THE NATIVE AGENCY
Final Paper for HIST 32100-R Early America
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The main actors in the formation of the later defined Americas were the Native Americans and the various European colonizers. Previous historic analysis sets the common narrative as one of constant European victory and expansion on the foreground of native death and destruction. It often constrains the expression of the native’s power during these first encounters and lends itself to the refined dichotomy of uncivilized versus the civilized. However, recent scholarship has proven that natives were integral players in almost every settlement, war, and treaty that laid the foundation of the United States. From the beginning, the native agency fought against the asserted social, political, and cultural exchanges that attempted to change their world. In turn, the Europeans also had to innovate their strategies along native practices and guidelines to further their imperialistic intents. The natives were anything but vulnerable to the European vision as their decisions acting upon their intervention were those that ultimately shaped their world to fit the mold of a new one their colonizers were constructing around them.
Although it is believed that the Americas previously received various contacts from Asia, India and even some European countries, it was not until the Columbus arrival of the late fifteenth century that mobilized the imperial movement that forever transformed the native world. The vast migration led to sudden human and animal settlement that was alien to the Americas. The microbes they carried proliferated an equilibrated land, disturbed the environment, and plagued native bodies. What followed was disease that spread and killed most indigenous peoples before they and colonizers even had physical contact. Wildlife stability was broken leading to a destruction of the food chain killing plants, the animals that fed off it and then the natives whose diets heavily relied on both. In this period of colonization, speaking of natives as one entity of people neglects the reality of the “range of language, economies, political systems, beliefs and material culture”[1] that filled the continent. The variety of tribes were so dissimilar that the natives themselves did not regard one another as a single people of “Indians.” However, due to the epidemics that destroyed everything with cultural and religious significance, and the depopulation of their tribes, they created new amalgamated communities rather than fall to total destruction. Instead of letting such powerful factors lead to their submission, their ability to use it as an instrument of agency to remain active communities for centuries of colonization reveals resistance. Their survival is crucial to later European affairs and proves they “were anything but passive victims unable to change. The profound economic, environmental and epidemiological constraints they face make their effects to rebuild Indian county more, not less significant.”[2]
It would be difficult to trim down Native American religion to a coherent definition due to the vast differences between each tribe. Despite this, most tribal religions held a theme in common, the spiritual world its significance and translation into the material world. Spirituality was believed to be in everything physical from the trees, to the fires, and to water. Thus, the desire to communicate between worlds was facilitated through the possession of items and through self-induced strategies such as sweat lodges and natural medicines. The arrival of the Europeans introduced new materials, drink, and food that were traded to natives as a means to help the living conditions of what they would define as uncivilized. This material assimilation by natives is seen latent in John Heckwelder’s “The Dutch Arrive on Manhattan Island”. Further from what is described in the title, the Dutch gift the natives with “beads, axes, hoes, stockings”[3] and most importantly alcohol. Although the Dutch found humor in the native’s incorrect use of their gifts as they used the pots for necklaces and stockings for pouches, it can be implied they were adopting said items with spiritual intent. In addition, they later fall under the intoxication of alcohol and wake feeling happier, possibly because its effects gave them similar experiences as their previous methods to reach the spiritual world. As expected, the Dutch would find backwardness in the misuse of these items, and the same must be said for the natives but the recount of this event reveals Euro-Native relations for the future. The European nations will learn the importance the natives held with such small items and therefore use their culture as the exchange for land and exploitation. In the centuries of colonization that attempted to change it, the natives will always hold their religion and cultural practices. They will also learn to use it during trade, treaties, and the Middle Ground and prove their agency against and between European forces.
