Northeastern Influences and Indian Slaves: Susquehannock and Westo Trade Alliances

During the Iroquois Beaver Wars of the seventeenth century, the Erie were pushed out of the Great Lakes region and moved south. In 1656, the Westo, an Erie group, arrived in southwestern Virginia and entered into trade agreements with European settlers to provide Indian slaves in exchange for firearms. This paper will analyze the early partnership between the Westo and the Susquehannock prior to Westo migration to Virginia, a partnership that laid the groundwork for the trade in Indian slaves. Beginning around 1640 the Westo started trading with the Susquehannocks for European firearms in exchange for beaver pelts from the Great Lakes Region. Their interaction with the Susquehannock facilitated their advantageous move south to Virginia and eventually to the Savannah River. The decades spent in the Ohio River Valley fostered and shaped their later partnership with the English traders. This paper contends that Westo trade with the Susquehannock precipitated the Westo migration to Virginia and their acquisition of firearms through this partnership facilitated their entry as powerful intermediaries in the slave trade. The Westo presence in the Lower South served to reorder Native societies and dramatically affected the emergence of the plantation economy in the lower southeast by heightening and shaping traffic in Indian slaves.