The Susquehannock, True Giants...or Just Big People ©

 

 

The Susquehannock of the 17^th and early 18^th centuries, also known as the Conestoga, Minquas, and Andaste, were an Iroquoian people who lived in the lower Susquehanna River watershed in what is today the States of Maryland, New York and Pennsylvania, USA.  According to The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, they are thought to have been subdivided into several subtribes and clans.  Their name means “people of the muddy river” and may have referred originally to a confederacy of tribes.  Like other Iroquoian tribes, they were semisedentary agriculturalists, who ate a diet of corn (maize) and the meat of wild game and fish, a diet high in protein. 

 

Captain John Smith, who explored the upper Chesapeake Bay area, first described the Susquehannock as a “gyant-like people” and continued with “Such great and well proportioned men are seldome seene, for they seemed like Giants to English, yea and to the neighbors...”¹ in the summer of 1608.

 

But were they true giants, standing over seven feet (2 meters) tall², or were they simply, just big people, who were taller than their shorter Eastern Algonquin Lenape neighbors and the English colonists?  Let’s look at the archeological record and see what we can dig up.

 

Robert Vaughan’s 1624 engraving has two drawings of John Smith capturing the Kings of Pamaunkee and of Paspahegh.  In both pictures Captain John Smith is shown as much shorter than the Native Americans chieftains he is capturing. 

 

It is obvious, in Captain Smith’s mind the Susquehannock were “tall”, but just how tall were they and were they taller than other Native Americans? 

 

According to archeologist Marshall J. Becker, Captain Smith’s observations were accurate, the Susquehannock were tall.  He reported that the height range of male skeletal remains excavated from the circa 1550’s palisaded Susquehannock village (46HM73) along the South Branch of the Potomac River was between 5 feet, 5 inches (165.9 cm) to 5 feet, 10 inches (180 cm) and the average height was 5 feet 8 inches (173 cm) and that “The limited evidence now available suggests that Susquehannock males of the 16^th century were taller than other Native American males in that region.  Since the higher status males who met Captain John Smith in 1608 were at the taller end of this range and well above the average of 173.7 cm. [5 feet 8 inches]”³.  Becker explains that this height difference between Iroquoian Susquehannock and the Eastern Algonquin Lenape tribes in the region of the Chesapeake Bay, was due to the Susquehannock and other Iroquoian tribes using corn (maize) “as a dietary staple, rather than as a simple food supplement as was the case among the maize ‘gardening’ Lenape”⁴. 

 

So, Captain Smith was correct that the Susquehannock seemed to be a “gyant-like people” compared to their Eastern Algonquin Lenapeneighbors, but unfortunately for the legends, they were 14 inches (35 cm) too short to be true giants, who are more than 7 feet (213 cm) tall.  But, just how much taller than the English explorers were the Susquehannock that Captain Smith met?

 

Captain John Smith was about 5 feet, 4 inches (1.62 m) tall, and would be thought of by modern people today, as being rather short.  But would he have been considered of average height during the 1600s?  And just how tall were the English explorers during the early 1600s?  That question is difficult to answer since comparable information on the height men from the British Isles during the period between 1550 to 1620 is scarce.⁵

 

During the Middle Ages the average height of the Englishmen was 5 feet, 8 inches (1.72 m) with a range from 5 feet, 3 inches to 6 feet, 2 inches (1.59 to 1.87 m)⁶, as shown the skeletal remains from the cemetery of St. Nicholas Shambles, which contained burials from the 11^th and 12^th centuries.  However, as the Age of Exploration (the 15^th century to the 17^th century) advanced, the height of the inhabitants of the British Isles and most other European nationalities diminished.  Unfortunately, economic development does not automatically result in better nutrition.  Historically, economic growth and rapid urbanization has often resulted in poor nutrition and a subsequent decrease in height.  The European decline in height from the Middle Ages until the middle of the 20th century, was due to poor nutrition brought about by economic growth and rapid urbanization, an increasing population, increasing food prices and a decrease in protein consumption.  Because of this Europeans were noticeably shorter, than Native Americans, and the later American colonists and citizens, throughout the 18^th century and until the mid-20^th century. 

 

As we have already discussed, the overall height of European males had decreased due to rapid population growth, rapid urbanization, and a poor diet with less protein, and this was particularly true among urban English males, or as M. Becker wrote, “...in 1608 these Susquehannocks may have averaged 10 [4 inches] or more centimeters taller than Smith and other urban English males of the time” ⁷.

 

This would mean the estimated height of men from the British Isles during the 1550s to the 1700s should range from 5 feet, 1 inch (155 cm) to 5 feet, 9 inches (175 cm), with an average height of 5 feet, 5 inches (165 cm).  The authors of “European Heights in the Early 18^th Century”, calculated the average heights of English soldiers to be 5 feet, 5 inches (165 cm), Irish soldiers as 5 feet, 6 inches (168 cm) and Scottish soldiers as 5 feet, 4 inches (163 cm) during early 1700s⁸, and this compares well with the estimated height of men from the Britain during this period.  So, Captain John Smith would have been close to average height for a man from the Britain in 1608, but he would have been 3 inches (7.6 cm) shorter than the average Susquehannock.

 

An interesting exception to this overall decline in the heights of Europeans, was the Dutch, who during the Dutch Golden Age (circa 1580 to 1660) benefited from both rising prosperity and better nutrition, and therefore the Dutch enjoyed an average height for men of 5 feet 7 inches (1.70 meters), with range 5 feet 5 inches to 5 feet 9 inches(1.66 to 1.76 meters)⁹.  The reason this is interesting is that in 1644 Dutchman Johannes Megapolensis noted, while commenting on the height of the Mohawks, another Iroquoian people who were native to eastern New York state, that “The people and Indians here in this country are like us Dutchmen in body and stature...”¹⁰.

