Iroquois Torture and Decapitation of White Captives Described

History of Orange County, New York 1888     

     There has been no more intellectual nation among the aborigines of 
America than the Senecas of Western New York — the most original 
and determined of the confederated Iroquois — but its warriors were 
cruel like the others, and their squaws often assisted the men in torturing 
their captives. When Boyd and Parker were captured in the Genesee 
Valley in the Sullivan campaign of 1779, Brant, the famous half-breed 
chief, assured them that they would not be injured, yet left them in the 
hands of Little Beard, another chief, to do with as he would, and the 
prolonged tortures to which he and his savage companions subjected 
them were horrible. After they had been stripped and tied to trees, and 
tomahawks were thrown so as to just graze their heads, Parker was un- 
intenlionally hit so that his head was severed from his body, but Boyd was 
made to suffer lingering miseries. His ears were cut off, his mouth 
enlarged with knives and his severed nose thrust into it, pieces of flesh 
were cut from his shoulders and other parts of his body, an incision was 
made in his abdomen and an intestine fastened to the tree, when he was 
scourged to make him move around it, and finally as he neared death, was 
decapitated, and his head raised on a pole. 

100 Real Historical Accounts 

The Algonquin War Against the Iroquois Mound Builders

Here the first explorer, Cartier, found Indians of this stock at Hochelaga and Stadaconé, now the sites of Montreal and Quebec. Centuries before his time, according to the native tradition, the ancestors of the Huron-Iroquois family had dwelt in this locality, or still further east and nearer to the river's mouth. As their numbers increased, dissensions arose. The hive swarmed, and band after band moved off to the west and south.

As they spread, they encountered people of other stocks, with whom they had frequent wars. Their most constant and most dreaded enemies were the tribes of the Algonquin family, a fierce and restless people, of northern origin, who everywhere surrounded them. At one period, however, if the concurrent traditions of both Iroquois and Algonquins can be believed, these contending races for a time stayed their strife, and united their forces in an alliance against a common and formidable foe. This foe was the nation, or perhaps the confederacy, of the Alligewi or Talligewi, the semi-civilized "Mound-builders" of the Ohio Valley, who have left their name to the Allegheny river and mountains, and whose vast earthworks are still, after half-a-century of study, the perplexity of archaeologists. A desperate warfare ensued, which lasted about a hundred years, and ended in the complete overthrow and destruction, or expulsion, of the Alligewi. The survivors of the conquered people fled southward, and are supposed to have mingled with the tribes which occupied the region extending from the Gulf of Mexico northward to the Tennessee river and the southern spurs of the Alleghenies. Among these tribes, the Choctaws retained, to recent times, the custom of raising huge mounds of earth for religious purposes and for the sites of their habitations, a custom which they perhaps learned from the Alligewi; and the Cherokees are supposed by some to have preserved in their name (Tsalaki) and in their language indications of an origin derived in part from the same people. Their language, which shows, in its grammar and many of its words, clear evidence of affinity with the Iroquois, has drawn the greater portion of its vocabulary from some foreign source. This source is conjectured to have been the speech of the Alligewi. As the Cherokee tongue is evidently a mixed language, it is reasonable to suppose that the Cherokees are a mixed people, and probably, like the English, an amalgamation of conquering and conquered races. [Footnote: This question has been discussed by the writer in a paper on "Indian Migrations as evidenced by Language," read before the American Association for the Advancement of Science, at their Montreal Meeting, in August, 1882, and published in the American Antiquarian for January and April, 1883.

