Irokesenland

Irokesenland
Province of Irokesenland
Joedzjadē kanohsē ga
Location of Irokesenland
Established	1816
Capital	Bloemendael
Largest City	Bloemendael
Languages	Amerikaens (official) Irokees

Irokesenland (Amerikaens: Irokesenlandt, Irokees: Joedzjadē kanohsē ga, lit. 'lands characterised by the longhouse') is a province of the Federation of Tussenland. Founded as a Dutch protectorate in 1816, it was inaugurated as a province in 1861.

History

The Hoodenoshieöné

Since medieval times, the Hoodenoshieöné Confederation dominated what is now western New Netherland as well as parts of Meerenland and Irokesenland. The state abided by the Great Constitution and was governed by the Grand Council, an assembly of fifty lords (Irokees: sadjem). Starting in the early 17th century, they established trade with the Netherlands and France.

Treaty of Perpetual Alliance

In 1658, the Netherlands signed the Treaty of Perpetual Alliance with the Hoodenoshieöné. This treaty stipulated several terms;

• Dutch recognition of Iroquois sovereignty,
• Recognition of a mutually beneficial trade partnership,
• and a 'perpetual' mutual defense treaty.

This treaty also allowed the Dutch West India Company to build forts in Hoodenoshieöné territory. Additionally, the treaty forbade Europeans from permanently settling inside the Confederation.

The Confederation accused the Dutch of not obiding by the treaty during the Quiripi Wars. Despite this initial tension, the Treaty was invoked during the Second Anglo-Dutch War.

Wars and expansion

In the late 17th century, the Hoodenoshieöné attacked and pillaged what is now northern Irokesenland, driving the local Ilinieuweck northwest. With the Netherlands' support, the Hoodenoshieöné were able to stop the French from expanding down south during the Beaver Wars. At one point, they came close to sacking the settlement of Montréal. In the 1690s, peace was made with the French. The Hoodenoshieöné victory during the war put the Dutch in a prime position to launch various explorations and expeditions down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers and subsequently claim a large portion of North America's interior.

The Great Migration

By the dawn of the 19th century, Hoodenoshieöné territory had spanned from the southern coast of Lake Ontario to the confluence point of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. Settlers from New Netherland were pouring into the Confederation, despite the treaty back in 1658 forbidding the Dutch from creating new settlements. By 1780, more than half of the Confederation's territories had Dutch settlers living on them.

When New Netherland declared independence from the Dutch in 1796, New Netherland claimed territory as far west as 82 degrees west. This claim included parts of the Iroquoian homeland. The Iroquois initially remained neutral, hoping that the Dutch Republic would eventually regain control of New Netherland. However, with the French steamrolling the Dutch Republic during the French revolution, the Dutch Republic never regained control of New Netherland.

The Iroquois had to act. The Iroquois Grand Council was convened multiple times throughout the late 1790s and early 1800s over the matter. The Onatouwacka and Cajuckonoo nations saw it necessary to flee southwest to their hunting grounds, away from New Netherland's influence and land claims, as the only way to protect their sovereignty. Furthermore, they feared that if they become part of New Netherland, the New Netherland government would stop paying the land leases, especially now that New Netherland was no longer subject to Dutch laws protecting the Iroquois. However, the other Iroquois nations (the Mohawk, Onondaga and Oneida) wished to remain in their traditional homeland. There was increasing political tension between the Cajuckonoo and the Oneida, who, under the Iroquois' Grand Council system, had to reach a consensus before a final decision could be passed. The differing stances led to political deadlock, and the council had to dismiss and reconvene multiple times. Tensions between the Iroquois nations even became tenser as the Onondaga showed interest in the invitation to join New Netherland, offered by the New Netherland government led by Marÿn van Beeke. Eventually, it became clear that the grand council could not make a decision. In 1805, the Cayuga and Seneca migrated south and escaped into their southwest hunting grounds without the other Iroquois nations' approval. This effectively marked the end of the Hoodenoshieöné Confederation.

