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The Seeds of Empire - The American Revolutionary Conquest of the Iroquois
Seeds of Empire recreates the events surrounding General John Sullivan's scorched-earth campaign against the Six Nations of the American Indians of New York and the Eastern territories in 1779, following the surrender of General John Burgoyne's British army at the Battle of Saratoga. Mintz's meticulous historical research and renowned storytelling ability give life to this arresting narrative as it probes the mechanisms of the American Revolution and the structure and function of the Iroquois Six Nations.
264 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 1999
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 17, 2026
Joseph Brant is a chud. Learned the hard way why you don't bet against America.🦅🦅
September 13, 2020
Wow, very shocking and sad read. It is obvious that the US is an empire built on genocide, but this is the first time I read a more detailed history of that genocide. Direct orders from Washington to burn all towns and destroy all food reserves and crops in the fields, before a cold winter. No peace negotiations permitted (the Cayuga offered peace when the army approached, but their towns and crops were destroyed anyway). Soldiers immediately burning and destroying everything the Iroquois built and planted, all while enjoying the scenery and weather.
I think the framing seeds of empire is quite good. The US, while rejecting one empire, planted the seeds for another empire by aggressively expanding into Iroquois territory. The first few chapters of the book were annoying to me, with no narrative emerging and movements of very small numbers of Iroquois men and attacks on settlers described on a strange level of detail. I would have liked the book more if I had skipped much of the first 50 pages.
Here are some sections of the book I found interesting:
Washington:
"The immediate objects are the total destruction and devastation of their settlements and the capture of as many prisoners of every age and sex as possible. It will be essential to ruin their crops now in the ground and prevent their planting more... Our future security will be in their inability to injure us[,] the distance to which they are driven[,] and in the terror with which the severity of the chastisement they receive will inspire them." (89)
Accustomed at home to the backbreaking tillage of their little rocky plots, they looked longingly at the rich potential of this inviting land. Chaplain Rogers was their faithful spokesman, dutifully echoing Sullivan's exhortation to smite the enemy who had committed "savage barbarity to our fellow citizens" and never uttering a word of regret at the hardships to Indian civilians. "Surely," he marveled, "a soil like this is worth contending for." (106-107)
Only one of the arrivals at Tioga, Dr. Jabez Campfield, surgeon in Spencer's Fifth New Jersey Regiment, expressed disquiet at the prospect: "I very heartily wish these rusticks may be reduced to reason by the approach of this army, without their suffering the extremes of war," he wrote in his diary; "there is something so cruel, in destroying the habitations of any people, (however mean they may be, being their all) that I may say the prospect hurts my feelings." (107)
"The next day they burned the entire town and destroyed the crops. They found hiding in the woods a white-haired old squaw, a Cayuga or a Tuscarora, too infirm to leave. She had been tended by a young squaw, who promptly fled. A soldier spotted the young one in hiding and felled her with a rifle shot. Another man ran forward and killed her with a bayonet thrust through her back. She was afterwards found stripped naked." (p. 134)
"Several officers thought it a degradation of the army to be employed in destroying apple and peach trees, when the very Indians in their excursions spared them, and wished the general to retract his orders for it", reported Reverend William Gordon. Sullivan nonetheless replied that he was determined "to destroy everything that contributed to their support." (p. 137)
"Too far from Congress to seek guidance, Sullivan had only Washington's instructions. He was "not by any means" to "listen to any overture of peace before the total ruin of their settlements is effected," a determination that he repeated three and half months later, to make the extermination "so final and complete, as to put it out of their power to derive the smallest succor from them, in case they should attempt to return this season." (p. 148)
Iroquois were driven further into the arms of the British
"The merciless march of the Continentals left no alternative. The rebels, declared Old Smoke, "wish for nothing more than to extirpate us from the Earth, that they may possess our Lands, the Desire of attaining which we are convinced is the Cause of the present War between the King and his disobedient Children." (p. 155)
young officer writing to his fiancée:
"I really felt guilty as I applied the torch to huts that were Homes of Content until we ravagers came spreading desolation everywhere. ... Our mission here is ostensibly to destroy but may it not transpire that we pillagers are carelessly sowing the seeds of empire?" (186, last page)
I think the framing seeds of empire is quite good. The US, while rejecting one empire, planted the seeds for another empire by aggressively expanding into Iroquois territory. The first few chapters of the book were annoying to me, with no narrative emerging and movements of very small numbers of Iroquois men and attacks on settlers described on a strange level of detail. I would have liked the book more if I had skipped much of the first 50 pages.
Here are some sections of the book I found interesting:
Washington:
"The immediate objects are the total destruction and devastation of their settlements and the capture of as many prisoners of every age and sex as possible. It will be essential to ruin their crops now in the ground and prevent their planting more... Our future security will be in their inability to injure us[,] the distance to which they are driven[,] and in the terror with which the severity of the chastisement they receive will inspire them." (89)
Accustomed at home to the backbreaking tillage of their little rocky plots, they looked longingly at the rich potential of this inviting land. Chaplain Rogers was their faithful spokesman, dutifully echoing Sullivan's exhortation to smite the enemy who had committed "savage barbarity to our fellow citizens" and never uttering a word of regret at the hardships to Indian civilians. "Surely," he marveled, "a soil like this is worth contending for." (106-107)
Only one of the arrivals at Tioga, Dr. Jabez Campfield, surgeon in Spencer's Fifth New Jersey Regiment, expressed disquiet at the prospect: "I very heartily wish these rusticks may be reduced to reason by the approach of this army, without their suffering the extremes of war," he wrote in his diary; "there is something so cruel, in destroying the habitations of any people, (however mean they may be, being their all) that I may say the prospect hurts my feelings." (107)
"The next day they burned the entire town and destroyed the crops. They found hiding in the woods a white-haired old squaw, a Cayuga or a Tuscarora, too infirm to leave. She had been tended by a young squaw, who promptly fled. A soldier spotted the young one in hiding and felled her with a rifle shot. Another man ran forward and killed her with a bayonet thrust through her back. She was afterwards found stripped naked." (p. 134)
"Several officers thought it a degradation of the army to be employed in destroying apple and peach trees, when the very Indians in their excursions spared them, and wished the general to retract his orders for it", reported Reverend William Gordon. Sullivan nonetheless replied that he was determined "to destroy everything that contributed to their support." (p. 137)
"Too far from Congress to seek guidance, Sullivan had only Washington's instructions. He was "not by any means" to "listen to any overture of peace before the total ruin of their settlements is effected," a determination that he repeated three and half months later, to make the extermination "so final and complete, as to put it out of their power to derive the smallest succor from them, in case they should attempt to return this season." (p. 148)
Iroquois were driven further into the arms of the British
"The merciless march of the Continentals left no alternative. The rebels, declared Old Smoke, "wish for nothing more than to extirpate us from the Earth, that they may possess our Lands, the Desire of attaining which we are convinced is the Cause of the present War between the King and his disobedient Children." (p. 155)
young officer writing to his fiancée:
"I really felt guilty as I applied the torch to huts that were Homes of Content until we ravagers came spreading desolation everywhere. ... Our mission here is ostensibly to destroy but may it not transpire that we pillagers are carelessly sowing the seeds of empire?" (186, last page)
September 27, 2013
Growing up I always knew the President of the United States as "Hanödaga:nyas" or "he destroys towns". In accordance with iroquois tradition a Chief's name is passed down from the one he is succeeding all the way back to the first individual to hold that title. The book was just as much a history about the iroquois involvement in the Revolution, as it is about the origin of the Presidents' "Indian name".
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews