The Seven Nations of Canada

Throughout this blog we've run across different Native alliances and confederacies.  Some were bound together by tradition, others categorized by Settlers.  Still some came together as a result of pressure from Whites and other Natives.  The nations we're focusing on today are all of the above. 

The historical Seven Nations are: the Mohawk of Akwesasne, whose reservation crosses the border of upper New York and Lower Ontario.  The Mohawk of Kahnawake, living near Montreal.  The Mohawk and Anishinaabeg (Ojibwe, Potawatomi, etc.) of Kanestake, now Central Quebec.  The Abenaki of Odanek in Southern Quebec, along with the Abenaki of Becancour, also in Quebec.  The Huron of Wendake, near Quebec City.  And the Onondaga of Oswegatchie.  There are many Native nations in the country of Canada, but the focus on these seven was a historical grouping made first by the French and then the British, primarily to describe those Natives living near the St. Lawrence River and who had accepted Catholicism. 

The divide began, according to Mohawk sources, in 1667, when an attack by French forces on Mohawk villages in New York forced some Mohawk to accept Catholicism and French protection by moving near to Montreal.  The name for their settlement Kahnawake is similar to a principal Mohawk town of Caughnawaga in New York.  Though these Mohawk considered themselves related to the Mohawk in New York, relations were strained because of the difference in religion.  The Kahnawake formed a loose alliance with other bands of Mohawk, Algonquin, Abenaki and Huron living in the St. Lawrence River who practiced Catholicism and allied with the French.  French sources first refer to them as the Seven Nations, a nomenclature that the English took over later.  During the French and Indian War (1755-1762), these Natives fought against the British and their Native auxiliaries, including Mohawk from New York.  According to an incident witnessed by one of William Johnson's Indian Agents, the two opposing groups met each other, challenged to identify each other, a Mohawk from New York replied that he was Mohawk and Five Nations, the traditional name for the Iroquois Confederacy.  The other Mohawk retorted that he was Mohawk of the Seven Confederated Indian Nations of Canada.  Whether he was using a designation of the tribes themselves, or had picked up the French grouping for the Natives along the St. Lawrence River is unknown.

The Seven Nations later switched alliance to the British during the Revolutionary War and War of 1812, though they retained their Catholicism and separate identity.  Although they lived primarily in Canada, most of these tribes had traditional homelands and hunting ranges in the United States.  In 1796, they signed a treaty with the Washington Administration in which they ceded much of their land in America, with the notable exception of the Akwesasne Reserve in New York.