CULTURES OF NATIVE AMERICANS.   Term Paper ID:28475 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: Analysis of North American Indian societies, 1775-1815. Historical response to Europeans, traditions & political skills. Effects of American Revolution; resistance to Federal gov't. policies; devastation of their cultures.... More...

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Paper Abstract: Analysis of North American Indian societies, 1775-1815. Historical response to Europeans, traditions & political skills. Effects of American Revolution; resistance to Federal gov't. policies; devastation of their cultures. Paper Introduction: This research paper discusses the cultures of Native American peoples as they existed during the creation of the American nation from 1775 to 1815. It focuses upon the traditional cultures of the Eastern Woodlands Indians, the Iroquois in the North, the Algonquian Shawnee in the Northwest Territory and the Muskhogean Creek Confederacy in the Deep South and Gulf region. Over the centuries, a plethora of Indian tribes east of the Mississippi evolved and developed a wide diversity of cultural institutions and patterns of life, uniquely adapted and attuned to their natural environment and historical circumstances. All of them were significantly disrupted and altered by contact with European settlers. By the time of the American Revolution, most of the Algonquian tribes in New England and other Indians along Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. "War and Culture: The Iroquois Experience." The American Indian Past and Present. They werepractitioners of divination, based on omens and signs in nature. Like most tribes, the Creeks wereorganized around kinship clans, which were matrilineal in terms of propertydescent and matrilocal in terms of where families resided. By the second treaty of FortStanwix of October 1784, the League was forced to cede most of the Iroquoishomelands in western New York. Within each clan, the chiefhad absolute power, but inter-clan relationships were governed byconsensus, which was achieved by prolonged meetings of their GrandCouncils, called pow-wows. Religion was a vital link among all Creek communities. During the Revolutionary War, the Iroquois occupiedimportant strategic middle ground between the New England and MiddleAtlantic colonies. Each of the clans had different primary functions.Some were in charge of health and religion, others government and externalrelations and still others warfare. Hedied in 1793. A Sorrow in the Heart. Traditional Cultures and Initial Responses to the Europeans According to Gibson, "by around 15 A.D., Eastern peoples hadreached that stage of cultural maturity which prehistorians calledWoodland" (32). In New England, theprimary tribes were Algonquian, such as the Penobscots, Abenakis,Massachusetts, Narragansetts, Wampanoags and Pequots. New York: Knopf, 1994.Knepper, George W. New York: Harper & Row, 1975.Weeks, Philip (Ed.). The American Indian Past and Present. The Creek Confederacy drew together thedisparate elements of the Muskhogean Indians in the frontier areas of theDeep South to counter the growing influence of European powers andcolonies, but deeply-rooted divisions within Creek tribal units and leadersundermined its effectiveness as settler pressures on its homelandsintensified and left them dependent on the white man after the War of 1812. Resistance and disintegration. Clans were composed of individuals whodescended from a common ancestor. The Iroquois' basis of subsistence was a combination ofcultivated crops, maize, squash and beans, the gathering of wild fruits andvegetables, the hunting of wild game (deer, bear, turkey, pigeon, etc.) andfishing. Conflicts with the tribes theyencountered in the course of their wanderings "usually lasted no longerthan a single season . It was supervised by Clan Elders, who taught children the rulesof society, strictly enforced them and punished severely deviations fromthe norm. Warrior traditions. .who dealt with Europeans, on a rough plane of equality" (14 ). 