The Hard And Bloody Road To The Iroquois Confederacy | 1491 | Chronicle

this channel is part of the history hit Network [Music] are the First Peoples of the Americas [Music] we have been here from the beginning [Music] our ancestors navigated by the wind and Stars Crossing vast oceans and mountain ranges searching for new lands over thousands of years our ancestors became astronomers and architects philosophers scientists artists and inventors we created distinct societies and built a vast trade systems that cover two continents in 1492 our world was changed forever but we did not disappear today the languages and teachings of our ancestors remain and these are the Untold Stories of the Americas the four Columbus [Applause] [Music] [Applause] the Americas before 1491 were home to thousands of societies each with its own distinct social cultural and political structure throughout the two continents indigenous people formed Clans confederacies alliances and even Empires indigenous people interacted between these communities through a complex network of trade that connected every region of the Americas the hauden ashaunee Confederacy was formed nearly 900 years ago making it one of the oldest representative democracies in the world before the five founding Iroquoian nations came together in peace they were locked in an endless cycle of Retribution and inter-tribal War you had five warring Nations and the descriptions in the oral histories is uh very very explicit in talking about how there was fracture side there was cannibalism basically human relations had totally broken down in that part of the world amongst their own people has all to do with this cycle of Revenge every Iroquoian chief engaged in retaliation but it was taradaho the serpent Chief who was known throughout the territory for his ruthlessness you know live and writhing snakes is a very powerful spiritual person whose mind was twisted so the imagery they have in the stories is his fingers are all twisted and his body's all gnarled and so forth and he was able to control the wind and the waters and he was causing a lot of harm as internal Wars continued to tear the five nations apart an outsider known as The Peacemaker arrived in a stone canoe and began to share his vision of a society based on Harmony and peace he traveled to every corner of Iroquoian territory promoting the Great Law of Peace and the founding and Confederacy really is the story of The Peacemaker a person from a related Nation who came into our territory and connected with a leader in our nation Hiawatha once part of his nation's Warrior Society ayanwatha had changed his way of thinking and started to promote his own vision of peace as a betrayal and Had Each of ironwatha's daughters killed one by one the pain of his loss led ironwatha to leave his community and isolate himself in the forest ayawata story is not just haywata it's the story of him and his daughters and how the loss of his daughters affected him and what drove him to do what he did was the loss of his daughters your daughters are your posterity because when you just follows a female why after they met The Peacemaker convinced ironwatha that they should become allies in seeking peace among the Nations even though he was overcome with grief ayanwatha chose to work with The Peacemaker to promote his idea of an inter-tribal alliance between the five warring Nations because of the revered role of women in Iroquoian Nations ayanwatha and The Peacemaker traveled to the fire of jigan SASE to seek her advice on how to bring the Great Law of Peace to the Iroquoian people history hitters like Netflix just for history funds with exclusive history documentaries covering some of the most famous people and events in history just for you history hits is the perfect place for any medieval enthusiastic our catalog of History documentaries includes hundreds of hours of exclusive videos such as Essex talks with Dan Jones we're committed to Bringing history fans award-winning documentaries and podcasts that you cannot find anywhere else sign up now for a free trial and Chronicle fans get 50 off their first three months just be sure to use the code Chronicle at checkout foreign way of thinking women were on par with men in terms of the authority day wield in the political Realm is foreign [Music] foreign now oh no I'm Scott in here the chiefs of the four Iroquoian Nations supported the peacemaker's vision of the Great Law of Peace it's important to consider the objective the objective wasn't to enhance the power of these nations uh or to increase the territory or the wealth it was to create peaceful honest coexistence continued to resist joining the alliance foreign foreign then something extraordinary happened based on astronomical records a solar eclipse covered the Northeast region of North America for four minutes on the afternoon of August 31st 11 42. [Music] after this historic event tadaho agreed to join the Confederacy [Music] foreign [Music] became the keepers of the central fire a role that they hold to this day 11 42 would be the founding of the great peace and so yeah then is named the main chief of the Confederacy he's actually taken as the symbol of the meaning of this message which is that even the worst person even the most powerful evil force can be turned around and made into good you think back into terms of what was the first message that was brought by The Peacemaker