Susquehannock Location
Susquehanna River and its branches from the north end of Chesapeake
Bay in Maryland across Pennsylvania into southern New York.
Population
The original number is uncertain, since Europeans seldom visited their
villages. The best guesses of their population are somewhere between 5,000
to 7,000 in 1600 in at least five tribal groups. By 1700 there were only
300 Susquehannock. Their rapid decline continued until the last 20 were
massacred by a mob of colonists in 1763. There are, however, known
descendents among the Iroquois and Delaware. The famous Oneida sachem
during the American Revolution, Skenandoa, was of Susquehanna descent as
was Logan, a Mingo chief in Ohio. Another possibility is some
Susquehannock are believed to have joined the Meherrin (North Carolina)
during the 1670s. The Meherrin were later absorbed by the Tuscarora and
migrated as a part of them to New York in 1722. Currently, there should be
Susquehannock blood among the members of the Delaware, Tuscarora, Oneida,
and Oklahoma Seneca.
Names
Susquehannock appears to have been an Algonquin name meaning the "people of the Muddy River" (Susquehanna). Whatever name they used for themselves and their confederacy (if indeed there ever was one) has been lost. There are several other different names for Susquehannock which were commonly used by early Europeans. The French called them Andaste from their Huron name Andastoerrhonon. The Dutch and Swedes used the Delaware name of Minqua meaning "stealthy" or "treacherous." Eventually, they made a
distinction between White Minqua (Susquehannock) and the Black Minqua who
lived farther to the west and were probably part of the Erie. Variations
of these were: Andastaka, Andasto, Atrakwer, Gandatogué, Mengwe, Menquay, Mincku, and Minque. The English colonists in Virginia and Maryland called them the Susquehannock, but Pennsylvanians during the 1700s preferred Conestoga derived from Kanastoge (place of the immersed pole), the name of their last village in Pennsylvania. The Powhatan in northern Virginia may have called them the Pocoughtaonack or Bocootawwanauke. Although it is likely these peoples were Susquehannock, their precise identity is uncertain.
Language
Iroquian - reportedly similar to Huron.
Sub-Tribes
The Susquehannock appear to have been a confederacy of at least five
tribes with more than 20 villages. Unfortunately, the names of individual
tribes and villages have been lost. Names associated with the
Susquehannock are:
Akhrakuaeronon (Atrakwaeronnon), Akwinoshioni,
Atquanachuke, Attaock, Carantouan, Cepowig, Junita (Ihonado),
Kaiquariegehaga, Ohongeoguena (Ohongeeoquena), Oscalui, Quadroque,
Sasquesahanough, Sconondihago (Seconondihago or Skonedidehaga),
Serosquacke, Takoulguehronnon, Tehaque, Tesinigh, Unquehiett, Usququhaga,
Utchowig, Wyoming, and Wysox.
Culture
Almost completely forgotten today, the Susquehannock were one of the most
formidable tribes of mid-Atlantic region at the time of European contact
and dominated the large region between the Potomac River in northern
Virginia to southern New York. Little is known about them, since they
lived some distance inland from the coast, and Europeans did not often
visit their villages before they had been destroyed by epidemic and wars
with the Iroquois in 1675. The Susquehannock have been called noble and
heroic. They have also been described as aggressive, warlike,
imperialistic, and bitter enemies of the Iroquois. They may also have
warred with the Mahican from the central Hudson Valley. When he first met
the Susquehannock in 1608, Captain John Smith was especially impressed
with their size, deep voices, and the variety of their weapons. Their
height must have been exceptional, because the Swedes also commented on it
thirty years later. The constant warfare between Iroquian-speaking tribes
gave the Susquehannock a military advantage over their more peaceful
Algonquin neighbors to the east and south. Using canoes for transport,
Susquehannock war parties routinely attacked the Delaware tribes along the
Delaware River and travelled down the Susquehanna where they terrorized
the Nanticoke, Conoy, and Powhatan living on Chesapeake Bay.
