And european peoples. We will talk about some of the customs and protocols that governed that style of diplomacy and the objectives of both native american peoples and colonial peoples brought to those meetings. Ive got 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 William Johnson, not a lot of contemporary American Students of history know much about him, but he was a very interesting figure in the 18th century. He was an irish immigrant who came to america settled on the , mohawk front of upstate new york in 1740, and became very friendly with mohawk indians, who were his neighbors. Ultimately, gained a great deal of influence among them and was ultimately was appointed by the British Crown to serve as the agent to the iroquois nation. S. This painter in the early 20th century wanted to depict one of these treaties that johnson convened with native americans. Think about the reading you did for today. This is kind of providing you with a mental image of that. It was at johnson hall, a which was a georgian mansion he built on the mohawk frontier that still stands today. If you are in upstate new york between albany and syracuse, new york, you can visit this site and visit another one of his homes that predated this both of , both of which are preserved as 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 try to come to some kind of accommodation when they did have conflict. S. I want to switch from upstate new york to pennsylvania right now. If you were to travel east of gettysburg for maybe one hour and a half or so on route 30 to the town of lancaster, pennsylvania, im sure some of you are familiar with lancaster. 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 arrived in lancaster and were carrying arms, bows, and arrows arrows, and tomahawks. This would cause panic among the folks that would live in this tiny frontier town. This was the quaker colony of pennsylvania. There was not even a militia to call out in fear of an attack of from the iroquois. They were not there to make war,. They were there for a treaty conference. They were 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 did not take long to walk down main street, they encamped. They built a camp of wigwams and cabins and stayed in lancaster for about the next 2. 5 weeks negotiating not only with the colony of pennsylvania, but also with 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 governments and native american peoples. Benjamin franklin at the time of the lancaster treaty 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, and to sell in his printshop, and and he sent things to his agent in london to sell. 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 this city, between the governments of virginia, maryland, and pennsylvania on one side and the united five nations of indians on the other. Meaning the Iroquois League. I will send you an account of it when printed, as the method of doing business with those barbarians may perhaps afford you some amusement. That is a pretty condescending statement for franklin to be making about this. Certainly it reflects many of the attitudes of his contemporaries, that these were savage People Living in the forest. When he calls them barbarians, he is sneering about it to his london agent. There is a development of fascination and interest. This method of doing business. Franklin wants to tell his london agent how to do this business on the frontier. American frontier. In that phrase, this method of doing business, 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 ensure a good trade, in order to ensure peace, they had to get together and conduct diplomacy with native american peoples. The protocols and customs and language and metaphors that that diplomacy were not european in origin, they were native american in origin. This is a testament to the power that native americans had. Europeans had to learn to conduct business on their turf, to do it by their method. So franklin, when he ultimately publishes the treaty of lancaster, he sends 200 copies off to his agent of london so because he thinks they might sell there. Can learn of this context of diplomacy. Historians, when they talk about diplomacy between native americans and europeans in the colonial era, often use a metaphor that i like that i will share with you today which is , the middle ground. They use diplomatic negotiations reflecting 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 named richard white. Some of you may have heard of him before. He was writing about the french interactions with algonquian peoples living in the great lakes frontier. They were developing in 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 fur 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 not only d not only this geographic territory, the modernday midwest where french and native peoples were coming together, but this metaphorical also this metaphorical middle ground where each side is feeling out the other, trying to comprehend the worldview and develop some means of communicating back across the cultural divide. We will use that metaphor today , only we will apply it primarily to the english colonies in british north america as they dealt with native american peoples and also sought 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. Their work two primary ritual complexes that europeans learned to use when the engaged with native americans. One was algonquian in origin, think of the algonquian Language Group we talked about and many native peoples who 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, thespoke languages from iroquoian stock. The calumet ceremony was associated with algonquian native american peoples from the great lakes region. The calumet ceremony involved a pipe that native americans use. We know native americans grew tobacco before europeans showed up. They smoked tobacco for all sorts of reasons. One of the reasons they smoked tobacco was for ritualistic purposes. It was a way of greeting strangers, offering hospitality, initiating and closing diplomatic negotiations with each other. When you did it for that purpose, when you smoked tobacco for diplomatic reasons, you smoked it out of this long stemmed pipe that was called a calumet pipe. This was a pipe that was made specific for diplomatic purposes with eagle feathers attached to it. It has a stone bowl made out of a soft, red stone found in minnesota that the indians could carve into a shape for a pipe bowl. We have seen this image before when we were talking about the for trading. This indian here is smoking a calumet pipe. When native peoples of algonquian descent got together , it would be circulated in a circular fashion to it is funny. It is funny because we know 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. The tobacco smoked carried away ill feelings, worries, concerns, and kind of cleared the minds of people who were coming together to engage in negotiations. This is a french illustration of what the calumet ceremony looked like. Trysting image that you could read like you might read a modernday comic onlyon strip, comic strip, you need to read it in this order. I have added numbers so you can take place of the action taking place here. Number one, the savage village. There is a native american community, then there is another group of native americans traveling by canoe downriver and 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, that they are not here to make war, not here as aggressors. And so the canoe goes ahead of the others with the calumet of peace. You see these three indians in a canoe. This object here is the calumet. They are carrying the calumet before them. A canoe comes up out from the village to greet them. They see what is going on and the calumet pipes. 