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Slavery

As mentioned above in section 5.1 War, Haudenosaunee peoples participated in “mourning wars” to obtain captives. Leland Donald suggests in “Slavery in Indigenous North America” that captives and slaves were interchangeable roles. There have been archaeological studies to support that Haudenosaunee peoples did in fact have a hierarchal system that included slaves. Note that the term slave in Haudenosaunee culture is identified by spiritual and revengeful purposes, not to be mistaken for the term slave in the African Slave Trade.

Capture

To obtain slaves, Haudenosaunee peoples battled in “mourning wars”. After the wars were over, Haudenosaunee warriors journeyed back to their villages with the new slaves they had captured. During these journeys, slaves were routinely tortured or even killed by their captors. Leland Donald writes that captives “were killed if they could not keep up, tried to escape, or members of the attacking party could not restrain their emotions”. Daniel Richter suggests that keeping the pace may not have been an easy task, writing that “warriors might slowly lead prisoners by a rope between the lines of men, women and children [captives]”. If a prisoner survived all the obstacles on the march back to a Haudenosaunee village, the torture did not end. Slaves were mutilated and beaten for several days upon arrival by Haudenosaunee warriors. After the initiation process, slaves were either killed, or welcomed into the nation where they would be replacing a deceased member of that community.

Adoption Policy

Slaves brought onto Haudenosaunee territory were mainly adopted into families or kin groups that had lost a person. Although if that person had been vital for the community they “were usually replaced by other kin-group members” and “captives were…adopted to fill lesser places”.During adoption rituals, slaves were to reject their former life and be renamed as part of their “genuine assimilation”. The key goal of Haudenosaunee slavery practices was to have slaves assimilate to Haudenosaunee culture to rebuild population after one or many deaths. Children and Indigenous peoples of neighbouring villages to the Haudenosaunee are said to have been good slaves because of their better ability to assimilate. That being said, the role of a slave was not a limited position and whenever slaves were available for capture they were taken, no matter their age, race, gender etc.

Once adopted, slaves in Haudenosaunee communities had potential to move up in society. Since slaves were replacing dead nation members, they took on the role of that former member if they could prove that they could live up to it. Their rights within the aforementioned framework were still limited though, meaning slaves performed chores or labor for their adoptive families. Also, there are a few cases where slaves were never adopted into families and their only role was to perform tasks in the village. These types of slaves may have been used solely for exchange. Slave trade was common in Haudenosaunee culture and it aimed to increase Haudenosaunee population.

Torture

Slaves were often tortured once captured by the Haudenosaunee. Torture methods consisted of, most notably, finger mutilation, among other things. Slaves endured torture not only on their journey back to Haudenosaunee nations, but also during initiation rituals and sometimes throughout their enslavement. Finger mutilation was common as a sort of marking of a slave. In “Northern Iroquoian Slavery,” Starna and Watkins suggest that sometimes torture was so brutal that captives died before being adopted. Initial torture upon entry into the Haudenosaunee culture also involved binding, bodily mutilation with weapons, and starvation, and for female slaves: sexual assault. Starvation may have lasted longer depending on the circumstance. Louis Hennepin was captured by Haudenosaunee peoples in the 17th Century and recalled being starved during his adoption as one of "Aquipaguetin"’s replacement sons. Indigenous slaves were also starved by their captors, such as Louis Hennepin was. If torture lead to the slave’s death, often times Haudenosaunee peoples ate the victim. The brutality of Haudenosaunee slavery wasn’t without its purposes though; torture was used to demonstrate a power dynamic between the slave and the “master” to constantly remind the slave that they were inferior.

Language

Language played another role in Haudenosaunee slavery practices. Slaves were often referred to as “domestic animals” or “dogs” which were equivalent to the word to “slave”. This use of language suggests that slaves were dehumanized, that slaves were “domesticated” and another that slaves were to be eaten as Haudenosaunee peoples ate dogs. Jaques Bruyas wrote a dictionary of the Mohawk language where the word “Gatsennen” is defined as “Animal domestique, serviteur, esclave” the English translation being “domestic animal, butler, slave”. There are also more language accounts of slaves being compared to animals (mostly dogs) in Oneida and Onondaga language. This language not only serves as a proof that slavery did exist, but also that slaves were at the bottom of the hierarchy.

Changes After Contact

Inevitably, Haudenosaunee slavery practices changed after European contact. With the arrival of European diseases came the increase in Haudenosaunee peoples obtaining captives as their population kept decreasing. During the 17th Century, Haudenosaunee peoples banded together to stand against settlers. By the end of the century, Haudenosaunee populations were mostly made up of captives from other nations. Among the Indigenous groups targeted by the Haudenosaunee were the Wyandot who were captured in such large numbers that they lost their independence for a large period of time. “Mourning wars” became essential to rebuild numbers, but also Haudenosaunee warriors began targeting French and later English colonizers. Similarly to Indigenous slaves, European slaves were tortured by the Haudenosaunee using finger mutilation and sometimes cannibalism. European captives did not make for good slaves though because they resisted even more so than Indigenous captives and they did not understand rituals such as renaming and forgetting their past. For this reason most European captives were either used as ransom or murdered upon arrival to Haudenosaunee territory. A lot of Europeans were not captured though, and instead they became trading partners with the Haudenosaunee. Indigenous slaves were now being traded amongst European settlers and some slaves even ended up in Quebec households. In the end, European contact lead to adoptees outnumbering the Haudenosaunee in their own communities, these slaves were too hard to control in large numbers and so came the finality of Haudenosaunee slavery practices. This is the page for user Lilymw