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ince the very first Haudenosaunee raids were recorded, the five nations of the Confederacy – Mohawk, Oneida, S Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca – and their neighbours – First Nation and European – have offered different explanations of why the Haudenosaunee waged war, and of what that said about their overall aims. The policy of the Haudenosaunee (or the Iroquois, as they’ve been known for so long) has engaged scholars in many fields for more than 200 years. Some have suggested that warfare was the product of specific features of ‘traditional’ Haudenosaunee culture, such as the need for revenge, while others say that warfare was a result of a new culture and of new economic motives. There are no formal names for these narratives – each of which can be traced to its own historic period – but, for want of better labels, they can be identified as the Iroquois/Indigenous explanation, the Cultural Relativist view, and the Economic Determinist or Beaver Wars construction. A review of each of these narratives shows how boundaries – both national and intellectual – shaped them. the Beaver Wars never happened
the Beaver Wars never happened
At the same time, statistical data allows us to move beyond the competing versions of the past and show that Haudenosaunee policy was to protect their culture and territory and had little to do with fighting for beaver pelts. In short, the Beaver Wars never happened as such. The name is an historiographical invention that ignores what the historical record reveals about Haudenosaunee foreign policy and its military expression. The CNE of 1919 was a full-scale celebration. It was the first summer after the war, the soldiers and the nurses were almost all home from Europe (those who would ever come home) and the previous winter’s pandemic, which had claimed another 1,300 lives in Toronto, was largely forgotten. This poster by J.E.H. MacDonald launched the “incomparable programme” – including the CNE’s first air show. Story, page 9
1500s-1600s: Indigenous Traditions Traditions recorded in the late 1500s and early 1600s all agree that the Wendat (the ‘Huron’ of the historical record) and Algonquin First Nations were the focus of Haudenosaunee aggression in the first half of the seventeenth century. Moreover, native oral traditions hint at, and are in agreement about, the reasons for the warfare between the Wendat, Algonquin and Haudenosaunee evident by 1600. The wars were fought to avenge previous wrongs committed by one side against the other and the retributive nature of indigenous warfare accounts for the increase and enduring consequences of the initial encounters. As one Iroquois combatant observed matter of factly, “it is our Custome amongst Indians to warr with one another,” especially if a member of one group had been killed by that of another. At a conference in Detroit in 1704, a Seneca spokesman explained, without apparent irony, to a group of Wendat – whose nation had been destroyed – the Haudenosaunee philosophy of revenge: “You know, my brothers, our customs which are to avenge, or to perish in avenging our dead.” It may, of course, be argued (and it has been) that these traditions are vague because the real cause is unknown. That, however, is an ethnocentric assessment based on modern writers’ willingness to accept as legitimate only causes that appear rational by modern standards. Rationality, however, is culturally defined, and what is rational is specific to This Wendat warrior both cultures and times. Moreover, oral wooden slats and carrying histories served to account for and justify what appears to be a spiked armour was proof against aspects of a group’s action. but not against firearms. Thus, if more important justifications could cedar bark. This very French be found or invented, they would have been. Samuel Champlain’s Voyages France, published in 1640. The fact that the Haudenosaunee, Wendat and Algonquin felt that their traditions provided adequate explanation for the devastating wars in which they were engaged should be reason enough for us to take those accounts seriously. More importantly, the hostilities persisted, in part because those reasons continued to be viewed as valid.