3rd ed. Effects of the American Revolution and its sequel. Some Iroquois nations, such as the Mohawks, were morewarlike than others. Shawnee Culture and Resistance The Shawnees, whose name means 'Southerners,' are members of theAlgonquian language group, who settled in the Cumberland River Valley ofTennessee before the mid-17th century. By the time of theAmerican Revolution, most of the Algonquian tribes in New England and otherIndians along the Atlantic coast had been substantially eliminated asautonomous cultures. "Breaching the Ohio Boundary." The American Indian Experience A Profile: 1524 to the Present. It beganwith prayers of thanksgiving and recitals of past traditions, included adetailed review of the past year and plans for the next. Man's Rise to Civilization The Cultural Ascent of the Indians of North America. According to Oswalt, "widows had first choice concerning thefate of captives" (387). Norman, OK: U of Oklahoma P, 197 .Dorris, Michael. However, at theBattle of Fallen Timbers in northwest Ohio in August 1794, the Shawnee andtheir Indian allies suffered a disastrous defeat at the hands of GeneralAnthony Wayne. Ed. Inthe Beaver Wars, the Iroquois defeated their traditional Huron enemies andwrested control of much of that trade, which greatly enhanced theirprosperity and bargaining position vis-a-vis the European powers. The Creeks themselveswere from the Muskhogean language group. Andrew Jackson then led mixed state militias against the RedSticks whom he thrashed at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend in March 1814.According to the terms of the Carthaginian peace Jackson imposed on theCreeks, they lost two-thirds of their homeland. 3rd ed. As aresult of the fur trade, social stratification and extremes of wealth andpoverty disrupted that harmony, as did their killing for the first time ofanimals for reasons other than mere subsistence. Philip Weeks. He supported the British in the War of 1812 who,cut off by American victories on Lake Erie, finally deserted him before hewas finally defeated and killed at the Battle of the Thames River inOctober 1813. Mountain View, CA: Mayfield Publishing, 1988.Richter, Daniel K. It was a combination of heavilyforested (oak and hickory) piedmont plateau and fertile coastal plain muchof which was swampy bayou country and criss-crossed by numerous rivers andstreams. This was an alliance, not for the purpose of internal self-government, which remained decentralized, but to conduct war and foreignpolicy. New York: Dutton, 1978.Gibson, Arrell M. Yet the interior tribes remained powers . Lincoln, NE: U of Nebraska P, 1983.Farb, Peter. Age andexperience usually dictated position. Works CitedDebo, Angie. Theirgreat chief Tecumseh was born at the time a meteor passed overhead, whichwas regarded as "a good luck symbol for the rest of his life," and he wasnamed 'Shooting Star' (Eckert 33, 685-686). 2nd ed. They believed in a Great Spirit, okenda, andin the presence of many other spirits, good and evil, which pervaded everyday life and often took the form of animals. All Shawnee chiefs and other leaders weremale. 1 5-126.Swanton, John R. On the perimeter were bark hot houses,used for recreation or business on inclement days, a sunken chunkey yardused for dancing and games and enclosed dwelling houses, clan privategarden plots, and communal fields. . The American Indian Experience A Profile: 1524 to the Present. New York: Crowell, 1975.Eckert, Allan W. As in most Indian societies, women played a subordinate and purelydomestic role in Shawnee society. . Eradication of New England and Coastal IndianCultures. Some ofthem drifted South where they became part of the Creek Confederacy. Creek leaders were known forthe skills as orators and diplomats. The Creeks prospered from the exportof deerhides and from capturing other Indians as slaves for the Charlestownslave market. Political and Diplomatic Skills. Conclusion North American Indian societies were well-adapted to theirenvironment and needs prior to the advent of the white man. Considerable political skills wererequired to hold this loose confederation together. According to Gibson, even before the white manarrived, "the northern Iroquois people were unsurpassed among the NorthAmerican tribes for their warrior tradition" (66). However, the outcomes of the French and Indian Warand the American Revolution, as well as cultural atrophy, led to itseventual demise. Creek societywas, however, organized geographically by clan neighborhood and rankings insociety were highly hierarchical and dependent on one's status within one'sclan. Wivescould get divorced by simply tossing their husbands' belongings outsidetheir doors. A unique Iroquois institution was the False Face Society.When a person was ill or believed to be possessed with evil spirits, menwearing masks in the form of mythical faces, would chant imprecations, aform of exorcism. Under their new chief Blue Jacket they routed federal forces sentagainst them in Ohio by President Washington in 179 -1791. Prompted by quarrels with other tribes, andafter being defeated by the Chickasaws in Tennessee in the 176 s, Shawneebands foraged over thousands of miles from Wisconsin to Georgia. Their efforts toward unity