By 1672, Indian nations in many parts of North America were responding to the impact of the invading European nations. Motivated largely by greed—the desire to gain and accumulate wealth in the form of precious metals, arable lands, slaves, and furs and hides— the Europeans and their colonies expanded, often creating conflicts both with and among the American Indian nations that they encountered. They sometimes justified their actions as being mandated by their religion.
Briefly described below are some events of 1672.
The Iroquois Confederacy
In the seventeenth century, the League of Five Nations, also known as the Iroquois Confederacy, was a powerful nation. Originally formed in the fifteenth century, the League was composed of the Seneca, Cayuga, Mohawk, Onondaga, and Oneida. Former Commissioner of Indian Affairs John Collier, in his book Indians of the Americas, writes:
“The plan was to renounce warfare between one another and to present an alliance against a warring world.”
The League dealt with matters of peace and war with other Indian nations as well as with the European colonists.
In 1672, the Mahican made peace with the Iroquois Confederacy and became a part of the Iroquois covenant chain which meant that they were subjects of the Iroquois. Wars and epidemics had reduced the Mahican population and their ability to defend themselves.
Religion
The European colonists brought with them a great religious intolerance. Missionaries attempted to Christianize Indians and to prohibit and even punish many aspects of Indian spiritual life. Sioux writer Charles Eastman, writing in his 1911 book The Soul of the Indian, says:
“The first missionaries, good men imbued with the narrowness of their age, branded us as pagans and devil-worshippers, and demanded of us that we abjure our false gods before bowing the knee at their sacred altar.”
In Wisconsin, the Jesuits erected a large wooden cross near the Potowatomi village at Green Bay. Later, a Potowatomi war party leaving to raid the Sioux burned the cross, feeling that its destruction would increase their war medicine. Historian David Edmunds, in his chapter in An Anthology of Western Great Lakes Indian History, reports:
“But the campaign against the Sioux was disastrous, and the war party was forced to retreat in humiliation. The Jesuits then seized upon the Potawatomi defeat to warn the warriors that they were being punished for destroying the Christian symbol.”
In Wisconsin, the Catholic priest’s cabin at Green Bay was burned by Indian women who opposed his attempts to convert them.
In New Mexico, La Purisima Concepcion de Hawikuh Mission was burned, and the missionary was killed. While the Zuni blamed the attack on the Apache, it seems certain that the Zuni assisted in the raid since it was directed at the missionary who did not tolerate Zuni religious practices.
Diseases
As contact with the Europeans intensified during the seventeenth century, so did the diseases which they brought with them. The diseases brought to this continent by the Europeans included bubonic plague, chicken pox, pneumonic plague, cholera, diphtheria, influenza, measles, scarlet fever, smallpox, typhus, tuberculosis, and whooping cough. It was not uncommon for Native people to encounter the deadly European diseases long before they encountered European people. For thousands of years, Native American trade routes interconnected the many diverse cultures on this continent. The new European diseases simply followed these trade routes, being carried by both the traders and their goods.
In Florida, an unidentified epidemic (perhaps influenza) struck the Native American populations in the northern part of the state.
Intertribal warfare
In Minnesota, a war party of 1,000 Huron, Ottawa, Fox, and Pottawatomi warriors were defeated by the Sioux.
Book
New-England’s Rarities Discovered, written by John Josselyn, was published in 1672. The book is based on Josselyn’s observations of the Eastern Abenaki in Maine. Anthropologist Kathleen Bragdon, in her book Native People of Southern New England, 1500-1650, reports:
“Critical of the Puritan hegemony at Massachusetts Bay, John Josselyn’s own writings were criticized in his time and by modern scholars for their occasional credulity.”
Indians 101
Twice each week—on Tuesdays and Thursdays—this series presents American Indian topics. More seventeenth-century histories from this series:
Indians 101: 350 Years Ago (1668)
Indians 101: Indian Events of 1666
Indians 101: 350 Years Ago, 1669
Indians 101: Canadian First Nations 350 years ago, 1670
Indians 101: American Indians 350 years ago, 1671
Indians 101: American Indians and Europeans 400 years ago, 1622
Indians 101: American Indians 400 years ago, 1621
Indians 101: American Indians 400 years ago, 1620