All right. Welcome everyone, today were going to be talking about diplomacy on the early american frontier, politically between native American Peoples and european peoples. We will talk about some of the customs and protocols that governed that style of diplomacy and the objectives that both native American Peoples and colonial peoples brought to those meetings. I have an image here that is actually a painting from 1903 that is depicting one such treaty conference that went on on the frontier of new york in the Mohawk Valley. You did a reading today that featured a fellow named while William Johnson. Not a lot of contemporary mark and students of history know much about him, but he was an interesting figure in the 18 century. He was an irish immigrant, settled on the mohawk frontier of upstate new york in the 17 forties and became very friendly with mohawk indians who were his neighbors. Ultimately, he gained a great deal of influence among them and ultimately was appointed by the British Crown to serve as his agent to the iroquois nation. This painter wanted to depict one of these treaties that johnson convened with the native americans. Think about the reading you did for today. It is providing you with and mental image of. That it was that johnson hall, which was this georgian mansion he built on the mohawk frontier that still stands today. If you are in upstate new york traveling between, say, albany and syracuse, new york, you can get off the new york state through weigh in visit this site, and visited another one of his homes that predated this, both of which preserved as state Historic Sites in new york. A really interesting story about how europeans and native americans came together on the frontier, not to fight, but actually just to talk about their differences and to try to come to some kind of accommodation when they did have conflict. I want to switch from upstate new york to pennsylvania right now. If you were to travel east of gettysburg, for maybe an hour and a half on route 30, youve come to the town of lancaster, pennsylvania. I imagine some of you have been and are familiar with it. In 1744, lancaster was just this tiny little Frontier Community that was really on the edge of settlement in pennsylvania. But in june of 1744, a group of 250 iroquois indians arrived in lancaster and were carrying arms, bows and arrows, and tomahawks. They marched through the center of town. You might imagine this would cause panic among the folks that lived in this tiny frontier town. This was the quaker county of pennsylvania, not even a militia to call out in fear of an attack from the iroquois. But they were not there to make war. They were there for a treaty conference. They had been called by the governor of pennsylvania. They marched through town. Their leader singing a song of greeting to the people of lancaster. When they got to the edge of town, it didnt take long to walk down main street, they encamped. They built a camp of wigwams and cabins and stayed in lancaster for the next two and a half weeks, negotiating that only with the colony of pennsylvania, but also was delegations from the colonies of maryland and virginia as well. This became known as the treaty of lancaster of 1744. And it was one of the more famous of these meetings that took place on the frontier between Colonial Government and native American Peoples. Benjamin franklin at the time thats the lancaster treaty was occurring was working as a printer in philadelphia. He was anxious to hear news of what was going on in lancaster. He wrote to his agent in london, a fellow who sent him books to sell in his print shop and he sent thanks to his agent in london to sow, and he wrote to him and included this description of what was going on in lancaster. A treaty is now holding in lancaster county, a place 60 miles west of the city, between the governments of virginia, maryland and pennsylvania on one side, and the united five nations of indians on the other. Meaning the air quality lead. I will and account to have it when printed, as the method of doing business with those barbarians may afford some amusement. Thats a pretty condescending statement for franklin to be making about this, right . Certainly, it reflects many of the attitudes of his contemporaries, that these were savage People Living in the forest, when he calls and barbarians is kind of sneering about it to his agent in london. But theres also an element here of fascination and interest. This method of doing business. Franklin wants to tell his london agent about how you do this business on the american frontier of a gauging in diplomacy with native americans. And that phrase, this method of doing business i think is a very important fact to realize for our purposes today. That is that when europeans came to colonial america and met with native americans, it happened on native american terms. In order to assure a good trade, in order to ensure peace, they have to get together and conduct diplomacy with native American Peoples. The protocols and customs and language and metaphors that govern that diplomacy were not european in origin, they were native american in oregon. This is a testimony to the amount of power that into American People had, that europeans had to learn to conduct business on their terms, on their turf, to do it by their method. Franklin, when he publishes the treaty of lancaster does send Something Like 200 copies off to his agent in london because he thinks they might sell their. He thinks people in london might be interested in learning about this, in learning about a native American People through this context of diplomacy. Historians, when they talk about diplomacy between native americans and europeans in the colonial era, they often use a metaphor that i like that i will share with you today, which is the middle ground. These are diplomatic negotiations reflected a middle ground between european power and interests in early america and native American Power and interests. The fellow who pioneered the use of this metaphor is a historian name Richard Wright richard white. Some of you may