INSIDE NMAI
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CLOTHED IN A TREATY C
BY JAMES R ING A DAMS
arla Hemlock (Mohawk, b. 1961) made this muslin shirt, now in the collection of the National Museum of the American In- dian, to commemorate the 1794 Treaty of Canandaigua – still in effect – between the U.S. government and the Haudeno-
saunee (Iroquois or Six Nations) Confederacy. Negotiated in the first decade of the new United States government,
the treaty promised “perpetual” peace and friendship between the Six Nations and the United States and confirmed boundaries of Six Nations lands bounded by New York State. Envoys from the Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga and Seneca nations were seeking to regain land that had been ceded at Fort Stanwix in the immediate aftermath of the American Revolution. The U.S. ambassador Timothy Pickering in his turn wanted to secure a wagon road and right of passage through Haudenosaunee lands. Both sides worked under the shadow of open warfare further west between the U.S. and the Miami (or Twightwee) Confederation in what are now the states of Ohio and Indiana. Two U.S. army expeditions in the Old Northwest Territory had ended in military disaster for the young republic, but word arrived during the Canandaigua talks that U.S. Gen. Anthony Wayne had just won a smashing victory over the Miami at the Battle of Fallen Timbers. Both the U.S. and the Haudenosaunee negotia- tors had a strong interest in securing their own peaceful relations. The treaty reflected the principles of the Two-Row Wampum Belt, in
which the Indian and Euro-American sides recognized the sovereignty of the other and promised non-interference in each other’s affairs. Article 7 provided for direct relations between the U.S. President or his deputies and the chiefs of the Six Nations for the redress of injuries. In spite of some major issues, such as the flooding of Seneca land for construction of the Kinzua Dam in the 1960s, this provision is still recognized in U.S. Courts. As further confirmation, the U.S. promised a yearly distribution of goods valued at $10,000 and a further $4,500, “which shall be expend- ed yearly, forever, in purchasing clothing, domestic animals, implements of husbandry, and other utensils.” This provision lives on in an annual distribution of Treaty Cloth, originally bolts of calico (highly valuable at the time) but today consisting of much less expensive pieces of muslin. Hemlock, who works in Kahnawake Mohawk Territory and has
exhibited at the annual Winter Art Market at the National Museum of the American Indian – New York, used some of the 2009 Treaty Cloth distribution to make her shirt. She incorporated wampum belt patterns and language from the Canandaigua Treaty in its design. The shirt has been acquired by the Museum for its permanent collection. It is now on display in New York in the Native Fashion Now exhibit, running to Sept. 4, 2017. This shirt signifies two uninterrupted centuries of the an- nual Treaty Cloth presentation, a rare example of a treaty more or less continually respected between the U.S. government and Native people.
James Ring Adams is Senior Historian at the National Museum of the American Indian – Smithso- nian and Managing Editor of American Indian magazine.
SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 51 Treaty Cloth Shirt, Carla Hemlock (Mohawk). 2012
Cotton treaty cloth, broadcloth applique, glass beads, silk and wampum shell. 26/9144.
PHOTOS BY ERNEST AMOROSO
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