Mohawk Tribe Quotes

The French were at the time much more aggressive traders and the Iroquois Nation had fixed agrarian communities and were very involved in trading. And the French King controlled the military in North America and had ordered the construction of a series of forts to protect their trading interests from the British. However, military affairs in British Colonial America were left to the colonies, all of whom were very parochial and didn't want to raise taxes for much. Benjamin Franklin, one of the Colonial delegates at the conference, had been urging some kind of a federation of the American colonies–{583422} & {35007}. He had used the Iroquois as a model as the 6 tribes had a unified military among other common governmental aspects. However, no colony wanted to give up any of its sovereignty to others or a Federation. Under the prodding of Franklin and the Iroquois, 7 Colonial Delegations agreed to a plan, mostly devised by Franklin�the Albany Plan�for a centralized governmental structure. The Albany Plan was never implemented but it started the process of unification discussion of the Colonies which would stimulate the Articles of Confederation and the Continental Congress.

Brant had an English style Missionary education and was an Anglican, belonging to the Church of England. During the American Revolution, he persuaded most of the Iroquois tribes to fight for the British against the revolutionary colonists. However, the Oneida tribe was not persuaded and joined the rebel side. A few New England Presbyterian missionaries had targeted the Oneida people, and when that tribe chose the “wrong” side, Brant believed that the reason was their different religious point of view. After the Revolution, Brant and his Iroquois followers were driven out of their American lands and escaped to Canada, while the Oneida were given complete title to their lands by George Washington.

The Mohawk, as well as the other Iroquois nations had several interesting democratic elements to their governance system some of which Benjamin Franklin tried to introduce into Pennsylvania and nationally. Particularly interesting is the European perspective of the minister who describes the de facto requirement for a type of plebiscite ratification in derogatory terms referring to the people as “the mob”. Some have argued that at the time the most democratic nation on earth was the Iroquois nation.

He had received an English style education and had a much better idea of the market value of the land than most of the other Iroquois.

The Canadian Province of Quebec had passed draconian language laws making French the only official language of Quebec, despite the fact that a large proportion of the Quebec Population did not speak French. The language laws not only elevated French to the official language, but made it illegal to conduct any business or public activities in English or any other language. Most of the non French speaking Quebec residents, in Montreal moved to Toronto, and then the major corporations followed them as they could not get enough executives to live in Montreal, one of the great cosmopolitan cities of the world, that was now forced to be monolithically French. The Quebec language police prohibited Orthodox Jewish butchers to have their Hebrew symbols for Kosher food, and other silly things like that. The human rights logic—rather the lack thereof—caused great difficulty. The French, as a minority in Canada, demanded and got the right to have French as an official language in all of Canada. However, the Mohawk Indians, a minority of the population of Quebec, were not allowed to use their own Mohawk language on their store signs and had to have their children educated in French rather than English, despite the fact that English speaking was a major advantage in gaining employment and earning high salaries. The Commission report and this quotation illustrates the huge cultural and intellectual disconnect between the extreme French Culturists and most Americans and Canadians. The Commission observes that there are a number of American states which have English as an “official” language, but there are NONE of them which prohibit a citizen of using any language he wants on the signs in his business or his advertising, or in schools. The Human rights criticism is not that they made French the official language, but that they made illegal any one using any other language in normal activity. The minority French speakers who were the majority in the province of Quebec, then disenfrahchised and discriminated against the English speaking minority as well as other smaller minorities. However, if the majority English speakers of Canada, would do the same, they would be the first to claim discrimination against the minority.

The French had launched a sneak attack on the English settlement at Schenectady, NY. The English had not provided enough security to Schenectady and now considered withdrawing from the upstate area. Contrary to the popular conception of all the Indians being invaded by the Whites and fighting it, here these Indians were urging the English to hang on and stay in the area. The Mohawk were one of the tribes of the Iroquois confederation which were very sophisticated, somewhat democratice, and very powerful economically and militarily. To them, the English were good trading partners and unlike the French tended to conform with Iroquis norms, rules and mores. It also illustrated the closeness of the alliance of these Indians with the English against the French in the French & Indian Wars.

When whites first came to America, the Iroquois, were the most sophisticated and powerful Native Americans. They were actually a confederation of 5 different tribes each of which was composed if many clans. Although fierce warriors, they had agreed not to fight each other and to assist if any were attacked. They developed a strong agricultural base, to go with the fishing and hunting, and their confederation were very aggressive and sophisticated traders taking them far from their upstate New York “capitol.” Their governmental structure was quite sophisticated with an elaborate, formal, system of checks and balances, multi-cameral legislatures that recognized numbers of citizens, power and wealth, and even cultural traditions. They were literate, capitalistic and globalistic in that they wanted to trade with all. They had written laws, and women had a role that was almost unique in world history in that only women owned property in a matrilineal society. Further, it was only the Clan Mothers who voted for the 50 Sachems (Senators)—but their selections had to be accepted by the people they represented. Ironically the descendants of the Iroquois who remained in New York became a very successful Native American group. In the 2000 census, the average Indian in New York State earned the same income as the average White with no Indian gambling money. In the old Constitution, the Third Legislative House had a very interesting role. The Onondaga (Fire Keepers) played a particular role in the keeping of the tradition. Their Lords (Sachems—Senators) performed a role that is a combination of an Executive, a Supreme Court, and an Established Church. In effect they had a veto and were supposed to examine the legislation passed by the other two houses with regard to tradition and constituency with the laws and the Constitution. There was a veto override process also in this very sophisticated constitution. See {611628}.