The Seneca Restoration, 1715-1754: An Iroquois Local Political Economy (co-Published With The Society For Historical Archaeology) [Paperback]

Elegantly demolishes the prevailing scholarly view that Seneca culture suffered gradual decline during the eighteenth century. Jordan has combined archaeology and history to provide us with a new and compelling picture of the Seneca.William Engelbrecht, Buffalo State College
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Jordans archaeological approach to eighteenth-century Native American settlement patterns is original and creative. It sets a promising new standard for interdisciplinary investigations of the potential complexity underlying domestic and settlement choices.Martha L. Sempowski, Rochester Museum and Science Center and Seneca Archaeology Research Project
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The Iroquois confederacy, one of the most influential Native American polities encountered by early European settlers, is commonly perceived as having plunged into steep decline in the late seventeenth century due to colonial encroachment into the Great Lakes region. Kurt Jordan challenges long-standing interpretations that depict the Iroquois as defeated, colonized peoples by demonstrating that an important nation of that confederacy, the Senecas, maintained an impressive political and economic autonomy and resisted colonialism with a high degree of success.?

Following the 1700-1701 treaties with the English, French, and western Indian groups that ended the Twenty Years War, the Seneca commitment to neutrality was tested by western Indian attacks on their territory. French and English agents were frequent visitors to Seneca country, encouraging factional competition. This period also witnessed the opening of Iroquois territory to western Indian groups who wanted to trade with the English at Albany, and the formation of alliances between Senecas and western groups that made transit across Seneca territory possible. In the midst of these pressures, the Seneca maintained an impressive level of political and economic autonomy with a high degree of success.

Using historical and archaeological analysis,l“–