1600s-1700s: European Cultural Relativists Early French and English neighbours of the Haudenosaunee also noted the importance of revenge, honour and the taking of captives as motives for their warfare. These observers can be called early cultural relativists in that, even if they did not fully appreciate aspects of indigenous culture, they grounded their explanations of native actions based upon their understanding of indigenous cultures and native explanations thereof. Pierre Boucher, a soldier and interpreter for the government of New France, noted in 1664 that the “war they wage against one another is not to conquer lands, nor to become great Lords, 2 The Fife and Drum July 2020
The Haudenosaunee were the military power of north-eastern North America for of Lake Ontario had been destroyed. The event near Toronto was in 1634, when 500 attack their homelands. The Wendat lost badly. Data from Brandão 1997, Table D-1; development of northern Iroquoian societies,” Journal of Archaeological Research,
The Haudenosaunee were the military power of north-eastern North America for of Lake Ontario had been destroyed. The event near Toronto was in 1634, when 500 attack their homelands. The Wendat lost badly. Data from Brandão 1997, Table D-1; development of northern Iroquoian societies,” Journal of Archaeological Research,
hatchets and leave his allies undisturbed. Who are his allies? How would he have us recognize them when he claims to take under his protection all the peoples discovered by the bearers of God’s word through all these regions; and when every day, as we learn from our people who escape from the cruelty of the stake, they make new discoveries, and enter nations which have ever been hostile to us – which, even while receiving notification of peace from Onnontio, set out from their own country to make war upon us, and to come and slay us They repeatedly under our very palisades? concerns about the The Haudenosaunee also complained to their about French encroachments on land they claimed as their own. Between 1666 and 1701 the French built nearly 30 forts and fortified posts in the St. Lawrence-Great Lakes Basin. Of these, at least seven were located around lakes Ontario and Erie – lands claimed by the Haudenosaunee and used by them for hunting. They repeatedly expressed their concerns about the threats
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1800s: Cultural Relativists & Economic Determinists In the 1800s French Canadian nationalist historians offered explanations for Haudenosaunee warfare that combined the views of the early French cultural relativists with the words of the Iroquois and expressed their other natives as recorded in French threats posed documents. However, their views came lands to be largely ignored. These historians had all used the Iroquois wars to serve their own nationalist ends (applauding the French and Catholic nature of New France, deploring the pursuit of commerce at the expense of farming) and their concerns did not extend to the larger academic communities of either Canada or the United States. It was Francis Parkman’s novel Beaver Wars interpretation that became accepted by most scholars The Fife and Drum 3
as the explanation for Haudenosaunee policy and wars in general, including those against New France.
Economic Determinists: The Beaver Wars Francis Parkman was an American historian from Boston who chose as his life’s work the writing of the history of the struggle between “feudal” France and “liberal” England for control of north-eastern North America. According to Parkman, Haudenosaunee culture was changed by contact with Europeans and as a consequence a new culture arose that became dependent upon European material goods. The Haudenosaunee quickly depleted their fur supply in their desire to obtain the new goods, and were then driven to raid neighbouring nations in order to plunder their furs and maintain the trade. The Iroquois waged war against New France in order to control the fur trade, which the French were trying to monopolize and which the Iroquois needed in order to gain much-required goods. At the risk of belabouring the point, neither Parkman or his French Canadian contemporaries were interested in the history of the Haudenosaunee, their foreign policy or even their wars, 4 The Fife and Drum July 2020
in their own rights: the Haudenosaunee and their assaults were merely a means to enhance a gripping national story. That the Iroquois could be the bogeymen and cautionary examples in two national narratives is probably noteworthy in some sense, but this attention to them came at the expense of distorting their lived reality and history.
20th Century: Economic Warfare & Cultural Relativists In 1915 American historian Charles McIlwain elaborated upon Parkman’s views, arguing that cultural change, the lack of furs and material necessity had driven the Haudenosaunee to become middlemen in the fur trade and that they fought to gain or maintain that position. In 1930 the Canadian economist Harold Innis used this explanation to account for native participation in the fur trade as part of his ground-breaking work outlining the staples theory of national economic development. In 1940 George Hunt, an American anthropologist, used it as the basis for explaining Haudenosaunee hostilities against a range of First Nations around the Great Lakes in his seminal The Wars of the Iroquois: A Study in Intertribal Trade Relations.