                                             57 gruesome stories of Indian capture and torture

Native American Tribes That Practiced Cannibalism

Native American Tribes That Practiced Cannabalism

Cannibalism. In one form or another 
Cannibalism has been practiced among pros- 
ably all peoples at some period of their tribal 
life. In America there are numerous recorded 
References to its occurrence within historic 
times among the Brazilians, Carib of northern 
South America, the Aztec and other Mexican 
tribes, and among many of the Indians n. of 
Mexico. The word itself, now more commonlj^ 
used than the older term anthropophagy, is 
derived from Carib through Spanish corrup- 
tion. Restricting treatment of the subject to 
the tribes n. of Mexico, many evidences of can- 
nibalism in some form are found — from the 
ingestion, perhaps obligatory, of small quanti- 
ties of human flesh, blood, brain, or marrow, 
as a matter of ceremony, to the consumption of 
such parts for food under stress of hunger, or 
even as a matter of taste. Among the tribes 
which practised it, in one or another of these 
forms, may be mentioned the Montagnais, and 
some of the tribes of Maine; the Algonkin, 
Armouchiquois, Micmac, and Iroquois; farther 
w. the Assiniboin, Cree, Foxes, Miami, Ottawa, 
Chippewa, llinois, Kickapoo, Sioux, and Win- 
nebago; in the s. the people who built the 
mounds in Florida (see Colusa), and the Ton- 
kawa, Attacapa, Karankawa, Kiowa, Caddo, 
and Comanche(?) ; in the n. w. and w. portions 
of the continent, the Thhngchadinneh and other 
Athapascan tribes, the Thngit, Heiltsuk, 
Kwakiutl, Tsimshian, Nootka, Siksika, some 
of the Californian tribes, and the Ute. There 
is also a tradition of the practice among the 
Hopi, and allusions to the custom among other 
tribes of Arizona and New Mexico. The 
Mohawk, and the Attacapa, Tonkawa, and 
other Texas tribes were known to their neigh- 
bours as "man-eaters." 

Taking all the evidence into consideration, 
it appears that cannibalism n. of the Mexican 
boundary existed in two chief forms. One of 
these was accidental, from necessity as a result 
of famine, and has been witnessed among the 
Huron, Micmac, Chippewa, Etchareottine, 
and others. In most of such instances recourse 
was had to the bodies of those who had recently 
died, but cases are recorded in which individu- 
als were killed to satisfy hunger. The second 
and prevalent form of cannibalism was a part 
of war custom and was based principally on the 
belief that bravery and other desirable qualities 
of an enemy would pass, through actual inges- 
tion of a part of his body, into that of the con- 
sumer. Such qualities were supposed to have 
their special seat in the heart, hence this organ 
was chiefly sought, though blood, brain, mar- 
row, and flesh were in many instances also 
swallowed. The parts were eaten either raw 
or cooked. The heart belonged usually to the 
warriors, but other parts were occasionally 
consumed by boys or even by women and 
children. In some cases a small portion of the 
heart or of some other part of an enemy might 
be eaten in order to free the eater from some 
tabu (Grinnell) . The idea of eating any other 
human being than a brave enemy was to most 
Indians repulsive. One of the means of torture 
among the Indians of Canada and New York 
was the forcing of a prisoner to swallow pieces 
of his own flesh. 

Among the Iroquois, according to one of the 
Jesuit fathers, the eating of captives was con- 
sidered a religious duty. Among the Heiltsuk, 
and recently among the Tsimshian and Kwaki- 
utl, cannibalism formed a part of one of their 
ceremonies. Several instances are recorded in 
which cannibalism was indulged in by individ- 
uals while in a frenzied state. Finally, it 
seems that among a few tribes, as the Tonkawa, 
Iroquois, and others, man-eating, though still 
with captives as the victims, was practised on 
a larger scale, and with the acquired taste for 
human flesh as one, if not the chief, incentive; 
yet the Tonkawa, as well as some men long 
associated with them, declared that the eating 
of human flesh by them was only ceremonial. 

Indian mythology and beliefs are replete with 
references to man-eating giants, monsters, and 
deities, which point to the possibility that 
anthropophagy in some form was a practice 
with which the aborigines have long been 
acquainted. 