have heard about him before. He was writing about the french interactions with algonquian peoples living in the great lakes frontiers, as the french were developing their first trade in places like modernday illinois and michigan. There was this middle ground where neither the french nor the native americans had the upper hand in terms of military power or strength. Each side wanted something from the other, the first trade. Each side had to learn to negotiate somehow with the others. These people were culturally different, they were strangers, there was a language divide. White, when he wrote about the middle ground, describe it not only as this geographic territory, the modernday midwest where fringe and native peoples were coming together, but also this metaphorical middle ground where each side is trying to fill out the other, kind of trying to comprehend its world view and develop some means of communicating that across that cultural divide. We will use that metaphor today and apply primarily to the english colonies in british north america as they dealt with native American Peoples, and also saw this kind of diplomatic middle ground to negotiate with them. So lets look at this middle ground, especially as it developed in the context of ritual. How diplomatic rituals emerged that helped europeans and indians comprehend each other. There were two primary ritual complexes that europeans learned to use when they engaged with native americans. One was algonquin in origin. Think of the algonquian Language Group that we talked about and the many native peoples that were connected to that Language Group, especially in the great lakes region. And the other was iroquoian, related to peoples of upstate new york, modernday ontario who spoke languages from the iroquoian stop. The first of these that we will talk about is the cal you met ceremony, which was associated with algonquian native American Peoples from the great lakes region. And the call you met was a pipe that native americans use. We know native americans grew tobacco before europeans showed up. They Smoke Tobacco for all sorts of reasons. One of the reasons they Smoke Tobacco was for ritualistic purposes, a way of greeting strangers, a way of offering hospitality, it was a way of initiating and closing diplomatic negotiations with each other. But when you did it for that purpose, when he Smoke Tobacco for diplomatic reasons, he smoked it out of this long stemmed pipe that was called a calumet pipe. This is not a pipe that a native american would be carrying around just for his daily smoking. This was a pipe made specifically for diplomatic purposes. It has eagle feathers attached to it. It has a stone bowl made out of a top of soft red stone called taconite, found in minnesota that the indians could carve into the shape for pipe bowls. Weve seen this before when we were talking about the first trade, and you see a fur hatchet there. Here, he is smoking a calumet pipe. They are distinguished by those long stems. But native peoples of algonquian descent got together to engage in diplomacy, the calumet pipe would be circulated in a circular fashion among the participants to kind of clear the other. Its funny, because we think of tobacco smoke is something that is very unpleasant and you dont want to be stuck somewhere where people are smoking, but their notion was that tobacco cleared the air of bad thoughts, right . The tobacco smoke carried away ill feelings, worries, concerns and kind of clear the minds of people who were coming together to engage in negotiations. This is a friends illustration of what the calumet ceremony looked like. Its a really interesting image that you could read like he might have read a modernday cartoon strip, comic strip. Except you need to read it in this order. I have added the numbers here so you can understand the action that is taking place here, all right . Number one, the savage village. This is where there is a native american community, and then there is another group of native americans traveling by canoe downriver. And they want to pass through the territory of these folks. But they need to do so in a way that makes clear that they are arriving as friends, they are not here to make war. They are not here as aggressors. So, the canoe goes ahead of the others with the calumet of peace. You see these three indians in a canoe, and this object here is the calumet. They are carrying the calumet before them. A canoe comes out from the village to greet him. They see whats going on, and they see the calumet pipe. They come out to offer a greeting. And then the calumet is carried before the new arrivals, the visitors, as a sign of peace. And folks come out from the villains to greet them. There is ritualistic dancing, and then they are admitted into the village and ultimately, they smoke could be calumet as a way of proving their friendly intentions, and the locals provide hospitality, and they can go on with their business. That is how the calumet ceremony worked. We do this this has entered the american idiom of english through the phrase of smoking the peace pipe. We have all heard about smoking the peace pipe as a way of making amends, making peace when there has been a disagreement. Thats the origin of the phrase in english, from the calumet ceremony. The other primary ritual complex that was used in native american and european diplomacy was iroquoian in origin. It was related to those native americans who showed up at the treaty of lancaster in 1744. The air quietly, or the five nations as franklin called them in that letter he wrote to his agent in london. This is a map, if you have not encountered the air quite before, this is a map to give you a very brief introduction into the air quietly corps confederacy. At the time of colonization, when the dutch showed up, there were five nations in the air quality. From east to west, the mohawks, the senate caucus, etc. They occupied a territory roughly commensurate with modernday upstate new york, from the city of albany in the east, to the city of buffalo in the west. In the early 18th century, a sixth