This is a history that I have long been fascinated by, but finally wrote up only a few years ago. It looks at the ways in what ideas about we might loosely term "witchcraft" helped shape politics and society in Chiloé, an island in southern Chile largely populated by the indigenous Mapuche – and at what happened when these ideas came into conflict with those of the Europeanised rulers of Chile in the 1880s.
The outcome can pretty accurately be termed the last of the great witchcraft trials...
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There is a place in South America that was once the end of the earth. It lies close to the 35th parallel, where the Maule River empties into the Pacific Ocean, and in the first years of the 16th century it marked the spot at which the Empire of the Incas ended and a strange and unknown world began.
South of the Maule, the Incas thought, lay a land of mystery and darkness. It was a place where the Pacific’s waters chilled and turned from blue to black, and where indigenous peoples struggled to claw the basest of livings from a hostile environment. It was also where the witches lived and evil came from. The Incas called this land “the Place of Seagulls.”
Today, the Place of Seagulls begins at a spot 700 miles due south of the Chilean capital, Santiago, and stretches for another 1,200 miles all the way to Tierra del Fuego, the “land of fire” so accurately described by Lucas Bridges as “the uttermost part of the earth.” Even now, the region remains sparsely inhabited—and at its lonely heart lies the island of Chiloé: rain-soaked and rainbow-strewn, matted with untamed virgin forest and possessed of a distinct and interesting history. First visited by Europeans in 1567, Chiloé is an island about the size of Puerto Rico which was long known for piracy and privateering. In the 19th century, when Latin America revolted against imperial rule, the island remained loyal to Spain. And in 1880, a little more than half a century after it was finally incorporated into Chile, it was also the scene of a remarkable trial—the last significant witch trial, probably, anywhere in the world.
Who were they, these sorcerers hauled before a court for casting spells in an industrial age? According to the traveler Bruce Chatwin, who stumbled over traces of their story in the 1970s, they belonged to a “sect of male witches” that existed “for the purpose of hurting people.” According to their own statements, made during the trial of 1880, they ran protection rackets on the island, disposing of their enemies by poisoning or, worse, by sajaduras: magically inflicted “profound slashes.” But since the same men also claimed to belong to a group called La Recta Provincia—a phrase that may be loosely translated as “The Righteous Province”—and styled themselves members of the Mayoria, the “Majority,” an alternative interpretation may also be advanced. Perhaps these witches were actually representatives of a strange sort of alternative government, an indigenous society that offered justice of a perverted kind to indians living under the rule of a white elite. Perhaps they were more shamans than sorcerers.
The most important of the warlocks brought to court in 1880 was a Chilote farmer by the name of Mateo Coñuecar. He was then 70 years old, and by his own admission had been a member of the Righteous Province for more than two decades. According to Coñuecar’s testimony, the society was an important power on the island, with numerous members, an elaborate hierarchy of “kings” and “viceroys”—and a headquarters located in a vast cavern, 40 or more yards long, whose secret entrance had been cleverly concealed in the side of a ravine. This cave (which Chilote tradition asserts was lit by torches burning human fat) was hidden somewhere outside the little coastal village of Quicavi, and was—Coñuecar and other witnesses swore—home to a pair of monsters that guarded the society’s most treasured possessions: an ancient leather book of magic and a bowl that, filled with water, allowed secrets to be seen.
Coñuecar’s testimony, which may be found lodged among the papers of the Chilean historian Benjamín Vicuña McKenna, includes this remarkable recollection of his first visit to the cave:
Twenty years ago, when José Mariman was king, he was ordered to go to the cave with meat for some animals that lived inside. He complied with the order, and took them the meat of a kid he had slaughtered. Mariman went with him, and when they reached the cave, he started dancing about like a sorcerer, and quickly opened the entryway. This was covered over with a layer of earth (and grass to keep it hidden), and under this there was a piece of metal […] the ‘alchemy key.’ He used this to open the entryway, and was then faced with two completely disfigured beings which burst out of the gloom and rushed towards him. One looked like a goat, for it dragged itself along on four legs, and the other was a naked man, with a completely white beard and hair down to his waist.
