After the Mohawk (see yesterday’s blog post), the second eastern-most tribe of the Iroquois League, or Haudenosaunee, were the Oneida, or Onyota’a:ká:. Their name translates as People of the Standing Stone.
Though
no nation of the League was unanimously pro-British or pro-Patriot
during
the Revolutionary War, most of the nations fought on the side of the
British–except for the Oneida Nation, who sided with the colonists.
This
was due in large part to the influence of New Englander and Patriot
Samuel Kirkland, a Protestant missionary who had lived and ministered
among them since the mid 1760s. While not all Oneidas welcomed Kirkland
and the Gospel he preached, many considered him a friend to their
people. Kirkland lived among them and shared their hardships,
alleviating them as best he could through pleas for aid from wealthy
seaboard acquaintances and missionary societies in the colonies and in Great Britain. Through him the Oneida
people formed stronger links with the colonials than did the other
Iroquois nations. Some Oneida warriors served the Patriot army during the Revolutionary
War as scouts. Some fought with the colonial militia at the Battle of
Oriskany, near Fort Stanwix in western New York.
As happened throughout our country’s history, even our native allies in the War of Independence lost their lands not many years after the war’s ending, though portions of the Oneida Indian Nation still live on their ancestral lands in New York. Others relocated to Wisconsin and to Canada.
Finding resources for Oneida-related subjects has proven harder than for those pertaining to the Mohawk. For the benefit
of anyone else researching along this same path, here’s what I’ve found
thus far:
~ The People of the Standing Stone, The Oneida Nation from the Revolution through the Era of Removal, by Karim M. Tiro.
~ The Oneida Indian Experience, Two Perspectives, Edited by Jack Campisi and Laurence M. Hauptman.
~ Forgotten Allies, The Oneida Indians and the American Revolution, by Joseph T. Glatthaar and James Kirby Martin.
~ The Divided Ground, Indians, Settlers, and the Northern Borderland of The American Revolution, by Alan Taylor
~ Life of Samuel Kirkland, missionary to the Indians, by Samuel Kirkland Lothrop (can be found online as an ebook through Google).
~ Oneida Iroquois Folklore, Myth, and History by Anthony Wonderley
Portions of this post were originally posted at the Colonial Quills blog, by me.
