The Mourning Wars Come to Haudenosaunee Homelands, 1687–1701

This chapter discusses the final decades of the seventeenth century when the Beaver Wars came to Haudenosaunee homelands. Between 1687 and 1696, the French and their Indigenous allies from the Saint Lawrence River Valley and the upper Great Lakes mounted a series of invasions that targeted and destroyed multiple Haudenosaunee communities and food stores. Only Cayuga villages escaped attack. A decade of epidemics and extreme weather conditions in the 1690s further diminished agricultural productivity. Nevertheless, the last decades of the seventeenth century underscored Haudenosaunee freedom of movement and geographic mobility as well as a continued commitment to the gendered division of labor in mixed subsistence practices that varied with the seasons. Most important, as the century entered its final decade, Haudenosaunee leaders developed a new response to the imperial competition for Indigenous trade partners and shifted from warfare to diplomacy to engage in the market economy. Their diplomatic efforts culminated in the Grand Settlement of 1701 that ended the decades of violence of the seventeenth century and inaugurated more than four decades of relative peace throughout the Great Lakes. Notably, the emphasis on peaceful trade enhanced the status of Haudenosaunee leaders and villages.