Native Life: Chiefs versus Leaders

In popular history as well as everyday speech, it is common to refer to any Native leader as a chief.  The Black Drink Singer will always be Chief Osceola, even if there wasn't a guy throwing flaming spears in his name over in Tallahassee.  More on CHIEF OSCEOLA versus Osceola later, but he wasn't the only Native leader to have to handle this matter of protocol, telling painter George Catlin that he was not a chief.  Black Hawk, the Sac and Fox leader who lent his name posthumously to the Chicago Blackhawks, was another war leader often referred to as a chief, though he was a war leader only.  So, who was a chief and who was a leader?  The best information for that is always the tribe's website or other resources.  If they refer to a given individual as a chief, then so he was.  When in doubt, the proper term is leader, which is what I use here. 

But that begs the question, who was a chief?  In most of the tribes under discussion in this era, there were several ways a man might become a chief.  Inheritance through the matrilineal line was practiced by the Iroquois Confederacy and several other tribes.  However, inheritance was not strictly father to son.  Upon the death of a chief, often called a sachem by Euro-American writers, the clan matriarch would chose the next most eligible male member of her family to replace him.  Other tribes, such as the Shawnee, also practiced descent through the male line, but then again the process was never automatic.  Tecumseh wasn't automatically a chief because his father, Pukeshinwa was.  He, too, had to earn the right to that acclaim by his people.  The key to who was a chief lay in the man's acceptance as such by members of his tribe.  No matter how a chief was appointed, he could be deposed by popular will.  The Iroquois Constitution has elaborate provisions for the deposition of a sachem.  Pontiac, the Otttawa war chief, was deposed in part for his excessive cruelty. 

In addition to hereditary chiefs, other men functioned as subchiefs, or lieutenants to more powerful chiefs.  These are specifically called for in the Iroquois Constitution.  There were also war chiefs, specifically elected by the tribal council and appointed for that purpose.  Other chiefs handled religious or diplomatic matters.  Alongside the chiefs and subject to their authority were war leaders, leaders of towns or villages and respected elders.  While these men had a measure of renown and authority, they were not chiefs.  They were leaders.

We've mentioned the Iroquois Confederacy and their Constitution, so that's the next step on our journey.