Cultural Relativists: The Indigenous View Recently some historians of First Nations have come to reject economic explanations for understanding Haudenosaunee policy and wars in the seventeenth century. Conrad Heidenreich and Lucien Campeau (Canadian geographer and historian respectively), scholars of the Wendat, and Dean Snow, William Engelbrecht, and William Starna, American anthropologists, students of the Haudenosaunee, have played down the role of economic warfare and have suggested that the causes of Iroquois hostility can be found in cultural practices related to war and in responses to population losses brought on by newly introduced diseases. My own work and that of Roland Viau and Jon Parmenter Eastern Woodlands (1.7” blade width x 5.6” can also be added to this short list. M9368 These works seek to study Haudenosaunee history for its own sake and attempt to ground explanations of Iroquois warfare in Iroquois culture. As well, they accept that Haudenosaunee culture changed more slowly; that traditional values and causes of war – such as the need for captives and revenge – were not completely, or even largely, replaced by warfare to gain access to furs; and that the main focus of Haudenosaunee policy was to preserve their political and cultural independence. These writers are clearly influenced by the contemporary debates around native rights and by the call from First Nations to have their views of the past, and their cultural values, taken into account. If there is going to be a nationalist construction of their history, it should be theirs!
For these writers, all Iroquois wars were about them acting as rational twentieth-century economic beings – they were reduced, as one critic noted, to being “entrepreneurs in moccasins.” Parkman’s Whig and ethnocentric version of history (with its own form of economic and material determinism), updated according to the canons of modern scholarship by George Hunt, found fertile ground in a post-1940s Canada and United States where the Progressive and Economic schools of historical enquiry were popular. Among such scholars of New France as Gustave Lanctot and Marcel Trudel, for whom the Iroquois wars were a major feature of the colony’s history, Hunt’s thesis was accepted without question or in only slightly modified form. William J. Eccles was the first historian of New France to fully reject the economic explanation of Haudenosaunee warfare and expansion. In its place Eccles argued, like his nineteenth-century predecessors, that Haudenosaunee warfare was part of a larger policy aimed at creating a buffer zone and maintaining political control over Tomahawk head, Aboriginal, 1670-1689 their territories. Following Eccles’ lead, long) McCord Museum Luca Codignola and Peter Moogk have downplayed the role of economic factors in explaining Haudenosaunee warfare against the colony. Some scholars who specialize in First Nations history have been less critical of the Beaver Wars narrative. Some, despite the work of American Allen Trelease in 1960 – which pointed out serious problems with Hunt’s middleman narrative – continue to rely on that model to account for Haudenosaunee wars. Another group, namely Francis Jennings (US historian), Elisabeth Tooker (US anthropologist), Denys Dêlage (Canadian sociologist), Bruce Trigger (Canadian anthropologist), Ian K. Steele (Canadian historian) and Daniel Richter (US historian) have, for the most part, rejected Hunt’s thesis. Employing the methodology of ethnohistory, these scholars found that the middleman hypothesis was overly simplistic. Nevertheless, they persisted in the argument that economic goals were a principal driver of Haudenosaunee policy and hostilities. They also argue that the Iroquois warred to obtain furs, either for material profit or because they were dependant on European goods, and because they lacked their own, or a sufficient, supply of furs. Pelts plundered in raids against other First Nations were then traded for needed goods. It was this effort to obtain furs that led to the wars of the Haudenosaunee – in short, they were Beaver Wars. For some of these writers this was the main motive; for others, it was but one of several. But for all, economic ambitions lie at the root of Haudenosaunee policy and hostilities. Although these scholars recognize the enduring nature of traditional motives for indigenous warfare, rarely, if ever, are the cultural reasons for war used to account for hostilities against any one group. Of note here is that the nationalist constructions of Haudenosaunee history have broken down – those borders have been transcended. However, Iroquois history remains firmly constrained within even narrower ideological parameters: they are represented as a poor, disadvantaged society caught up in
