Mohawk Culture after the arrival of European Colonists
After New Netherland was lost to the British, the Mohawk decided to ally themselves to the British Crown. From 1690 on the Mohawk people underwent a period of Christianization due to missionaries flooding into their territory. The alliance with Britain continued well into such conflicts as the French and Indian War (1754-1763) and the Mohawk also fought for Britain during the American Revolutionary War. This was partly due to prior treaties with the British as well as the encroachment of American settlers into the Mohawk River Valley. In 1794 the Mohawk along with the other tribes of the Iroquois Confederacy signed the Treaty of Canandaigua which established long term friendship between the Native tribes and the United States and also restored the land in Western New York State to the Iroquois Confederation that they had ceded to the British in 1768 when they agreed to the Fort Stanwix Treaty.
Despite the several conflicts that the Mohawk were apart of due to treaty obligations they still managed be a part of the fur trade in the New York State and even as far North as Montreal. From 1790 all the way into the 1850s many Mohawk men signed fur trade contracts with a Montreal based company, this provided the Mohawk men with a steady income as well as helped hone their skills as trappers and warriors. European fur traders valued the skills the Mohawk men had as canoe men, skilled trappers, and their fearsome reputation as warriors. European trappers also married into Mohawk tribes and adopted the customs of their wives people, this allowed for greater ease in which to trap for fur in Mohawk lands as well as provide protection from neighboring tribes.
With the arrival of Europeans into the Mohawk River Valley the culture surrounding the tribe changed very quickly. Through trading the Mohawk were able to acquire goods from Europe such as firearms, which they would eventually become dependent on as well as selling themselves out as trappers and scouts in order to support their families and their way of life. As more European settlers arrived the Mohawk people's borders changed, forcing some to leave the Mohawk River Valley and emigrate into Canada, they also had to deal with the loss of their culture and language as Mohawk children were placed in white English speaking homes and forced to attend English schools. As stated in the introduction it is difficult to say whether the Mohawk people knew how drastic their lives would change with the arrival of Europeans.
