Susquehannock


The Susquehannock, also known as the Conestoga, Minquas, and Andaste, were an Iroquoian people who lived in the lower Susquehanna River watershed in what is now Pennsylvania. Their name means “people of the muddy river.”
The Susquehannock were first described by John Smith, who explored the upper reaches of the Chesapeake Bay in 1608. The Susquehannocks were active in the fur trade and established close trading relationships with Virginia, New Sweden, and New Netherland. They were in conflict with Maryland until a treaty was negotiated in 1652, and were the target of intermittent attacks by the Haudenosaunee.
By the 1670s, their population had declined sharply as a result of disease and war. The Susquehannock abandoned their town on the Susquehanna River and moved south into Maryland. They erected a palisaded village on Piscataway Creek, but in September 1675, the Susquehannock were besieged by militias from Maryland and Virginia. The survivors of the siege scattered, and those who returned to the north were absorbed by the Haudenosaunee.
In the late 1680s, a group of Susquehannock and Seneca established a settlement on the Conestoga River in present-day Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, where they became known as the Conestoga. The population of this community gradually declined, and in 1763, the last members were massacred by the vigilante group known as the Paxton Boys. While there are a significant number of Indigenous people alive today of Susquehannock ancestry, including citizens of the Seneca–Cayuga Nation in Oklahoma and the Six Nations of the Grand River First Nation in Ontario, the Susquehannock as a distinct cultural entity are considered extinct.

Language

The Susquehannock were an Iroquoian-speaking people. Little of the language has been preserved. The chief source is the Vocabula Mahakuassica compiled by the Swedish missionary Johannes Campanius during the 1640s. Campanius's vocabulary contains about 100 words and is sufficient to show that Susquehannock is a Northern Iroquoian language, closely related to the languages of the Haudenosaunee and in particular that of the Onondaga. The language is considered extinct as of 1763 when the last remnant community of the Susquehannock was massacred at Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

Names

The Europeans who colonized the Mid-Atlantic coast of North America typically adopted the names that were used by the coastal Algonquian-speaking peoples for interior tribes. The Europeans adapted and transliterated these exonyms to fit their own languages and spelling systems, and tried to capture the sounds of the names. What the Susquehannock called themselves is not known.
  • The Wendat, an Iroquoian-speaking people, called these people Andastoerrhonon, meaning "people of the blackened ridge pole." The French adapted the Wendat term and called them Andaste, but later referred to them as Gandastogues.
  • The Lenape, an Algonquian-speaking people, referred to them by an exonym, Menkwe, from which Dutch and Swedish colonists derived the name Minqua.
  • The Algonquian-speaking peoples of coastal Virginia and Maryland called the tribe the Sasquesahanough, meaning "people of the muddy river." English settlers in Maryland and Virginia transliterated the Algonquian term, referring to the people as the Susquehannock.
  • In the eighteenth century, British colonists in Pennsylvania called them the Conestoga, referring to the settlement established on the Conestoga River about 1690. The name may be based on the Mohawk word tekanastoge, possibly meaning "place of the upright pole." Conestoga may also be the anglicized form of Gandastogue which is possibly the closest to what the Susquehannock called themselves.

    History

Protohistory

In the late 15th and early 16th centuries the Susquehannock lived in scattered hamlets on the North Branch of the Susquehanna River in what is now Bradford County, Pennsylvania, and Tioga County, New York. Of Northern Iroquoian ancestry, the Susquehannock became culturally and linguistically distinct before 1500.
A southward migration towards the Chesapeake Bay began in the second half of the 16th century, possibly the result of conflict with the Haudenosaunee to the north. The shortening of the growing season during the Little Ice Age, and the desire to be closer to sources of trade goods may also have been factors. The Susquehannock assimilated the Shenks Ferry people in the lower Susquehanna River valley, and established a palisaded village in present-day Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. An archaeological excavation in 1931 revealed that the village contained at least 26 longhouses. The Schultz site was largely abandoned due to overcrowding and depletion of local resources. A larger fortified town was constructed near what is today Washington Boro. The town is estimated to have been 250,000 square feet in size with a population of about 1,700 people.
Several smaller Susquehannock sites have been found in the upper Potomac River valley in what is now Maryland and West Virginia that date roughly from 1590 to 1610. Archaeological evidence also exists for a palisaded settlement 30 miles upstream of Washington Boro in what is now Cumberland County that was occupied from about 1610 to 1620.

