The Iroquois in the War of 1812 by Carl Benn (review)

420 letters in canada 1999 includes a series of slight omissions and errors: Edward FitzGerald (sic, perhaps as in Fitz-Boodle?) without telling who he was, `the club' but not which club, and Valetta (for Valletta, the capital of Malta). The meaning isn't unclear but for a scholarly work like this it's a little fuzzy. (GILLIAN FENWICK) Carl Benn. The Iroquois in the War of 1812 University of Toronto Press 1998. xiv, 272. $50.00, $21.95 The goal of Carl Benn's work is to explain the military and diplomatic role of the Iroquois in the War of 1812. Although the Iroquois living outside of what came to be Canada are also considered, the focus is upon the Iroquois in Canada. To a lesser degree, Benn also touches on the impact of the war upon the Iroquois. Despite the oft-repeated nod in their direction in works on the war, a full-length study of the Iroquois role in the War of 1812 has not been written. Benn's book fills the gap admirably. Divided into eight chapters, the book begins with a general overview of Iroquois history to about 1812 and explains how the Iroquois came to be divided into communities scattered across modern-day Quebec, Ontario, New York, and Pennsylvania. This is followed by more detailed chapters outlining the functions and conduct of war among the Iroquois, the divisions among and between the various communities concerning participation in the war, the role of the Iroquois in key battles during the war, and the impact of the war on the Iroquois's political position in Canada and, to a lesser extent, in the United States. Benn's approach and thesis are in line with the new scholarship on Native peoples in the Americas. His work focuses on telling the story from the Iroquois's perspective and he makes a solid case for his view that the Iroquois fought to suit their own ends, which were to protect their culture, land, and political position. Of course not all the disparate communities in Ontario, Quebec, and New York agreed at every turn about how best to accomplish those ends. The disagreements were the product of local goals and ambitions, power struggles among Iroquois leaders, geographic locations B with proximity to the theatre of battle being a major factor B the vagaries of war, and the pressures brought to bear on the various communities by British and American authorities. Benn's analysis also leaves little doubt about the important role the Iroquois played in the war. Unfortunately, he concludes, their contributions did little to help them achieve their ultimate ends. After the war the Iroquois were increasingly marginalized as a people and as a political force in both Canada and the United States. Within the framework that Benn has created there is little to criticize. This is a well researched, well-argued, and well-written book, and it is accessible to specialist and general readers alike. One would have liked to see, however, a more sustained ethnographic focus on Iroquois culture. humanities 421 Benn makes the point that the war was a major turning point in Iroquois history and he accounts for the latter mainly in terms of what it meant for Iroquois power and the ability of the Iroquois to shape their future. But there is little concerted attempt to explore the socio-political impact of the war within Iroquois communities, upon the roles of men and women, decision making, and so on. Some of this is touched upon throughout the book, but one would have liked to see Benn do something akin to what he did in the chapter on Iroquois goals and practices of warfare in the early nineteenth century. There he engages directly the issue of the cultural role of warfare, and whether it had been modified by contact with Europeans. A similar approach to other issues might have allowed for a fuller explanation of the `Iroquois story' in the war. Nonetheless, what is here promises to be the standard work on the role of the Iroquois in the War of 1812 for some time to come. (JOSÉ ANTÓNIO BRANDÃO) Wesley B. Turner...