Four Kings and a Queen - Part I - Hendrick
In the Spring of 1710, four Native American men traveled to London on a diplomatic mission. Known as the “Four Indian Kings”, they would meet with Queen Anne herself to discuss the state of the New England colonies and their Indigenous allies. For the colonial leaders who organized the trip, this was a means of garnering royal and military support in their ongoing conflict with Canada. For the Mohawk and Mohican men who agreed to go on this journey, this was a rare opportunity to ensure their needs would be heard by the very top leadership of their would-be allies. This article will be the first in a series of four, profiling each of the four “Kings”.
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| Portrait of “Tee Yee Neen Ho Ga Row”, aka Hendrick Tejonihokarawa, by John Verelst, 1710 |
When the Indian Commissioners
were tasked with recruiting Haudenosaunee leaders for this trip, Hendrick
Tejonihokarawa* was likely at the top of their list. He was well known to them, having been an
active figure in Mohawk politics for two decades.
He was a Mohawk,
and a member of the Wolf Clan, born around
1660. By his 20’s, he had married a Mohawk woman named Catharine, a daughter of
the matron of the Turtle Clan [8: 23] . The newlywed lived with his wife’s
family at the Lower Castle, called Tiononderoge, located on the land we know
today as the hamlet of Fort Hunter and Schoharie Crossing State Historic Site. Per
Mohawk custom, the name Tejonihokarawa, meaning “open the door”, was given to him as an adult. The name foreshadowed
his role as a diplomat, indicating he was entrusted with the responsibility of welcoming
visitors to the longhouse, fostering new connections between his community and
outsiders [2: 15].
Tejonihokarawa and
his wife’s family were some of the first converts the Protestants had amongst
the Mohawks. Lead by his mother-in-law, Lydia Karanondo, the group was on their
way to Canada to participate in a raid in the summer of 1690, when they stopped
in Albany and were baptized by the Dutch minister Domine Dellius [2: 40; 8:
22-23] Dellius gave Tejonihokarawa the
name Hendrick, which he used very frequently from then on. This was also
sometimes shortened to Henry.
In the years to
follow, Hendrick seems to have taken his new faith quite seriously. Hendrick believed
that the values of his Indigenous culture and Christianity could exist
together, and that this faith had the potential to help his people through a
tumultuous time. He worked closely with Dellius as well as Hilletje van Olinda,
another Mohawk convert and interpreter, in their efforts to bridge the language
gap between Dellius and his Mohawk congregants. With their help, Hendrick
learned to preach the Protestant faith in the Mohawk language [4: 362-7]. He
would eventually learn to speak some Dutch and English, too [6: 64; 8: 62].
Hendrick became
a sachem for the Mohawks and appears many times in the colonial records over
the course of his career. He was present at numerous conferences between
Haudenosaunee leaders and colonial authorities, and his signature appears on
several important land treaties [4: 693, 728-31, 897-99, 985-88] . He was sent
on diplomatic missions, including delivering released prisoners to Canada
[4:279-81]. He successfully convinced other Mohawk leaders, who were
considering joining the French and moving to Canada, to instead stay and
maintain an alliance with the English [4: 182-3, 337-38, 548, 730-31; 8: 49]. Like
many Mohawk sachems of his time, he was also a warrior and occasionally participated
in raids [8: 32].
Hendrick was a
strong advocate for the Mohawk-English alliance, but his close ties to colonial
agents would occasionally be strained. Albany traders were notorious for underhanded
and deceitful dealings with Native Americans, and Hendrick himself fell victim
to such a scheme. He and another Christian Mohawk testified in 1697 that five
men from Albany had tricked them and others into signing a document giving away
their rights to certain lands[4: 345-47, 362-67, 472, 531-37].
Notably among those
men was Domine Dellius. Lord Bellomont, the Governor of New York at the time
and a political rival of Dellius’, used this as a way to force Dellius out of
the colony. With Dellius gone, the converts had lost their priest. The Mohawk
congregants had “only a little Chapel made of bark” to worship in and usually
had to travel to Schenectady or Albany if they wished to attend a sermon [4:
906; 8: 52].
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| Hendrick’s signature, a Wolf totem, as it appeared on a letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1710 {See Bond, pg 9) |
Hendrick and
other Mohawk leaders repeatedly requested that a Protestant missionary be sent
to live with them, and that a proper church should be built at one of their villages.
For Hendrick, these requests were more than a bargaining chip; they were a way
to resist a force that was dividing his dwindling and strained community.
Tensions were high between the English and French colonies, and Jesuit
missionaries had been hard at work for decades actively converting as many
Haudenosaunee as they could. The Catholic converts would then relocate to Canada
and join the French on their side of the fight. As a result, the population of
Mohawks within their namesake valley was reduced until there were only about
300 fighting men and their families [3: 250; 4: 897-99; 8: 18].
