The Algonquian-Wendat Alliance: A Case Study of Circular Societies

AbstractThis article places the seventeenth-century Wendat-Algonquian alliance with the context of North American systems of power. It explores this multi-dimensional relationship through military campaigns, political agreements and trade initiatives. We conclude with a discussion of the ways in which circular societies, such as the Wendat-Algonquian, can serve as a model for the modem Canadian community to re-connect with Mother Earth.ResumeCet article examine l'alliance Wendat-Algonquine dans le contexte militaire Nord-Americain. On y explore differents aspects (militaires, politiques, commerciaux) de cette alliance complexe. Nous terminons en soutenant que de telles societes peuvent servir de modele afin que la communaute canadienne d'aujourd'hui se rattache a la Mere Terre.IntroductionAlliance making and maintaining became fundamental to the traditional system of North American networks. Examples such as the Georgian Bay Wendat (Huron) confederacy are often introduced as coalitions designed for defense or offense of two or more autonomous nations who engaged in a compact or formal statement of principles to govern separate and collective action (Hodge, 1959, pp.337-338). These political leagues acted under one supreme council that included representatives from the contracting nations who surrendered to the confederacy various powers and rights that they had previously exercised individually. Alternatively, so-called looser alliances also existed between more nomadic groups, or nations seeking temporary truces during times of uncertainty (Hodge, 1959, pp. 337-338).Investigations into the nature of these alliances have furthered our understanding of how and why they were created, maintained or abandoned. George Hunt (1940) and Daniel Richter (1992) have explored the collective economic aspirations of the seventeenth-century Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy, for instance. Alternatively, Gregory Dowd (2000) has looked into the eighteenth-century pan-Indian alliance of Pontiac in order to demonstrate the importance of spiritual affiliation in this process. In general, scholars tend to emphasize the similar aspects of these coalitions in order to make sense of the factors that connected them. Features such as cultural similarities, trade motivations and Amerindian belief systems are the most prominent among these. By highlighting the similarities, however, important aspects of these unions are often overlooked.Take the case of the Haudenosaunee, a group that has often confused scholars in that they seemed to continuously be at odds with so many of their Nadouek (or Iroquoian) neighbors despite their cultural similarities (Trigger, 1987, pp. 99-100). This line of investigation demonstrates the problem of superimposing European ideas of alliance making onto North American ones. Understandably, politics, military defense, ethnicity, trade and religion were fundamental factors shaping European political organizations in the seventeenth century, thus making them logical points of reference for historians engaging with European and Euro-American sources (Munck, 1989). Not surprisingly, scholarship dedicated to understanding alliances that deviate from Euro-centric constructed perceptions of Native American coalitions are far and few between. One reason for this may be because the academic tradition of studies on the interaction of Atlantic systems of power has restricted our understanding of Native value systems because the analytical paradigms being employed are European in nature. Native systems looked very different from European ones, as the contrast between metropoles in Europe and the lack of identifiable centers in North America demonstrates (Mancke, 2005, p. 33). In reality, the prevalence of these seemingly loose networks, often functioning outside the realm of a particular confederation framework, were some of the most prevailing systems of alliances within the North American context. …

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