Before Europeans landed in North America, five Indigenous nations around what would become New York State came together to form the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. When the Europeans arrived, the French called them the Iroquois Confederacy, and the English called them the League of Five Nations. Those Five Nations were the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas; the Tuscaroras joined the Confederacy in 1722. Some founding father of the United States, including George Washington and Benjamin Franklin admired the Haudenosaunee and incorporated their ideas into the U.S. Constitution. Despite that admiration, though, the United States government and the state government of New York did not always treat the Haudenosaunee with respect, and Haudenosaunee leaders had to navigate a difficult terrain in maintaining their sovereignty.  Today we’re going to look at the relationship between the Haudenosaunee and the United States through the stories of four individuals: Red Jacket, Ely S. Parker, Harriet Maxwell Converse, and Arthur C. Parker.
Joining me in this episode is Dr. John C. Winters, Assistant Professor of History at the University of Southern Mississippi and author of The Amazing Iroquois and the Invention of the Empire State.
Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “Falling Leaves (Piano),” by Oleksii Holubiev, from Pixabay, used under the Pixabay Content License. The episode image is “Red Jacket (Sagoyewatha),” painted by Thomas Hicks in 1868; the painting is in the public domain and can be found in the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution.

Additional Sources:

Haudenosaunee Confederacy

“Haudenosaunee Guide For Educators,” National Museum of the American Indian.

“The Haudenosaunee Confederacy and the Constitution,” by Jennifer Davis, Library of Congress, September 21, 2023.

“Indian speech, delivered before a gentleman missionary, from Massachusetts, by a chief, commonly called by the white people Red Jacket. His Indian name is Sagu-ua-what-hath, which being interpreted, is Keeper-awake,” Library of Congress, 1805.

“The Graves of Red Jacket,” Western New York Heritage.

“Red Jacket Medal Returned to Seneca Nation [video],” WGRZ-TV, May 17, 2021.

“Ely S. Parker,” Historical Society of the New York Courts. 

April 2, 2015

in From the Stacks


“‘We Are All Americans:’ Ely S. Parker at Appomattox Court House,” by Mariam Touba, New York Historical Society, April 2, 2015.

“Engineer Became Highest Ranking Native American in Union Army,” by David Vergun, DOD News, November 2, 2021.

“Building to be Named for Ely S. Parker First Indian Commissioner of the BIA Recognized,” U.S. Department of the Interior, December 15, 2000.

“‘The Great White Mother’: Harriet Maxwell Converse, the Indian Colony of New York City, and the Media, 1885–1903,” by John. C. Winters, The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, 21(4), 279-300. 

“Harriet Maxwell Converse,” PBS.org.

“Harriet Maxwell Converse,” Poets.org.

“Research and Collections of Arthur C. Parker,” New York State Museum.

“Arthur C. Parker and the Society of the American Indian, 1911-1916,” by S. Carol Berg, New York History, vol. 81, no. 2, 2000, pp. 237–46. 


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