It is possible, from other records of the Righteous Province, to learn more about the hideous creatures that Coñuecar swore he had encountered in 1860. The goat-like monster was the chivato, a deformed mute covered in piggish bristles. The other—and by far the more dangerous—of the cave’s twin denizens was the invunche or imbunche. Like the chivato, it had once been a human baby, and had been kidnapped in infancy. Chatwin describes what happened to the baby next:
When the Sect needs a new Invunche, the Council of the Cave orders a Member to steal a boy child from six months to a year old. The Deformer, a permanent resident of the Cave, starts work at once. He disjoints the arms and legs and the hands and feet. Then begins the delicate task of altering the position of the head. Day after day, and for hours at a stretch, he twists the head with a tourniquet until it has rotated through an angle of 180 degrees, that is until the child can look straight down the line of its own vertebrae.There remains one last operation, for which another specialist is needed. At full moon, the child is laid on a work-bench, lashed down with its head covered in a bag. The specialist cuts a deep incision under the right shoulder blade. Into the hole he inserts the right arm and sews up the wound with thread taken from the neck of a ewe. When it has healed the Invunche is complete.
Naked, fed principally on human flesh, and confined below ground, neither the chivato nor the invunche received any sort of education; indeed it was said that neither ever acquired human speech in all the years they served what Chatwin calls the Committee of the Cave. Nevertheless, he concludes, “over the years, [the invunche] does develop a working knowledge of the Committee’s procedure and can instruct novices with harsh and gutteral cries.”
It would be unwise, of course, to accept at face value the testimony given at any witch trial—not least evidence that concerns the existence of a hidden cave that a week-long search, conducted in the spring of 1880, failed utterly to uncover, and that was extracted under who knows what sort of duress. Yet it is as well to concede that, whatever the Righteous Province actually was, the society does seem to have existed in some form—and that many Chilotes regarded its members as fearsome enemies possessed of genuinely supernatural powers.
Accounts dating to the 19th century tell of the regular collection of protection money on Chiloé–what Ovidio Lagos describes as “an annual tribute” demanded of “practically all villagers, to ensure they would have no accidents during the night.” These make it clear that islanders who resisted these demands for payment could expect to have their crops destroyed and their sheep killed—by sorcery, it was believed, for the men of the Mayoria were believed to possess a pair of magical stones that gave them the power to curse their enemies. The records of the trial of 1880-81 make it clear that the proceedings had their origins in a rash of suspicious poisonings that had claimed numerous victims over the years.
During the American Revolutionary War, the Oneida and Tuscarora Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy allied themselves with the American colonists. Their most significant military engagement during the war was at the Battle of Oriskany on August 6, 1777.
There was an Oneida Indian woman named Tyonajanegen (which translates to "Two Kettles Together") who fought along side her husband and son during the battle. When her husband Han Yerry was shot, Two Kettles Together reloaded his musket so he could continue fighting in the battle.
However, the September 3, 1777 issue of the Pennsylvania Journal and Weekly Advertiser, gave a much more exciting account of Two Kettles Together's contribution to the battle:
... a friendly Indian, with his wife and son, who distinguished themselves remarkably on the occasion. The Indian killed nine of the enemy, when having receiv[ed] a ball through his wrist that disabled him from using his gun, he then fought with his tomahawk. His son killed two, and his wife on horseback, fought by his side, with pistols during the whole action, which lasted six hours.
I take this version of the story with a grain of salt, but I can't help but love the badass image of a middle-aged, indigenous woman battling the British and her Iroquoian cousins on horseback, dual-wielding pistols.
The fact that there isn't a famous painting of her like there is for General Herkimer at the Battle of Oriskany is a damned shame.
I realize this is a pretty Colonial-centric story of an indigenous person, but I just love the made-for-hollywood story it tells.
Source: Forgotten Allies: The Oneida Indians and the American Revolution by Joseph T Glatthaar and James Kirby.
Indigenous people played a significant role in the development of trench warfare! At least this is what we say as Metis. I'll let you judge. Back in the 1820s, the Nehiyaw Pwat alliance of the Cree, Metis, Saulteaux and Assiniboine had an ongoing conflict with the Sioux, that lasted up to the 60s before we finally managed to end our conflicts for good (we tried several times in between, but for various reasons, the increasing scarcity of buffalo being one, it never lasted too many years). At that time Gabriel Dumont, the Metis Military leader in the Riel Rebellions or the 1869 resistance and in the 1885 resistance, was still a young boy and as such travelled with the nation on the annual buffalo hunt. Picture a thousand red river carts, un-oiled axles, as a large segment of the nation headed south following the buffalo well into disputed territory.
