The Covenant Chain was a series of alliances and treaties developed during the seventeenth century, primarily between the

Iroquois Confederacy The Iroquois ( or ), officially the Haudenosaunee ( meaning "people of the longhouse"), are an Iroquoian-speaking confederacy of First Nations peoples in northeast North America/ Turtle Island. They were known during the colonial years to ...

(Haudenosaunee) and the

British colonies A Crown colony or royal colony was a colony administered by The Crown within the British Empire. There was usually a Governor, appointed by the British monarch on the advice of the UK Government, with or without the assistance of a local Coun ...

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and th ...

, with other Native American tribes added. First developed in the

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

area at a time of violence and social instability for the colonies and Native Americans, the English and Iroquois councils and subsequent

treaties A treaty is a formal, legally binding written agreement between actors in international law. It is usually made by and between sovereign states, but can include international organizations, individuals, business entities, and other legal pers ...

were based on supporting peace and stability to preserve trade. They addressed issues of colonial settlement, and tried to suppress violence between the colonists and Indian tribes, as well as among the tribes, from

New England New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...

to the

Colony of Virginia The Colony of Virginia, chartered in 1606 and settled in 1607, was the first enduring English colony in North America, following failed attempts at settlement on Newfoundland by Sir Humphrey GilbertGilbert (Saunders Family), Sir Humphrey" (histor ...

History

The Covenant Chain is embodied in the

Two Row Wampum The Two Row Wampum Treaty, also known as ''Guswenta'' or ''Kaswentha'' and as the Tawagonshi Agreement of 1613 or the Tawagonshi Treaty, is a mutual treaty agreement, made in 1613 between representatives of the Five Nations of the Haudenosaune ...

of the Iroquois, known as the people of the longhouse - Haudenosaunee. It was based in agreements negotiated between Dutch settlers in

New Netherland New Netherland ( nl, Nieuw Nederland; la, Novum Belgium or ) was a 17th-century colonial province of the Dutch Republic that was located on the east coast of what is now the United States. The claimed territories extended from the Delmarva ...

(present-day New York) and the Five Nations of the Iroquois (or ''

Haudenosaunee The Iroquois ( or ), officially the Haudenosaunee ( meaning "people of the longhouse"), are an Iroquoian Peoples, Iroquoian-speaking Confederation#Indigenous confederations in North America, confederacy of First Nations in Canada, First Natio ...

'') early in the 17th century. Their emphasis was on trade with the Native Americans. As the historian

Bernard Bailyn Bernard Bailyn (September 10, 1922 – August 7, 2020) was an American historian, author, and academic specializing in U.S. Colonial and Revolutionary-era History. He was a professor at Harvard University from 1953. Bailyn won the Pulitzer Pr ...

has noted, all the colonies, Dutch and English, were first established to create profits. Through the

Beaver Wars The Beaver Wars ( moh, Tsianì kayonkwere), also known as the Iroquois Wars or the French and Iroquois Wars (french: Guerres franco-iroquoises) were a series of conflicts fought intermittently during the 17th century in North America throughout t ...

in the seventeenth century, the Iroquois conquered other tribes and territories for new hunting grounds and to take captives to add to their populations depleted from warfare and new European

infectious diseases An infection is the invasion of tissues by pathogens, their multiplication, and the reaction of host tissues to the infectious agent and the toxins they produce. An infectious disease, also known as a transmissible disease or communicable di ...

. The tribes in New England suffered even more depletion. The Iroquois expanded their influence, conquering or displacing other tribes from Maritime Canada west to the

Mississippi Valley The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it ...

, and from the

Canadian Shield The Canadian Shield (french: Bouclier canadien ), also called the Laurentian Plateau, is a geologic shield, a large area of exposed Precambrian igneous and high-grade metamorphic rocks. It forms the North American Craton (or Laurentia), the anc ...

south to the

Ohio Valley The Ohio River is a long river in the United States. It is located at the boundary of the Midwestern and Southern United States, flowing southwesterly from western Pennsylvania to its mouth on the Mississippi River at the southern tip of Illin ...

.Fred Anderson, "America: 'Into the Heart of Darkness'"
Review of

, ''The Barbarous Years: The Peopling of British North America: The Conflict of Civilizations, 1600-1675'', ''New York Review of Books'', 4 April 2013 When the English took over New Netherland in 1664 and established the

Province of New York The Province of New York (1664–1776) was a British proprietary colony and later royal colony on the northeast coast of North America. As one of the Middle Colonies, New York achieved independence and worked with the others to found the U ...

