Long before a single settler felled a tree in Western New York, kings in Europe were dividing it with ink. There were claims or assertions. They could be real or imagined. They were put on parchment, whether it be maps, treaties, or edicts. Rarely, however, were they enforced. After all, you can’t police a territory where you have no police.
Why, then, would the powers of the day go through all the trouble of pretense?
Well, first, it was all pretend. Europeans did come to this New World. Some explored. Some conquered. Many settled. Still, their activities covered only a small fraction of their claims.
But it was the claim itself that rendered prestige. It was a symbol of potency, a symbol of Continue Reading “A European Tug Of War”
Settling Old Scores: The Beaver Wars
The ambassadors followed the ancient trail that cut through the forests of Western New York. Trail was almost the wrong word for it. Generations of footsteps had worn it into the earth until it resembled a narrow trench, barely wide enough for a traveler moving single file, sunk deeper than the ankle in places. But it was still easier than fighting through the tangled underbrush of the virgin forest.
Even the flats along the treeless banks of the Genesee River—now behind them—had offered little relief. The grass there grew straight and thick, taller than a man.
Still, the air smelled fresh. And hope traveled with the delegation.
Thirty ambassadors of the Cat Nation—the people the French called the Erie—had come to the Seneca capital district seeking peace. They came from the lands west of the Genesee River, where Seneca expansion had begun to press against the hunting grounds of the Erie people.
It was just a mistake. An accident. Something meant to be settled with words, not weapons.
They left the trail and gathered at the council near Sonnontouan.
But hope faded quickly.
The tension in the council house was unmistakable. Words sharpened. Voices rose.
For a moment the room fell silent.
Then it happened.
A Seneca chief lay dead.
No one knows exactly how it happened. Even the French Jesuits who recorded the event could only describe it as “some unexpected accident.”1
But the consequences were immediate.Continue Reading “Settling Old Scores: The Beaver Wars”