Eric Hinderaker, The Two Hendricks, Unraveling a Mohawk Mystery, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010.

Native Americans have often been portrayed as fierce warriors capable of barbaric depredations, as noble savages or as hopelessly primitive and unsophisticated victims of European disease and steel. Writing about the Native American perspective is difficult due to a lack of primary written sources and/or accounts from the Indian viewpoint. Further, Native Americans had cultures that Europeans did not always understand well and which varied widely from tribe to tribe. Nevertheless, some historians have undertaken the task of presenting a more complete understanding of Native American culture, history, and interaction with Europeans that seeks to understand Indians in their own right.

In this vein, Eric Hinderaker recently wrote The Two Hendricks, Unraveling a Mohawk Mystery which is an excellent account of Iroquois Confederation involvement in the Colonial Period from a Native American perspective. The Two Hendricks focuses on the development of relations between Europeans the Iroquois Confederacy through the lives of two prominent sachems (chiefs) both coincidentally baptized as “Hendrick.”

In Virginia, English colonists were in conflict with the Powhatans from the outset. In the North, Native Americans and Dutch colonists in New York and Quaker/Pilgrim colonists in Massachusetts enjoyed better relations. Native Americans were far more likely to convert to Christianity in the North: Catholicism if they interacted with the French and Protestantism with the English and Dutch.

Out of this greater cooperation and interaction however, came seeds of conflict. The French and English were engaged in a centuries old bitter competition for world dominance. In addition to international rivalry, the colonies had a unique interests of their own namely settling new land west as more and more colonists arrived on the coast. Both conflicts threatened Iroquois sovereignty in different ways. With lands adjoining both French and English territory, the Iroquois did not want to be on the wrong side of a destructive Anglo-French war. They also did not want colonists settling on Indian lands. Hinderaker effectively describes how the Mohawks manipulated the French and English to their advantage.

The Iroquois Confederacy consisted of six nations (Mohawk, Onondaga, Seneca, Cayuga, Oneida, and Tuscarora) controlling territory from New York and western Pennsylvania to the Great Lakes. The Mohawks controlled eastern territories touching on New York. The first of the sachems Hinderaker profiled, Hendrick Tejonihokarawa, came into prominence in the first decade of the 18th Century as Anglo-French tensions escalated into a series of indecisive small wars. Early in Hendrick’s life, the French defeated the Mohawks subjecting them to humiliating terms. The overbearing French created resentment that drove the Mohawks to seek alliance with the Dutch in New Netherlands and later the British who captured and renamed the Dutch colony New York.

Hendrick quickly recognized two powerbases in New York. The Dutch still held prominence in upstate Albany while the English quickly came to dominate coastal New York City. Hendrick approached the Dutch and English differently to maintain Iroquois independence while strengthening the Anglo-Mohawk relationship. Hendrick used the prospect of an alliance between the Iroquois and English while avoiding an all-out war. Eastern Mohawks built relationships with the British while western nations sought peace with the French to maintain a balance.

As more colonists arrived and war became increasingly difficult to avoid, Hendrick Tejonihokarawa’s successor Hendrick Theyangoquin made an alliance a key feature of Anglo-Mohawk relations. Hendrick Theyangoquin, like his predecessor received a Protestant baptism and recognized the value of alliance with the British. He too had to learn how to operate among local and imperial officials to maintain Iroquois autonomy. Hendrick became a powerful speaker, even more influential than his predecessor in persuading the British to focus on defeating the French.

When the French and Indian War came in 1754, both Hendricks had succeeded in convincing the British to bring significant forces to America and Hendrick rallied Mohawk warriors to the British side, participating in an invasion of Canada. Though the invasion failed and Hendrick was killed at the Battle of Lake George, the British maintained a foothold in Canada that ultimately led to victory.

The Mohawks chose wisely in aligning with the British. Administrators of the British Empire often treated indigenous peoples poorly, but acted honorably toward the Iroquois after the war thanks to the Mohawks. In the same year of victory, the British Parliament enacted the Proclamation Line of 1763 which banned colonial expansion beyond the Appalachian Mountains to protect Iroquois territory. Hinderaker details how the British established policies to build on an Anglo-Iroquois alliance that maintained Native American sovereignty. The two Hendricks had succeeded brilliantly . . . for a time.

Unfortunately, in establishing protection for the Iroquois, the British agitated their colonists, intent on spreading west. The Proclamation Line of 1763 was the first in a series of Parliamentary acts that fomented American resentment erupting into the American Revolution. If we have wondered why the Mohawks and other Native American tribes often sided with the British, Hinderaker makes the reasoning clear. Native Americans had built a relationship with the British that protected their sovereignty and they fought the Americans to maintain what they had gained through shrewd diplomacy.

Unfortunately for the Iroquois, this time they chose the wrong side. Allying with the British proved disastrous the Americans won the Revolutionary War.

Hinderaker offers a new perspective on Native Americans as more than an afterthought in US History. They come across not stereotypically as barbaric scalp takers, noble savages or naïve children of nature wandering the forests. The two Hendricks were mature, effective diplomats capable of recognizing and pursuing their own interests in navigating a tricky political situation. Hinderaker effectively describes how the two Hendricks forged an alliance with the British designed to maintain Iroquois independence while explaining how this very effective leadership also doomed their people in unforeseen ways.

I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in learning more about Native Americans in the Colonial Era.

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