Covenant Chain


The Covenant Chain was a series of alliances and treaties developed during the seventeenth century, primarily between the Iroquois Confederacy and the British colonies of North America, with other Native American tribes added. First developed in the New York area at a time of violence and social instability for the colonies and Native Americans, the English and Iroquois councils and subsequent treaties 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 to the Colony of Virginia.

History

The Covenant Chain is embodied in the Two Row Wampum of the Iroquois. It was based in agreements negotiated between Dutch settlers in New Netherland and the Five Nations of the Iroquois early in the 17th century. Their emphasis was on trade with the Native Americans. As the historian Bernard Bailyn has noted, all the colonies, Dutch and English, were first established to create profits.
Through the Beaver Wars 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. 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, and from the Canadian Shield south to the Ohio Valley.
When the English took over New Netherland in 1664 and established the Province of New York, they renewed these agreements. Conflicts erupted in New England in King Philip's War 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 Haudenosaunee, in August 1675, New York's Governor Sir Edmund Andros asked them for help in ending regional conflicts of the time in New England and the Chesapeake. He worked with the Onondaga leader Daniel Karakontie.
The term "Covenant Chain" was derived from the metaphor of a silver chain holding the English sailing ship to the Haudenosaunee Tree of Peace 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:

Treaties within the Covenant Chain

They negotiated the signing of several treaties that expanded the number of tribes and colonies involved:
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 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, 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. 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:

Dissolution of the Covenant Chain

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, in his "A People's History of the United States" discusses the taking of the Mohawk land:
of William Johnson was published in London in 1756, just one year after his attempt to renew the Covenant Chain.
The Albany Congress 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. 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 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 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 in commemoration of 300 years of the Covenant Chain. The bells were inscribed "The Silver Chain of Friendship 1710–2010". This marks the most modern renewal of the Covenant Chain Treaties between the Haudenosaunee and the Crown of Canada and provides a legal basis for recognition of Haudenosaunee sovereignty and international trade between the two nations.