                                Gruesome tales of Indian capture and torure

1654 Erie and Iroquois Wars and Burning Captives at the Stake

1654 Erie and Iroquois Wars and Burning Captives at the Stake

In 1654, war broke out between the Eries and the Five Nations. "They [the Iroquois] tell us a new war has broken out, which fills them with fear, that the Eries have taken arms against them (we call the Eries the Cat Nation, because there is in their country a prodigious number of wildcats, two or three times as large as our tame cats, but having a beautiful and precious fur). They tell us that an Iroquois town has already been set on fire and destroyed at the first attack ; that this nation pursued one of their armies which was returning victorious from the shores of Lake Huron, fell upon the rear guard of eighty picked men and entirely cut it to pieces ; that one of their most distinguished chiefs, Annenraes, has been taken prisoner; in a word, that the Iroquois are inflamed, and are arming to repulse the enemy, and are, therefore, obliged to seek peace with us. " This Cat Nation is very populous. Some Hurons, who have scattered everywhere since the destruction of their country, have joined them, and excited this war, which alarms the Iroquois. It is said they have two thousand men, good warriors, though without fire-arms. But they fight like the French, enduring courageously the first discharge of the Iroquois, who have fire-arms, and then pouring upon them a hail of poisoned arrows, which they can shoot off six or eight times before the others can reload their muskets. " However this may be, we shall remain at peace, and Father Simon Le Moine, just returned from the Iroquois, assures us that they have sent out eighteen hundred armed men." (Relation, 1654, p. 10.) Father Simon Le Moine, before leaving the Iroquois, held counsel with them, and delivered a harangue after their manner, marking particular passages with gifts of wampum or hatchets, to preserve the memory of what was said. " The eighth, ninth, tenth, and eleventh presents for the four Iroquois nations, a hatchet for each, for the new war, in which they are engaged with the Cat Nation. " And, finally, by the nineteenth present, I dried the tears of the young warriors for the death of their great chief, Annencraos, lately taken prisoner by the Cat Nation." The orator of the Iroquois, in the course of his reply, sent thanks to the governor of Canada " for encouraging them to fight against their new enemies, the Cat Nation." (Relation, 1654, pp. 15 and 16.) An embassy of Iroquois went to Quebec, in 1655. The orator began with twenty-four belts of wampum. With the fifteenth " he asked for French soldiers to defend his towns against the invasion of the Cat Nation, with whom they are at war." And, at the close of his oration, he asked for arms to be used against the Cat Nation." (Relation, 1656, p. 6.) The Relation of 1656 is filled with accounts of the burning and torture by the Iroquois of prisoners taken in their war with the Eries, or Cat Nation, and contains an account of the war itself. Preparations were begun jn January, 1656 (p. 29). The narrative of the war is as follows : " The Cat Nation had sent thirty ambassadors to Sonntonan [a town of the Senecas], to confirm the peace then existing between them ; but it happened that a Sonnontonahronon [the French name for Seneca] was killed by one of the Cat Nation in a chance encounter. This murder so provoked the Sonnonton- ahronons, that they put to death all the embassadors but five, who escaped. War was now kindled between the two nations. It was a contest who should take the greatest number of prisoners to burn them. Among others, two Onnontagshronnons [the French name for Onondagas] were taken by the Cat Nation. One escaped; the other, a man of consideration, was preserved for burning, but he pleaded his cause so well, that he was given to the sister of one of the slain embassadors. She was absent from the town ; but the people gave the captive fine clothes, held feasts for him, and assured him he would be returned to his country. " When she, to whom he had been given, returned, she was told that her dead brother was restored, and that she should prepare a hospitable reception for him. She, on the contrary, began to weep, and protested that nothing could dry her tears till the death of her brother was avenged. The old men represented to her the importance of the matter, and told her this would bring on a new war; but she would not yield. At length they were constrained to surrender the unfortunate captive to her, to be treated according to her pleasure. He was in the midst of a feast while this was passing. He was called out and led to the cabin of the cruel woman in silence. Upon his entering, he was surprised to be stripped of his new clothes, and at once saw that he was doomed to death. Before dying, he cried out that they were burning in his person an entire people, who would cruelly avenge his death. This was true. For scarcely was the news brought to Onnontague, be fore twelve hundred resolute men were on the path to take satisfaction.