to our people is that you should treat each other kindly and you should think of each other as one family that's the central power of this teaching is that you should be treating everyone like your brother and sister the power of it is extremely long lasting it's shown it's been how many years now how many generations of people have been bound together by that this ancient indigenous government continues to be part of Iroquoian Society nearly 900 years after its founding [Music] the development of large Urban centers evolved from small farming Villages as mass production of food supported the growth of populations and cities foreign [Music] for centuries the marowitic kingdom thrived as it was too distant for foreign Nations to conquer it this Nubian kingdom was surrounded by fertile land and supported a large Urban population [Music] for two centuries the Assyrian Empire was a formidable Society rulers displayed their power by constructing impressive palaces and temples before the empire fell they had extended their influence over most of the Middle East and Egypt [Music] the Inca Empire was the largest civilization in the Americas in the early 16th century in its short existence the Sapa Incas ruled a society of millions of people from Ecuador to Chile over the past five thousand years large city-states with Dynamic political and religious rulers emerged and held power in every part of the world the ancestors of the ambitious Inca rulers had humble beginnings as farmers in the Andean Highlands about 900 years ago the descendants of those Farmers founded the largest indigenous Society in the Americas 600 years ago and like other great civilizations the Inca Empire began with a vision the Incas are going to claim that after the creation of the world in titikaga some of them took this passage this tunil from the lake and they are going to emerge in pakaritamo the the the the place of their origin according to oral histories the first Inca family left their birthplace in pekari Tambo in search of the perfect location to establish a Homeland they were carrying a golden staff and they were basically testing the soils and the idea was that they were going to find a place where that Bolton Road was going to be able to be uh sunken into the ground and that happened in Cusco in one specific Sport and that's going to be the ushna and the usno is the center where all the viral force of the universe radiates when the Inca arrived in Cusco it had been the home of the kilke people for hundreds of years the land is already inhabited by those people who have always been there and they have to come with an idea of this process the local inhabitants and then they becoming the masters of the place in the first of many conquests the early income rulers either ousted or absorbed the kilke people maintaining Cusco as the logistical political and spiritual heart of their new Society 600 years ago the Inca Empire extended over much of what is today Peru Bolivia Chile Colombia Ecuador and Argentina and was home to 20 million people you are going to have four primary lines which are going to be the roads of the tawantin studio Cusco was organized into four quadrants and leaders from cities and Villages throughout the empire were required to build a house and live in Cusco part of the year in the quadrant that corresponded to their region and then based on that you are going to have all these close to 80 provinces in an area that basically went all the way from northern Chile to Ecuador all along the Andes you had these systems at the Inca built upon their empire extended in lengths some 2000 miles from north to south this grew in tandem with conquest and population growth to control such a massive territory and diverse population the Empire's leaders convinced Regional Chiefs to join the society with Promises of material riches and special status but mandatory Allegiance had a cost most of the leaders of these small Nations accepted the new government peacefully but for those who resisted the Inca's well-trained Army forced compliance the Sapa Inca was the emperor a position passed down from father to son the Sapa Inca's wife known as the Koya was typically his sister we can think about the Incas as a oligarchy of of 10 royal families those are the ones who are intermarine among themselves just remember that according to their own Traditions they have to maintain the these dynastic line pure so they are allowed to marry with their first cousins and of course the sisters and brothers in addition to the importance of blood Purity the Incan Royals also believe their Emperors were blessed with immortality the emperor Never Dies your body continues to have vital powers that are used for political purposes because the people who are going to be in charge of of keeping the bodies of the Incas the mummified bodies of the Incas are called the panicas they are going to operate as a small Congress that are going to they're going to put checks and balance on the Inca so they are going to be able to decide and and advise and sometimes direct the ideas of the encato or specific purposes only because the mummy of the deceased Emperor at least some of the relatives can talk with that Mommy and then it's like your grandfather says that you are doing wrong and that you should better think do this the Inca hierarchy place the royal family at the top followed by the nobility including the priests Governors