The Memory of All Ancient Customs: Native American Diplomacy in the Colonial Hudson Valley

5. Friends and Enemies

99 Chapter 5 Friends and Enemies It was a day of celebration. Under the auspices of the magistrates of Albany—who expended £300 in gifts to the Indian delegates on this momentous occasion—Mahican and Mohawk envoys concluded a treaty on November 8, 1671, that brought an end to the seven-year war between the Iroquois and “the Mehecanders and all their associates.” Also attending were a number of Pocumtucks or other Indians from the Connecticut Valley, old friends of the Mahicans and other Hudson Valley Indians and their allies in the recent war. These Indians had chanced to be hunting in the neighborhood of Albany. When NewYork officials learned of their presence, they invited them to meet the Mohawks at Albany. The formal proceedings included exchanges of gifts and the burial of a war hatchet, but the treaty ended with a drinking bout that left one Connecticut Valley Indian dead. In spite of this fatality, the war was finally over.1 The war with the Iroquois appears to have involved—to varying degrees— almost all Native groups living in the Hudson Valley, as well as their associates in New England to the east. The conflict also concerned people living farther west, as the fortunes of the war against the Iroquois was linked to the ongoing conflict between the Susquehannocks and the western Iroquois nations. This war was one of the few occasions when literate Europeans took a strong interest in inter-Indian affairs, and it therefore serves both to illustrate the connections that existed among the Valley Indians and to 100 Chapter 5 situate them in relation to their Native neighbors. Since the colonizers had little knowledge of Indian-Indian relationships, and were at any rate only interested in such affairs as far as they concerned Europeans, the surviving sources often produce the impression that Europeans always stood at the center of Native attentions. This was not the case. These peoples lived in a much more complicated world, and while Europeans constituted one of the forces influencing their political,military,and diplomatic decisions,they were not the only force. The Hudson Valley Indians were members of a larger northeastern diplomatic landscape,and their relations with people in neighboring areas were an integral part of their strategic outlook. The nature of the sources means that the full extent of these ties remain unknown,but it is clear that developments among Indians in neighboring regions often reverberated in the Hudson Valley, and that the struggles of the Indians cannot be reduced to a relatively straightforward struggle between Natives and Europeans. New england Indians Relations with people in New England to the east were an important aspect of the foreign policy of many Hudson Valley peoples,but these ties are poorly understood. In early 1650, the West India Company expressed dismay that the English to the east were planning to attack the Wappingers. New England sources reveal no such designs, but a few months earlier Roger Williams had heard rumors that the Mohawks had asked the English not to attack the “Dutch Indians.” Other evidence is equally obscure. An English report from 1646 held that an intimate of Narragansett sachem Miantenomie was planning to flee to Mohawk country after he had murdered an English official. On his way there, he would tell the “Wampog Indians” that Uncas of the Mohegans was behind the killing. “Wampog” could mean the Wampanoags , but their country in eastern Massachusetts was hardly en route to the Mohawks, and the English sometimes used the term Wampeage for Hudson Valley Indians. The meaning of both these incidents remains mysterious.2 Eastern affairs were especially complicated for the western Long Islanders . These people had close ties to the Indians of the Hudson Valley, but in the 1640s they were hesitant to join the war against the Dutch. Mediation by western Long Island sachems helped bring about the failed peace treaty of April 1643. When war broke out later that year, two Long Islanders went with De Vries to negotiate the release of a Dutch captive from the Tappans. The closeness of western Long Island to the center of colonial settlement may explain their reluctance to join the war, but the Long Islanders also FrIeNds aNd eNemIes 101 had to be mindful of developments to the east, where Narragansett sachem Miantenomie was seeking allies for a rising against the New England colonies . Miantenomie approached Wyandance of Montaukett (a kinsman...