Indigenous Nations of the Americas, 1650–1789: Diplomacy, Trade and Resistance

Nations, not backdrops

Old history books often treated Indigenous peoples as a backdrop to European empires. In fact, for most of this period, much of North America was controlled by Indigenous nations. European colonies hugged the coasts and the St. Lawrence. French, British and Spanish officials needed Indigenous allies, trading partners and guides, and they negotiated with Indigenous leaders as with foreign powers.

Indigenous nations also faced terrible pressures: epidemics (a smallpox epidemic spread across much of North America between 1775 and 1782), warfare intensified by European rivalries, loss of land and, in Spanish America, forced labour. This lesson looks at both: the pressures, and the strategies nations used to protect their sovereignty.

The Haudenosaunee and the Great Peace of Montreal

The Haudenosaunee Confederacy (Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga and Seneca; the Tuscarora joined in the early 1700s, making it the Six Nations) was governed by the Great Law of Peace. In the 1600s it fought long wars with the Wendat, the French and their allies over hunting territory and trade. From the 1670s it allied with the English through the Covenant Chain.

In 1701, about 1300 delegates from roughly 40 First Nations met the French governor at Montreal and made the Great Peace. The Wendat leader Kondiaronk, who had argued for peace, died during the conference and was given a great funeral. That same year, the Haudenosaunee also made agreements with the English at Albany. The result was neutrality: the Haudenosaunee kept the French and English competing for their friendship, a balance-of-power strategy that protected them for decades. The treaty was recorded both in French writing and with the pictographic marks of the nations' leaders, and in wampum.

Trade on Indigenous terms

In the fur trade, Indigenous nations were producers and middlemen, not just suppliers. Cree and Assiniboine traders carried goods between Hudson's Bay Company posts and peoples far inland, and insisted on gift exchanges, ceremonies and fair standards before trading. Indigenous women prepared furs and food (such as pemmican), guided, translated and often married traders, creating kinship ties that made trade possible. Families of mixed Indigenous and European ancestry formed communities around the Great Lakes trading posts in the 1700s; from such roots the Métis Nation emerged as a distinct people in the Northwest by the early 1800s.

On the Plains, the spread of the horse, first brought by the Spanish, transformed life. By the mid-1700s, nations such as the Comanche on the southern Plains and the Blackfoot in the north had built powerful horse-based economies. The Comanche controlled a vast region and dominated trade with Spanish New Mexico.

Treaties in the Atlantic region

The Mi'kmaq, Wolastoqiyik (Maliseet) and Peskotomuhkati (Passamaquoddy) nations of the Wabanaki Confederacy signed a series of Peace and Friendship Treaties with the British between 1725 and 1779. They did not give up land; they promised peace and set terms for trade. These treaties are still in force. In 1999 the Supreme Court of Canada (in the Marshall decision) upheld a Mi'kmaw right to fish and trade under the treaties of 1760–1761.

Pontiac's War, the Royal Proclamation and Niagara

After Britain defeated France in the Seven Years' War (next lessons), the British commander Jeffery Amherst cut back the gifts and supplies that had sealed alliances, and settlers pushed west. In 1763 the Odawa leader Pontiac and a coalition of nations attacked British forts around the Great Lakes and Ohio Valley, capturing many of them.

The British responded with the Royal Proclamation of 7 October 1763. It reserved a vast area west of the colonies for Indigenous nations and said that only the Crown could acquire Indigenous land, through agreements made at public meetings. In 1764, at the Treaty of Niagara, about 2000 leaders from many nations met the British official Sir William Johnson. Wampum belts were exchanged to renew the Covenant Chain. The Proclamation remains part of Canadian law; it is mentioned in section 25 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Resistance across the Americas

• The Pueblo Revolt (1680). In New Mexico, Pueblo peoples, led by Po'pay and others, coordinated an uprising against Spanish rule, forced labour and the suppression of their religion. They drove the Spanish out for 12 years. When the Spanish returned in 1692, they ruled with more caution. Pueblo communities and their religious traditions continue today.
• California missions (from 1769). Spanish missions gathered Indigenous people into settlements where they worked under compulsion; disease and harsh treatment caused very high death rates. Indigenous Californians resisted through flight and revolt.
• The Túpac Amaru II rebellion (1780–1781). In Peru, José Gabriel Condorcanqui, a Quechua leader who took the name Túpac Amaru II after the last Inca ruler, led a huge uprising against Spanish officials, the mita forced labour system and forced purchases of goods. Micaela Bastidas, his wife, was a key leader. In what is now Bolivia, Túpac Katari besieged La Paz in 1781. The Spanish crushed the rebellions and executed the leaders; tens of thousands of people died. Túpac Amaru II is remembered today in Peru as a symbol of resistance.