William A. Starna

Northern Iroquoian Slavery

This article argues that slavery was practiced by Northern Iroquoians in the context of what has been previously and exclusively described as an adoption complex. This conclusion is reached after applying Orlando Pattersons (I982) model of slavery to the ethnohistorical and ethnological data on Northern Iro- quoians. The constituent elements of slavery, rituals of integration and incorpora- tion, and the conditions of slavery are also discussed and documented.

From the Mohawk--Mahican War to the Beaver Wars: Questioning the Pattern

The Beaver Wars of the seventeenth century have long been viewed as part of a pattern of economic warfare waged by the Iroquois to wrest control of the fur trade from the Hurons, the northern Algonquians, and their French allies.1After years of discussion and debate, the conventional view was that the Iroquois fought to acquire furs not only for material profit and to keep themselves supplied with the European goods on which they had become dependent but also because they lacked their own furs, a sufficient supply of furs, or the right kind of furs to continue the trade. Moreover, it was the Iroquois who determined how and with whom the trade was conducted. Recent scholarship has cast doubt on this view of events and at the same time expanded these motives to include important cultural factors such as the need of the Indians to replace people lost to warfare and disease.2 In spite of the shift in thinking about Iroquois warfare, there has not been a reexamination of what is still considered by historians to be the first and defining example of a conflict fought in direct response to the European-introduced fur trade—the Mohawk–Mahican war of the mid1620s.3 Viewed by many as the precursor event to the Beaver Wars or, indeed, as their starting point, the Mohawks are said to have attacked the Mahicans to force open a desperately needed corridor to the Dutch trading post at Fort Orange; to obtain the trade goods on which they had become dependent; to control and restrict, when necessary, the access of surrounding Indians to the trade at Fort Orange; and to put themselves in the best possible position to pirate furs that other Indians carried to the French on the St. Lawrence River.4However, claims that the diplomatic, military, and,