The Susquehannock lived in a number of large, fortified villages (perhaps
as many as 20) that stretched along the Susquehanna River and its branches
across Pennsylvania into southern New York. How far west their territory
extended on the western fork of the Susquehanna and the Juanita Rivers is
unclear. It was, however, far enough that they were allies and trading
partners of the Erie in northern Ohio and the Huron and Neutrals of
southern Ontario. Little is known about their political and social
organization, but it can be safely assumed that it was similar to the
Iroquois who lived just north of them in upstate New York. There would
have been several individual tribes. Clans were almost certainly
matrilineal (descent traced through the mother), and Turtle, Fox, and Wolf
have been mentioned as possible names. Like other Iroquian tribes, the
Susquehannock farmed extensively. In the spring, they planted maize,
beans, and squash in the fields near their villages. After this was
finished, many groups moved south for the summer to temporary sites on
Chesapeake Bay to fish and gather shellfish returning in the fall to
harvest their crops and hunt.
History
Since the Susquehannock apparently had been good friends with the Huron
from times long before contact, it is possible they migrated to the
Susquehanna Valley from the north. The earliest village sites identified
as Susquehannock were located on the upper Susquehanna River and date from
about 1550, but they probably had occupied the region for at least 400
years before this. Although they inflicted a major defeat on the Mohawk
shortly before 1600, wars with the Iroquois had by 1570 forced the
Susquehannock south into the lower Susquehanna Valley. Hardened by years
of constant warfare, they overwhelmed the Algonquin tribes along the
shores of Chesapeake Bay and began extending their control southward. The
first European contact with the Susquehannock was in 1608 when Captain
John Smith (from Jamestown) was exploring the northern end of Chesapeake
Bay. This encounter was friendly enough, but Smith was wary because of
their reputation and awed by their size. His later reports described them
as giants.
The Powhatan also knew the Susquehannock (whom they called cannibals) from
painful experience, and when the English first settled Virginia, the
Powhatan had placed their villages well-inland to protect them from
Susquehannock war parties who ranged the coastline by canoes. One reason
the Powhatan were not completely opposed to English settlement at first
was that they provided additional protection, but the Susquehannock still
attacked the Potomac (Powhatan) villages in northern Virginia during 1610.
Drawn by the potential profits from furs, other Europeans came to the New
World during the early 1600s. Henry Hudson explored Delaware Bay and the
Hudson River in 1609 for the Dutch East India Company, and by 1614 the
Dutch had established a trading post on the Hudson River and were trading
with the Delaware on the lower Delaware River and Delaware Bay. From the
French settlement at Quebec on the St. Lawrence River, Étienne Brulé visited the Huron villages on Georgian Bay in 1611.
During 1615 Brulé explored the area south of the Huron homeland. Crossing the Niagara River, he reached the Susquehannock villages on the upper Susquehanna River, where he discovered the Susquehannock were more than willing to ally themselves with the French and Huron in their war against the Iroquois League. Friendly relations with the Susquehannock were particularily valuable to the French, not only for purposes of trade, but because they trapped the Iroquois between two powerful enemies.
Unfortunately, the new alliance alarmed Dutch traders on the Hudson River,
and they actively supported the Mohawk in 1615 against the Susquehannock.
Although they were relatively few in number and isolated by their inland
location, the Susquehannock managed to become an important trading partner
with all of the competing European powers - an achievement unmatched by
any other tribe.
Also handicapped by their inland location, the Iroquois first had to
contend with the powerful Mahican confederacy in order to trade with the
Dutch, and it took four-years of war (1624-28) before the Mohawk emerged
as the pre-eminent trading partner of the Dutch in the Hudson Valley. The
Susquehannock, however, had an easier time against the numerous - but
peaceful and disorganized - Delaware tribes who traded with the Dutch
along the lower Delaware. Beginning in 1626, the Susquehannock attacked
the Delaware and by 1630 had forced many of them either south into
Delaware or across the river into New Jersey. The Dutch accepted the
outcome, but when they began to trade with the Susquehannock, they were
pleased to discover the Susquehannock (skilled hunters and trappers) had
more (and better) furs than the Delaware. By the time the Swedes made
their first settlements on the Delaware River in 1638, the Delaware were
entirely subject to the Susquehannock and needed permission from the
"Minqua" to sign any treaties.