As I was told the story, three Metis scouts were captured by the Sioux, but at least one of them managed to get away and steal a horse, making it back to camp hotly pursued to warn people.
The Metis did the classic circle the carts move, but this included dropping some of the wheels to make the carts more of a barrier, and also included the digging of rifle pits behind the carts into which people sheltered and where they fought from.
According to one elder, there was a special group of men who wore yellow sashes, who stayed on horseback in the middle of the circle. The Sioux would circle, trying to spread the men of the camp around to cover all the sides, then at one moment the strategy was to then use their speed to zero in on one location on horseback and overwhelm the defenders - the circling done to spread people out, the speed enabling them to concentrate their forces faster than the defenders could. It was the job of these men to recognize when this was happening and do a suicide charge into the middle of the oncoming charge, slowing it down enough to allow the defenders to reposition.
Anyways, Gabriel survived this battle which ended up being considered a great victory for the nation, and then went on to lead us during the resistances, and during these battles he more than once used rifle pits to great effect. In particular, during the final battle of Batoche, a battle that lasted a few days, there were almost no Metis casualties until the end of the battle when ammunition had all been depleted, because of the effectiveness of the rifle pits, even in the face of the gatling gun that the expeditionary force had brought with them.
What I find interesting is that at least some of the men who fought in this battle on the side of the Canadian government later went on to fight in the Boer war, where they again faced entrenched soldiers. I'm curious if any lessons were learnt.
A couple other interesting tidbits - The Nehiyaw Pwat had done an alliance with the Sioux by this point, and a contingent of men were sent by Sitting Bull to fight with us there. At the treaty that the Alliance made with the Sioux, the Sioux actually passed on treaty medals that had been given them by the US, and later on there were some Metis men who were present who were buried with their medals, and one of my friends actually found one at a location where a cemetary was being washed away.
I've also been told by another elder that one group of Sioux were stopped at the border prior to the 1885 battle of batoche. They were bringing up a coffin that they said was a chief to be buried, but it actually contained a gatling gun and several thousand rounds of ammunition that were being brought to the Metis - something that would have definitely made a different at the battle, if not the war.
AND one more - Although the battles I'm talking about took place between 200 and 135 years ago, I've heard them third and 4th hand. My friend Chii Mike Keplin was raised by his grandparents, who were raised by their grandparents (or ggrandparents?) who were children at the battle of the grand coutou back in the 1820s or 30s - it was one of the defining stories of their childhoods, so they told their grandkids, who told Mike - so he was raised on stories of the 1830s when he asked to hear the stories of "when your parents were small". As to the battle of Batoche, my mentor who taught me Michif was babysat by a woman who was a child at the battle, and described watching Gabriel Dumont and Louis Riel ride off to the battle on their horses, looking so handsome with their sashes, and all the men going with them. This goes to show that things that happened several generations ago, really are only a few generations in terms of oral transmission.
The peoples of the pre-colonial Americas knew a huge variety of forms of knowledge transmission: including oral transmission, chants, pictograms, characters, and textiles. Most of these were continued after colonial contact, with some of them being suppressed by the Europeans (including the well-known quipus of the Incas). This allowed incredibly important knowledge and cultural heritage to be preserved.
They had at least one thing in common - these forms were considered inferior by the Europeans. With important exceptions, see below, those pre-colonial traditions were considered unhistoric and were subordinated to the alphabet and books.
I would like to look at a particularly early example of Indian scholars recording their history in writing. In central Mexico, the descendants of the Aztecs recorded the largest written corpus of native American writing in the Americas. This is not to say that this is more important than the many other forms of history of other peoples, I just know this one better.
Ironically, the writing taught by the Europeans led to the preservation of knowledge about the history and culture of the Aztecs and other groups. In the words of José Rabasa: "Tell Me the Story of How I Conquered You."
It took a few decades for Aztecs to learn alphabetic writing, so we don't have sources from the immediate conquest period nor from pre-colonial times. But there are important later works that still have strong connections to earlier native histories and traditions, some of them are luckily translated into English. Of course most pre-Hispanic sources (and many early colonial ones as well) were destroyed by the Spanish; and it would take some decades for Nahua - another term for "Aztec" I'm using here since "Aztec" was only popularised know the 19th century - to be sufficiently adapt at alphabetic writing and Spanish to produce writings.