 

This would confirm Marshall Beckers conjecture that the Iroquoian tribes’ reliance on corn (maize) as a “dietary staple, rather than as a simple food supplement”, was a reason for their relatively “gyant-like” height, since it can be implied that related tribes with a similar diet would likely be about the same height, and both the Dutch and Mohawk had similar height ranges and average heights, as the Susquehannock.

 

Now we know that the Susquehannock were in fact just big people, not giants, and that it is was due to high protein diet with grain as a dietary staple, something that modern Americans share with the Susquehannock and the other Iroquoian tribes of Native Americans, besides height.

 

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That is all for now, and as always, until next time, Happy Trails!

 

 

Notes

 

¹ From “The Stature of the Susquehannock Population of Mid-16^th Century Based on Skeletal Remains from 46HM73”, by Marshall Joseph Becker, page 74.

 

² To be diagnosed with gigantism, a person must be over 7 feet (2.1 meters) tall.

 

³ From “The Stature of the Susquehannock Population of Mid-16^th Century Based on Skeletal Remains from 46HM73”, by Marshall Joseph Becker, page 77.

 

⁴ Ibid., page 83

 

⁵ Ibid., page 82

 

⁶ Interestingly the height of English women buried in St Nicholas Shambles cemetery, averaged 5 feet 2 inches with a range of 4 feet 11 inches to 5 feet 8 inches (152 to 174 cm), which is the same range as the Susquehannock women buried at 46HM73, although the average height for the Susquehannock women was 5 feet 4 inches.

 

From the Skeletal Remains from the Cemetery of St Nicholas Shambles, City of London, by William J. White, page 30, and “The Stature of the Susquehannock Population of Mid-16th Century Based on Skeletal Remains from 46HM73”, by Marshall Joseph Becker, page 77.

 

⁷ From “European Heights in the Early 18^th Century”, by John Komlos and Francesco Cinnirella.

 

⁸ Ibid., page 5

 

⁹ From “Observations on the history of Dutch physical stature from the late-Middle Ages to the present”, by Hans De Beers, pages 46 to 47.

 

¹⁰ From “The Stature of the Susquehannock Population of the Mid-16^th Century Based on Skeletal Remains from 46HM73”, by Marshall Joseph Becker, page 75.

 

Sources

  

Becker, Marshall John; “The Stature of the Susquehannock Population of the Mid-16th Century Based on Skeletal Remains from 46HM73”, Pennsylvania Archaeologist: Bulletin of the Society for Pennsylvania Archaeology, Inc., Society for Pennsylvania Archaeology, Vol. 6, Issue 1, https://digitalcommons.wcupa.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1039&context=anthrosoc_facpub, accessed March 23, 2024

 

Becker, Marshall John; “Origins of the Unusual Stature of the Susquehannock: Skeletal Remains from the Murray Garden Site (36BR2), Pennsylvania Archaeologist: Bulletin of the Society for Pennsylvania Archaeology, Inc., Society for Pennsylvania Archaeology, Vol. 91, Issue 2, https://digitalcommons.wcupa.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1149&context=anthrosoc_facpub, accessed March 23, 2024

 

De Beers, Hans; “Observations on the history of Dutch physical stature from the late-Middle Ages to the present”, [Economics and Human Biology 2, 2004], pages 45 to 55, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15463992/#:~:text=In%20the%20late%2DMiddle%20Ages,Maat%20and%20his%20co%2Dworkers, accessed March 21, 2024

 

Komlos, John; Cinnirella, Francesco; “European Heights in the Early 18th Century”, Munich Discussion Paper, No. 2005-5, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, [Volkswirtschaftliche Fakultät, München, 2005], https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/104161/1/lmu-mdp_2005-05.pdf, accessed March 20, 2024

 

Library of Congress, “Carte de la Louisiane et du cours du Mississippi” (1718), https://www.loc.gov/item/98685731/, accessed March 19, 2024

 

Library of Congress, “John Smith’s Map of Virginia” (1624), https://www.loc.gov/resource/g3880.ct000377/, accessed March 19, 2024

 

National Portrait Gallery, John Smith (1617), Simon van de Passe, 1595 – 1647, https://npg.si.edu/object/npg_NPG.72.113, accessed March 19, 2024

 

Smith, John; The true travels, adventures, and observations, Volume 1, [London, 1630], page 129, https://books.google.com/books?id=cenUyLhJg4YC&pg=PA129&dq=%22the+people+differ+very+much+in+stature,+especially+in+language,+%22&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjEl9DasYiFAxUtKlkFHRDHBGI4ChDoAXoECAYQAg#v=onepage&q=%22the%20people%20differ%20very%20much%20in%20stature%2C%20especially%20in%20language%2C%20%22&f=false, accessed March 22, 2024

 

Wikimedia, “Adventures of Captain John Smith in Virginia 1624”, Robert Vaughan, https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f4/Adventures_of_Captain_John_Smith_in_Virginia_1624.jpg, accessed March 20, 2024

 

Wikimedia, “Hendrick Tejonihokarawa”, 1710, by John Verelst  (1648–1734), https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tejonihokarawa.jpg, accessed March 23, 2024

 

White, William J.; Skeletal Remains from the Cemetery of St Nicholas Shambles, City of London, [The Museum of London and The London & Middlesex Archeological Society,1988], page 8 and 30, https://www.lamas.org.uk/images/documents/Special_Papers/SP9%201988%20Cemetery%20of%20St%20Nicholas%20Shambles.pdf, accessed March 20, 2024