Meanwhile, to the south in Virginia, the English colonists in 1625 had
defeated the Powhatan, the only Algonquin confederacy strong enough to
have challenged the Susquehannock. It took another war (1644-46) for the
English to completely crush the Powhatan and take control of eastern
Virginia, so they had little time to concern themselves about the
Susquehannock. Unchallenged, the Susquehannock extended their dominion
south from the Susquehanna to the Potomac River and claimed the area in
between as hunting territory. They did not ask the tribes who lived
there. To remain, the Patuxent and Conoy (Piscataway) on the western shore
of the Chesapeake were forced to ally with the English in Virginia by
1628. This alliance was never tested, since the Susquehannock usually left
the residents alone as long as they did not challenge their right to hunt
when and where they pleased. The English in Virginia soon grew interested
in fur trade with the Susquehannock, and William Claiborne established a
trading post on Kent Island in upper Chesapeake Bay in 1631. The
Susquehannock by this time were able to trade with the French in Canada
(through the Huron), the Dutch on Delaware Bay, and the English in
Virginia.
The friendly trade relationship with the English became increasingly
strained after the settlement of Maryland by English Catholics began in
1634. For obvious reasons, the Conoy and Patuxent welcomed the new
colonists, and a Jesuit mission was opened that year at their village at
Piscataway. The reaction of the Susquehannock was not nearly as friendly,
especially when settlements began to move steadily up the western side of
Chesapeake Bay from Fort St. George on the St. Mary's River. A mutual
desire to trade kept the English and Susquehannock from open warfare for a
while, but steady encroachment eventually led to a series of incidents and
confrontations, including wars with the Conoy and Wicomese. By 1642 the
governor of Maryland had declared the Susquehannock were enemies of the
colony to be shot on sight. Attempts at peace in 1644 failed, and
Susquehannock trade with the English temporarily sputtered to a halt. In
1645 the Susquehannock ended their hostilities with Maryland and signed a
treaty ceding their claims in Maryland between the Choptank and Patuxent
Rivers.
The Susquehannock hardly noticed the brief interruption of trade with the
English. In 1638 Peter Minuit, a former Dutch governor of New Amsterdam
who had a new job, brought the Swedes to the lower Delaware River (claimed
by the Dutch). Minuit purchased land from the Delaware and built Ft.
Christina for trade and to block Dutch access to the Delaware Valley. It
should be noted that the Delaware needed permission to sell, and two
"Mingua" representatives attended the signing of their treaty with the
Swedes. While the trade with the English slowed between 1640 and 1645, the
Swedes more than made up the difference. The Susquehannock were also able
to continue trade with Dutch by using the portages between the
Susquehanna, Delaware, and Hudson Rivers to New Amsterdam.
Trading with all four European powers during the 1640s required that the
Susquehannock produce a lot of fur. They were skilled hunters and
trappers, but the huge demand kept them so busy hunting they had little
time left to continue their war of conquest against the Delaware and
Chesapeake Algonquin tribes. In west, however, it may have been different.
One can only wonder where and how the Susquehannock got so much fur, and
it is likely that, as the Susquehannock exhausted the beaver in central
and western Pennsylvania, they were forced to look beyond their territory
for more. Some was obtained from trade with the
Erie and Shawnee, but the
remainder probably came at the expense of encroachment and warfare with
unknown tribes in the Ohio Valley. The Beaver Wars (1630-1700) were a
period of intense intertribal warfare in the Great Lakes and Ohio Valley
created by competition in the fur trade. The Susquehannock were obviously
a major participant, but the most important confrontation was between the
Huron Confederation which traded with the French and the Iroquois League
which traded with the Dutch.
At first Europeans had been reluctant to trade firearms to natives and
restricted the number and amount of ammunition. This restriction dissolved
as the competition increased. When English traders from Boston attempted
to lure the Mohawk from the Dutch by selling firearms, the Dutch countered
by providing them in unlimited amounts. Suddenly much-better armed than
the Huron and their allies, the Iroquois began a major offensive, and the
level of violence in the Beaver Wars escalated dramatically. In the arms
race that followed, no tribe had a more advantageous position than the
Susquehannock. By playing on the fears of the rival European traders, they
had access to whatever weapons in any amount they wished. To say they were
well-armed would be an understatement. One of the Susquehannock villages
even had a cannon to defend itself, and so far as is known, they were the
only Native Americans ever to use this type of heavy armament.
