Two Wampum Treaty Agreed to Between the Haudenosaunee and the Dutch

Gaswéñdah, the Two Row Wampum Treaty, was the first treaty agreement made between the Haudenosaunee Confederacy of Nations and a European government. This treaty is part of a long history of treaties embodied in wampum belts, and is the basis for all other treaty agreements between the Haudenosaunee and Europeans. This treaty affirmed that the Dutch and the Haudenosaunee are brothers traveling down the river of life together in peace forever- one in their ship and the other in their canoe- and that they would not step into one another’s vessel to disrupt it. The Treaty of Canandaigua (see 1794 on timeline below) made with George Washington build from the agreements of the Two Row Wampum.