and tax collectors rounding out this social structure where the farmers herders servants and slaves much of the population consists of a peasantry agricultural Rural and then you have the cities and the cities kind of wield all power and they extract tax in labor from each of those communities in the case of the Incas they want to be in labor but they want you to go and work in the land of the Incas produce the crops and then an ink officer is going to show up and say like guys it's time for us to put all these in the storehouses because we are going to live out of this food if it doesn't rain next year so often tributaries would pay into the Inca State and the Incas would then through their Mita tax system would basically Warehouse Foods typically potatoes Maize and other crops and they had an incredible abundance of different crops that would be stored but these allowed armies to be maintained and fed while on campaign but also for the communities that work these areas to be able to maintain themselves during periods of drought for instance so it was a system that was a give and take but virtually everything in the income Empire belonged to the Inca himself Maya Society was made up of city-states that dotted the landscape in mesoamerica moving goods and services to a population in the millions was done through a highly evolved system of trade and commerce they were bringing in Shell from the Gulf Coast they were bringing in Shell from the West Coast they were bringing unique and prized Green obsidians from the Pachuca sources in Highland Mexico a Basalt Ceramics even turquoise coming out of the American southwest this was traveling over some of the most circuitous and mountainous regions and even Gulf lowland regions all the way to the Maya area these are people that they didn't have draft animals they did not have horses they did not have cattle oxen they didn't have any of these things so everything had to be ported on foot on the backs of human burden bearers in turn what the Maya we're giving back was access to the matagua river Jade source true Jade occurs only in a few places on the planet and the Maya had access to it so Jade was being moved throughout mesoamerica and of course Elites who identified with Jade as related to the Earth and to the ancestors wanted to be a part of that they began using ritual objects and belief to draw on the interests of Outsiders who begin to trade or to pilgrimage to these sites so you get some of the earliest pilgrimage centers in these regions Maya trade went well beyond the valuable Jade Market various other Commodities were transported in their raw or manufactured state from the Maya region on foot and by boat when the Spanish first arrived they had encounters with Maya boats or ships if you will and these were multiple canoes lashed together into platforms and they were essentially sailing ships that were traveling up the coast with large quantities of Ceramics as well as rubber kopal chocolate vanilla and virtually all of those other things that we as westerners so much enjoy which all originated in ancient mesoamerica one of the most important trade items in Maya Society was maze this crop was at the center of the Maya diet and culture and was in high demand in the urban centers eventually Maize moved into North and South America through trade with other indigenous communities considering the importance of corn for people's diet and all that went with corn it was a valuable food to trade [Music] societies throughout the world have traded Bartered and sold food for thousands of years this exchange fostered important business and social relationships and contributed to the development of Cuisines that were unique to Regions and Nations salt was an essential mineral for African diets and an important trade item with other nations salt cakes were transported by camel Caravans and traded for gold Ivory and cola nuts across the continent [Music] thank you spices have been a major trade item for thousands of years cinnamon Ginger and turmeric were exchanged between Africa Europe the Middle East and Asia making spices one of the most important economic and cultural Enterprises in the world [Music] societies throughout the world have been producing wine for thousands of years as both the religious and social beverage the earliest wine production was in Armenia 7 000 years ago [Music] after 1492 fruits and vegetables cultivated in North and South America were exported to Europe Asia and Africa some of the world's most widely used ingredients had their Origins among indigenous Societies in the Americas around the same time that the Maya were the dominant trading center in mesoamerica indigenous people in North America were transporting materials by boat and foot along a trade Network known as the Hopewell Exchange we had a great deal of trade and we think a lot of it follows river valleys in my area in the southeast people were trading with one another so there was a lot of contact between different groups and trade was people were trading as far up as the Great Lakes down down the Mississippi River into the you know Louisiana area it wasn't a bunch of tiny little groups just living alone and not knowing what someone else is doing just down the street so to speak the people who traveled from distant territories into the Ohio River Valley area were bringing valuable raw materials from their region to trade with residents who