Abstract
The Upper Susquehanna drainage in New York assumed increasingly greater prominence as a borderland during the eighteenth century. Contrary to the idea that geopolitical boundaries were Colonial impositions, the creation of this borderland ensued from long-term strategies on the part of Native American as well as Euro-American powers. Reacting to Colonial encroachments from south and east, the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) populated the valley with multi-ethnic towns consisting of both refugee tribes from the Atlantic seaboard and Iroquois representatives. These actions created a distinctive zone of creolized communities, and reflected the Haudenosaunee ability to play off English notions of demarcating the landscape.
Resumen
La cuenca alta del Susquehanna, en Nueva York, asumió una prominencia progresiva como frontera en el siglo XVIII. En contra de la idea de que las fronteras biopolíticas fueron imposiciones coloniales la creación de esta frontera fue resultado de estrategias de largo plazo de los nativos y de los poderes euro-americanos. Los Haudenosaunee (Iroqueses) reaccionaron a la presión colonial desde el sur y el oriente y poblaron el valle con aldeas multi-étnicas compuestas de tribus refugiadas de la costa Atlántica y representantes Iroqueses. Estas acciones crearon una zona distintiva de comunidades criollizadas y reflejaron la habilidad de los Haudenosaunee para jugar con las nociones inglesas de demarcación del paisaje.
Résumé
Au 18ème siècle, le drainage du Haut Susquehanna à New York assuma un rôle frontalier accru. La création de cette bordure faisait partie d’une stratégie à long terme initiés par des Natifs américains et des Euro-américains et non pas, contrairement à ce que l’on pensait à l’origine, d’une imposition géopolitique des colonialistes. Les Haudenosaunee (Iroquois), voyant leur territoire au Sud et à l’Est empiété par les colonialistes, peuplèrent la vallée en créant des villes multiethniques composées de diverses tribues de réfugiés de la Côte Atlantique et de représentants Iroquois. Ceci créa une zone distincte de communautées créoles reflétant l’abilitée des Haudenosaunee à utiliser les notions anglaises de démarcation du paysage.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References Cited
Adelman J., S. Aron 1999 From Borderlands to Borders: Empires, Nation-States, and the Peoples in Between in North American History. American Historical Review 104(3):814–841
Alvarez R.R.J. 1995 The Mexican–US Border: The Making of an Anthropology of Borderlands. Annual Review of Anthropology 24:447–470
Beauchamp W.M. 1925 The Life of Conrad Weiser, As It Relates to His Services as Official Interpreter Between New York and Pennsylvania and as Envoy between Philadelphia and the Onondaga Councils. Onondaga Historical Association, Syracuse
Black J. 1997 Maps and Politics. Reaktion Books, London
Canny, N.P. 1998. The Ideology of English Colonization: From Ireland to America. In Theories of Empire, 1450–1800, edited by David Armitage, pp. 179–202. Ashgate, Aldershot, UK (originally published 1973)
Cook, F. (editor) and G. Conover (compiler) 1887. Journals of the Military Expedition of Major General John Sullivan Against the Six Nations of Indians in 1779 with Records of Centennial Celebrations. Knapp, Peck & Thomson, Auburn, NY
Diggins J.P. 1976 Slavery, Race, and Equality: Jefferson and the Pathos of Enlightenment. American Quarterly 26:206–228
Donnan H., T.M. Wilson 1999 Borders: Frontiers of Identity, Nation and State. Berg, Oxford
Edney M.H. 1999 Reconsidering Enlightenment Geography and Map Making: Reconnaissance, Mapping, Archive. In: D.N. Livingstone, C.W.J. Withers (eds) Geography and Enlightenment. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, pp. 165–198
Elliott, D. 1977. Otsiningo, An Example of an Eighteenth Century Settlement Pattern. In Current Perspectives in Northeastern Archaeology: Essays in Honor of William A. Ritchie, edited by Robert E. Funk and Charles F. Hayes, III. Researches and Transactions of the New York State Archeological Association 17(1):93–105
Engelbrecht W.E. 2003 Iroquoia: The Development of a Native World. Syracuse University Press, Syracuse, New York
Giannola, V. 1988. The Comfort Site Report. Senior Honors Thesis, Department of Anthropology, State University of New York at Binghamton
Gosden C. 2004 Archaeology and Colonialism: Cultural Contact from 5000 BC to the Present. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Gronim S.S. 2001 Geography and Persuasion: Maps in British Colonial New York. William and Mary Quarterly 58(2):373–402
Harley J.B. 1988 Maps, Knowledge and Power. In: D. Cosgrove, S. Daniels (eds) The Iconography of Landscape: Essays on the Symbolic Representation, Design and Use of Past Environments. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 277–312
