Across the Great Water: Indigenous Tobacco and Haudenosaunee Diplomacy in Early Modern England, 1550-1750

Abstract

The impacts of the transatlantic movement of Indigenous Peoples and goods has yet to be fully realized by scholars of the early modern world. Beginning in the sixteenth century, thousands of Indigenous Peoples and an immeasurable amount of goods and technologies moved eastward to Europe. Upon arrival, Indigenous Peoples, goods, and technologies transformed European cultures and peoples on the continent. While part of a larger phenomenon, this thesis focuses on the physical and material presences of Indigenous Peoples in early modern England as articulated by expressions of Haudenosaunee diplomacy and diplomatic tobacco use in London. Rooted in Indigenous methodologies, material culture analysis, and Indigenous perspectives of diplomacy and identity, this work shows how formal and informal expressions of Haudenosaunee diplomatic protocols and the Kayanerenkó:wa (The Great Law of Peace) were employed and accepted by Queen Anne and other British officials in London during the 1710 visit of four diplomats from the Kanien’kehá:ka and Mohican Nations Tejonihokarawa, Onioheriago, Sagayenkwaraton, and Etowaucum. Further, the paper demonstrates the ways that Indigenous knowledge and technology were transmitted to England from the North Atlantic and became crucial to the development of tobacco diplomacy in English (and wider European) practice. As a result, English smokers, snuffers, and diplomats learned to utilize tobacco to foster goodwill and seal agreements from Indigenous Nations on Turtle Island. Working in tandem, Indigenous Peoples and technologies fundamentally altered early modern diplomacy and left physical and material legacies which lasted for generations.