were turning them into finished products we had these networks already and it was a familiar way of interacting with another group in the Hopewell interaction sphere we have this huge Trade Network and we can see where materials are coming from we know that at least by 700 A.D there are groups that were bringing obsidian from Wyoming they were bringing iron ore from Oklahoma up they were bringing shelves from the Gulf Coast they were bringing Mica sheets from North Carolina and it was all coming up to basically the Ohio River Valley catalanite which is the Pipestone a red Pipestone that people really prized and that was traded all over the place sometimes as nodules but sometimes those finished products you know somebody might carve a nice pipe and then trade that that gets into the trade route the Hopewell exchange region was populated by agriculture-based communities the artisans in these communities created intricate art pieces Pottery items pipes and tools and it's surprising that many of them are coming from a thousand miles away it was there we recognized that people were interacting on a continental scale the reason for the decline of the Hopewell trading system around 1500 years ago is a mystery but what is known is that this highway system of rivers and lakes connected the peoples and cultures of the northern continent for over 500 years and was one of the most extensive trade networks in the world a thousand years ago indigenous people built the largest urban center North of Mexico near what is now the city of St Louis over several hundred years Cahokia became one of the most influential trading centers in North America there were a whole series of cultures on the Mississippi and the Apex of that was of course Cahokia at the Confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers so this was a major hub for all people traveling north and south in North America when people got up on those Mounds that would be the thing that they saw was the the river in the distance and another River coming in from the West Maize was introduced into North America from Mexico about two thousand years ago and eventually moved into the Eastern regions of the continent about a thousand years ago archaeological research has currently shown that the development of agriculture in that region occurred a lot earlier than previously believed and so this further developed over time where we see the development of large towns and even cities like places like Cahokia and many others all across the region and only now we are coming to understand those complex sites in more detail indigenous people in Central and Eastern North America have constructed Mounds for burials and ceremonial use for thousands of years the city of Cahokia has one of the greatest concentrations of Mounds in North America we can follow the Evolution if you will of of Mound construction from 300 A.D on up we get small Mounds we a little bit larger we get Mortuary Mounds we get Mounds that have houses on top a lot of these large Mound structures seem to be places where a large grouping of people came together because of its central location along traditional trade routes Cahokia proved the ideal place to exchange resources excavations of Cahokia have revealed a range of treasures mother of pearl from the Gulf of Mexico silver from Ontario and copper from Lake Superior at its peak kahugia reached a population of at least 20 000 people with many more thousands of people living in the Farmland nearby the centerpiece of the city was a massive 30 meter high dirt pyramid with a base covering five and a half hectares found beneath this and many other Mounds in Cahokia are objects made from materials that originated hundreds and even thousands of miles away there's such a wide variety of materials that we know it's of importance we don't know what started it we don't know what the importance is but and it wasn't just an economic thing very important people the people with status were using it to identify the fact that you know I'm not having to to use just local stone for my projectile points I have material that comes all the way from a thousand miles away or 20 days travel however they use to measure it so it was both a status symbol it was an economic relationship and it did become ceremonial it became a point in time where there were materials that are of such beauty that they are not really being used for hunting they're being used to demonstrate that I don't need to use this for hunting it's it's so ceremonially important that I don't have to waste it Cahokia itself is sort of seen as one of the mother locations if you will of a large number of groups during the the little ice age in 12 1300s people started realizing that they could no longer exist within one large area that they had to pull apart again and then for the end of the 12 13 14th century these people start pulling apart and they become separate groups the the Choctaw the Chickasaw and the the Okmulgee or the creek peoples the origin of the people of Cahokia remains a mystery like the Hopewell exchange before it this once bustling city was an essential hub for trade connecting every corner of North America [Music] [Music] since ancient times people have traded food tools and raw materials that could not be found in their own territories this was the earliest form of Commerce and led the way to the development of trade routes that still exist today as