European contact

The first recorded European contact with the Susquehannock was in 1608 when English explorer John Smith met with a group of about 60 "gyant-like" warriors and "weroances" at the mouth of the Susquehanna River, two days journey downriver from their settlement at Washington Boro. Smith wrote of the Susquehannock, "They can make neere 600 able and mighty men, and are pallisadoed in their Townes to defend them from the Massawomekes, their mortal enemies." Smith also recorded that some of the Susquehannock were in possession of hatchets, knives, and brass ornaments of French origin.
Significant Susquehannock involvement in the fur trade began in the 1620s. Because of their location on the Susquehanna River, the Susquehannock had access to English traders on the Chesapeake, as well as Dutch and Swedish traders on Delaware Bay. Furs, primarily beaver, were traded for cloth, glass beads, brass kettles, hawk bells, axes, hoes, and knives. Although many Europeans were hesitant to trade firearms for furs, the Susquehannocks began to obtain muskets in the 1630s.
In 1626, a group of Susquehannock travelled to New Amsterdam seeking to establish a trading relationship with the Dutch. Isaack de Rasière, the Secretary of New Netherland noted that the Lenape living on the Delaware River were unable to supply furs because of Susquehannock raids. The following year the Dutch established Fort Nassau on the east side of the Delaware River opposite the mouth of the Schuylkill River.
To trade with the Dutch, the Susquehannock had to pass through Lenape territory. English explorer Thomas Yonge noted that in 1634 the "people of the river" were at war with the Minquas who had "killed many of them, destroyed their corne, and burned their houses." By 1638, however, the Lenape and the Susquehannock had reached an accommodation, with the latter having been given access to trading posts on the Delaware. It is said that the Lenape became "subject and tributary" to the Susquehannock but this is disputed.
Contact with English settlers on the Chesapeake was limited until English merchant William Claiborne began trading with the Susquehannock. Claiborne established a settlement on Kent Island in 1631 to facilitate this trade, and later erected an outpost on Palmer's Island near the mouth of the Susquehanna River.
Relations with the English deteriorated following the establishment of the Province of Maryland in 1634. The new colony formed an alliance with the Piscataway, who were the frequent target of Susquehannock raids. The founding of the colony also disrupted Claiborne's trade alliance with the Susquehannock as he refused to acknowledge Maryland's authority. When a legal dispute forced Claiborne to return to England in 1637, Maryland seized Kent Island.
The focus of Susquehannock trade now turned to the newly established colony of New Sweden on Delaware Bay. Swedish settlers had built Fort Christina on the west side of the bay near the mouth of the Schuylkill River in 1638. This gave them the advantage over the Dutch in the fur trade with the Susquehannock.
Following a raid on a Jesuit mission in 1641, the Governor of Maryland declared the Susquehannock "enemies of the province." A few attempts were made to organize a military campaign against the Susquehannock, however, it was not until 1643 that an ill-fated expedition was mounted. The Susquehannock inflicted numerous casualties on the English and captured two of their cannon. 15 prisoners were taken and afterwards tortured to death.

Alliance with Maryland, 1651–1674

Raids on Maryland and the Piscataway continued intermittently until 1652. In the winter of 1652, the Susquehannock were attacked by the Mohawk, and although the attack was repulsed, it led to the Susquehannock negotiating the Articles of Peace and Friendship with Maryland. The Susquehannock relinquished their claim to territory on either side of the Chesapeake Bay, and reestablished their earlier trading relationship with the English.
In 1660, the Susquehannock used their influence to help end the First Esopus War between the Esopus and the Dutch.
An Oneida raid on the Piscataway in 1660 led Maryland to expand its treaty with the Susquehannock into an alliance. The Maryland assembly authorized armed assistance, and described the Susquehannock as "a Bullwarke and Security of the Northern Parts of this Province." 50 men were sent to help defend the Susquehannock village. Muskets, lead and powder were acquired from both Maryland and New Netherland. Despite suffering a smallpox epidemic in 1661, the Susquehannock easily withstood a siege by 800 Seneca, Cayuga and Onondaga in May 1663, and destroyed an Onondaga war party in 1666.
The Susquehannock abandoned their village on the east side of the Susquehanna and moved across the river to the west side. Their new village appears on Augustin Herrman's 1670 map of Virginia and Maryland. The Jesuit Relations for 1671 reported that the Susquehannock had 300 warriors, and described a rout of a Seneca and Cayuga raiding party by a group of Susquehannock adolescents.