Treaty with Iroquois Indians Five Nations, 1676

Treaty with Iroquois Indians Five Nations, 1676

The Covenant Chain was a series of alliances and treaties developed during the 17th century, primarily between the Iroquois Confederacy and the British colonies of North America. The English and Iroquois councils addressed issues of colonial settlement, and tried to suppress violence between the colonists and Indian tribes, as well as among the tribes, from New England to the Colony of Virginia. The term "Covenant Chain" was derived from the metaphor of a silver chain holding the English sailing ship to the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Tree of Peace in the Onondaga Nation. A three link silver chain, representing "Peace, Friendship and Respect" was made to symbolize their first agreement between the Iroquois and the Crown. They negotiated the signing of several treaties that expanded the number of tribes and colonies involved: A 1676 treaty between the Mohawk nation and the colonies of Massachusetts Bay and Connecticut which ended King Philip's War in New England. A 1677 treaty between the Five Nations of the Iroquois and the Delaware (Lenape), on one side, and the colonies of Virginia and Maryland, allied with the Susquehannock on the other, to obtain peace. Image taken from page 288 of "An Illustrated History of the New World: containing a general history of all the various nations, states, and republics of the Western Continent" by John Ledyard Denison, 1873.

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