fellfar short of what was needed to prevent their cultures from losing theirautonomy. Washington, DC: GPO, 1952.Ver Steeg, Clarence L. The Indians who occupied the coastal areas along the easternseaboard from Maine in the north to South Carolina in the south bore thebrunt of the initial waves of European settlement. Their origins were in the GreatLakes region where their closest relatives were the Sauks, Fox and Kickapootribes. Old fires wereextinguished and new ones lit. The Indian in America. This research paper discusses the cultures of Native American peoplesas they existed during the creation of the American nation from 1775 to1815. The mostimportant event was the Busk or Green Corn Celebration, an annual (mid-February) set of festivities at which attendance was mandatory. Women did not,however, directly participate in the deliberations of such councils and inthe Council of Elders, the highest body of the Iroquois League, and wereregarded primarily as useful for domestic chores. This Land Was Theirs. Iroquois communities in southeastern New York andnortheastern Pennsylvania were decimated by counter-attacks led by GeorgeWashington's forces in 1778-1779. Disputesinevitably erupted principally over white expansion into Indian huntinggrounds, crooked land grabs, broken white promises and Puritan attempts toconvert the Indians to Christianity. New York: Hill & Wang, 1964.Washburn, Wilcomb E. Warsassuaged grief and replaced those lost due to epidemics or in battle. Lawrence, a prophetic Seneca leader Dekanawidah, andhis able Onondaga spokesman Hiawatha, created the Iroquois League of FiveNations. After 1779, theShawnee nation was split between the warrior clans and others who turned toagriculture and assimilation on white terms. There was nothing lacksadasical about Creek upbringing and educationof youth. Society was organized around ancestral kinship under which five septsor clans predominated. Nichols. TheIroquois prized captives, who they nevertheless often tortured and killedin an exceptionally ferocious manner. His half-brother Handsome Lake promoted a return to traditionalvalues through his Good Message (New Religion), which included rejection ofAmerican schools, a return to subsistence agriculture, temperance, non-violence and greater respect for parental and tribal authority. The Iroquois alsoplaced great stock in the psycho-symbolic importance of dreams, which theybelieved were portents of the future, expressed inner drives, and providedan acceptable outlet for emotions in an otherwise highly conformistsociety. The shattered remnants of the Shawnee nation then undertooktheir final series of migrations to Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas, andTexas, ending up on reservations west of the Mississippi. New York: Bantam Books, 1992.Edmunds, R. As a consequence of the Revolutionary War,thousands of Indians, Miami, Shawnee, Mingoes (a renegade Iroquois tribe),Wynadots, Ottawans, Chippewas and others were threatened by the opening ofthe Northwest Territory to white settlement. . [but in] the 17th and18th centuries evolved a body of institutions that gradually began toassume the powers of nationhood" (xi). When the United States threatened to invade the Creekhomelands in defense of Georgian land claims, McGillivray negotiated theTreaty of New York in 179 which recognized some illegitimate Georgianclaims but also committed the United States to guarantee the integrity ofthe remaining Creek homelands. The Creeksadroitly played off the three imperial powers in the region, the French,the Spanish and the English colonies against each other throughout the 17thand early 18th centuries. Their combinedpopulation when the English settlements began in 162 was small, about25, (Gibson 186). All of them were significantlydisrupted and altered by contact with European settlers. The final chapter in Iroquois autonomousculture is a sad one, as settler encroachments supported by the Americanfederal government pressed them into smaller areas and eventually in theearly 18 s into reservations. Alcoholism, disease, land swindles,bribery and Indian greed and disunity sapped its vitality. They were wereultimately defeated by Virginia militia at the Battle of Port Pleasant,Virginia in 1774. On the other hand, cross-communityrelations in Councils operated through consensus.The Creeks were noted for their ability to exercise discipline and torestrain internal feuds at times of crisis. For mostof that period, the Iroquois tended to tilt toward the British, but theyused their central position to extract concessions from both sides. British forces and their Iroquois allies conducted manysuccessful