Hendrick Theyanoguin

This engraving was sold in London after Hendrick's death in the Battle of Lake George.^[1] He wears the uniform of a British officer and a veil, his customary battle dress.^[2] He holds a belt of wampum in his left hand.^[3]

Hendrick Theyanoguin (c. 1691 – September 8, 1755), whose name had several spelling variations, was an important Mohawk leader and member of the Bear Clan who was located at Canajoharie or the Upper Mohawk Castle in colonial New York.^[4]. He was a speaker for the Mohawk Council. Hendrick formed a close alliance with Sir William Johnson, the administrator of Indian affairs for the British Empire.

Until the late 20th century, Hendrick's biography was conflated with an older Mohawk leader given the same first name in baptism, Hendrick Tejonihokarawa (also known as Hendrick Peters) (c. 1660 – c. 1735). The latter was a member of the Wolf Clan (an important difference, as shown by the historian Barbara Silvertsen), and he was one of the "four Indian kings" who visited England and Queen Anne in 1710.^[4] He lived in the Lower Castle, closer to Albany. Fort Hunter was built there in 1711 with a mission, and the Mohawk village became mostly Christianized early in the eighteenth century.

Biography

Hendrick Theyanoguin was born to a Mohawk woman and a Mohegan man in Westfield, Massachusetts. He was born into his mother's Bear Clan; the Mohawk have a matrilineal system in which the mother's children belong to her clan, and hereditary offices and property are passed through her line.^[4] He was baptized Hendrick by Godfridius Dellius of the Dutch Reformed Church in 1692 and was known as Hendrick Peters or King Hendrick by the English.^[5]

At some point, Theyanoguin resettled at Canajoharie, a Mohawk town which Europeans called the "Upper Castle", in the Mohawk River valley. He became a chief of the Mohawk Bear clan and would have participated in Mohawk Council. He was not one of the fifty League sachems of the Iroquois Grand Council, made up of representatives of the five tribes (six, when the Tuscarora were admitted). No mission was established there until the Indian Castle Church was built in 1769 by Sir William Johnson, British Indian agent, shortly before the American Revolutionary War. Today it is part of the Mohawk Upper Castle Historic District, a National Historic Landmark.

During the French and Indian War (also known as the Seven Years War), Theyanoguin led a group of Mohawk warriors accompanying William Johnson (1715-1774) through the Hudson Valley in his expedition to Crown Point. Theyanoguin was killed on September 8, 1755, on a mission to stop the southern advance of the French army at the Battle of Lake George.

References

Notes

1. ^ Hinderaker, 6.
2. ^  "Hendrick". Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. 1892. 
3. ^ Anderson, 39.
4. ^ ^{a b c} Sivertsen, Barbara J. Turtles, Wolves, and Bears: A Mohawk Family History (1996), genealogy, reprint Heritage Books, 2007
5. ^ Hinderaker. "Searching for Hendrick", p. 6

Bibliography

• Anderson, Fred. Crucible of War: The Seven Years' War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754–1766, New York: Knopf, 2000. ISBN 0-375-40642-5.
• Hinderaker, Eric. The Two Hendricks: Unraveling a Mohawk Mystery. Cambridge, Massashusettes: Harvard University Press, 2010. ISBN 9780674035799.
• Sivertsen, Barbara J. Turtles, Wolves, and Bears: A Mohawk Family History (1996), genealogy, reprint Heritage Books, 2007
• Snow, Dean R. "Searching for Hendrick: Correction of a Historic Conflation". New York History, Summer 2007. Accessed August 11, 2009.

External links

• Biography at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online. Like most biographies written until recently, this entry conflates the two Hendricks
• Taverns, Forts & Castles: Re-Discovering King Hendrick's Village by Philip Lord, Jr.

Persondata
Name	Theyanoguin, Hendrick
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1691
Place of birth
Date of death	1755
Place of death