Indian Population at the Beginning of the Sixteenth Century

There is no positive proof as to the time when the Iroquois Confederacy was formed. It was probably at the beginning of the fifteenth century, or about a hundred year before Columbus crossed the Atlantic Ocean. When Europeans found it, it was powerful and aggressive. Like old Rome, the state was constantly increasing in area and population, by conquests and annexations. Had the discovery of America by Europeans been deferred a century longer, no doubt that republic would have embraced the continent; for the FIVE NATIONS, as the league was called, had already extended their conquests from the great lakes on our northern border almost to the Gulf of Mexico, and were the terror of all the other Indian tribes east and west of them. In unity was found their strength. For a time even the French in Canada, who had taught them the use of fire-arms, maintained a doubtful struggle against them. "Our wise forefathers," said one of their leading sachems to commissioners of Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia, in 1744, "established unity and amity among the Five Nations. This has made us formidable. This has given us great weight with our neighboring nations. We are a powerful confederacy; and by observing the same methods our wise forefathers have taken, you will acquire fresh strength and power. Therefore I counsel you, whatever may befal you, not to fall out with each other."

Like every other unlettered nation whose history is unrecorded in books, and whose origin is obscure, the Iroquois have colored their traditions of the beginning of the league with the hues of the supernatural or miraculous. Their story is only another form of the old story-older than the ages of history and as widespread as the race. It has come floating down the stream of time from Central Asia-the home of the true Hindoo-the Eden-the Paradise-the garden-which produced the root of the languages and the germs of the religion and laws of Europe and of the Caucasians of this continent. That teeming East is the mother of those historic myths in which figure, in divine grandeur, the founders of nations. Among these is Hi-a-wat-ha, the founder of the Iroquois Confederacy. Their traditions tell us that this personage, whom, in later years, they revered as the incarnation of wisdom, came from his serene dwelling in the skies, and took up his abode with the Onondagas, then the most favored of the Five Nations of the great Iroquois family, living within the domain of the present State of New York. The Onondagas occupied a central position, the Mohawks and Oneidas being east of them, and the Cayugas and Senecas west of them. Hi-a-wat-ha taught them the art of good living; the value and strength of mutual friendship and good-will, and the advantages of having fixed habitations and the cultivation of the earth. He was yet among them when a band of fierce warriors came down like an icy blast from the land north of the great lakes, slaying everything human in their path. He advised these related nations to call a council of their wise men for the purpose of forming a league for the common good, to oppose the destructive enemy. His advice was approved and immediately acted upon. The chief men of the Five Nations, followed by their women and children, gathered in great numbers on the banks of the Onondaga Lake. To the representatives of each nation was assigned a particular position in that council, with an appropriate title.

That was a notable gathering of gayly-decked savages at the dividing line between the woods and the waters. There the grave and dignified Mohawk of the east, met the fierce and fiery Seneca of the west, and all waited in silence for the presence of Hi-a-wat-ha, who appeared on the lake in a mysterious canoe with a beautiful and gentle maiden, his daughter. He landed on the pebbly shore, and as he and his sweet child ascended the bank, a strange sound was heard in the air-like a wind rushing by. In the far distant sky a white speck was seen, which grew larger and larger as it approached, in rapid descent, toward the spot where the great multitude stood. It assumed the shape of a monster bird. As it was evident that it was about to fall upon the council ground, the people fled in terror, all but Hi-a-wat-ha and his daughter. "Stand still, my child," he said, "it is cowardly to fly from any danger. The decrees of the Great Spirit may not be averted by flight." He had just ceased speaking, when the bird, an enormous white heron, with extended wings, fell upon the maiden and crushed her to the earth. Its fall was so violent, that its beak and head were buried in the ground, and the bird and the maiden both perished. Hi-a-wat-ha, though so suddenly and awfully bereaved, showed no signs of emotion. Not a muscle was moved by the calamity. He calmy beckoned to the warriors, who came forward and plucked the beautiful white plumes of the dead heron, and each placing one on his head, wore it as a commemorative decoration. Thenceforth, for many generations, it was the custom of the braves of the Five Nations to wear a white heron-plume on their heads when going out on the war-path, or as a national insignia and memento of the origin of the league.