Harriet Maxwell Converse (née, Harriet Arnot Maxwell; Seneca clan name, Gayaneshaoh;[citation needed] Seneca tribal name, "Ya-ie-wa-noh, meaning ‘she watches over us.’")[1] (11 January 1836 - 18 November 1903) was an American author of Scottish and Irish heritage.

She was a folklorist, poet and historian of the Iroquois; by the late 19th century, they were a loose confederacy of six nations in New York State and Canada.

She became an advocate for the rights of the Seneca and other Iroquois tribes in New York state, helping them retain their lands and preserve their culture.

In recognition of her contributions, the Seneca made her a member of the tribe and gave her an honorary position as a Sachem or chief of the Six Nations.

Her paternal grandfather, Guy Maxwell, had been an Indian trader in Virginia and New York, moving to Elmira in the late 18th century after the United States achieved independence.

[2] In 1891 Converse was a member of a delegation to Albany, New York to oppose the Whipple Bill before the New York State Assembly; it was designed to force the distribution of communal land in allotments to individual heads of households, along the lines of the federal Dawes Act to extinguish Indian land claims.

It was an action designed to assimilate the Iroquois to subsistence farming in the European-American model and force a break-up of their reservations in the state.

[citation needed][2] Most of the Iroquois had been forced from the area during and after the American Revolutionary War, as four of the Six Nations had allied with the British in the hopes of pushing out the Anglo-American settlers.

She also persuaded the Onondaga to have the NY State Museum made the repository for their historic collection of wampum belts of the Five Nations.

[2] In 1902 Converse publicized her opposition to a federal bill in both New York City and Washington, DC, and helped achieve its defeat.