Who were the Haudenosaunee?
“The title holders of the land”
Woke Watch Canada is a reader-supported publication. Please consider becoming a paying subscriber or making a one-time or recurring donation to show your support.
By Igor Stravinsky (Teacher, commentator)
Land acknowledgement statements are read out everywhere. You cannot escape them. They are heard in schools and at all types of community meetings: Concerts, sporting events, you name it. The statements vary, but the basic message is always the same, namely that Indigenous people were here first, thus the descendants of those people are the legitimate residents of this country. All the rest of us are mere “settlers” who must pay reparations and rents and accept our lot as second-class citizens while incessantly apologizing for all the harms our kind has allegedly caused (and of course never given any credit for anything good that has ever happened) with respect to Indigenous people.
The names of the Indigenous bands mentioned in land acknowledgements varies based on the location. Named bands are those who supposedly occupied any part of the area prior to the arrival of Europeans since “time immemorial”. If you live in the Greater Toronto Area, you will frequently hear of the “Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation”. I have previously written that the Mississaugas of the Credit are not indigenous to the GTA but rather moved into the area around 1700 CE from northern regions in which they had been living previously, displacing any groups living in what was to become Peel Region at the time.
The fact that the Mississaugas, numbering only about 500, were able to do that clearly demonstrates that by 1700 the number of Indigenous people living in the area was miniscule. By comparison, the number of Europeans living in what was then known as New France is estimated at 15 000, thus it is fair to say that these new Indigenous settlers were a minority. By 1850 the population of Ontario (Upper Canada) was nearly a million, but the Mississaugas had declined to about 200 people. They were then paid a sum, equivalent to about 9 million 2024 dollars, for their lands as they relocated (voluntarily) to a reserve adjacent to the Six Nations reservation near Brantford Ontario. In 2010, they received an additional payment of $240 million from the Federal government. Yet, according to many land acknowledgements, they remain “the title holders of the land”.
The Haudenosaunee
Another group often mentioned in land acknowledgements is the Haudenosaunee. Who were they?
The information below is from First Peoples in Canada (Allan D. MacMillian and Eldon Yellowhorn), which is an update of the earlier book Native Peoples and Cultures of Canada (which did not include the collaboration with Yellowhorn). The name change and collaboration with an Indigenous person reflects the evolving narrative of the status of Indigenous people in the country. The latter version (2004) however predates the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission by some 11 years and as such still presents a largely fact-based and scholarly account of Indigenous people from their first appearance in the country at the end of the last ice age.
The book asserts that “Aboriginal Scholars are embracing [anthropology's] methods on their own terms and appropriating them to understand their own cultures better” (page 11), but this is sadly not the case these days (2024) where the focus has become the post contact period and alleged genocide by the “settlers” based on unverified stories mostly propagated by the de-frocked United Church minister Kevin Annett. Annett was ultimately rebuffed by Indigenous people when he was caught red-handed falsifying evidence of the murder of indigenous people, but his stories of atrocities, based on weak and suspect anecdotal evidence (and his own imagination) live on. Claims by Indigenous bands since 2021 of murders of students at Indian Residential Schools based on stories told by Indigenous “knowledge keepers” have also proved to be false anywhere excavations have taken place (e.g Pine Creek IRS, Scubanachadie IRS, and the Camsell Hospital). The Kamloops IRS mass graves hoax has become a farce and national embarrassment.
But First Peoples in Canada relies on the anthropological sub-disciplines of ethnography, ethnohistory, linguistics, and physical (including biological) anthropology as well as archaeology to bring a reasonably rigorous and scientific approach to the subject of Indigenous history. While no account can be free of bias, and the impact of the final report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (1996) can be felt throughout, the book still provides useful and factual information including the history of many Indigenous bands (“First Nations”).
Also known as “the League of the Iroquois” the Haudenosaunee united the Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, and Mohawk into a confederacy not long before first contact with Europeans. “Haudenosaunee” means “people of the longhouse” which is a reflection of the living arrangements common among these people. Longhouses are described as follows in First People of Canada (page 79):
The longhouse was the basic unit of Iroquoian life. Large sheets of cedar, elm, or ash bark were woven between arched poles to form a long structure with a vaulted roof and rounded ends. Each sheltered a number of families…despite openings in the roof, smoke from the fires filled the houses and caused serious eye problems. Although the Huron no doubt appreciated the warmth and social interaction of their homes, the Jesuits described them as “a miniature picture of hell” complaining of noise and lack of privacy, choking smoke, the stench of fish and urine, unrestrained rampages of dogs and small children, and infestations of fleas, flies, and mice.
By the way, the name “Iroquois” means “killer people” and its use by both Native and non-Native people alike is but one of many pieces of evidence that the popular notion that Indigenous people were peaceful is a simplification and infantilization of these complex and fully human people.
The Iroquois wiped out many other Indigenous bands including the Huron (Wendat), Neutral, and Erie. Their traditional territories were in what is now the United States and when they moved northward in several waves into what is now known as Canada, Europeans were already there. So, these people, now known as the Six Nations, with a reserve near Brantford Ontario, are in fact settlers. They are settled on the land of previous Indigenous groups some of whom they themselves exterminated. Do they do land acknowledgments for these peoples?
The actions of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) demonstrate clearly that Indigenous people in North America did what prehistoric people everywhere did: Form tribes and stake out territory which they aggressively defended, and engaged in invasions and warfare in an attempt to acquire more lands and resources as well as carry out raids as revenge or to forestall a future attack. The Iroquois were quick to form alliances with Europeans where they saw it as expedient to dominate or even exterminate their enemies and fought other bands viciously for privileged access to European goods as evidenced by the Beaver Wars.
While the claims of genocide against Indigenous people by European colonists or the government of Canada are unfounded (indigenous population has increased nearly ten-fold since first contact) it is very clear that Indigenous groups activity engaged in it regularly over the millennia prior to contact with Europeans.
This of course does not mean stone age pre-contact North American Indigenous groups were worse than stone age people anywhere else, but rather is affirmation that they were human beings doing what human beings always did under those circumstances.
I thank my good fortune to live when and where I do every single day.
Thanks for reading. For more from this author, read Should the Peel District School Board be running a “Centre for Indigenous Excellence and Land-Based Learning”?
Follow Woke Watch Canada on X - @WokeWatchCanada
Support Woke Watch Canada by upgrading to a paid membership:
Or, by contributing to our Donor Box:
Great post.
The Iroquois wiped out many other Indigenous bands including the Huron (Wendat), Neutral, and Erie.
So few know that.
The best tagline ice seen is that we live on land permanently ceded by aboriginal groups.
Bonus points if you know the treaty #.
It's like a real estate transfer from hell we paid for the land and they keep wanting more and more payment.
A very scholarly article. Thanks for sharing. There is nothing more repugnant than having to listen to a land claim acknowledgement before an event and realizing, like a metastatic cancer, the Kamloops lie has pervaded every aspect of our society. Its enough to give you the staggers and jags.