The Seneca Restoration, 1715-1754: An Iroquois Local Political Economy

by Kurt A. Jordan

Overview

The Iroquois confederacy, one of the most influential Native American groups encountered by early European settlers, is commonly perceived as having plunged into steep decline in the late seventeenth century due to colonial encroachment into the Great Lakes region. Kurt Jordan challenges long-standing interpretations that depict the Iroquois as defeated, colonized peoples by demonstrating that an important nation of that confederacy, the Senecas, maintained an impressive political and economic autonomy and resisted colonialism with a high degree of success.

By combining archaeological data grounded in the material culture of the Seneca Townley-Read site with historical documents, Jordan answers larger questions about the Seneca's cultural sustainability and durability in an era of intense colonial pressures. He offers a detailed reconstruction of daily life in the Seneca community and demonstrates that they were extremely selective about which aspects of European material culture, plant and animal species, and lifeways they allowed into their territory.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780813059471
Publisher:	University Press of Florida
Publication date:	09/28/2008
Series:	Co-published with The Society for Historical Archaeology
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	448
File size:	5 MB

About the Author

Kurt A. Jordan is assistant professor of anthropology and American Indian Studies at Cornell University.

Table of Contents

List of Figures vii List of Tables ix Acknowledgments xi
1 Introduction: Colonialism and Decline in Eighteenth-Century Iroquois Studies 1
2 Local Political Economy 26
3 Toward a History of the Seneca Homeland, 1677-1754 49
4 New Ganechstage in the Library, Museum, and Archive 93
5 Archaeology at the Townley-Read Site, 1996-2000 121
6 Seneca Settlement Pattern and Community Structure, 1677-1779 163
7 The Logic of Dispersed Settlement 198
8 Iroquois Housing, 1677-1754: Terminology and Definitions 225
9 Iroquois Housing, 1677-1754: Archaeological and Documentary Evidence 247
10 Archaeology and Townley-Read's Economy: Faunal Remains, Red Stone, and Alcohol Bottles 278
11 Turning Points in Iroquois History: A Re-Evaluation 317
12 Conclusion: Archaeology and the Seneca Restoration 339 Notes 357 Bibliography 365 Index 401

Editorial Reviews

I became thoroughly convinced by Jordan’s argument that labor relations analysis explains many of the ‘cultural’ changes evident in the archaeological and ethnohistorical records.”—Ethnohistory



“This outstanding study is based on the author’s archaeological analysis of the Senecas’ Townley-Read site near Geneva, New York, as well as his thorough examination of the literature on the late-seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Iroquois. Anthropologist Jordan challenges numerous scholars, including Daniel Richter, who have maintained that the Senecas and other Iroquois were in decline by the early eighteenth century. . . . Essential.”—Choice



“Quite eloquently challenges the tropes of decline in accepted Iroquois scholarship. . . . By using archaeological methodologies and a new evaluation of documentary source material, combined with a critical analysis of modern scholarship, Jordan produces new critical interpretations that cause the reader and observer of the Haudenosaunee to step back and engage the much larger picture being presented.”—American Indian Culture and Research Journal



“Provides a long overdue and thorough reinterpretation of eighteenth-century Iroquoian history. [Jordan] successfully situates the Iroquois as active agents in directing their own destiny, and he drives home the point that scholars cannot take a single Iroquois tribe and use it as a model for what happened throughout Iroquoia during the colonial period.”—Historical Archaeology

From the Publisher