nation migrated northward from North Carolina and joined the eric oily. They were the task auroras. Sometimes, you will hear references to the five nations, sometimes to the six nations. They were also iroquoian speaking. Even though they came from North Carolina, they spoke a similar language, had similar culture and that is some of the reasons why they came up and settled in this region. The tusk settled between pennsylvania and new york. They were very powerful. We learned about the chesapeake, well the air coy had similar power in this very strategic territory between french canada, st. Lawrence river, ontario and english new york. So they occupy this very strategic territory. And diplomacy with the iroquois became important to the friends, the dutch and the english in order to preserve their for a trade. When europeans engaged in this diplomacy with the iroquois, they had to learn something known as the condolence ceremony. Ill talk to you a little bit about how the condolence ceremony worked. So when the Iroquois League got together, usually on an annual basis to renew friendship and alliance between the member nations, they began their negotiations with each other by engaging in a condolence ceremony, whereby each nation offered its condolences to the other nations for a losses they had suffered since the last time they met. Somebody important had died, or perhaps there had been warfare with outsiders casualties and so forth. The opening message was condolence, to assuage the grief of those people who were bereaved, suffering losses since the last time they met. This was expressed by exchanging want the beads and mom belts. Want them were beats made out of marine shell, marine shell that could be found along the coast of long island and new england. They were very important to the air aquatic as they held a great deal of spiritual power. So the exchange of wampum became the symbol of condolence. Any began diplomatic negotiations by exchanging, usually beats on strings of wampum. That represented, in this very metaphorical language, they talked about giving three strings of wampum to dry the tears, open the ears and clear the throats of those who were grieving so that they could now see, hear and speak clearly again. Right . This is a symbolic way of recognizing, kind of, the burdens that people brought with them to these diplomatic negotiations, and then the wampum was meant to clear away all those bad thoughts. Doing the service that the tobacco was doing in the calumet ceremony, right . So that you could see, speak, here clearly and engage openly in these diplomatic negotiations. When wampum beats were strong together on strands of leather, you can make a wampum belt. And that is what a wampum belt may have looked like. This is acrylic wampum that i bought from some folks who used basically modern methods to recreate this for people who are involved in reenacting community and things like that. But its a pretty good approximation of what these wampum beats look like, and especially their color. They are made out of two colors, white in purple, that represented the marine shelves that they came from. Those contrasting colors couldnt be woven into designs and belts. We will see some of these a little bit later. But a lot of these designs, like you see here, like you see here, they had face geometric patterns that emphasized linking, right . A linking of arms, or diamonds that are linked at the corners. That is meant to show, kind of, unity and strength. Purple or black wampum, they sometimes called black wampum often was used to symbolize war or morning. Why it wampum was used to symbolize peace and wellbeing. And so there is a color symbolism that is associated with these wampum beads as well. They became material devices that were used to engage in the condolence era money. If you were a european diplomat who is going out to meet native americans and engage in diplomacy, you better bring your wampum. If you dont have wampum, your message is meaningless. This is an example of how this native americans customs were a to use and manipulate that they were going to treat with the indians and get their objectives. Another type of gift that was exchanged in the context of the condolence army were black shrouds. We talked about droughts in the first trade, and there are really navy blue. Produced in england and were a big part of the Textiles Exchange in the first train, but when given in the context of a condolence ritual, they became black strouds that were meant to cover the graves of deceased. To allow grieving relatives to put away the growth of those who have died and, again, clearly ears, eyes and throats to engage in negotiations. Do we have any questions about the condolence ceremony or the calumet ceremony . Yes. So, how did the british learn how to make wampum . If they trade with other indian nations for the wampum, that were they could give it to other ones, or did they learn how to make it themselves . How did wampum get manufactured . Thats a great question. Native americans manufactured wampum before europeans showed up. But when europeans showed up, they also bring tools that make it much easier to manufacture wampum. So wampum beads tend to get smaller because theyre using iron tools to grind and drill holes in the beads. Native americans continue to make wampum, but europeans also become very interested in purchasing it. So wampum becomes come out of hide. In early new netherlands, its supposedly used as money when the economy is just developing their. By the 18th century, we see evidence of wampum being mass produced for the purpose of engaging in this type of diplomacy. The belts themselves were generally made by native american women. At the treaty of lancaster in 1754, 250 indians arrived, half of them are adult males. The other half were women and children. When the treating negotiations are going, on many of the women are spending time creating the wampum belts to be exchanged in the course of proceedings. It is a native american arent that contact with the europeans is changing the production value, but its still want