Hart W.B. 1998 Black “Go-Betweens” and the Mutability of “Race,” Status, and Identity on New York’s Pre-Revolutionary Frontier. In: A.R.L. Cayton, F.J. Teute (eds) Contact Points: American Frontiers from the Mohawk Valley to the Mississippi, 1750–1830. University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, pp. 88–113
Hauptman L.M. 1980 Refugee Havens: The Iroquois Villages of the Eighteenth Century. In: C. Vecsey, R.W. Venables (eds) American Indian Environments. Syracuse University Press, Syracuse, New York, pp. 128–207
Himmelfarb G. 2004 The Roads to Modernity: The British, French, and American Enlightenments. Vintage, New York
Hinman M.B. 1975 Onaquaga: Hub of the Border Wars. Valley Offset, New York
Hoffernan M. 1999 Historical Geographies of the Future: Three Perspectives from France, 1750–1825. In: D.N. Livingstone, C.W.J. Withers (eds) Geography and Enlightenment. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, pp. 125–164
Jennings F. 1984 The Ambiguous Iroquois Empire. W. W. Norton, New York
Johnson, W. 1934. Letter to James Abercromby, May 17, 1758. In The Papers of Sir William Johnson, Vol. IX (prepared by Almon W. Lauber). State University of New York, Albany
Jordan K. 2004 Seneca Settlement Pattern, Community Structure, and Housing, 1677–1779. Northeast Anthropology 67:23–60
Konrad V. 1981 An Iroquois Frontier: the North Shore of Lake Ontario During the Late Seventeenth Century. Journal of Historical Geography 7:129–144
Latour, B. 1993. We Have Never Been Modern (translated by Catherine Porter). Harvard University Press, Cambridge
Marshall P.J., G. Williams 1982 The Great Map of Mankind: British Perceptions of the World in the Age of Enlightenment. J. M. Dent and Sons, London
Merrell J.H. 1999 Into the American Woods: Negotiators on the Pennsylvania Frontier. W. W. Norton, New York
Merritt J.T. 1998 Metaphor, Meaning, and Understanding: Language and Power on the Pennsylvania Frontier. In: A.R.L. Cayton, F.J. Teute (eds) Contact Points: American Frontiers from the Mohawk Valley to the Mississippi, 1750–1830. University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, pp. 60–87
Morgan L.H. 1990. League of the Iroquois [1851]. Citadel Press, Secaucus, NJ
Nammack G.C. 1969 Fraud, Politics, and the Dispossession of the Indians: The Iroquois Land Frontier in the Colonial Period. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman
O’Callaghan, E. 1853–1887. Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York; Procured in Holland, England and France, by John Brodhead 15 vols. Weed, Parsons, Albany
Parker, R. 1903. Journal of Lieutenant Robert Parker, of the Second Continental Artillery, 1779. Edited by Thomas R. Bard. The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 27:404–420
Pilkington W. 1980 The Journals of Samuel Kirkland. Hamilton College, Clinton, NY
Pole J.R. 1981 Enlightenment and the Politics of American Nature. In: R. Porter, M. Teich (eds) The Enlightenment in National Context. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 192–214
Porter R. 2000 Enlightenment: Britain and the Creation of the Modern World. Penguin, London
Porter R., M. Teich (eds.) 1981 The Enlightenment in National Context. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Prezzano, S.C. 2003. Longhouse, Village, and Palisade; Community Patterns at the Iroquois Southern Door. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, State University of New York at Binghamton
Richter D.K. 1992 The Ordeal of the Longhouse: The Peoples of the Iroquois League in the Era of European Colonization. University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill
Rippeteau, B. 1978. The Upper Susquehanna Valley Iroquois: An Iroquoian Enigma. In Essays in Northeastern Anthropology in Honor of Marian E. White, pp. 123–151. Department of Anthropology, Pierce College, Rindge, New Hampshire
Schwartz S.I., R.E. Ehrenberg 1980 The Mapping of America. Harry N. Abrams, New York
Smith R. 1989 A Tour of the Hudson, the Mohawk, The Susquehanna, and the Delaware in 1769. Purple Mountain Press, Fleischmanns, NY. (originally published 1906)
Sullivan, J. et al. (editors) 1921–1965. The Papers of Sir William Johnson. State University of New York, Albany
Wallace P.A. 1945 Conrad Weiser, Friend of Colonist and Mohawk. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia
White R. 2006 Creative Misunderstandings and New Understandings. William and Mary Quarterly 63(1):9–14
Acknowledgements
My thanks to Laurie Miroff and Nina Versaggi for our many fruitful discussions about the archaeology of the Susquehanna Valley. The interpretations offered in this piece are of my own making, however.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Cobb, C.R. From Frontier to Border Along the Iroquois Southern Door. Arch 4, 110–128 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11759-008-9063-y
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11759-008-9063-y