The establishment of diplomatic relations between Europeans and Native Americans adds insight toward their deeper political, cultural, and religious dissidence. Both showed reciprocal attempts toward treaties and agreements that mutually benefited both and adapted into the other’s respective institutional molds. Europeans understood their different practices of making treaties and worked within these practices to reach agreements, especially with the looming threat of violence and war. Thus, the native’s powers were anything but powerless because they were still able to use their cultural processes of meeting, dialect and performativity, and symbolic gestures of gift giving. The language documented in such accounts of treaties play significant roles. For example, in one account of a meeting between European Sir William Johnson and the Iroquois, there are multiple uses of the use of the words “brethren” or “brother” by both sides, a term often used by the natives the signify equality.[4] The Europeans knew that they must use this language if they wanted to reach a neutral ground. Another example of showing the gravity of how deep traditional native culture ran through the colonies is the Covenant Chain. This symbolic chain represented Euro-Native permanent alliances and required tending to stabilize peace and trade through continuous meetings and gifting. It therefore “provided the Iroquois with the peace and security, the access to trade goods, and the dominant role among northeastern Indians they had long sought.”[5] Mainly practiced by the Iroquois’ Nation, it gave them power with the European nations in such a way that allowed them in turn, to rise above enemy native tribes. This atmosphere of competition between both the European nations and native tribes to each gain trading relations and recognition evolved to the complex network of the Middle Ground.
The Seven Years War of 1756 to 1763 was the conflict between the major powers of Europe and could be considered the first world war as it’s occurrence mirrored in the colonies. It’s counterpart in North America, dubbed The French and Indian War, is described by the ongoing rivalry of imperial expansion between the French and British nations. The war heightened the importance of making European-Native alliances and allowed the natives to utlize their autonomy to trade and fight with and against other colonists. The intermediate ground between these French and English settlements inhabited by various Native American tribes during this time is referred to as The Middle Ground. Not under the direct control of either empire, this complex web of natives were able to assert their sovereignty to participate in economic trade with respective alliances. This was however mainly practiced by the French as they held a deeper perception of traditional native cultures and the importance of exchange, language, and equality. Although written about eighty years before the war, the British colonists also recognized native tradition as demonstrated in a document by the governor of Rhode Island, John Easton where he expresses that “if the English be not careful to show that the Indians may expect equity from them, they may have more enemies then they would like, and more cause of jealousy.” [6] It is therefore interesting to note that both the British and the French were forced to accept the neutral power held by natives engaged in the middle ground.. However, as the war was coming to a close and the winner was becoming clearer, The Middle Ground began to shift and shrink, along with the power held by the natives within it. The peak of their agency thus dwindled when their main partners of the French lost and was expelled back to Europe. This does not mean that their influence was removed completely as they therefore moved their trading relationships between the British colonists and their mainland when they later demanded more independence.
The natives were anything but vulnerable to the European vision as their decisions acting upon their intervention were those that ultimately shaped their world to fit the mold of a new one their colonizers were constructing around them. The primary question in this actively changing colonial world was therefore, where do the Native Americans fit? The answer is simply, everywhere as they were the foundation on which European nations played upon and built a later America. From the beginning, the native people had “to find ways to incorporate European people, objects and ideas in Indian country on Indian terms – who adapted and changed in accordance with their own histories and traditions rather than in accordance with Euro-American scripts”[7] The flexible nature of the Native Americans made them able to amalgamate together, adapt and retain their culture to be flexible in their choices of trade and economy between Europeans. The agency they maintained against the powerful forces that aimed to change them allowed them to stay present and active before and after the establishment of the United State of America.
[1] Neal Salisbury, The Indians’ Old World: Native Americans and The Coming of Europeans,” 437
[2] Daniel K. Richter, Facing East from Indian County, 67
[3] John Heckwelder, The Dutch Arrive of Manhattan Island, 1609
[4] Accounts of Conferences and Treaties between Sir William Johnson and the Six Nations Iroquois, 1755-56
[5] Salisbury, The Indians’ Old World: Native Americans and The Coming of Europeans, 455
[6] John Easton, A relation of the Indian War, 1675, 10
[7] Daniel K. Richter, Facing East from Indian Country: A Native History of Early America, 252