Autorentext

Michael Leroy Oberg is distinguished professor of history at SUNY Geneseo and founder of the Geneseo Center for Local and Municipal History. His books include Peacemakers: The Iroquois, the United States, and the Treaty of Canandaigua, 1794 and Uncas: First of the Mohegans. He lives in Rochester, NY.

Klappentext

A comprehensive history of the Native American community at the heart of the Haudenosaunee

The people of the Onondaga Nation have lived in central New York State for hundreds of years. This is the incredible story of their survival and of the Nation's commitment to their land, rituals, and cultural values. Michael Leroy Oberg traces the Onondaga from their emergence, through the formation of the Iroquois League, and into the present day. Oberg describes how despite military invasions, outbreaks of epidemic disease, efforts to deprive them of their lands and traditional government, and attempts to eradicate their culture, the Onondaga have endured. Indeed, even today, just south of Syracuse, New York, the Central Fire still burns at the center of the Haudenosaunee Longhouse, and the site remains an Indigenous capital.

Drawing on meticulous archival work and interviews with members of the Onondaga Nation, this book not only sheds light on the resilience of a vibrant and influential culture but examines the intricate diplomatic politics that shaped the relationship between the Onondaga-and the entire Haudenosaunee Confederacy-and the emerging American states, and how the legacy of these early encounters continues to resonate in the twenty-first century.

Inhalt

Introduction: Carrington's Crusade

Book I: Rise
Part I: Creation Stories

1. On Turtle's Back
2. Ancestors
3. Peace, Power, Righteousness
    
   Part II: The Covenant Chain
4. Guswenta
5. "To Make of Them but One People and Only One Land"
6. The French Mission
7. Garacontie
8. The Covenant Chain
9. "Sovereigns, Accountable to None but God Alone"
10. The Grand Settlement
     
    Part III: Neutrals
11. Recovery
12. "Everything to Manage"
13. "A Subtle, Prudent, and Judicious People"
14. "Days of Great Perplexity"
15. "Obliged in Justice to Our Country and Our Families"
16. "Firm Friends, and Brothers to the English"

Book II: Fall
Part IV: Revolution
17. Destruction
18. Dispossession
19. Diaspora
20. The Fire Rekindled
 
Part V: To Exterminate the Nation
21. Patriotism
22. The Onondaga Problem
23. "Obliterate the Whole Tribe"
24. "Old Carlisle"

Book III: Rise Again
Part VI: A Nation Resurgent
25. Self-Determination
26. "The Hope of Self-Government"
27. "Sinister Purpose"
28. "The Indian Problem Is the White People"
29. The "Onondaga Indian Way"
30. What Kind of Nation

Conclusion
Notes
Acknowledgments
Index