operations along the frontier, but suffered a devastating defeatat Saratoga in 1777. Most of the Mohawks emigrated to Montreal.Atrocities committed by Iroquois and other Indians against frontiersettlements during the war inflamed colonialist sentiment against theIndians, who, after Great Britain was defeated at Yorktown, no longer hadany effective European protector in the East. Lawrence Valley and, to a lesser extent, among the tribesfurther inland. From east to west, the main nations of the IroquoisConfederacy were the Mohawks, the Oneida, the Onondaga, the Cayuga and theSeneca and, after 1722, the Tuscarora. Ed. Prior to the late 18th century when manyShawnee turned to sedentary agriculture, the Shawnees traditionallydepended on hunting and fishing for their subsistence. Roger L. Green said "McGillivray attempted tocentralize Creek government and to build a network of protective alliancesagainst the American republic" (33). The Politics of Removal Creek Government and Society in Crisis. Shawnees were known fortheir ability to manipulate adroitly shifting tribal alliances. According to Eckert,"they were extremely bellicose and not infrequently mercenary, reveled inthe sheer joy of fighting and were masters in the art of warfare" (1 ). By 18 they had lost most of their lands in Ohio and movedtheir main encampments to Indiana. The Indian cause in the Northwest Territory had been weakened by manyadverse effects of contacts with the Europeans. The Shawnee Prophet. According to Green, among the varioustribes which came to make up the Creek Confederacy, the population declinedfrom about 2 , in 15 to about 1 , in 17 (17). This outraged the Indians in these areas, most of whom weredependent upon the Iroquois for support, and who then raided frontiersettlements in Kentucky, Ohio and Western Pennsylvania. After 1778, most of the lower Creeks joined in raids on colonialfrontier settlements, as the British took the war south. Tecumseh persevered, andmade a valiant but largely unsuccessful effort to enlist the CreekConfederacy in his cause. The guiding principle of Shawnee society was harmony --with nature,within family and tribal structures and in the face of external threats.Justice was swift and often harsh, but in their internal relations, Shawneesought consciously to avoid confrontation. The Creek Confederacy The Creeks were originally a part of the early Trans-Mississippiculture and suffered from the depredations of De Soto's expedition.According to Green, the Creek Confederacy was "at first a loosely organizedalliance of independent and autonomous tribes, . The Indian Tribes of North America. Lincoln, NE: U of Nebraska P, 1982.Josephy, Alvin M., Jr. New York: Knopf, 1986.Oswalt, Wendell H. Towns were divided into white (peace) and war (red) designations.According to Green, "by accepting this dualism, and by creating dualinstitutions, the Creeks attempted to impose order without accepting theconsequences of concentrating power in the hands of a few" (7). By the mid-17th century Carolinatraders reached the Creek boundaries. A History of the Indians of the United States. The Iroquois also developed highly organized play, sports such aslacrosse, javelin throwing and foot racing and were fond of gambling. When the New England tribes realizedat the time of King Philip's War (1675-1676) that they needed to unitedforces, it was too late. According to Swanton, "from thebeginning of the French and Indian War until the Treaty of Greenville in1795 the main body of the Shawnee were almost constantly fighting with theEnglish or the Americans" (227). The Cayuga,Mohawks and Senecas supported the British and the Oneida and Tuscaroras thecolonists. However, the American colonists begansettling the area anyway. Pressures on them to leave entirely grewuntil finally Jackson as President organized their removal across theMississippi in the 183 s. They had reverence for animals whom they believed had souls, andnature generally. 5 Nations An Illustrated History of American Indians. A town which lost four consecutive games had to changesides. Similar fates eventually awaited the Algonquiantribes in the Middle Atlantic states, the southern Algonquians laterorganized in the Powhatan Confederacy in the Viginia Tidewater region andthe Tuscaroras (who joined the Iroquois in 1722 and moved north), and theYamasees, the Catawbas and other tribes along the Carolina coast. Its primary location was westernGeorgia, most of Alabama and the Florida panhandle. Creek towns were densely populated. The Shawnee had strong spiritual traditions, which were animistic inorigin. They subsisted on wild game and birds, wild berries andother plants, and corn, beans, squash, melons and gourds which theycultivated. They attracted many other tribes,such as the Natchez, the Muskogee who came from west of the Mississippi,the Seminoles in Florida, who later broke off from the Creek Confederacy,and a variety of tribes in the Deep South, including the Chickasaws totheir west, the Choctaws to the north, the remnants of coastal tribes fromthe Carolinas, and dozens of others. Although some of their chiefssigned treaties ceding Indian lands in Ohio to the settlers, the Shawneewere among those championing resistance. At first neutral, the Iroquois League split. forays" by the Virginia militia along the frontierin 1777. 