The Statistics of War What remains, then, is the question of how to transcend the interpretative impasse produced by the national and intellectual borders imposed on Haudenosaunee history. One possible way forward is to reconsider carefully the various sources used to construct this history. Such a study yields a wealth of detail and numerical data about seventeenth-century Haudenosaunee warfare that supports their own earliest reports of why they fought and of their overall foreign policy. Up to 1701 the Iroquois were involved in 465 recorded hostilities. Of that number, they initiated 354 (76%), and were on the receiving end of 111. The heaviest fighting took place from 1640 to 1669 and from 1680 to 1701. During the middle decades of the century, the Iroquois were involved in 297 hostilities (an average of 99 per decade), of which they initiated 247 or 83%. In the closing twenty years of the seventeenth century, they were involved in 120 hostilities (60 per decade), of which they initiated 81 or 67%. This last statistic is particularly interesting since it suggests that the Haudenosaunee continued to pursue their policy objectives The Fife and Drum 5
30
Raids by the Haudenosaunee 25 Years in which serious diseases or epidemics were recorded 20 s d ai r of 15 er b m u 10 N
0 0 0 0 3 4 5 6 6 6 1 1 1 Raiding increased in the years following outbreaks of disease, Data from Brandão 1997, Table D-1; table by Ted Smolak through warfare at a time when most of the secondary literature pictures them as a defeated people, driven from their northern hunting ranges and desperately suing the French for peace. The Haudenosaunee attacked 51 different groups or combinations of groups – native and non-native – and were in turn attacked by 20 different groups or combinations of groups during the years up to 1701. The French bore the brunt of Iroquois hostility and were attacked 123 times; the Wendat were struck 73 times and their Ontario towns destroyed; and the Ottawa Valley Algonquins were attacked 23 times and dispersed. The human toll exacted on the First Nation and European populations of the Northeast by the Haudenosaunee was immense. By 1701 they had captured at least 3,810 to 4,176 people. If one adds to this total people said to have been “lost” to the Iroquois (2,277 to 2,795) but who were almost all captured rather than killed, this puts the total number of people captured at 6,087 to 6,971. During this same period they killed between 2,016 and 2,358 people. Thus the Haudenosaunee captured twice, probably three times, as many people as they killed. The number of captives taken is actually higher in the latter decades: 1,434 to 1,568 captives taken by 1669 and 2,384 to 2,608 taken from 1680 to 1700—a 60% increase. This data suggests that taking captives, a traditional goal of Haudenosaunee warfare, increased in importance as a policy goal over time. This interpretation is borne out by contemporary observers. Writing in the mid 1700s, the English naturalist John Bartram observed: Now their numbers being very much diminished … they very politically strive to Strengthen themselves not only by alliances with their neighbours, but … [by] prisoners they take; they are almost always accepted by the relations of a warrior slain…. This custom is as antient as our knowledge of them, but when their number of warriors was more than twice as many as now, the relations would more frequently refuse to adopt the prisoners but rather chuse to gratify their thirst of revenge. 6 The Fife and Drum July 2020
0 0 0 0 0 6 7 8 9 0 6 6 6 6 7 1 1 1 1 1 and serious loss of life, in the Five Nations homelands. Haudenosaunee warriors ranged over a sizeable portion of north-eastern North America in pursuit of military conquest – from Virginia to Lac St. Jean and from to Green Bay to Tadoussac — but most of their hostilities were centred in the St. Lawrence Valley and in the eastern Great Lakes. This, of course, reflects the locations of the French, the Wendat and the Ottawa Valley Algonquins. This concentration of raiding also suggests, as early French writers noted, that Haudenosaunee warfare was aimed at creating a buffer zone between them and their neighbours. The reasons for doing so, despite the