Haudenosaunee Confederacy, confederation of five (later six) Indigenous peoples across upper New York state that during the 17th and 18th centuries played a strategic role in the struggle between the French and British for mastery of North America. The five original Haudenosaunee nations were the Mohawk (self-name: Kanien’kehá:ka [“People of the Flint”]), Oneida (self-name: Onᐱyoteʔa∙ká [“People of the Standing Stone”]), Onondaga (self-name: Onoñda’gega’ [“People of the Hills”]), Cayuga (self-name: Gayogo̱hó:nǫ’ [“People of the Great Swamp”]), and Seneca (self-name: Onödowa’ga:’ [“People of the Great Hill”]). After the Tuscarora (self-name: Skarù∙ręʔ [“People of the Shirt”]) joined in 1722, the confederacy became known to the English as the Six Nations and was recognized as such at Albany, New York (1722). Often characterized as one of the world’s oldest participatory democracies, the confederacy has persisted into the 21st century. Their self-name, Haudenosaunee, is an Iroquoian term meaning “people building the longhouse,” referring to the long, narrow dwellings that traditionally housed extended families among the confederated peoples. The commonly known name Iroquois is considered by some to be derogatory, as it was applied to the Haudenosaunee by an antagonistic group. The tname most likely originated from an Algonquian term for the Haudenosaunee meaning “real snakes,” although etymologies from a few European languages have been proposed.

The origins and growth of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy

The Peacemaker story of Haudenosaunee tradition credits the formation of the confederacy, between 1570 and 1600, to Dekanawidah (the Peacemaker), born a Wyandot, 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. Cemented mainly by their desire to stand together against invasion, the tribes united in a common council composed of clan and village chiefs; each tribe had one vote, and unanimity was required for decisions. Under the Great Law of Peace (Gayanesshagowa), the joint jurisdiction of 50 peace chiefs, known as sachems, or hodiyahnehsonh, embraced all civil affairs at the intertribal level.

The Haudenosaunee Confederacy differed from other Native American confederacies in the northeastern woodlands primarily in being better organized, more consciously defined, and more effective. The Haudenosaunee used elaborately ritualized systems for choosing leaders and making important decisions. They persuaded colonial governments to use these rituals in their joint negotiations, and they fostered a tradition of political sagacity based on ceremonial sanction rather than on the occasional outstanding individual leader. Because the league lacked administrative control, the nations did not always act in unison, but spectacular successes in warfare compensated for this and were possible because of security at home.

During the formative period of the confederacy about 1600, the Five Nations remained concentrated in what is now central and upper New York state, barely holding their own with the neighboring Wyandot and Mohican (Mahican), who were supplied with guns through their trade with the Dutch. By 1628, however, the Mohawk had emerged from their secluded woodlands to defeat the Mohican and lay the Hudson River valley peoples and New England peoples under tribute for goods and wampum. The Mohawk traded beaver pelts to the English and Dutch in exchange for firearms, and the resulting depletion of local beaver populations drove the confederacy members to wage war against far-flung enemies in order to procure more supplies of beaver. In the years from 1648 to 1656, the confederacy turned west and dispersed the Wyandot, Tionontati, Neutral, and Erie tribes. The Andaste succumbed to the confederacy in 1675, and then various eastern Siouan allies of the Andaste were attacked. By the 1750s most of the peoples of the Piedmont had been subdued, incorporated, or destroyed by the league.