The Protectorate of Irokesenlandt (1816)

After the Kingdom of the Netherlands was created in 1814, the fledgling kingdom still recognized the Treaty of Perpetual Alliance with the Hoodenoshieöné. Together with the Dutch West India Company, the Netherlands offered the Cajuckonoo and Onatouwacka land within the Tussenland colony, which they could rule with autonomy. In 1816, the Irokesenlandt Land Grant Treaty was signed in Fort Hedel by the Dutch West India Company, the Kingdom of the Netherlands, and the three nations' sachems, giving the Iroquois the southern half of Iroksenlandt. The treaty officially recognized the Cajuckonoo and Onatouwacka ruling autonomously within the Tussenland colony.

This land grant put the Kingdom of the Netherlands in a strong position against the Iroquois. The Iroquois' status as a sovereign nation became moot. The Royal Tussenland Company manipulating Iroquois policy would be a common trend throughout the 19th century, including the controversial strong-arming and pressuring of the Dutch to sell the eastern part Irokesenlandt to Virginia in 1848 in an attempt to avoid war with the British. In the same year, the Cajuckonoo and Onatouwacka recognized Dutch suzerainty, creating the Protectorate of Irokesenlandt (known in English as the Iroquois Country).

Wars against the Sioux, Sjouwanacki (Shawnee) and Tsjickasja (Chickasaw)

As the 19th century progressed, the Cajuckonoo and Onatouwacka launched several wars against the peoples inhabiting their new territory. They waged war against the Siouan peoples of the Nieuwkonscka (Osage), Ockapa (Osage), and also the southeastern peoples of the Tsjickasja and the Sjouwanacki. This period, known as the Iroksenlandt Wars period (1816-1840), was one of the darkest times in Irokesenland history. Thousands of non-Iroquois died during the conflict, while some of the women and children who survived were assimilated into the Iroquois nation to sustain their population, very much reminiscent of the Beaver Wars against the Algonquins in the 17th century. The Dutch, who had favored the Iroquois peoples, did very little to stop the Iroquois in committing these atrocities. Eventually, the Dutch offered parcels of land west of Iroquois country to the displaced peoples, in what is now called Opdamsland.

Migration of the Appalachian Iroquois

In 1848, the Dutch sold land west of the Appalachian Mountain Range to the British, in an effort to prevent war over the contested region. The Iroquois who had lived there, namely the Ojateckeronoo (Cherokee), Tsjerohacka (Nottoway), Kouintsjacka (Meherrin), and the Scharoerieacka (Tuscarora), who were all southern Iroquois people, were moved to the western Iroquois country, south of Cajuckonoo land. These tribes, while still Iroquois peoples, were at the mercy of the Cajuckonoo and the Ojateckeronoo.

Rise of the Pan-Irokees Ideology

Over the entire 19th century, the Iroquois society had morphed into something completely different than what they had before the Europeans arrived. The trade and alliance with the Dutch led to heavy intermingling and intermarriages between their societies, and a growing mixed-race population, called the Irokees, was starting gain dominance. The shift towards western cultural styles were catalyzed by the creation of the Irokesenland protectorate. Irokees people adopted many of the cultural practices of the Dutch, such as Christianity, market participation, written constitutions, the gradual shift towards a patrilineal society, and even slavery, but had not abandoned their strong Iroquois identity. The borders within Irokesenland, originally intended as the boundaries between the various Iroquois nations, gradually became nothing more than ordinary administrative divisions as a new Irokees identity grew and tribal divisions were becoming less apparent.

By the late 1850s, Irokees nationalism was at a high. The colonial dependence on the Dutch led to desires for self-determination and independence. Irokesenland was not alone in their quest for self-rule. Other colonies of the Dutch, like the Francohponic Meerenland colony in the Great Lakes, also experienced unrest. In 1859, Irokesenland nationalists joined forces with the Francophone Meerenlander rebels in the north. Together, they participated in an insurrection that led to colonial reforms by the Dutch in 1861.

In 1861, the four (original) colonies of the Dutch in America, coalesced into what is know known as the Federation of Tussenland, with high degrees of self-rule, butwith the Dutch monarch as its head of state.