literature’s focus on relating hostilities to the fur trade, could be many. The Haudenosaunee obviously needed to protect their resources for their own use. But the remarkable range of Iroquois raiding, even up to 1669, suggests that much more was involved in warring than this. Military incursions against nations months of travel from Five Nations homelands tend to reinforce the notion that warfare for revenge and captives was also a factor. The widening range of enemies to the west and south, noticeable after 1680, also supports this notion. It was toward these regions that the mid-century targets of the Haudenosaunee had fled, and the shift of warfare in these directions suggests the Haudenosaunee pursued their enemies and, in the process, made new ones. A closer look at the statistics demonstrates some interesting patterns which, in turn, reveal much about the nature and causes of Haudenosaunee warfare and policy. For example, after 1640 New France was rarely free from either Iroquois attacks or of the fear of impending war. Between 1633 and 1697 they launched 123 raids against the French. These attacks led to the loss of 675 to 694 people from the French colony. If one includes French losses suffered in raids against groups of which the French formed a part, the figure rises to 756 to 775 French taken by the Iroquois. This breaks down to 343 to 356 people captured and 404 to 410 people killed. Unlike the case of attacks against native enemies, the Haudenosaunee killed more French than they captured, suggesting that capture was not their primary goal. Moreover,
twice as many French were killed in the period 1687 to 1701 than in the much longer period ending in 1666, and less than half the number of raids were required to do this. The size of Haudenosaunee raiding parties during these two periods helps explain this pattern and shows the changing nature of their policy. Most attacks against the French up to 1666 were either by small (3-12 men) or medium sized (30-60 men) groups of warriors. In the years after 1684, raiding parties averaged 200 warriors, and the Haudenosaunee sent armies of more than 1,000 against the colony on three separate occasions. Because no single Iroquois nation could alone field an army that large, forces of this size reflected the joint effort of more than one of the Five Nations and a clear intent to conquer the French. The data on Haudenosaunee hostilities against the Wendat are less bountiful, but here, too, some interesting patterns emerge. Between 1631 and 1663 the Iroquois attacked the Wendat 73 times. Of these the most important were the large attacks, all but one of The human toll exacted which (in 1634) dates from the 1640s. In that decade the Haudenosaunee sent Haudenosaunee armies against the Wendat four times, destroying their villages and dispersing those inhabitants they did not kill or take captive. In these 73 raids, 300 to 304 Wendat were captured, 523 to 531 killed, and 1,241 to 1,255 otherwise lost. In all, the Haudenosaunee removed just over 2,000 Wendat from a post-1630 population estimated to have been between 8,700 and 10,000. This represents between one fifth and one quarter of the total population of Huronia. If the Haudenosaunee goal was to capture and kill Wendat to exact revenge, or to deplete their population in order to eliminate them, then it’s clear that Haudenosaunee policy achieved a certain measure of success. The statistics of war and the patterns a clear connection they reveal, added to evidence left by European observers, confirms the epidemics and importance of revenge, honour and the need to capture people as objectives of policy, and as prime reasons for wars against the Wendat, Algonquins, Illinois and French. The data also point to the insignificance of economic warfare that has been so commonly accepted as the major cause of Haudenosaunee hostilities in the 1600s. For example, of the 354 Iroquois-initiated raids against natives, Europeans, men, women, traders, hunters, warriors, soldiers, farmers and fishermen, the theft of goods or furs was reported in only 20 of them. This represents only 5.6% of all raids. If one includes raids against trading parties, possible trading parties, and fur brigades, where the theft of furs or goods are not recorded but may have been intended, 14 more raids are added to the total. In all there were, at most, 34 raids (9.6% of the total) for which economic gain – the capture of goods or fur – could be ascribed as the motive for the attack.
