Hendrick Tejonihokarawa (Tay yon’ a ho ga rau’ a), also known as ''Tee Yee Neen Ho Ga Row'' and Hendrick Peters (1660 – ) was a pro-English leader of the

Mohawk Mohawk may refer to: Related to Native Americans * Mohawk people, an indigenous people of North America (Canada and New York) *Mohawk language, the language spoken by the Mohawk people * Mohawk hairstyle, from a hairstyle once thought to have been ...

in the Province of New York in the early eighteenth century. He was one of the " Four Mohawk Kings" who went to

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

in 1710 to meet with Queen Anne and her court to mark a treaty with her. The chiefs requested the Queen's help in controlling French influence in New York and asked for English missionaries to help their people offset French Catholic influence. The Mohawk diplomacy helped the Iroquois preserve their power through the colonial years.

Early life and education

Tejonihokarawa was born into the Wolf Clan of his mother; the Mohawk and all Iroquoian nations had a

matrilineal Matrilineality is the tracing of kinship through the female line. It may also correlate with a social system in which each person is identified with their matriline – their mother's lineage – and which can involve the inheritance ...

kinship system, in which descent and social status were passed through the maternal line.Barbara J. Sivertsen, ''Turtles, Wolves, and Bears: A Mohawk Family History'' (1996), genealogy, reprint Heritage Books, 2007 The English translation of his name is "open the door", suggesting he may have had the responsibility for opening the

longhouse A longhouse or long house is a type of long, proportionately narrow, single-room building for communal dwelling. It has been built in various parts of the world including Asia, Europe, and North America. Many were built from timber and often rep ...

door to receive visitors. He was given the name Hendrick Peters in July 1690 when he was baptized by Godfridius Dellius as a Christian and member of the

Dutch Reformed Church The Dutch Reformed Church (, abbreviated NHK) was the largest Christian denomination in the Netherlands from the onset of the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century until 1930. It was the original denomination of the Dutch Royal Family and ...

. According to the anthropologist Dean Snow, Peters later became a Protestant preacher. He lived in the lower Mohawk village known as '' Tionondoroge'', along the Mohawk River. The English built

Fort Hunter Fort Hunter is a hamlet in the Town of Florida in Montgomery County, New York, United States, west of the capital at Albany, on the south bank of the Mohawk River and on the northeast bank of Schoharie Creek. The hamlet developed around a fort of ...

here, where Schoharie Creek entered the Mohawk River.

Career

By 1710 Tejonihokarawa may have been selected as one of three Wolf Clan

sachem Sachems and sagamores are paramount chiefs among the Algonquians or other Native American tribes of northeastern North America, including the Iroquois. The two words are anglicizations of cognate terms (c. 1622) from different Eastern Al ...

s, with the title ''Sharenhowaneh.'' The sachems were chosen by the women elders of the clan.Snow, Dean R. "Searching for Hendrick: Correction of a Historic Conflation"
, ''New York History'', Summer 2007, accessed 8 October 2011 His actions helped build the alliance with the English and preserve the Iroquois Confederacy as a key power to be reckoned with in North America in the early 18th century. He met with English leaders at Albany to preserve Mohawk territory to the west throughout the Mohawk River Valley. Other nations of the Iroquois had territories to the west and north of there, closer to the Great Lakes. He and two other Mohawk chiefs, in addition to a Mahican chief, sailed to London in 1710 to meet with Queen Anne and her court, to mark a treaty. While in London, Tejonihokarawa requested Anglican missionaries to help offset French Catholic influence in

Iroquois The Iroquois ( or ), officially the Haudenosaunee ( meaning "people of the longhouse"), are an Iroquoian-speaking confederacy of First Nations peoples in northeast North America/ Turtle Island. They were known during the colonial years to ...

territory. After the French severely damaged Mohawk villages in 1666, they had forced the people to accept Catholic

Jesuits , image = Ihs-logo.svg , image_size = 175px , caption = ChristogramOfficial seal of the Jesuits , abbreviation = SJ , nickname = Jesuits , formation = , founders = ...

as missionaries. The Jesuits soon set up a base near what later developed as Auriesville, New York, a few miles west of Schoharie Creek. They had been working to recruit Mohawk converts in present-day New York. Numerous converted Mohawk had migrated to the St. Lawrence River area, settling at the mission village of '' Kahnewake'' south of

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple ...

. Queen Anne sent Anglican missionaries to the New York Colony in 1711, who established a mission and chapel at Fort Hunter. The nearby Mohawk village became largely Christianized within years. In turn, Queen Anne had asked Tejonihokarawa for help in resettling Palatine German refugees in New York. They had been working at English camps in the Hudson Valley to pay off their passage to the colony and wanted their own lands. Through Governor Hunter, Tejonihokarawa offered Mohawk land in his territory to the refugees, some of whom took land near Schoharie Creek. Tejonihokarawa was deposed by Wolf Clan matrons in the winter of 1712-1713, apparently because of differences with the missionaries. By 1720 he had been restored to power, as he was noted as sachem in colonial records. In 1723, a group of 100 Germans were given grants of Mohawk land west of present-day Little Falls, in what is now known as the Burnetsfield Patent in the Mohawk Valley, on both sides of the river. They started other settlements as well. This area was upriver and west of existing Dutch and English settlements, as well as the upper Mohawk village of '' Canajoharie''. Tejonihokarawa also traveled to northern New England, trying to build alliances with the

Abenaki The Abenaki ( Abenaki: ''Wαpánahki'') are an Indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands of Canada and the United States. They are an Algonquian-speaking people and part of the Wabanaki Confederacy. The Eastern Abenaki language was pre ...

there, but he was prevented from meeting with them. They had frequently allied with the French in this period. Until Barbara Sivertsen's work published in 1996, biographical details concerning Tejonihokarawa, or King Hendrick, have frequently been confused with the similarly named Hendrick Theyanoguin, who was three decades younger.

References

Sources

* Eric Hinderaker
''The Two Hendricks: Unraveling a Mohawk Mystery''
Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2010. * Barbara J. Sivertsen, ''Turtles, Wolves, and Bears: A Mohawk Family History'' (1996), reprint Heritage Books, 2007

''New York History'', Summer 2007

Early life and education

Career

References

Sources

Further reading