Description
These four diplomats from the Haudenosaunee (also known as the Iroquois Confederacy) were celebrities during their time in London, with their images and orations circulating around the city on handbills. They had come to cement military, religious, economic, and political ties with the Crown, but their presence also inspired vast curiosity among the urban population. For example, on the night they were taken to see Macbeth in Haymarket, there was a near-riot in the theatre , the audience was not there for Shakespeare; they were there to see these strangers from a foreign land. Eventually, the theatre’s owner placed chairs on the stage so that the audience could watch the Haudenosaunee diplomats watching Macbeth. And two years after their return to their homeland, the men continued to shape popular culture: during an outbreak of gang violence in the Covent Garden neighbourhood in 1712, one of the most feared gangs called themselves “Mohocks,” illustrating popular ideas about “savagery” and “liberty.”
Bibliographic sources
Thrush, Indigenous London, 71, 73-82, 91, 95, 122, 215, 216, 230, 247, 249, 254. Image credit, The British Museum.