Book Description

"Iroquois treaty-making has had enormous significance in American history, even to the present day. But until now, we have not had a comprehensive collection of treaty documents and systematic study of the Iroquois treaty procedure. This book brings the research of negotiations carried on by the Dutch, English, French, and Americans with the Iroquois to a new level of sophistication. Since September 1978, the D'Arcy McNickle Center for the History of the American at Chicago's Newberry Library has directed a project funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities to compile and publish a documentary history of the Iroquois. The results of this undertaking are: (1) a comprehensive microform corpus of Iroquois treaties and related documents, (2) a printed calendar and index to the treaties, and (3) this reference guide to the treaties and their meanings. In addition to summary essays by Francis Jennings on history and background, William N. Fenton on Culture, Mary A. Drake on structure, Robert J. Surtees on Canada, and Michael K. Foster on linguistics, the editors have included a sample treaty with analytical commentary. They have drawn together a list of participants in Iroquois treaties, figures of speech in political rhetoric, a gazetteer of place names and their modern equivalents, maps of areas important to treaty-making, a descriptive treaty calendar listing negotiations involving Iroquois Indians 1613-1913, and a select bibliography. This books makes the rich array of treaty documents accessible to the informed lay reader. Its publication is a landmark in Iroquois studies." -- Publisher's description