiveness of their claiming sovereignty over Native lands and their perspectives of Native peoples as savages in need of saving. These conflicts over land and culture would last for generations, creating an era characterized by prolonged wars and heavy bloodshed. And deeper resentments.
Beaver Wars
Beavers, Battles, & Bloodshed
Settlement of Ville-Marie
Founding of Montreal
Images tell the story of history, often years later, as re-imagined by artists and their interpretation of the event. The image below is such a rendering, depicting the construction of the pallisades of Fort Ville-Marie in 1643 under the leadership of the colony's military engineer and Governor of Nouvelle-France, Louis d’Ailleboust de Coulonge. Other first French colonists pictured here depict (L>R):
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Françoise Godé, wife of Nicolas Godé
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Jeanne Mance, founder of L'Hôtel-Dieu hospital and co-founder of Ville-Marie
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Gilbert Barbier, master carpenter of buildings at Fort Ville-Marie
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Paul de Chomeday sieur de Maisonneuve, leader of voyage and founder of Ville-Marie
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Louis d’Ailleboust de Coulonge, Governor of Nouvelle-France and military engineer of the Fort
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Nicolas Godé, master carpenter and builder of Ville-Marie
Empire building for France was set in motion during the seventeenth century, first around the area of Quebec and then later in Ville Marie, or Montreal. The construction of Ville-Marie began in earnest during 1642 - 1643 when the first colonists traveled south from Quebec to build Fort Ville-Marie along the St. Lawrence River. Most of the first colonists were trades people whose occupational skills were necessary to build an outpost in this remote territory of North America.
As a French citizen in his 50s who made the life decision to embark on this first French voyage to North America with his family, our Antecedent, Nicolas Godé, brought his vocational skill as a master carpenter to the colony. The artist rendition below portrays the construction of Fort Ville-Marie by these first colonists, from a Musée des Hospitalières de L'Hôtel-Dieu exhibition of Francis Back's art about the founding of Ville-Marie and the building of its hospital under the direction of Jeanne Mance, one of the first colonists and co-founder of Ville-Marie.
SOURCE: Premiers Montréalistes 1642-1643
The colonists were here to stay. The ugly aftermath of trade conflicts and the intrusiveness of colonialism
would leave lasting scars on all sides and forever alter the landscape of North America.
The First Nations Perspective
Haudenosaunee Confederacy
"Imagine strangers suddenly arriving at your home and claiming it as their own. Pushing you aside, they use violence to make you accept this new reality. And now imagine having this dark moment publicly celebrated and commemorated."
Hazel King, Director of the Haudenosaunee Development Institute
on the 375th anniversary of the founding of Ville-Marie, now Montréal
Narratives about North American history have been told primarily from the perspectives of White European settlers. In these narratives, the stereotype of the Iroquois, and Native peoples, as fierce, warlike, and savage pervades written history. Hazel King says "this stereotype of “Iroquois-as-villains” ignores the complexity of the relationships that existed between Indigenous peoples prior to contact with Europeans. And it doesn’t address the ulterior motives of the colonizers, who benefitted from pitting various Indigenous peoples against each other" (Hazel King, Iroquois Perspective).
The legacy and consequences of colonialism will be described in the final part of this story, but here, understanding the history of North America. is also about portraying an accurate historical account of Native peoples. "Early history books often portrayed the Haudenosaunee, also known as the Iroquois, as the villains in the story of New France — a constant threat to the French colonists and their Huron and Algonquin allies. Indeed, one of the first things Samuel de Champlain did after founding Québec in 1608 was to join his new Indigenous partners in 1609 in an attack on the Iroquois at Lake Champlain" (King: Iroquois Perspective).
The Beaver Wars ended and Montreal was firmly established as a European settlement, but these critical events continued to play out over the next hundred years through control of North America by the French, British, and Dutch empires. And they would have deep and lasting impacts for Native people. As we leave this story in the 18th century, the Iroquois were dislocated and without homes, hungry and starving from exhausted resources, and never fully recovered from these climatic events that were always about resources: land and fur. "That’s what the French were after — it was the land and it was the resources,” she said. “It’s always been the land and the resources. And if they can have the Indians fighting each other — and if they can incite wars between the Hurons and the Iroquois and so on — to me, the settlers have always been able to manipulate our people” (Hazel King, Iroquois Perspective).
Yet, the Haudenosaunee Confederacy retained its culture and traditions despite adversity and defeat. In reading their constitution, we learn how "Indigenous nations in North America were and are for the most part organized by democratic principles that focus on the creation of strong kinship bonds that promote leadership in which honor is not earned by material gain but by service to others" (Terri Hansen, PBS Series on Native America & Great Law of Peace).
As narrators of this Antecedents' story in North America, we end this second part on the First Nations and what they hold dear, and what the Haudenosaunee peoples continue to embrace—kinship and tribal bonds, a sense of community and belonging, values at the heart of its Confederacy.
References:
The Haudenosaunee Confederacy
Haudenosaunee Confederacy Website
Library and Archives Canada - Historical Narratives of the Iroquois Confederacy
The Canadian Encyclopedia: The Long House; The Iroquois Perspective
Britannica Encyclopedia: Iroquois Confederacy
PBS: Series on Native America & Great Law of Peace & Democracy
Creative Commons: Haudenosaunee Logos Images
Founding of Ville-Marie
Library and Archives Canada - New France New Horizons: On French Soil in America
Collection du Musée des Hospitalières de l’Hôtel-Dieu de Montréal
McGill University: University Affairs - Hochelaga
French & Indian Wars/Beaver Wars
The French and Indian War: 1754-1763 - The Imperil Struggle for North America by Seymour I. Schwartz, 1994
A History of American Life, Volume 1: The Coming of the White Man - 1492 - 1848 by Herbert Ingram Priestley. Edited by Arthur M. Schlesinger & Dixon Ryan Fox, 1929