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 village to greet them. There is ritualistic dancing, then they are admitted into the village, and ultimately they smoke the calumet as a way of proving the friendly intentions, and the locals provide hospitality, and they can go on with their business. That is how the calumet ceremony worked. This has entered the american idiom of english through the phrase smoking the peace pipe. We have all heard that as a way is a wayhe peace pipe of making amends, making peace. That is the origin of that 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 Iroquois League, the five nations as franklin called them, did not letter he wrote to his agent in london. This is a map. If you have not encountered the iroquois before, this is a map to kind of give you a very brief introduction into the Iroquois League, or confederacy. At the time of colonization, when the dutch showed up, there were five nations in the Iroquois League. From east to west, the mohawks, the senecas, etc. They occupied a territory roughly commensurate with modernday upstate new york, 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 Iroquois League. Sometimes, you will hear references to the five nations. Sometimes, you will hear references to the six nations. They were iroquoian speaking. Even though they came from North Carolina, they spoke a similar language and had a similar culture. That is one of the reasons why they came up and settled in this region. They settled between northeastern pennsylvania and central new york. They are a very powerful indian confederacy. We learned about the chesapeake. The iroquois had similar power, in this specific territory between french canada, ontario, st. Lawrence river ontario, and , dutch new netherlands and ultimately english new york. They occupied this very strategic territory. Diplomacy with the iroquois became very important to the french, dutch, and english to preserve their fur trade. When the europeans engaged in this diplomacy with the iroquois, they had to learn something known as the condolence ceremony. I will talk to you a little bit about how the condolence ceremony worked. So when the Iroquois League got together, usually on any will 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 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. Had been suffered and so forth. , the opening message was condolence to assuage the grief of those people who were bereaved, who were suffering losses since the last time they met. This was expressed by exchanging wampum beads and wampum belts. Wampums were beads made out of marring shells found on the shores of new england. They were very important to the iroquois, because they held a of spiritual power. The exchange of wampum became the symbol of condolence. You began diplomatic negotiations by exchanging usually beads on strings of 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 are grieving so that they could now see, hear, and speak clearly again. So this was a symbolic way of recognizing the burdens that people brought with them to these diplomatic negotiations and then the wampum was meant to clear away all the bad thoughts. Kinda doing the service that tobacco was doing in the calumet ceremony. So that you could now see, speak, hear clearly and engage openly in these diplomatic negotiations. When wampum beads were strung together on strands of leather, you could make a wampum belt. This is what a wampum belt may have looked like. This is acrylic wampum that i bought from some folks who used modern methods to recreate this for people who are involved in the reenacting community and things like that. It is a pretty good approximation of what the size of these wampum beads looked like, and especially their color. They were made out of two colors, white and purple. They represented the marine shells they came from. Those contrasting colors could then be woven into designs as and belts. We will see some of these a little later. A lot of these designs like you see here had these geometric patterns that emphasize linking. A linking of arms, or diamonds that are linked at the corners. That is meant to show unity and strength. Purple or black wampum, they sometimes called it black wampum, often was used to symbolize war or mourning. White was to symbolize peace and wellbeing. There is a color symbolism associated with the wampum beads as well. They became devices material , devices that were used to engage in the condolence ceremony. You can pass it around. If you were a european diplomat, who was going out to meet native americans to engage in diplomacy you better bring your wampum. , if you dont have wampum, your message is meaningless. So this is an example of how the se native american customs and rituals were something that europeans had to learn to use and manipulate if 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 ceremony were black strouds. Troudsked about s in the first trade. The fur trade. Strouds were navy blue, produced in england, and were a big part of the textile exchange. They became black to cover the grades of the deceased, to allow relatives to put away the grief of those who had died and again, clear the ears, eyes, and throats. So that it could engage in negotiations. They could engage in negotiations. Do we have any questions about the condolence ceremony or the calumet ceremony . Yes. How did the british learn how to make the wampum . Did they trade with other indian nations for the wampum, or did they learn how to make it themselves . Timothy yes, how did wampum get manufactured . Great question. Many manufactured wampum before europeans showed up, but they also bring tools that make it much easier to manufacture wampum. And so wampum beads tend to get much smaller, because they are using iron tools to grind and then drill holes in the beads. Native americans continue to make wampum, but europeans also become very interested in purchasing it. Wampum becomes commodified in early new netherlands, used as money when the economy is just developing there. And by the 18th century, with a we see wampum being massproduced 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 250 indians arrived. Approximately half of them are adult males, the other half were women and children. When the negotiations were going on, many of the women are spending time creating the wampum belts that will be exchanged in the course of the proceedings. It is a native american art. Contact with europeans is changing the production and value, but it is still very much a native american process. Lets move on, and we will talk a little bit about the treaty conferences that so fascinated franklin. In our view our modern view, if , i say to you treaty, you probably think of a document. You think about the treaty of versailles that ended world war i, or you think about the peace of paris of 1783, which ended the american revolution. We tend to think of treaties us as texts that are the result of negotiations, and europeans who treated with native americans when they got together for these diplomatic meetings generally had very specific objectives. We are getting together with native peoples to talk about specific issues that have come up that need to be resolved. Matters of war and peace. We need to convince native allies to go to war with us, we or we need to convince some enemies to make peace with us, or they might have issues about the fur trade. We need to initiate contact with these people so we can expand our fur trade into that region. By the mid18th century, a big the era of the french and indian war a big part of these treaty , negotiations involved the repatriation of captives, europeans trying to get native americans who they have been warring with to return captives who have been taken. Those are the very finite objectives that europeans often brought to the negotiating process. And then ideally, a treaty would , produce a written document at the end that kind