Uprooting the Tree of Peace

By Vic DiSanto

According to oral tradition, centuries before European contact, Iroquois nations in New York State agreed never to fight one another and to join in an alliance for mutual protection. Led by Deganawida, the peace maker, and Hiawatha, the Iroquois symbolically buried their weapons beneath a white pine known as the Tree of Peace.

The tree had four symbolic roots, the Great White Roots of Peace, spreading north, east, south, and west. If any other nation ever wished to join the League, it would have to follow the White Roots of Peace to the source and take shelter beneath the tree. Atop the tree, Deganawida placed an eagle to scream out a warning at the approach of danger. He symbolically planted the tree in the land of the Onondagas. Peace chiefs would sit beneath it and be caretakers of the Great Peace.

This powerful confederation and the Great Peace lasted for centuries, and its political structure even drew the admiration of Benjamin Franklin.

At the beginning of the American Revolution, the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, also known as the Iroquois, attempted to walk the fine line of neutrality. Made up of six member nations – Mohawk, Onondaga, Oneida, Tuscarora, Cayuga, and Seneca – the People of the Longhouse agreed to stay out of the white man’s war. In a formal ceremony the Onondaga buried the hatchet “so deep that no one would be able to find it.”

The Mohawk War Chief Joseph Brant (Thayendanegea) traveled to England in 1775 where the British government promised the Iroquois people land in Quebec if the Iroquois nations would fight on the British side in the forthcoming rebellion. Afterwards, Brant returned to the colonies and lobbied natives to fight on behalf of the British.

With Brant working on the Mohawks, the British turned their attention to the Seneca, holding a conference in July 1777 at Irondequoit, north of Rochester. At first the Seneca wanted to stay neutral. The British wooed them with rum, beads, bells, and ostrich feathers and urged them to fight on their side. The Seneca eventually agreed to join British forces, and each warrior was rewarded with a new suit of clothes, and guns, knives, ammunition, tomahawks, and brass kettles. The British then gave each chief money and promised bounties.

With the Iroquois’ tenuous neutrality cracking, the Oneida were quietly aligning themselves with the patriot cause and providing Reverand Samuel Kirkland with information as spies. The minister would convey the intelligence to General George Washington.

Eight hundred Iroquois warriors led by Joseph Brant/Thayendanagea, and other sachems, including the Seneca war chief Cornplanter, joined British commander Barry St. Ledger’s army. On July 26, St. Ledger’s mixed force of British regulars, Hessians, Loyalists, and indigenous warriors, totaling 1800 men, started their march eastward and by evening besieged Fort Stanwix, where Rome, New York is today.

A patriot force composed of the Tryon County militia and Oneida warriors, under General Nicholas Herkimer and the Oneida war chief Han Yerry marched west to liberate the fort. Aware that the patriots were advancing, a British force of Loyalist militia and Iroquois warriors left the siege at Fort Stanwix to confront them.

On August 6 at 10 am the British force ambushed the patriots in a ravine by Oriskany. Some of the bloodiest hand-to-hand combat of the American Revolution occurred. Many years later, the Seneca chief Chainbreaker recalled that “there I have seen the most dead bodies all…over that I never did see, and never will again. I thought at the time the Blood Shed [was] a Stream running down on the Descending ground during the afternoon.”

The British did halt the American advance to Fort Stanwix, but they also retreated and failed to join General John Burgoyne’s force at Saratoga.

The Battle of Oriskany shattered the Iroquois confederation and symbolically uprooted the Tree of Peace planted by the Iroquois nations centuries before. After the battle, British-aligned sachems delivered a tomahawk to the Oneidas, formally declaring war. Oneida and Tuscarora would ally themselves with the patriots, while Seneca, Mohawk and Cayuga would fight for the British. The Onondaga remained neutral until patriot forces attacked their lands in 1779.

Known as “a place of great sadness, the Battle of Oriskany plays a prominent role in the oral tradition of the Haudenosaunee, and to this day, pleas for condolence ceremonies are issued.

Today the battlefield is a New York State Historic Site.