1799) promoted Quakerism among the nations with limitedsuccess. Shawnee traditions were passeddown orally by shamans. Their traditional allieswere more pacific tribes such as the Susquehannock or the Miami whichdepended on the Shawnee for protection. The search for new huntinggrounds accelerated hostilities with other tribes, making cooperation withthem more difficult, and making the Iroquois more nomadic than previously.The introduction of alcoholic beverages broke down traditional morality anddiscipline. Social organization was based on matrilinear clans, persons relatedby blood through maternal lines. Iroquois had permitted private ownership ofproperty, but within a communal land ownership system which placed thewelfare of the community and the clan ahead of individual interests. The militant faction of the Upper Creeks, the RedSticks, seized Fort Mims, a federal outpost in Mississippi in July 1813while other Upper Creek warriors joined Tecumseh's raids against whitesfurther north. According to Gibson, "the IroquoisConfederation was reduced to shambles by American armies never again tomuster its awesome power" (258). While the men were in charge of hunting and fishing and war, thewomen gathered fruit and vegetables, and handled all aspects ofagriculture. David. The Creeks had two main centers of power,the Upper Creeks who inhabited the area along the Coosa and TallapoosaRivers and the Lower Creeks who were concentrated along the lowerChatahooche and Ocmulgee Rivers. Similar epidemic-induced population declines were experienced later along the Atlanticcoast, in the St. Clothing (deerskins and moccasins) was handmade from animal skins.Although the Iroquois were adept at burning timbers to clear land andincrease its productivity, the typical Iroquois village moved every tenyears either because the soil was exhausted or in search of better huntinggrounds (Oswalt 374). The Shawnee god was called Moneto who was assisted byGreat Spirits who took the form of females and animals. The Creek Confederacy was led from 1783 to 1793 by AlexanderMcGillivray, a wartime pro-British leader of the Upper Creeks and a half-breed (whose mother was a Scot). In the 157 s, prompted by the need to endinternal blood feuds and to counter the threat posed by the first Frenchprobings down the St. In general, the Shawnee were not much interested in theaccumulation of worldly goods. In the 16th and 17th centuries, the Iroquois found themselvesstrategically situated between the competing desires of the European powersengaged in the lucrative fur trade, France, Holland and Great Britain. Their Indian enemies were moreaggressive tribes such as the Chickasaw and, in the north, the Senecas andthe Mohawks. As in most hunting cultures, thedominant economic principle of organization was communal sharing ofproperty. Josephy said, however, that "the destructive impact of theslave trade disoriented numerous nations and engulfed the Indian world fromthe southern Atlantic seaboard to the Mississippi River" (223). Warfare served manyfunctions. Washburn said the participants in these ceremonies "couldact out infantile or otherwise forbidden acts" (23). Swanton said "the Creeks were aconfederation of a few dominant tribes and a number of subordinate tribes,each formerly independent" (1). Arlington Heights, IL: Forum P, 1988.