For as far into the past as can be determined, the Susquehannock were
friends of the Huron and enemies of the Iroquois. Susquehannock alliances
and trade also extended to the Erie and Neutrals, with the result that the
Iroquois were surrounded by hostile tribes. Having exhausted the beaver in
their homeland, the Iroquois were running out of the fur they needed to
trade for Dutch firearms. Otherwise, with European epidemics decimating
their villages, it was only a matter of time before they were annihilated.
Their enemies, of course, were well-aware of this problem and refused
permission for Iroquois hunters to pass through their territories. Faced
with a blockade, the Iroquois were forced into a war where they needed to
either conquer or be destroyed. They concentrated their attacks on the
Huron after 1640, and by 1645 had succeeded in isolating them from the
Algonkin, Montagnais, and French in the east. There was a two-year lull in
the fighting following a truce that year, but in 1647 the Iroquois
launched massive attacks into the Huron homeland and destroyed the
Arendaronon villages.
Sensing that the situation was becoming serious, Susquehannock warriors
fought as Huron allies, while their ambassadors sent to the Iroquois
council flatly demanded a halt to the war. For some inexplicable reason
the Huron refused further offers of help from the Susquehannock and were
overrun by the Iroquois during the winter of 1648-49. The
Tionontati met a
similar fate a year later, and as the Iroquois absorbed 1000s of
captured warriors into their ranks, the Susquehannock were in grave
danger. In 1650 the western Iroquois (Seneca, Cayuga, and Onondaga)
attacked the Neutrals, and the Susquehannock entered the war against the
Iroquois. Whatever help they could have given the Neutrals was cut short
when the Mohawk attacked the Susquehannock villages in 1651. With the
Susquehannock unable, and the Erie unwilling to help, the Neutrals were
quickly defeated. The Mohawk, however, found the well-armed Susquehannock
a dangerous and stubborn foe. The war dragged on until 1656 with the
Mohawk (at great cost to themselves) slowly pushing the Susquehannock down
the eastern branch of the Susquehanna River.
The Susquehannock were suddenly alone. The French were powerless after
Iroquois victories over the Huron and Neutrals, and the Erie soon had
their own war of survival against the western Iroquois (1653-56). Hard
pressed by the Mohawk, the Susquehannock tried to strengthen their ties to
the Dutch in 1651 by selling them some land on the Delaware River, but the
Dutch remained neutral. The Swedes continued to supply them with anything
they wanted, but the Susquehannock had become involved in fighting with
Virginia Puritans that had settled in northern Maryland in 1649. Not able
to fight two wars at the same time, the Susquehannock in 1652 signed a
treaty with Maryland ceding much of the lower Susquehanna Valley to secure
peace and trade with English. Smallpox hit their villages during 1654, but
this affected the Mohawk as much as the Susquehannock and slowed the
fighting. For the Susquehannock, the major blow came in September, 1655
when the Dutch seized the Swedish colonies. Without their primary
supplier, the Susquehannock were forced to ask the Mohawk for peace.
Equally exhausted, the Mohawk agreed in 1656.
The Mohawk and their Oneida allies never fought the Susquehannock again,
but peace with them did not extend to the rest of the Iroquois League.
After finishing with the Erie, the western Iroquois turned their attention
to their only remaining Iroquian-speaking enemy. Besides the fact the
Susquehannock had aided the Neutrals, there was continuing aggravation
since the Susquehannock had given refuge to small groups of Neutrals and
Erie that had eluded them. This simmered and finally erupted into open
warfare in 1658. Badly outnumbered, the Susquehannock drew their Shawnee
trading partners into the fighting and enlisted the support of their
tributary Algonquin and Siouan tribes (Delaware, Nanticoke, Conoy, Saponi,
and Tutelo). The Iroquois first attacked the Susquehannock's allies:
dispersing the Shawnee and scattering them to Illinois, Tennessee, and
South Carolina. Then they struck the Delaware throughout the Delaware
Valley during the 1660s and effectively took them out of the war. For the
Susquehannock, the worst blow was a smallpox epidemic in 1661 that
devastated their population to a point from which it never recovered.
