Wampum Beads

Timeline

1. c. 1500–1600Iroquois and Algonquian cultural zones · Northeast WoodlandVarious peoples used combinations of purple and white bead strings to encode alliances, mourning, welcome, and diplomatic messages, with specialized craftspeople processing shells and stringing them into belts or strings that conveyed credibility and memory in inter-tribal ceremonies and gift exchange.
2. 1611–1620New Netherland and New England trading posts · NortheastDutch and English merchants used wampum as a unit of account and means of payment in the fur trade, expanding production scale and altering its original ceremonial context; it was still used in treaty and land-cession ceremonies between colonists and Indigenous peoples.
3. 1620–1700Treaty conference sites in eastern North America · NortheastWampum belts became visual texts for confirming commitments and recording terms at formal diplomatic occasions; colonial authorities and Indigenous leaders sealed alliances by exchanging bead strings, though their meaning was not fully equivalent across the two legal-cultural traditions.