, they renewed these agreements. Conflicts erupted in New England in

King Philip's War King Philip's War (sometimes called the First Indian War, Metacom's War, Metacomet's War, Pometacomet's Rebellion, or Metacom's Rebellion) was an armed conflict in 1675–1676 between indigenous inhabitants of New England and New England coloni ...

in 1675, "the most destructive war" in seventeenth-century North America, in which more than 600 colonists and 3,000 Indians died. Nearly at the same time was Bacon's Rebellion in Virginia. Both resulted in widespread suffering and loss among Native Americans and colonists. Because of the standing relationship with the Iroquois and the extensive influence of the ''

'', in August 1675, New York's Governor Sir

Edmund Andros Sir Edmund Andros (6 December 1637 – 24 February 1714) was an English colonial administrator in British America. He was the governor of the Dominion of New England during most of its three-year existence. At other times, Andros served ...

asked them for help in ending regional conflicts of the time in New England and the Chesapeake. He worked with the Onondaga leader

Daniel Garacontié Daniel Garacontié (also Garacontie, Garakontie, Garakonthie, Garaconthie, Sagochiendagehté; died 1676) was a tribal chief of the Onondaga nation. He was converted to Catholicism by Jesuit priests and was considered by the French to be a diplomat a ...

. The term "Covenant Chain" was derived from the

metaphor A metaphor is a figure of speech that, for rhetorical effect, directly refers to one thing by mentioning another. It may provide (or obscure) clarity or identify hidden similarities between two different ideas. Metaphors are often compared wi ...

of a silver chain holding the English sailing ship to the ''Haudenosaunee'' (Iroquois)

Tree of Peace The Iroquois Tree of Peace finds its roots in a man named Dekanawida, the peace-giver. The legends surrounding his place amongst the Iroquois (the Haudenosaunee) is based in his role in creating the Five Nations Confederacy, which consisted of ...

in the Onondaga Nation. A three-link silver chain was made to symbolize their first agreement. The links represent "Peace, Friendship and Respect" between the Haudenosaunee and the Crown. It was also the first written treaty to use such phrases as: ::...as long as the sun shines upon the earth; ::as long as the waters flow; ::as long as the grass grows green, peace will last.

Treaties

They negotiated the signing of several treaties that expanded the number of tribes and colonies involved: * A 1676 treaty between the

Mohawk nation The Mohawk people ( moh, Kanienʼkehá꞉ka) are the most easterly section of the Haudenosaunee, or Iroquois Confederacy. They are an Iroquoian-speaking Indigenous people of North America, with communities in southeastern Canada and northern N ...

and the colonies of Massachusetts Bay and

Connecticut Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York (state), New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the ...

which ended

, as the Mohawk denied Metacom gunpowder and attacked his winter camp. It also addressed relations between the Iroquois and a number of other tribes, including the

Mahican The Mohican ( or , alternate spelling: Mahican) are an Eastern Algonquian Native American tribe that historically spoke an Algonquian language. As part of the Eastern Algonquian family of tribes, they are related to the neighboring Lenape, w ...

of the

Hudson River The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between Ne ...

, and the

Nipmuc The Nipmuc or Nipmuck people are an Indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands, who historically spoke an Eastern Algonquian language. Their historic territory Nippenet, "the freshwater pond place," is in central Massachusetts and nearby part ...

Mohegan The Mohegan are an Algonquian Native American tribe historically based in present-day Connecticut. Today the majority of the people are associated with the Mohegan Indian Tribe, a federally recognized tribe living on a reservation in the east ...

, and

Massachusett The Massachusett were a Native American tribe from the region in and around present-day Greater Boston in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The name comes from the Massachusett language term for "At the Great Hill," referring to the Blue Hil ...

of New England. * A 1677 treaty between the Five Nations of the Iroquois and the Delaware (

Lenape The Lenape (, , or Lenape , del, Lënapeyok) also called the Leni Lenape, Lenni Lenape and Delaware people, are an indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands, who live in the United States and Canada. Their historical territory inclu ...

), on one side, and the colonies of

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth are ...

and

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean t ...

, allied with the Susquehannock on the other, to obtain peace. Many of the Susquehannock migrated north into western New York, re-settling with the Seneca and Onondaga of the Iroquois. The treaties marked a new era in colonial history, in which the Chesapeake had nearly eighty years of peace. New York and the Haudenosaunee became the focus of English Indian policy. In the mid-eighteenth century, Sir William Johnson, Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the Northern Department and based in central New York, had great influence and was knighted for his service. Through the early decades of the eighteenth century, New England continued to have conflicts with New France and its

Abenaki The Abenaki ( Abenaki: ''Wαpánahki'') are an Indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands of Canada and the United States. They are an Algonquian-speaking people and part of the Wabanaki Confederacy. The Eastern Abenaki language was pre ...

allies, leading to years of raiding by both sides and ransoming of captives. In these agreements, the colonies agreed to hold negotiations generally at

Albany, New York Albany ( ) is the capital of the U.S. state of New York, also the seat and largest city of Albany County. Albany is on the west bank of the Hudson River, about south of its confluence with the Mohawk River, and about north of New York Cit ...