Still they managed to hold on. A treaty signed with Maryland ended the
lingering hostility with the English. The agreement provided firearms and
ammunition, since the Maryland colonists were well-aware of the value of
the Susquehannock as a buffer against the Dutch-allied Iroquois. With
English help, the Susquehannock were able to turn back a major Iroquois
invasion in 1663. The following year the English took New York from the
Dutch, and shortly afterwards formed their own alliance with the Iroquois.
Maryland, however, did not feel entirely assured by this and in 1666
renewed its treaty with the Susquehannock. Coinciding with another
outbreak of smallpox in 1667, the Iroquois made peace with the French and
their native allies and this allowed them to concentrate on their war with
the Susquehannock. With the support of Maryland, the Susquehannock fought
on in an increasing bitter struggle, but by the fall of 1669, they were
down to only 300 warriors and were forced to ask the Iroquois for peace.
The Iroquois response to their offer was to torture and kill the
Susquehannock ambassador who brought it.
It took the Iroquois until 1675 to defeat the Susquehannock. Driven from
Pennsylvania, the survivors settled on the upper Potomac River at the
invitation of the Maryland's governor. Actually there was no refuge for
them. The location may have been acceptable to a royal governor, but it
was deeply resented by the local colonists. After several depredations
(probably Iroquois), a 1,000 man army (actually an armed mob) assembled
under Colonel John Washington (great-grandfather of George). In direct
defiance of the orders of Virginia's governor, Washington's militia
besieged the Susquehannock in an old fort on the Potomac which they had
occupied to defend themselves against the Iroquois. Eventually the
Susquehannock were able to assure the colonists they were peaceful and
even offered six of their sachems as hostages as proof. Satisfied, the
English took the hostages and left, but on the way home, they learned of
other attacks in the area and killed the hostages.
The Susquehannock abandoned the fort, but launched a series of retaliatory
raids on the Virginia and Maryland frontier. Most of the blame for these
raids fell on the Virginians' Pamunkey and Occaneechee allies and led to
their near annihilation by the colonists during Bacon's Rebellion the
following year. Afterwards, the Susquehannock moved north but were
attacked by Maryland militia near Columbia, Maryland where many were
killed. Some managed to reach safety with the Meherrin in North Carolina,
but the remaining Susquehannock had little choice but to surrender to the
Iroquois in 1676. Under the circumstances, they were treated well. Under
the terms of the peace agreed to, the Susquehannock were settled among the
Mohawk and Oneida, became members of the Iroquois "covenant chain," and
their dominion over the Delaware and other former allies was also
surrendered to the League. During the years following, several
Susquehannock rose to leadership as Iroquois war chiefs.
Although treated with respect, the Susquehannock were not free. In 1683
William Penn attempted to sign a treaty with them only to learn that the
Susquehannock (like the Delaware) first needed Iroquois approval to sign.
Subsequent dealings by the Pennsylvania government concentrated on the
Iroquois and ignored the subservient tribes. By 1706 the Iroquois had
relented somewhat and allowed 300 Susquehannock to return to the
Susquehanna Valley in Pennsylvania. No longer a powerful people, they
became known as the Conestoga (from the name of their village). The
Iroquois kept a watchful eye on them and used their homeland as a kind of
supervised reservation for the displaced Algonquin and Siouan tribes
(Delaware, Munsee, Nanticoke, Conoy, Tutelo, Saponi, Mahican, Shawnee, and
New England Algonquin) who were allowed to settle there as members of the
"covenant chain."
Quaker missionaries arrived and made many conversions among the
Susquehannock. As Conestoga became a Christian village, the more
traditional Susquehannock left - either returning to the Oneida in New
York, or moving west to Ohio to join the Mingo. By 1763 there were only 20
members (all Christians) of this last identifiable group of the
Susquehannock. They were totally peaceful, but atrocities committed by
others during the Pontiac Uprising of that year outraged the white
settlers in the vicinity who just wanted to kill Indians - any Indians -
in revenge. Feeling this way they could have grabbed a rifle and taken to
the woods to find the hostiles, but there was an easier target closer at
hand. As feelings rose, fourteen Conestoga were arrested and placed in the
jail at Lancaster for their own protection. A mob formed (known as the
Paxton boys). They proceeded to the village at Conestoga, killed the six
Susquehanna they found there, and burned the houses. Then they went to the
jail, broke in, took the last fourteen Susquehannock the world would ever
see ...and beat them to death!