The first generation of Nahua writers is seen to come up around the mid-16th century in connection with the famed Colegio de Tlatelolco, where they were schooled by the Franciscans. It was established in 1536 with the express purpose of training noble indigenous boys for Catholic priesthood as to aid in the conversions. However, none of its students was ordained, and natives were banned from ordination in 1555. So that parts of Bernardino Sahagún's works were written by his Tlatelolca collaborators.
Around this time more traditional codices were also produced, using glyphs and images, which would focus more on pre-colonial history, colonial tributes etc. By the late 16th century major alphabetic chronicles and annals were written by native authors in Nahuatl and Spanish.
With all of this we have to keep in mind that all these native authors had sufficient background in European and Spanish knowledge that these permeated their writings. So it's almost impossible to speak of clear „native“ positions in this context.
All this means that the early Nahua collaborators of Sahagún's working in the 1560s and after already had a very good command of Spanish, Nahuatl and Latin. Antonio Valeriano, probably the best known of these scribes, was famed among the friars for his skills and would attain political positions through them.
By the later 16th century there were Nahua nobles like Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl and Hernan Tezozomoc who were by all accounts bilingual. Alva Ixtlilxochitl actually mocks the Spanish for their lacking Nahuatl skills. By the 17th century this knowledge was becoming more widespread. Regarding political purposes: many authors like those I just mentioned used those skills to write petitions to Spanish Officials to keep praying extend their or their communities rights - often successfully.
Turning things around a bit, some Spanish and creole friars also developed great Nahuatl knowledge in this time frame, esp Franciscans and some Dominicans : Sahagún, Diego Duran and later Juan Torquemada are well-known examples. A main interest for orders and the church to learn and teach indigenous languages was to aid in their conversion. However, even important Mexican Franciscans had become wary that this goal would be accomplished.
Between 1540 and '70, numerous works were created by former students of the 'Colegios' or by authors who were otherwise connected with the indigenous elite. These include the chronicles of Tadeo de Niza and Don Alfonso Axayacatzin, as well as those of Don Pedro Ponce de León, ruler of Tlaxcala, or Francisco Acaxitli, ruler of Tlalmancalco; the pre-Columbian tradition of anonymous historical collections was also continued with works such as the Historia Tolteca Chichimeca (1544) and the Leyenda de los Soles (1558).
The 1570s saw the emergence of the first generation of Spaniards and mestizos (of mixed descent), who were fluent in indigenous languages and were possibly considered by officials to be less subversive than indigenous scholars. In addition, in 1572 the Jesuits had arrived in New Spain, who opened their schools not only originally like the Franciscans to indigenous people, but also to Spaniards and mestizos.
The exchange between friars and indigenous people made it possible to create a corpus of texts on indigenous cultures and, through them, initiated collaboration between intellectuals of different ethnic origins. This "post-colegio generation", closely linked to the Franciscan and Jesuit intellectual circles, included the indigenous nobles Don Hernando de Alvarado Tezozomoc (Tezozomoc) and Don Domingo Francisco de San Antón Muñón Chimalpahin Quauhtlehuanitzin (Chimalpahin).
The latter's Crónica Mexicayotl (1609) combines oral, pictographic and written accounts of Mexica history and follows pre-colonial traditions by directly teaching readers to remember their past and be proud of their heritage. Tezozomoc's Crónica mexicana (ca. 1598) again follows the form of European chronicles, possibly suggesting colonial officials as the intended target group.
The last group within this generation of writers are individuals, mostly mestizos, belonging to both cultural systems, who had mastered Western and indigenous historiographical conventions better than their indigenous colleagues. In addition to Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl, we should mention the mestizo Don Diego Muñoz Camargo, who wrote about his Tlaxkaltecan ancestors from an outsider's perspective. In his comparative study of Tezozomoc, Muñoz Camargo and Alva Ixtlilxochitl, Salvador Velazco emphasizes that there was no clearly definable "mestizo identity " in New Spain, but rather that different adaptation strategies were used in colonial society regardless of ethnicity or caste.