In this same period at least 25% of all Haudenosaunee raids resulted only in people being taken, not goods. Given that pretty well everyone resisted capture, and that such resistance might lead to unintended deaths, this represents a significant percentage. If raids in which some people were captured and some were killed (30%) are added to those in which people only were captured, that produces a figure of 55% of all Iroquois raids in which at least some people were taken captive. There is one other way in which the statistics of war can be useful in helping to explain Haudenosaunee warfare and what it says about their policies. Specialists on the Iroquois have long postulated a relationship between population decline due to European-introduced diseases and warfare, but have lacked the data from which to draw a firm connection between the two. The search for evidence of such a pattern in the statistics of war and disease reveals two compelling pieces of evidence to support this hypothesis. The chart on the previous page shows the number of Haudenosaunee raids … by the against all groups by year compared to the years when a serious disease or was immense an epidemic struck the Five Nations. Almost without exception, the years during which epidemics struck, or shortly after, are followed by an increase in raiding. There does not seem to be a direct relationship between the number of raids and the number of captives taken. This of course can be the result of the vagaries of war. But it also suggests that the increase in warfare was the result of many small raiding parties that did not necessarily capture large numbers of people. There is no evidence to confirm that such attacks were part of an overall Haudenosaunee policy. On the other hand, there is a clear relationship between large attacks and the number of captives taken. The Iroquois armies between that were sent against the Wendat, Neutrals, Susquehannocks, Eries, warfare Illinois and Miamis all returned with large numbers of captives. All these expeditions followed shortly on the heels of years when disease had struck the homelands of the Five Nations. The statistics on Haudenosaunee warfare in the 1600s, and the patterns that the data produce, suggest a picture of Haudenosaunee foreign relations and reveal causes of their warfare and policies that are often at odds with much of the current historiography. The data show that the Haudenosaunee waged war for revenge, honour, to gain captives and to preserve their cultural and political integrity. It is equally evident that economic warfare does not appear to have been a major focus of their efforts and that the capture of people as a goal or a cause of warfare increased in importance during the century. Moreover, there appears to be a clear connection between epidemics and warfare and, despite claims to the contrary in the secondary literature, the Haudenosaunee appear not to have been The Fife and Drum 7
twice as many French were killed in the period 1687 to 1701 than in the much longer period ending in 1666, and less than half the number of raids were required to do this. The size of Haudenosaunee raiding parties during these two periods helps explain this pattern and shows the changing nature of their policy. Most attacks against the French up to 1666 were either by small (3-12 men) or medium sized (30-60 men) groups of warriors. In the years after 1684, raiding parties averaged 200 warriors, and the Haudenosaunee sent armies of more than 1,000 against the colony on three separate occasions. Because no single Iroquois nation could alone field an army that large, forces of this size reflected the joint effort of more than one of the Five Nations and a clear intent to conquer the French. The data on Haudenosaunee hostilities against the Wendat are less bountiful, but here, too, some interesting patterns emerge. Between 1631 and 1663 the Iroquois attacked the Wendat 73 times. Of these the most important were the large attacks, all but one of The human toll exacted which (in 1634) dates from the 1640s. In that decade the Haudenosaunee sent Haudenosaunee armies against the Wendat four times, destroying their villages and dispersing those inhabitants they did not kill or take captive. In these 73 raids, 300 to 304 Wendat were captured, 523 to 531 killed, and 1,241 to 1,255 otherwise lost. In all, the Haudenosaunee removed just over 2,000 Wendat from a post-1630 population estimated to have been between 8,700 and 10,000. This represents between one fifth and one quarter of the total population of Huronia. If the Haudenosaunee goal was to capture and kill Wendat to exact revenge, or to deplete their population in order to eliminate them, then it’s clear that Haudenosaunee policy achieved a certain measure of success. The statistics of war and the patterns a clear connection they reveal, added to evidence left by European observers, confirms the epidemics and importance of revenge, honour and the need to capture people as objectives of policy, and as prime reasons for wars against the Wendat, Algonquins, Illinois and French. The data also point to the insignificance of economic warfare that has been so commonly accepted as the major cause of Haudenosaunee hostilities in the 1600s. For example, of the 354 Iroquois-initiated raids against natives, Europeans, men, women, traders, hunters, warriors, soldiers, farmers and fishermen, the theft of goods or furs was reported in only 20 of them. This represents only 5.6% of all raids. If one includes raids against trading parties, possible trading parties, and fur brigades, where the theft of furs or goods are not recorded but may have been intended, 14 more raids are added to the total. In all there were, at most, 34 raids (9.6% of the total) for which economic gain – the capture of goods or fur – could be ascribed as the motive for the attack. In this same period