the Greek civilization began to expand into new territories food raw materials and manufactured goods spread the Greek culture throughout the Nations bordering the Aegean and Mediterranean Seas [Music] the Vikings were a seafaring people who traded Timber Furs and food with societies throughout Europe and the Middle East they established a bullion economy trading silver in the form of coins ingots and jewelry for goods [Music] the Maya established extensive trade routes with other societies in mesoamerica maze Jade Fabric and raw materials were some of the items that form the basis of the Maya economy over several thousand years ancient trade networks were more than a means of exchanging goods they were Central to cultural interaction and the sharing of ideas and Technologies between nations the Aztec Empire was founded 600 years ago in mesoamerica and soon became one of the largest Societies in the Americas the Aztec had complex spiritual beliefs that played a role in every part of their culture and day-to-day life the Aztecs in their own words they are not from us America in their own words they came from somewhere in the north the founders of the Aztec empire arrived in a region already settled by Major societies to survive they had to master the art of Conquest the Aztecs were people having come into the valley of Mexico and establishing themselves in the 13th century very quickly found themselves under the auspices of a brutal warlord by the name of Tesla samok eventually the Aztecs formed a Triple Alliance with the cities of tacopan and tescoco and Tenochtitlan and that that formation in the 1440s basically allowed the Aztecs to go up against this Kingdom at ascaposalco and they literally annihilated it having done that they then stood up against some 40 other major kingdoms and they've wiped them out as as part of that Juggernaut of development and expansion resolved to maintain its status as mesoamerica's dominant Force the Aztec rulers demanded commitments of Military Support and resources from each City in its domain you would be assigned the equivalent of an emissary and that Emissary would be assigned to that site and there would be a companion Emissary in the capital to receive the tribute and as long as you paid tribute you were allowed the autonomy necessary what the Aztecs are actually promoting in their empire is what we can call an imperial facts or Olympia peace which means that while that tribute is moving is moving through safe roads whoever dares to steal the tribute is going to be punished and what it allowed was for a mobilization of resources across vast areas while allowing indigenous autonomy in every community so long as you paid tribute to the cabasera or the head in this case Tenochtitlan and the Aztecs you could maintain your system of deities Gods your system of agriculture your polity your kings Etc so now I can walk not only to the next town but I can book hundreds of kilometers inside the Aztec empire with whatever thing I want to sail and trade the debut that is reinforceed by the assets is also being returned to the miss American economy and is going to create growth the capital of the Aztec empire Teno chitlan was a sprawling city of Canal's pyramids markets residential neighborhoods and artificial Islands on what is now the present-day site of Mexico City the Isaac have the they believe that uh nothing comes out of nothing in order to create life something needs to die and the most precious life they could give was the life of humans the energy of the individuals is in the blood in the fluids this sacred liquid let's put it this way they created a religious economy in which basically uh lives have to be given to the divinities so where the Aztecs violent yes but it's organized violence violence without purpose the Aztec rulers built a society that in many ways was unparalleled in the world in the Pacific Northwest region of North America indigenous people developed a complex society that was governed by the ownership and passing down of songs dances titles and names these laws and privileges were embedded in a ceremony known as the potlatch during the Potlatch people from neighboring Villages were invited to witness a ceremony and Gifts were distributed as a sign of wealth and power by the host Chief and his family Gatherings of families and communities often took place during the winter months [Music] during the winter time is when we held our most important ceremonies when we would invite other villages to come to our communities and we would host them and feed feed them the whole time that they were there so they might be there for two weeks or or a month are people were very giving of of everything that we had and that's how you're connecting with your other Villages that's how an alliances loyalties and Trust was created through those connections and that didn't just happen amongst the quack quack we were very interactive and that's a misconception too that the haidas the Egyptians the trinkets the sailors the West Coast people were separate no one people one family of course we spoke different languages but we shared the same Customs we shared the same blood when I think about Latin I think of marriage which is a sacred Union between two people between two houses what's really important is the Dowry what the female brings to her husband's family validated through potlatchy marriage leads to the birth of children naming