Incorporation and Colonization: Postcolumbian Iroquois Satellite Communities and Processes of Indigenous Autonomy

Abstract

ABSTRACT Recent anthropological work demonstrates rising concern for understanding group‐level autonomy, particularly the maintenance of opposition to expanding states and economic systems. Archaeologists are well poised to contribute to this effort, especially when aided by renewed attention to Eric Wolf's concept of process. Wolf's concept can be applied to indigenous‐driven, broad‐scale processes of intercommunity connection to help understand the generation and maintenance of autonomy in the face of colonial encroachment. Archaeologically informed reexamination of the relationships between the principal Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) homeland towns and satellite communities during 1600–1775 provides a case study. In many parts of the Iroquois homeland, large towns were surrounded by nearby small satellite villages; Iroquois people also founded communities distant from the homeland, moving into what is now Ontario, Quebec, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. Both nearby and distant Iroquois satellites manifested incorporation of outside groups and colonization of new territories—Native‐led processes that helped maintain Iroquois autonomy.

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