Two Row Wampum Treaty

The Two Row Wampum Treaty, also known as Guswenta or Kaswhenta and as the Tawagonshi Agreement of 1613 or the Tawagonshi Treaty, is a mutual treaty agreement, made in 1613 between representatives of the Five Nations of the Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) and representatives of the Dutch government in what is now upstate New York. The agreement is considered by the Haudenosaunee to be the basis of all of their subsequent treaties with European and North American governments, and the citizens of those nations, including the Covenant Chain treaty with the British in 1677 and the Treaty of Canandaigua with the United States in 1794.

The treaty is spiritually and culturally revered and widely-accepted among the Indigenous peoples in the relevant territories, and documented by the wampum belts and oral tradition. However, in more recent years the authenticity of the later, written versions of the agreement have been a source of debate, with some scholarly sources maintaining that a treaty between the Dutch and Kanien'kehá:ka (Mohawk Nation) did not take place or took place at a later date. In August 2013, the Journal of Early American History published a special issue dedicated to exploring the Two Row Tradition.

Soon after Henry Hudson's 1609 exploration of the Hudson River and its estuary, traders from the United Provinces of the Netherlands set up factorijs (trading posts) to engage in the fur trade. At the time the Iroquois Mohawk and the Mahican territory abutted in the mid-Hudson Valley. The Dutch traded with the indigenous population to supply fur pelts, particularly from beaver, which were abundant in the region. By 1614, the New Netherland Company was established and Fort Nassau was built, setting the stage for the development of the colony of New Netherland.

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