Imperialism, Colonization And The Haudenosaunee

Imperialism/Colonization and the Haudenosaunee
The year of 1142 marked the formation of the Haudenosaunee; A year when the group of alliances was exempt of all the tangible social, political and economic legacies that historical globalization would later impose on them. Centuries before Europeans arrived, the area now called upper New York State was occupied by five First Nation tribes, the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, Prior to the proposal of creating a confederacy, these nations had their own separate territories, and were often at war with each other. After the collective establishment of the confederacy they called the Haudenosaunee, their political alliance and unity were destined to indestructible. The Europeans called them

After treaties were signed by Haudenosaunee chiefs, the British colonies began to impose policies and practices that restricted the Haudenosaunee from affirming their culture and way of life. Furthermore, diseases such as smallpox, measles and influenza brought by European settlers wiped out immense populations of the indigenous people. This resulted in the traditional bottleneck of the Haudenosaunee and limited the amount of culture that would be passed down. Due to the dominance of the Europeans, the Haudenosaunee were forcibly assimilated into European culture. As they were assimilated, they lost their traditional ways of life and adopted the western way of working, eventually resulting in a homogenized culture. Their strong connections to their culture, like farming the Three Sisters, matrilineality, and their native languages were all lost. Today, only 7% of the Haudenosaunee population speak their native language. Furthermore, the Dutch sent many Jesuit missionaries into the 6 tribes, starting with the Mohawk and converted one-third of the population into Catholic. This deterred many Haudenosaunee people from learning their own faiths, and has resulted in significant cultural loss. Additionally, the Haudenosaunee also changed their food habits and began to live “European” houses rather than their traditional longhouses. These negative effects were further amplified with residential schools in which they were not allowed to practice their tradition and were forcefully assimilated into the “western” ways. Boarding schools were run by the new white government and forcibly taught Haudenosaunee boys agriculture and manual trades, while Haudenosaunee girls were taught domestic skills. Since residential schools targeted younger generations, it made the Haudenosaunee’s traditional