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Wayne ti dsa, bəqəłšułabš čəd, tulʔal čəd sqwalatsabš. My name is Wayne; I am a citizen of the Muckleshoot Tribe. My bloodline comes from Boise Creek village—from my ancestral grandmother Mary tsabulšəd, whose daughter Eliza Ross married James Daniels from whom all the James Daniel family comes from at Muckleshoot. In our walk of life, "You can have more than one wife, you just have to be able to take care of them all," as my qəsiʔ, uncle, Hoagie King George, shares—teachings from his grandmother. However, my grandmother, Mary tsabulšəd, had three different husbands, I leave this to your imagination as to how she managed such a feat. I also come from the Warrior Hoptowit, whose sacrifice in the First Treaty War led to my reservation being established in 1857.
This story is from the lens of a Muckleshoot Tribal member. Much of this is Oral Tradition and History consisting of my personal Aunties and Uncles.
December 26, 1854 was perhaps a declaration of war against the Muckleshoot people. The signing of the Treaty of Medicine Creek took our land. It reserved two sections of land for the Squaxin people, two sections of land to the Nisqually people, two parts of land for the Puyallup people, and zero properties for the Muckleshoot people; additionally, the Treaty of Point Elliot also promised zero lands for the Muckleshoot people. In contrast, the Donation Land Claim Act of 1850 entitled Euro-American settlers up to 640 acres per couple (“Oregon Secretary of State,” n.d.). Governor Isaac Stevens, at the time, had planned to put 1,707 Indians onto 1,280 acres of land. Two Euro-American couples were entitled as much land as Indians that have lived there since time immemorial. The location of the reservations for the Squaxin and Nisqually people had virtually no drinking water or access to salmon; similarly, Nisqually's reservation had no pastures for their herds of horses. Puyallup fared no better, as they were relocated to a place that would never have supported such a large population.
Stevens graduated "first in his class” at West Point Academy (Washington History). He was strategic when he appointed the lands for the Squaxin, Nisqually, and Puyallup people—extermination. Ezra Meeker, a critic of Stevens, "accused Stevens of being drunk at the councils" (Clark, 2017) as well as George Gibbs, an honest man and close associate of Stevens, who also accused Stevens of being a drunkard (Kluger, p. 172). Owen Bush, interpreter for Isaac Stevens during treaty negotiations, stated:
Stevens wanted me to go into the war, but I wouldn't do it. I knew it was his bad management that brought on the war, and I wouldn't raise a gun against those people who had always been so kind to us when we were so weak and needy. The Indians could have killed us all at any time during the eight years we were here before Governor Stevens came, but instead of molesting us in any way, they helped us all they could (Long).
Due to Stevens' inadequate governing, war ensues
James McAllister was a settler-turn-militiaman who feared the consequences of Stevens' incompetency and grossly inadequate treatment of the Medicine Creek tribes. Despite Indians helping settlers to live the previous eight years, McAllister called for military action against Chief Leschi. McAllister wrote to the Superintendent of Indian Affairs for Washington Territory, "Sir, I am of the opinion that he should be attended to as soon as convenient for fear that he might do something bad (Washington State National Guard, p. 4). Acting Governor Mason responded to McAllister's letter by authorizing a militia to be called Eaton's Rangers, which McAllister promptly joined. Mason authorized the use of deadly force. McAllister's actions and those of individual settlers sparked the First Treaty War. Just three days later, October 27, 1855, Tu-wa-pa-ti killed Lieutenant. McAllister, as well as Michael Connell.
On October 28, 1855, an event occurred which Euro-American's call "The White River Massacre" (Alexander, 2018). William Brannan and his family were amongst those during the "massacre." His and his family's death were because of his stupidity and pigheadedness. William Brannan trespassed on Indian land and staked a claim next to our main village of Ilalqo. The Brannan claim was located just downstream from Ilalqo and would have given him the ability to close off our salmon run. He treated our people as slaves and abused our women. Brannan was an illegal trespasser, as the ratification of the Point Elliott treaty that ceded the Muckleshoot's land would not take place until 1859. All the settlers killed were ones that treated the Indians terribly; those who did not wrong our people were spared. The Indian way dictated that good people shall live.
