Laurence M. Hauptman is a SUNY Distinguished Professor of History at SUNY New Paltz where he has taught for the past 36 years. He is the author, co-author, editor or co-editor of 14 books on the Iroquois and other Native Americans. He has served as a historical consultant for the Wisconsin Oneidas, the Cayugas, the Mashantucket Pequots, the Senecas, and the Seneca-Cayugas. Professor Hauptman has been honored for his research by both the Iroquois nations as well as by the New York State Board of Regents. He is a member of the New York State-wide Archives Advisory Committee. In April, 2005, he was the Wilma Mankiller Lecturer at the University of Oklahoma. In November, 2006, his book, “BETWEEN TWO FRIES,” was the basis of the History Channel documentary “Indian Warriors of the Civil War.” Professor Hauptman has just completed a book entitled, “THE MODERN IROQUOIS: THE SIX NATIONS SINCE 1800”; chapter 8 of this forthcoming book focuses on the Levi General (Chief Deskaheh) and is the basis of this presentation at the Syracuse University School of Law.

THE IDEALIST AND THE REALIST: CHIEF DESKAHEH, ATTORNEY GEORGE DECKER, AND THE SIX NATIONS’ STRUGGLE TO GET TO THE WORLD COURT, 1921-1925

“…and she [Rachel General, Deskaheh’s daughter] tell’s me when I return home, the Mounties are going to put me in a jail [;] so it looks to me I will be treated just like Gandhi the India [n] [;] they sent him to jail for 12 years, but they release[d] him and now he is free, because his people had the power stronger than the British colonies, so they discharged him” [sic]
Chief Deskaheh to George Decker, June 6, 1924

Scholars and popular writers in the United States, Canada, and Europe have long been fascinated by Levi General, the Cayuga chief who brought Six Nations’ concerns before the League of Nations in the 1920s. General, a charismatic figure in Iroquois history, was a member of the bear clan. He was better known by his Cayuga chiefly title, namely Deskaheh (Deskahe?), meaning “more than eleven.” Today, many Iroquois consider Deskaheh one of the great patriots of their modern history. Yet, some at the Six Nations reserve blame him for the increase of factionalism brought on by his crusade and by the severe repercussions imposed on his people by Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King’s government.
Levi General was born to Oneida-Cayuga parents on the Six Nations Reserve. Growing up along the Grand River, he attended grammar school there. Later, he worked as a lumberjack in western New York and Pennsylvania. After hurting himself in an accident, he returned to the Six Nations Reserve to take up farming; he later married and raised four daughters. As a member of the Spring Longhouse, he was known as a devout communicant and leader, and for his ability as an orator in the Cayuga language.
Previous studies largely focus on Deskaheh alone and his tireless but successful efforts to win international recognition for the Six Nations and indigenous people worldwide. Not enough attention has been devoted to his attorney, George Decker, and their collaboration on the ultimate goal, namely bringing the Six Nations’ legal case before the World Court, the Permanent Court of International Justice in the Hague. In order to accomplish that objective, these two extraordinary men had to make their way to Geneva, Switzerland, and take the plight of the Six Nations to the international arena, to the halls of the League of Nations, an organization largely dominated by British imperial interests in the early 1920s. Although Decker stayed only a few weeks in Geneva while Deskaheh resided there for eighteen months, this effort was truly a cooperative venture between the idealistic chief and his realist “mouthpiece.”