1777: The Oneidas and the Birth of the American Nation The Oneida World
By the time of the Revolution, Oneidas were being pressed hard by European- Americans. For many years, the newcomers were few in number, at some distance from the Oneidas, and focused on a greed for beaver pelts and animal skins. Now the European people were numerous and they were crowded along the border and even spilling into the Oneida homeland. Land had become the most sought after form of wealth and everyone, it seemed, wanted a piece of Oneida country. Foreign pressure on the Oneida way of life occurred in other forms and increased steadily during the 1700s. Since the founding of Oswego as a military and trading post in the 1720s, a constant traffic of the roughest sort of non-Indian people moved across Oneida country. These encroachments intensified after the British erected Fort Stanwix in 1758. The Oneida response was practical, creative, and peaceful. They adopted aspects of foreign life necessary for survival and useful for preserving their sovereignty and core traditions. They adapted to what was new in order to hold onto what was old. Oneida men and women continued to follow the traditional ways of life. Women farmed extensive plots of corn, beans, and squash which surrounded the houses. Their realm was the hearth and the forest clearing and their standing was high because they owned the land and determined many key political decisions. "Our Ancestors considered them es of the soil. Our Ancestors said who bring us forth, who cultivate our lands, who kindles our fires and boil our pots, but the women". The world of the men, in contrast was -- as it always had been -- the forest and the distance. Men were hunters, diplomats, and warriors.
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