, under the auspices of the New York governor, as the covenant had first been established there. As a result, according to the historian Daniel Richter, "Iroquois and New Yorkers played dominant but seldom dictatorial roles" in the maintenance of these treaties. At a council meeting in 1684, Virginia Governor Lord Effingham used the phrase "covenant chain" to describe these agreements. The metaphor was continued by a Seneca speaker, who said: "Let the Chaine be Kept Cleane and bright as Silver that the great tree that is can not break it a peeces if it should fall upon itt." Later colonial administrators assumed that these treaties granted the English sovereign control over the Iroquois and other tribes involved in the chain.Richter, p. 43 The Iroquois did not agree with this and believed themselves at least to be equals. In a Covenant Chain council that took place in 1692, the Iroquois leaders asserted: ::You say that you are our father and I am your son... ::...We will not be like Father and Son, but like Brothers.

Dissolution

The Covenant Chain continued until 1753, when the Mohawk, claiming to have been cheated out of lands rightfully theirs in New York, declared that the chain was broken.

Howard Zinn Howard Zinn (August 24, 1922January 27, 2010) was an American historian, playwright, philosopher, socialist thinker and World War II veteran. He was chair of the history and social sciences department at Spelman College, and a politica ...

, in his "

A People's History of the United States '' A People's History of the United States'' is a 1980 nonfiction book by American historian and political scientist Howard Zinn. In the book, Zinn presented what he considered to be a different side of history from the more traditional "fund ...

" discusses the taking of the Mohawk land: The

Albany Congress The Albany Congress (June 19 – July 11, 1754), also known as the Albany Convention of 1754, was a meeting of representatives sent by the legislatures of seven of the 13 British colonies in British America: Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, ...

was called to help repair the chain. Colonial delegates failed to work together to improve the diplomatic relationship with the Iroquois, a serious shortcoming on the eve of the

French and Indian War The French and Indian War (1754–1763) was a theater of the Seven Years' War, which pitted the North American colonies of the British Empire against those of the French, each side being supported by various Native American tribes. At the st ...

. As a result, the British government took the responsibility of Native American diplomacy out of the hands of the colonies and established the

British Indian Department The Indian Department was established in 1755 to oversee relations between the British Empire and the First Nations of North America. The imperial government ceded control of the Indian Department to the Province of Canada in 1860, thus setting ...

in 1755. In a 1755 council with the Iroquois, William Johnson, Superintendent of the Northern Department based in central New York, renewed and restated the chain. He called their agreement the "Covenant Chain of love and friendship", saying that the chain has been attached to the immovable mountains and that every year the British would meet with the Iroquois to "strengthen and brighten" the chain. He developed great influence among the Iroquois and was later knighted for his contributions to development in the Northeast.

Commemoration

In June 2010, Queen

Elizabeth II Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; 21 April 1926 – 8 September 2022) was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until her death in 2022. She was queen regnant of 32 sovereign states durin ...

of Canada renewed the Covenant Chain Treaties by presenting 8 silver hand bells each to Band Chiefs from Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory and

Six Nations of the Grand River Six Nations (or Six Nations of the Grand River, french: Réserve des Six Nations, see, Ye:i’ Níónöëdzage:h) is demographically the largest First Nations reserve in Canada. As of the end of 2017, it has a total of 27,276 members, 12,848 of ...

in commemoration of 300 years of the Covenant Chain. The bells were inscribed "The Silver Chain of Friendship 1710–2010" (which was a common term often used throughout history when the Chain was renewed).

Notes

References

*Bailyn, Bernard, ''The Barbarous Years: The Peopling of British North America: The Conflict of Civilizations, 1600-1675''. *"Covenant Chain", ''Iroquois Democracy'', Portland State University, 2001. https://web.archive.org/web/20080819150237/http://www.iroquoisdemocracy.pdx.edu/html/covenantchain.htm * Jennings, Francis. ''The Ambiguous Iroquois Empire: The Covenant Chain Confederation of Indian Tribes with English Colonies''. New York: Norton, 1984. *George-Kanentiio, Doug. "Iroquois Culture and Commentary". Santa Fe: Clear Light, 2000. *Richter, Daniel K. and James H. Merrell, eds. ''Beyond the Covenant Chain: the Iroquois and their Neighbors in Indian North America, 1600–1800''. Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press, 1987. . *Taylor, Alan. ''American Colonies: The Settling of North America''. New York: Penguin, 2001. *Tidridge, Nathan. ''The Queen at the Council Fire: the Treaty of Niagara, Reconciliation, and the Dignified Crown in Canada''. Toronto: Dundurn, 2015. {{ISBN, 978-1-45973066-3. *Williams, Paul Charles. ''The Chain''. Thesis (LL.M.) -- York University, 1982. History of the Thirteen Colonies Iroquois Native American history of New York (state) Treaties of indigenous peoples of North America First Nations history in Ontario First Nations history in Quebec 1677 treaties 1678 treaties 1676 in the Thirteen Colonies 1677 in the Thirteen Colonies