at least 25% of all Haudenosaunee raids resulted only in people being taken, not goods. Given that pretty well everyone resisted capture, and that such resistance might lead to unintended deaths, this represents a significant percentage. If raids in which some people were captured and some were killed (30%) are added to those in which people only were captured, that produces a figure of 55% of all Iroquois raids in which at least some people were taken captive. There is one other way in which the statistics of war can be useful in helping to explain Haudenosaunee warfare and what it says about their policies. Specialists on the Iroquois have long postulated a relationship between population decline due to European-introduced diseases and warfare, but have lacked the data from which to draw a firm connection between the two. The search for evidence of such a pattern in the statistics of war and disease reveals two compelling pieces of evidence to support this hypothesis. The chart on the previous page shows the number of Haudenosaunee raids … by the against all groups by year compared to the years when a serious disease or was immense an epidemic struck the Five Nations. Almost without exception, the years during which epidemics struck, or shortly after, are followed by an increase in raiding. There does not seem to be a direct relationship between the number of raids and the number of captives taken. This of course can be the result of the vagaries of war. But it also suggests that the increase in warfare was the result of many small raiding parties that did not necessarily capture large numbers of people. There is no evidence to confirm that such attacks were part of an overall Haudenosaunee policy. On the other hand, there is a clear relationship between large attacks and the number of captives taken. The Iroquois armies between that were sent against the Wendat, Neutrals, Susquehannocks, Eries, warfare Illinois and Miamis all returned with large numbers of captives. All these expeditions followed shortly on the heels of years when disease had struck the homelands of the Five Nations. The statistics on Haudenosaunee warfare in the 1600s, and the patterns that the data produce, suggest a picture of Haudenosaunee foreign relations and reveal causes of their warfare and policies that are often at odds with much of the current historiography. The data show that the Haudenosaunee waged war for revenge, honour, to gain captives and to preserve their cultural and political integrity. It is equally evident that economic warfare does not appear to have been a major focus of their efforts and that the capture of people as a goal or a cause of warfare increased in importance during the century. Moreover, there appears to be a clear connection between epidemics and warfare and, despite claims to the contrary in the secondary literature, the Haudenosaunee appear not to have been
In this same period at least 25% of all Haudenosaunee raids resulted only in people being taken, not goods. Given that pretty well everyone resisted capture, and that such resistance might lead to unintended deaths, this represents a significant percentage. If raids in which some people were captured and some were killed (30%) are added to those in which people only were captured, that produces a figure of 55% of all Iroquois raids in which at least some people were taken captive. There is one other way in which the statistics of war can be useful in helping to explain Haudenosaunee warfare and what it says about their policies. Specialists on the Iroquois have long postulated a relationship between population decline due to European-introduced diseases and warfare, but have lacked the data from which to draw a firm connection between the two. The search for evidence of such a pattern in the statistics of war and disease reveals two compelling pieces of evidence to support this hypothesis. The chart on the previous page shows the number of Haudenosaunee raids … by the against all groups by year compared to the years when a serious disease or was immense an epidemic struck the Five Nations. Almost without exception, the years during which epidemics struck, or shortly after, are followed by an increase in raiding. There does not seem to be a direct relationship between the number of raids and the number of captives taken. This of course can be the result of the vagaries of war. But it also suggests that the increase in warfare was the result of many small raiding parties that did not necessarily capture large numbers of people. There is no evidence to confirm that such attacks were part of an overall Haudenosaunee policy. On the other hand, there is a clear relationship between large attacks and the number of captives taken. The Iroquois armies between that were sent against the Wendat, Neutrals, Susquehannocks, Eries, warfare Illinois and Miamis all returned with large numbers of captives. All these expeditions followed shortly on the heels of years when disease had struck the homelands of the Five Nations. The statistics on Haudenosaunee warfare in the 1600s, and the patterns that the data produce, suggest a picture of Haudenosaunee foreign relations and reveal causes of their warfare and policies that are often at odds with much of the current historiography. The data show that the Haudenosaunee waged war for revenge, honour, to gain captives and to preserve their cultural and political integrity. It is equally evident that economic warfare does not appear to have been a major focus of their efforts and that the capture of people as a goal or a cause of warfare increased in importance during the century. Moreover, there appears to be a clear connection between epidemics and warfare and, despite claims to the contrary in the secondary literature, the Haudenosaunee appear not to have been
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