----------------------- 22 They were built around a centralterraced square ground with sacred fires in the middle, the site of allceremonial and official functions. In the South, the 16th century Spanish incursions produced adevastatingly negative effect, mainly through the spread of deadly diseasessuch as smallpox, measles, and typhus against which the Indians had nonatural immunity and which decimated indigenous populations and hastenedthe end of the Mississippi culture. Richter said "participation in a war party was a benchmarkepisode in a Iroquois youth's development, and late success in battleincreased the young man's stature in his clan and village" (1 6). The Iroquois lived in close and intimate relationship withtheir physical surroundings. Accordance to legend, they encountered a huge waterserpent in the Great Water they traversed on the way to their homelandwhich represented evil. His efforts toward greater Creekunity were hampered by the Creek tradition of town autonomy and factionalin-fighting. Lawrence River to the northern banks of theSusquehanna River. [and only rarely] would deprive an enemy of itsland or wipe out an opponent entirely" (Dorris 3). Shamans also functioned as medicine men who treated the sick witha combination of incantations and prayers to ward off evil spirits andherbal medicines. The Revolutionary War at first split the Creeks.The Upper Creeks supported the British; and the Lower Creeks remainedneutral. Children were rarely punished and theirupbringing was in a nurturing node, what Eckert called a "paradoxicallypatterned and lacksadasical lifestyle" (53). Defeated tribes ortribes which accepted Iroquois hegemony were accepted as second-classcitizens. According to Washburn, "many of the Iroquois leaders [in the179 s] became great drunkards" (1 8). . Other tribes such as the Huron inCanada, with whom they warred over control of the fur trade, and theCherokees of the South were linguistically related. Civilgovernment made the decision between peace and war, but once war wasdecided upon, warrior chiefs had full authority to prosecute it. They were the keepers of the long houses, controlled thedistribution of food and property was inherited through them. During this period their leader, the SenecaCornstalk (d. The American Indian Prehistory to the Present. The migrations forced upon the Algonquian Shawnee nationpropelled it into a leadership position among the tribes in the NorthwestTerritory who were threatened by white settler expansion after theRevolutionary War and led to belated efforts to internally revitalize itsculture, but the Shawnee too by 1814 had lost their long struggle tomaintain their cultural autonomy. According to Farb, "the Iroquois village was constructed on flat landalongside a stream or lake, and was protected by a palisade of logs" (87).It was surrounded by cultivated fields in the center of which wererectangular wood frame long houses made of elm bark containing foodgranaries, fireplaced cooking areas and living space for a number offamilies of the same clan. . Over the centuries, a plethora of Indian tribes east of theMississippi evolved and developed a wide diversity of cultural institutionsand patterns of life, uniquely adapted and attuned to their naturalenvironment and historical circumstances. Then between 18 and 1814 anew Shawnee leader, Tecumseh, came to power who promoted pan-Indianconfederation, and with his brother, the Prophet, the moral regeneration ofthe Shawnee people through rejection of all foreign influences and a returnto the old ways. Some wars were fought to preserve orexpand traditional hunting grounds, others to avenge injuries or insults tohonor suffered by their clans, which acted as a primitive form ofretributive justice. Under theProclamation of Paris of 1763 which ended the French and Indian War, theBritish declared that the frontier areas beyond the Appalachians would beofflimits to European settlers. Edmunds said by the end ofthe 18th century, "traditional Shawnee culture no longer could cope withthe changes swirling against it" (25). Those that were not, such as the Pequots, were in the 163 s hunteddown and annihilated by local militias. At the village, clan and nationallevel, the Iroquois generally operated by consensus among the chiefs andelders convened in councils. Thecompetition between white and red towns was symbolized by the annual ballgames between them. Fate of the Creek confederacy. . Engagement in the fur trade had, however, negative effects onIroquois traditional structure. . The Formative Years 16 7-1763. Accordingto Washburn, "by the end of the 17th century the coastal tribes along mostof the Atlantic seaboard had been destroyed, displaced, or subjecteddirectly to European control. He tried to enlist Spanish aid againstthe Americans which enraged the latter. (Ed.). The federal land agent in Georgia Benjamin Hawkins encourageda growing division between the Upper and Lower Creeks which finally eruptedinto civil war in 1813. These Algonquian communities weresingularly marked by a lack of solidarity among the various tribes. Theyproduced a number of exceptionally able chiefs. Most of these tribes were relativelypacific, content to pursue sedentary farming, fishing and hunting and toparticipate in the fur and other trading