Unfortunately, New
England’s leaders often neglected their allies’ requests, and failed to
prioritize this one. So when the trip to London was proposed, Hendrick couldn’t
miss the opportunity to voice his concerns directly to the English monarch. Styled
as the “Emperor” or leader of the four “Kings”, Hendrick was called ”Tee Yee
Neen Ho Ga Row” during the visit to England. Though in truth he was neither a
King nor an Emperor, Hendrick allowed the inaccurate titles to work to his
advantage, and the “Royal” entourage secured an audience with the Queen.
It took a
journey of 3,500 miles- “a long and
tedious voyage, which none of our Predecessors could ever be prevailed upon to
undertake,” [6, 94]- but Queen Anne had finally heard them. She immediately put
them in contact with the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Society for the
Propagation of the Gospel to find missionaries. At the same time, she ordered
that a fort and chapel be built in Mohawk country.
Hendrick and the
others returned home, and within two years, Fort Hunter and Queen Anne’s Chapel
were completed at Tiononderoge. Rev. William Andrews arrived in November of
1712 as the Chapel’s first missionary, bringing with him a fine set of silver
communion dishes and chapel furnishings
gifted by the Queen. [3: 542-43; 7:31; 10].
Hendrick’s wish
had finally been granted, but he had learned to be cautious; After all, if this
holy man had designs to work against them, it wouldn’t be the first time. Hendrick
took the opportunity of Andrews’ reception ceremony to assert publically that “none
of [the Mohawks’] land [should] be clandestinely bought from any of them”, nor should
they be expected to pay hefty tithes to support the priest. Andrews was quick
to assure Hendrick and the rest of the congregation that he had no such designs.
[4: 542; 5: 358]
Hendrick’s
boldness in this instance may have been prudent, but it cost him dearly, for
the clan matrons stripped him of his sachem title (Docs 5: 358). He was
eventually reinstated to the position in 1720 [5: 569]. Hendrick’s wife
Catharine died some time after 1720. By 1726, he had remarried to her widowed
sister, Rebecca Kowajatense, per Mohawk custom. Hendrick died around 1735. [8]
Please stay
tuned for more in this series, & keep an eye out for programming related to
the “Four Kings” throughout 2026.
*Important note:
while historians have often conflated Hendrick Tejonihokarawa with another
notable 18th century Mohawk leader, Hendrick Peters Theyanoguin,
recent scholarship has confirmed that these were two distinct individuals. See
Siversten 1996, Snow 2007, & Hinderaker 2010 for more details.
Sources:
1. Hinderaker, Eric. 1996. “The ‘Four Indian
Kings’ and the Imaginative Construction of the First British Empire.” The
William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd Series, Vol. LIII, No. 3 (July): 487–526.
2. Hinderaker, Eric. 2010. The Two
Hendricks: Unraveling a Mohawk Mystery. Harvard University Press.
3. Documents Relative to the Colonial
History of the State of New York, Vol. 3
4. Documents Relative to the Colonial
History of the State of New York, Vol. 4
5. Documents Relative to the Colonial
History of the State of New York, Vol. 5
6. Bond, Richmond P. 1952. Queen Anne’s
American Kings. Clarendon Press.
7. Lydekker, John Wolfe. 1938. The Faithful
Mohawks. Empire State Historical Publications Series 50. Ira J. Friedman, Inc.
8. Siversten, Barbara J. 1996. Turtles,
Wolves, and Bears: A Mohawk Family History. Heritage Books.
9. Snow, Dean R. 2007. “Searching for
Hendrick: Correction of a Historic Conflation.” New York History, Hisotry
Cooperative. https://historycooperative.org/journal/searching-for-hendrick-correction-of-a-historic-conflation/.
10. Bradley,
James W. and James B. Richardson III. 2023. “The Eagle, the Bell, and Other
Fragments from the Intersecting Stories of Queen Anne’s Chapel and Fort
Hunter.” New York History 104 (1): 136–61.
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Read a bit about the Mohawks and the Palatine Germans in the valley by clicking the link below for an article written by Paul Gorgen; posted in 2017.
CLICK HERE to Read The Mohawks and the Palatine Germans in the Mohawk Valley
You can also check out this recorded program on YouTube:
This talk takes a close look at
relations between the Mohawk People and the Dutch settlers who arrived at their
borders in the early 1600’s. Focusing on experiences in the Mohawk Valley, it
looks at Mohawk and Dutch trade relations, their alliance in war and
peacemaking, some family connections and other lasting impacts of their
partnership. We will also discuss the ongoing legacy of those relations beyond
the end of the Dutch colonial era, and the Mohawks’ return to the Valley today.
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