The Peacemaker - Duffey, Brenda

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Résumé :
The year is 1720 and there are rumblings along the 240-mile stretch of the Mohawk Trail (which is today upstate New York) creating fissures that are dividing the five tribes belonging to the Iroquois Confederacy that has dominated the area in peace and prosperity since the arrival of The Peacemaker in the 11th Century. The Confederacy divided the land into five regions under the control of one of the five tribes - the Mohawk, Seneca, Cayuga, Oneida and Onondaga. Each tribe was sovereign but aligned with the other tribes in a system of government based on three principles. ? Land ownership based on stewardship rather than military might. ? Empowerment of women - The members of the Confederacy were matrilineal with material wealth and lands controlled by the Klan mothers. The Klan mothers also appointed the men who represented the tribes at the Grand Council and could remove these men from office if they violated any of the terms of the covenant agreements. The women also had absolute veto over any decision to go to war. ? Diplomacy and settlement of disagreements at the yearly council meetings and settling these agreements in treaties called covenant chains. The members of the Confederacy had welcomed the thirteen fires into their League when the English first arrived at Jamestown and Plymouth, but by 1720 the Confederacy was falling apart. This was due, in part, to the continual violation of treaties made in good faith with the English concerning ownership of land. In addition, the members of the Confederacy were pulled back into competition for control of the beaver trade and ever-growing dependence on manufactured goods. The introduction of firearms and firewater further seduced the men from their commitment to peace. The tribes were also decimated by the disease of small pox which had reduced their numbers in 1720 to about half of what they were before the arrival of the Europeans. The Peacemaker is a multi-generational saga that tells of the decline of the Iroquois Confederacy and the ultimate establishment of the United States of America built upon its ashes after the American Revolution. The story covers American history from 1720 until September 11, 2001. It is America's story told through the eyes of the generations of women who have struggled to attain the power lost to them in 1789 and have worked through generations to stop the endless cycles of war, poverty, and economic depression and most recently the threat of global warming. It is a call to a powerful country facing its own decline to listen to the message given to Ayowentah (Hiawatha) by the Peacemaker in the 11th Century to bring back those principles that will lead to the establishment of a strong society that will last through the Seventh Generation and beyond.

Biographie:
Brenda Duffey was born in Jefferson County, Kentucky. She came from a typically large Southern family (six children) that was raised on Kentucky fried chicken (not the same) and conservative Bible Belt philosophy. She received her BA degree in 1967 from a small Baptist college (Kentucky Southern) that is now part of the University of Louisville. In 1986, she received her MSW from the Kent School of Social Work at the University of Louisville. Part of the simple, homespun philosophy espoused by her father was hard work and pulling yourself up by the bootstraps through education. That is why she decided to enter the field of public education after receiving her BA with endorsements in history and English.Ms. Duffey has spent over twenty-five years in the classroom in a variety of educational settings in many states including Kentucky, Indiana, North Carolina, New Mexico, and Oregon. Her focus was always on helping students from diverse ethnic groups and economic status attain competence in English communication skills as well as understand themselves and their connection to American society through understanding their past and their collective heritage. Ms. Duffey retired from teaching in 2003. At that time, she was teaching at a correctional facility for adjudicated males in Oregon. The idea for The Peacemaker originated in 1997 when she was teaching a course in Native American history at Chemawa Indian School in Salem, Oregon.After retirement in 2003, Ms. Duffey began work on her first major novel The Peacemaker http://kentuckywoman.net. This is a generational saga that tells the true story of American history in fictional form. That novel was first published in 2009. Now, Ms. Duffey has completed a sequel to The Peacemaker a novel entitled New Pangaea - An Evolution into the Fifth World. Between novels, Ms. Duffey completed a set of four short stories entitled Finding New Pangaea. Springtime Comes to New Pangaea presents the back story for the main character in New Pangaea. Other stories include, Juneteenth set in Ms. Duffey's old neighborhood of Portland in Louisville and A Thanksgiving Story. The final story The Season is a fantasy set in a fictional land called Mid Pangaea. The main characters in all these stories are adolescent males or females facing coming of age issues. Ms. Duffey also has completed a musical stage production entitled A Squeaky Wheel Gets Oiled - The Musical.