activities opened up by theEnglish. It focuses upon the traditional cultures of the Eastern WoodlandsIndians, the Iroquois in the North, the Algonquian Shawnee in the NorthwestTerritory and the Muskhogean Creek Confederacy in the Deep South and Gulfregion. Mostended up along the Appalachian frontier in western Pennsylvania, the OhioRiver Valley and in Kentucky. For about 2 years, the League effectively promoted Iroquoisinterests by playing the European powers off against each other. For about a decade, the Shawnees' martial spirit revived,but they were eventually overcome by superior American forces under futureAmerican President, then Indiana Territory Governor William Harrison, atthe Battle of Tippecanoe Creek in November 1811. Iroquois Culture and Its Evolution The Iroquois nations inhabited the region between Lake Ontario on thewest and the Hudson River and Lakes Champlain and Lake George on the east,and north-south from the St. Women had unusual power in Iroquoissociety. TheIroquois proved themselves formidable in battle with their tomahawks andlater proficiency with muskets, specializing in making effective use offorest cover to mount hit and run raids. Lexington, MA: Heath, 198 .Green, Michael D. Arlington Heights, IL: Forum P, 1988, 81-95.Nichols, Roger L. According to Swanton, "there was scarcely a tribe that divided sooften or moved so much" (225). Arelatively small tribe, never numbering more than about 1 , , the Shawneewere adept at mounting raids and ambushes. Knepper said "the Shawneessuffered most from . West of the Hudson River, the relativelysophisticated, politically cohesive and militarily potent Iroquois cultureadapted successfully to the threats posed by the arrival of the white manfor several centuries. Religion was a powerful force in Iroquois society, both as a means ofenforcing the social order and as a means for achieving personal spiritualfulfillment. In the North and in Appalachia, their cultures furtherevolved in parallel with cultural adaptations to the arrival of theEuropeans. Thereafter, Debo said theCreeks were "a dispirited, and divided people, sunk in apathy, drunkenness,and economic stagnation" (98). New York: Knopf, 1986. Green described the Creeks' habitat as "a land of sunshine andwarmth, rain and trees, deer and corn" (1). Shawnees were known for theirhigh sense of personal honor and honesty. On the final day,all drank a viscous black liquid, which the colonials called Carolina teaand which physically and symbolically acted as a purgative so that pasterrors could be repented and the next year begun anew. Tecumseh's younger brother, who was known as theProphet, told the Shawnee people that the Europeans were "pale-skinnedinvaders" who had arrived from the water like the evil serpent "to threatenthe harmony of the Shawnee homeland" (Edmunds 26-27). Even though they had moreinfluence than in most Indian societies, Farb said "men were clearlydominant in society" (92). Each individual's clan had atotem represented by a animal, Wolf, Bear, Deer, etc., and a personalguardian spirit or oki which guided him through great tests or trials.Priests or shamans were elected and presided over important religiousrituals and ceremonies, such as the six major ones which commemoratedstages in the food cycle, Maple, Planting, Strawberry, Corn, Harvest andNew Year. Native Americans 5 Years After. The eldest woman in a clan had the controllingvote in the appointment of sachems to tribal councils. This deal lost McGillivray support among theLower Creeks because he had ceded their traditional hunting grounds. This later became known as the Black Belt, an area ideal forgrowing cotton. The impact ofthe Europeans on their cultures was devastating, and such adaptations aseach of the tribes studies, the Iroquois, the Shawnee and the CreekConfederacy, made only delayed the day of reckoning which the outcome ofthe American Revolution made inevitable. VerSteeg said "they were divided into warring tribes of varying culturallevels who spoke a bewildering variety of languages" (35). Even so, they were strong enough to have thrown theearliest settlers back into the sea, but instead co-existed with them,except for sporadic incidents. Creek clans were not organized along democratic principles. Whenthe French made a determined effort to gain control of the Ohio RiverValley, the Iroquois League supported the British who prevailed. In 1768, the Iroquois League under the Treaty ofFort Stanwix surrendered Iroquois claims to lands south of the Ohio andSusquehanna. Husbandslived with their wives and children in the matriarchal longhouse. If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.