Interviewees:
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Julie Golia
- Linda May Uris Director, Humanities and Social Sciences Research Library, New York Public Library
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Meredith Mann
- Interim Charles J. Liebman Curator of Manuscripts, New York Public Library
Upstate New York was the heartland of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy—also known as the Iroquois or Six Nations—one of North America's oldest political confederacies. The Haudenosaunee were experienced diplomats who had negotiated with European powers for generations and brought that perspective to the Revolution. The conflict forced an impossible internal choice: most nations, including the Mohawk and their war chief Joseph Brant (Thayendanegea), sided with the British, who had established the Proclamation Line of 1763 to restrain colonial land hunger. That decision fractured the Confederacy along nation lines, with lasting consequences. The shift in bargaining position is starkly illustrated by the two Treaties of Fort Stanwix: in the first (1768, with the British), Mohawk negotiators dealt from recognized sovereignty; in the second (1784, with the United States), American negotiators entered as conquerors and refused to acknowledge the sovereignty of any of the Six Nations.
