Hannah Graham

Cynthia Landrum

History 219

May 10, 2020

Iroquois vs. Cherokee

The Iroquois and Cherokee people had their own culture, political structure, and

lifestyle different from those of other Indian groups before Europeans came. From the

first contact with Europeans to the 1830s, much of the lifestyle changed for many tribes,

including the Iroquois and Cherokee.

The Iroquois people are made up of five tribes. Seneca, Mohawks, Onondaga,

Cayuga, and Oneida are all a part of the Iroquois people. These are the five tribes that

became the Iroquois confederacy in the 1400s-1500s. They spoke the same language

though each tribe had different dialects. Later in 1712, the tribe Tuscaroras joined the

confederacy. The confederacy had their own legislative, and the different tribes met and

could veto different decisions. In some ways, the United States Constitution was based

on the Great Law of Peace rule of the Iroquois confederacy (Birth of a Nation).

Longhouses were the lodging that all the Iroquois used for lodging. The Iroquois

were mainly farmers, and they relied on corn, beans, and squash to feed them (Birth of

a Nation). The Iroquois based relationships off of Matrilineages. Matrilineages means

that ancestry is traced through the women or matron. The Iroquois, while they were

peaceful to each other, they continually fought with their neighbors and defended their

nation as Iroquois instead of as separate tribes.

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 The Iroquois peoples' contact with Europeans was mainly peaceful as they

traded with the settlers, though there were a few skirmishes of fighting between the

Iroquois and Europeans. When the American Revolution came along, the Iroquois sided

with the British and lost to the European settlers. The revolution was one of the causes

that broke the Iroquois confederacy. This happened because Seneca, Cayuga,

Mohawks, and Onondagas sided with the British, while the Oneidas and Tuscaroras

sided with the Americans. Many of the Indians were either driven out or fled in fear

during and after the war. During the American Revolution, the American Armies burned

the Iroquois land to the ground, getting rid of any of the winter crops. After this

happened, a harsh winter ended with many of the Iroquois starving. Many of the

Iroquois left soon after to Canada while some stayed in their homeland as more and

more settlers came and took over the land. (Calloway).

The Cherokee Indians were known as one of the five civilized tribes. They had

their alphabet, constitution, and had a strong economy. Mainly the Cherokee people

inhabited the Appalachian Mountains. Before that, it is unclear except for the fact that

the Cherokee language is linguistically related to Iroquois. The Cherokee, like the

Iroquois, is a Matrilineages tribe. “The tribe was matrilineal; women had use of the land,

and one's clan membership came through the mother. A "beloved woman" and Council

of Women had substantial power, including the right to declare war, which led the British

to call the tribe "a petticoat government" (Stricklan, Renard).

The first recorded meeting of Europeans to the Cherokee was in 1540, where the

Cherokee people met Hernando DeSoto's exploration of the southeastern portion of the

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United States (Cherokee Nation). After the first initial contact. The Cherokee had

multiple run-ins with the Europeans. Some were violent, and some peaceful where

treaties were made.

When the American Revolution came around for the Cherokees, their land had

been reduced dramatically through treaties and selling. Many of the younger Cherokees

used the outbreak of the war to drive off the settlers and trespassers on the land that

had been there home for centuries. As the young Cherokees did this and continued to

attack more frontier settlements, the American troops retaliated. In the long run, the

Cherokee lost more land in attacking the settlers (Calloway).

After the American Revolution, the Cherokees and many other Indians while not

forced to move they continually lost more land and suffered as the hunting became

scarce, and more and more people moved into their country. By the 1820s, many of the

Americans pushed for the Indians to be pushed out of the country, and more and more

battles were fought. The textbook Major Problems in American Indian History has an

Essay from Elias Boudinot who was Cherokee. He wrote “It appears that the advocates

of this new system of civilizing Indians are very strenuous in maintaining the novel

opinion, that it is impossible to enlighten the Indians, surrounded as they are by the

White population…..how dare these men make an assertion without sufficient

evidence.” In the 1830s, the Indian Removal Act forced the Cherokee onto what

became known as the Trail of Tears. The Act removed all Indians to the West of the

Mississippi, and Cherokee walked from modern-day Georgia/Alabama all the way to

Oklahoma. The Cherokee nation lost more than a quarter of their population on this

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trek. Many Indians and leaders of tribes protested this Act, but many were assassinated

or forced to flee with the rest of their people

By the time the Europeans did make it to the American continent, they had

entered a world already filled with civilized people who had alliances and political

systems. The Iroquois and Cherokee were just a couple drops in the bucket compared

to every Indian tribe or civilization across the Americas. They were here before the

Europeans with their economies, political systems, and cultures. When the Europeans

came, more Indians died and suffered.

Bibliography

Calloway, Colin G. First Peoples: a Documentary Survey of American Indian History.

Bedford/St. Martin's, Macmillan Learning, 2019.

A textbook about the Indigenous people before the Europeans came and what

happened to them after. Uses essays, pictures and documents to show the

lifestyle and culture of the Native American. Spoke of both the Iroquois and

Cherokee Indians.

“Birth of a Nation.” Seneca Nation of Indians, Seneca Nation of Indians, 2020,

sni.org/culture/birth-of-a-nation/.

This article is written by the Seneca Indians who have recorded their history and

their perspective of the world then and now. Seneca Indians were and are a part of

the Iroquois nations. The source provides more outlook into the Iroquois tribe.

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Iverson, Peter, et al. Major Problems in American Indian History. Houghton Mifflin

Harcourt, 1994.

Textbook about problems in Native American History. Using documents and

essays written from different points of view and perspectives. Documents from

Europeans view, and Native Americans show how they views themselves and

each other. This takes care of the problem of hearing only one side to the story.

Stricklan, Renard. “Cherokee (Tribe): The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and

Culture.” Cherokee (Tribe) | The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture,

Oklahoma Historical Society, www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry.php?

entryname=CHEROKEE.

The website is written by the Oklahoma Historical society and provides in depth

information on the Cherokee Tribe. Diving further back into their history. This

source explains the events that lead to now day including the trail of tears and

even the beginning of the Cherokee people.