The Two Row Wampum Treaty, also known as Guswenta or Kaswentha and as the Tawagonshi Agreement of 1613 or the Tawagonshi Treaty, is a mutual treaty agreement, made in 1613 between representatives of the Five Nations of the Haudenosaunee (or Iroquois) and representatives of the Dutch government in what is now upstate New York. [1] .

As the Haudenosaunee and Dutch discovered much about each other, an agreement was made as to how they were to treat each other and live together. Each of their ways would be shown in the purple rows running the length of a wampum belt. “In one row is a ship with our White Brothers’ ways; in the other a canoe with our ways.

The Two Row Wampum belt is a metaphor for how the European newcomers and the Haudenosaunee mutually agreed to live in peace as brothers while pursuing parallel but separate paths of culture, belief, and law. This was symbolized as a ship and a canoe floating side by side on the River of Life, indicated in the wampum belt by the two dark rows.

The Two Row Wampum, known as Teiohate Kaswenta in the Mohawk language, tells the story of an agreement between Indigenous people and the Dutch. The agreement is founded upon the respectful co‐existence of two different nations.

Aug 1, 2001 · The Kaswentha (pronounced Gus-wén-ta) is a treaty belt created in the 17th century to record an agreement between the Haudenosaunee Confederacy and Dutch settlers in eastern New York. Also known as the Two-Row Wampum, the belt consists of alternating rows of purple and white wampum running the length of the belt.

Aug 9, 2013 · Many people call the Two Row belt Kaswentha, which has been translated by one Mohawk elder as “it brightens the mind.” In times past it was called Tekeni Teiohate, or “two paths,” which is in line with the Wyandot belt described above.

This essay analyzes the colonial era documentary record for corroboration of Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) oral tradition regarding the kaswentha (as currently understood and represented in the form of a Two-Row wampum belt).

Kaswentha may best be understood as a Haudenosaunee term embody-ing the ongoing negotiation of their relationship to European colonizers and their descendants; the underlying concept of kaswentha emphasizes the distinct identity of the two peoples and a mutual engagement to coexist in peace without interference in the affairs of the other.

The Kaswentha (pronounced Gus-we ́n-ta) is a treaty belt created in the 17th century to record an agreement between the Haudenosaunee Confederacy and Dutch settlers in eastern New York.

The 1613 Teioháte Kaswenta (Two Row Wampum Belt) records the first non-paper agreement between Europeans and Indigenous peoples, specifically the Dutch and the Haudenosaunee, on Turtle Island, which includes Canada.