During an Anglo-Iroquois conference an Iroquois headman approached the British superintendent for Indian affairs, William Johnson, with a special request. The headman relayed to him a dream he had had in which Johnson had given him “a fine laced coat” much like the one that Johnson now wore. Johnson asked the headman if he had really dreamed this, to which the latter affirmed that he had. “Well then,” the superintendent remarked, “you must have it.” Understanding the significance of dreaming and appreciative of Indian etiquette, Johnson removed his coat and presented it as a gift. Delighted, the Iroquois chief left...

In the spring of 1710, after an arduous journey across the Atlantic Ocean, a middle-aged Mohawk man named Tejonihokarawa arrived in the bustling London metropolis. He was part of a delegation of “four Indian kings” brought to London by two prominent colonists (fig. 1).¹ Treated as exotic dignitaries throughout their two-week stay, Tejonihokarawa and his peers enjoyed a bewildering array of sights. They held court with Queen Anne, sat for formal portraits, dined with dukes and admiralty, attended the theater, met with leading scientists and politicians, toured poorhouses and mental asylums, and attracted sizable crowds wherever they went.² The absence...

American-born artist Benjamin West captured on canvas a famous moment in the 1755 Battle of Lake George when William Johnson intercedes to prevent a Mohawk warrior from scalping the captured French commanding officer (fig. 2). Recently appointed as supervisor of the Six Nations, Johnson embodies the civilizing force of Europeans in the New World. With one hand placed on the Mohawk, he gently but forcibly prevents the attack. With the other hand he points the Indian away, literally and symbolically relegating him to the sidelines of the imperial landscape now that a British victory has been assured and native martial...

“An Indian makes 40£ & upwards yearly by hunting [furs] Winter, Spring & Fall,” Warren Johnson observed during his tour of the Mohawk Valley at the close of the Seven Years’ War. He detailed how hunters ventured to Canada, where furs were “plentier,” to ensure a greater recompense. Native women also produced goods for the local cash economy. Warren noted their manufacture of shirts, which sold at 8 shillings apiece. Young men sold their labor to colonists. Warren remarked how some performed manual labor on his brother’s estate. Many others exchanged soldiering skills for handsome “Rewards.” Collectively, the Mohawks generated...

In 1754, Theyanoguin employed a gendered slur to chastise the British for their tardiness in confronting the French threat. Deriding Britain’s past military performance “which was a shame and a scandal,” he drew on sexualized imagery to criticize them further: “look at the French, they are Men, they are fortifying everywhere—but, we are ashamed to say it, you are all like women bare and open without any fortifications.” Two years later William Johnson returned the insult when seeking to shame warriors out of neutrality and onto the battlefield; he accused them of behaving “more like fearfull and silly women...

At the height of the Seven Years’ War, William Johnson complained to his superior of “the intemperate, and imprudent sallies of prejudice and resentment which escape from many of our European Bretheren,” aimed toward Iroquois allies. He warned that “if not curbed,” such malicious expressions would “weaken the little Indian Interest we have left.” Indeed, throughout the war, incidences of discord and violence erupted along the New York frontier as soldiers, settlers, and Indians clashed. Tensions soared when each side resorted to killing the other. In July 1757, Johnson reported “the most difficult Jobb” he had attempting to quell Iroquois...

The close of the Seven Years’ War may very well have brought peace to the New York frontier, but it did not bring peace of mind to Oneida headman Canaghquiesa. “We have for sometime past heard that our Brethren the English were wanting to get more Lands from us,” he sighed in council with Johnson in 1762. The war was not yet officially over, but already settlers were petitioning for new lands and encroaching onto Iroquois hunting grounds. Speaking on behalf of the Six Nations, he pressed Johnson to “prevent your People from Coming amongst us . . . as...

In the 1770s, Iroquois “brethren” from neighboring settlements chastised the Kanowarohare Oneidas for failing to “live like true Indians.” Ever since the arrival of missionary Samuel Kirkland to their village in 1767, Kanowarohare Oneidas had undergone rapid baptism and religious conversion, causing others to urge them to “revive . . . old customs.” More was at stake than mere spiritual conviction. Under the stewardship of Kirkland some men began to take a more active part in farming and animal husbandry. Others became schoolteachers or Christian ministers. By appearing to relinquish the tomahawk for the plow, pen, and bible, Kanowarohare men...

“ ‘Westward, the Star of Empire takes its way,’ and whenever that Empire is held by the white man, nothing is safe or unmolested or enduring against his avidity for gain.” When Seneca Indian Maris B. Pierce spoke these words at a public meeting in 1839 in Buffalo, New York, he was referring specifically to the rising American empire. Just over fifty years old, this empire was in the throes of rapid territorial expansion aided in part by the 1830 passage of the Indian Removal Act. Unlike a century earlier, when their westerly position had protected them from colonial incursions,...