Three days after the removal of illegal trespassers, two militiamen were killed at a place named for another colonist, Finnell's Swamp. These two militia's deaths were the cause of the wrongful indictments against Leschi and Quiemuth. The last living warrior of the First Treaty War, Charlie Martin, identified the killers of Miles and Moses. Chief Leschi went to the gallows for an act he did not commit. Chief Leschi was lynched following two trials that were a joke, and Quiemuth ended up being murdered while in custody. Funnily enough, no trials came for the unlawful murder of many innocent Indian elders, women, children, or Quiemuth.
November 24, 1855, Lieutenant Slaughter was attacked during the night at Biddings prairie, near present-day Aldertson, where he lost forty horses--compensation for the raid on Leschi's property. Two days later, on November 26, Wallace's Company soldier E. G. Price was killed while on the look-out.
It was common during the war for Indians to harass the soldiers by yelling and sneaking up to fire gunshots in the camp. December 4, 1855, Lt. Slaughter took hold of the William Brannan homestead and set up camp. What they should have known is that the people of Ilalqo do not take too kindly to trespassers. John Haiton, a traitorous Indian, had told Lieutenant Slaughter that the enemy was present. Lieutenant. Slaughter did not believe him; his foolishness allowed him to be killed by Sasticum and Weyallup--sharpshooters of their time.
In the middle of January, Chief Leschi sent a runner asking for warriors, his Kittitas relatives. His cousin, Qualchan, and perhaps 300 warriors crossed the Cascades in deep snow to help Leschi in his attack. On January 26, 1856, warriors under the leadership of Leschi, Quilquilton and Qualchan attacked Seattle, where they faced cannons and howitzers. There was little bloodshed on either side, but they succeeded in killing two and making a point.
The militia soldiers could not penetrate the Muckleshoot's "Valley of the Warriors," a stronghold on the Green River, so they hired a traitor Indian, Pat Kanim, and his mercenaries. Around February 7, 1856, Pat Kanim captured my scapaʔ, grandfather, a warrior named Hoptowit. He turned him over to the Whites, where he was hung on Griffin's Prairie, just south of present-day Carnation, on February 8, 1856. A week later, February 15, 1856, Pat Kanim and his company killed Nisqually warrior Diakud and his little daughter and the Muckleshoot warrior So-hai-ad and sold their heads to the soldiers. On February 29, 1856, Kanasket was crucified near Elhi Hill. Kanasket was an outstanding warrior who leaves strong families at Muckleshoot and Puyallup today. Our warriors had powers, and Kanasket's told him he was going to die that day, he was unafraid.
March 10, 1856, Connell's Prairie was the site of the last battle fought against the Whites. Seven of our Indians were killed, with numerous people wounded. It was an even battle that lasted all day. It was decided to retreat, with offers from the Yakama people to recuperate at their home in the Wenas Valley. The retreat across the Cascades during the winter claimed the lives of many of our children, elders, and women. We entered a peace treaty with Colonel George Wright. Stevens was mostly absent during the war, making treaties with other nations. When he returned, our warriors were gone, so he raised a private army and effectively finished the job, killing off and arresting many of our old ones, women, and children; this is known as the Mashel Massacre.
August 5, 1856 is a day that we the Muckleshoot people celebrate. Our warriors won land back from the United States Government, one of the only times Indians have won their property back because of war with the U.S. government. The sacrifices of the warriors of the First Treaty War returned twenty-five thousand acres to our people. Seventeen thousand of those acres restored the land to the Puyallup people. Four thousand to the Nisqually and our Muckleshoot people reclaimed four-thousand acres as well, which was initially zero. But this is not solely Muckleshoot's story, this is the collective story of the Medicine Creek Treaty Tribes and their relatives east of the mountains'.
(CONTINUED)
edited for punctuation
Welcome to the fifth installment of ‘History Upside Down’, our Spring 2020 Floating Feature and Flair Drive Series. This series it intended to shine a light on people often left out of the ‘standard’ histories, and give voice to the subalterns of history.
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Coming up next in the series is The Histories of People with Disabilities Floating Feature on April 23rd. Make sure to mark it on your calendar!
I hope its not too late, but I am desperate to learn more about the socio-political landscape of Australia before colonisation. In particular, I would like to know about the 100 years or so leading up to colonisation. Given the amount of ethnic and social groups in Australia, it must have been quite complex.
Were wars fought? Who was allied? How were alliances forged (eg, trade, marriage)? What was commonly traded?
To narrow things down, I'm primarily interested in the East-Coast, but would love any and all answers...