our children honoring the children when they come of age lifting them up into adulthood with dignity with the teachings of their responsibilities those sort of things were are entrenched into the Potlatch system and that's again that connectedness with the other Villages and how we interacted on the coast alliances were formed for trade which was her survival depended on it you had to get along and governance systems protocols these things have to come into play in order to have Harmony [Music] throughout the ancient world ceremonies were created to honor birth marriage death and other important social and human transitions [Music] the Tea Ceremony emerged in Japan as a way to honor different types of teas and to acknowledge the beauty of the items used in their preparation foreign [Music] s was a common trade item in Egypt and Mesopotamia Stone Alters were used to hold these aromatic resins as they burned in household and Temple rituals [Music] thank you [Music] tobacco and pipes are sacred to the Nations living in the central plains of North America sharing a pipe was often used to initiate peace talks between warring Nations [Music] ceremonies are part of every society and many of these rituals still take place in traditional cultures today from societies as large as the Inca Empire in South America to the smallest hunting communities on the Great Plains of North America rituals were created to heal and protect the people to bring the reins and to resolve conflicts for thousands of years the people of the central plains in North America smoked tobacco Connecticut and other leaves in ceremonial pipes this was their link between the Earth and the sky a sacred ritual for connecting the physical and spiritual worlds we generally think of Blackford people as uh bison Hunters hunting and Gathering cultures and that's definitely true but they did take one plant under cultivation and that was tobacco and they learned a very very intricate rituals and ceremonies around tobacco before tobacco came into Blackfoot culture they used to have local plants that they would smoke they would take the leaves of the bearberry and mix them with the inner bark of red ozier dogwood that when tobacco came along They just added tobacco to the blend people were smoking before they got tobacco the earliest pipes we find on the Northern Plains actually come from the era around 5 000 years ago so smoking and tobacco were not synonymous tobacco moved out the Missouri River probably beginning about the 8th Century A.D and it probably got into the Blackfoot Culture by about 900 A.D and we know that at that period uh there was a warm spell in global climates and this warm spell that lasted for about uh five or six hundred years and that probably created the conditions where it was easier to uh plant the crops and and to harvest them when they're ready to plant their tobacco crops they would leave it there after they prepared their Gardens and put the seeds in they would leave there and in their mythology they said there were these little people who lived in the woods they lived in little caves so they were the ones who looked after the tobacco plants while Blackfoot people were out buffalo hunting and they had to go off and do their uh berry picking or their collecting of other Foods so they can't come back and forth the tobacco Society of the Blackfoot was a Horticultural Society and what they curated was the traditional knowledge for how to plant tobacco and how to bring in a crop they said the little people were very shy and that they could cause you harm if you saw them and then in the fall time when they were getting ready to harvest the crops then they'd go by there they always sent a couple of people ahead to make lots of noise and to let the little people know that they were coming coming back and then it gives them time to get away they would leave Gifts of like food and little clothing all these things they would treat them well foreign the tobacco smoke is is also considered very sacred because it's it's a visual manifestation of your breath foreign people wanted to make an oath they usually capped it by taking a puff of smoke or also you wanted to solidify a trade deal you smoke the pipe if you wanted to end war between your peoples you smoke the pipe so there's this very close connection between the spirit of breath and tobacco [Music] Blackfoot quackawak Aztec Inca and Maya are just a few of the thousands of indigenous Nations that develop sophisticated political systems and vast trade networks throughout the Americas before 1491. [Music] foreign these nations were not only formidable societies of their time in many ways their laws rituals and beliefs continue to influence our world today [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign

Channel: Chronicle - Medieval History Documentaries

Views: 63,470

Keywords: Americas history, Charlemagne history, Chronicle - Medieval History Documentaries, Haudenosaunee Confederacy, History Hit Network, Iroquois League, Roman Empire collapse, ancient societies, civilization development, educational content, historical accounts, historical knowledge, indigenous cultures, indigenous governance, medieval era, multi-nation empires, native American history, normative behaviors, past civilizations, political history, societal norms

Id: ae0HWTblaKE

Length: 47min 2sec (2822 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 12 2022