The
Wyandot (also called
Huron) are
indigenous peoples of
North America, known in their
native language of the
Iroquoian family as the
Wendat. Modern Wyandots emerged in the 17th century from the remnants of two earlier groups, the Huron Confederacy and the
Petun. They were located in what is now the
Canadian province of
Ontario before being reduced by disease and dispersed by war with the
Iroquois. Wyandots today have a reserve in Quebec, Canada and three major settlements and separately governed communities in the
United States.
Before 1650: Hurons and Petuns
Names and organization
thumb|right|200px|Huron-Wendat group - Spencerwood, Quebec City, QC, 1880In the early seventeenth century, the people known as Hurons by the French called themselves the
Wendat, which means "Dwellers of the Peninsula" or "Islanders". The Wendat homeland was bordered on three sides by the waters of
Georgian Bay and
Lake Simcoe.
[Trigger, Children of Aataentsic, 27.] Early
French explorers called these natives the
Huron, either from the French
huron ("ruffian", "rustic"), or from
hure ("boar's head"). According to tradition, French sailors thought that the bristly hairstyle of Wendat men resembled that of a boar.
The Wendat were not a tribe, but a confederacy of four or more tribes with a
mutually intelligible language.
[Dickason, "Huron/Wyandot", 263–65.] According to tradition, this Wendat (or Huron) Confederacy was initiated by the
Attignawantans (People of the Bear) and the
Attigneenongnahacs (People of the Cord), who confederated in the 15th century.
They were joined by the
Arendarhonons (People of the Rock) about 1590, and the
Tahontaenrats (People of the Deer) around 1610.
A fifth group, the
Ataronchronons (People of the Marshes or Bog), may not have attained full membership in the confederacy,
and may have been a division of the
Attignawantan.
[Trigger, Children of Aataentsic, 30.]The largest Wendat settlement, and capital of the confederacy, was located at
Ossossane, near modern-day
Elmvale,
Ontario. Their traditional territory was known as
Wendake.
Closely related to the people of the Huron Confederacy were a group known to the French as the
Petuns (Tobacco People), who lived further south. The Petun were comprised of two groups: the Deer and the Wolves. What the Petun called themselves is not known. Considering that they formed the nucleus of the tribe later known as the Wyandot, they too may have called themselves
Wendat.
Culture
Hurons, like other
Iroquoian people, were farmers who supplemented their diet with hunting and fishing.
was the mainstay of their diet, which was supplemented primarily by fish, although they hunted and ate some
venison and other meats available during the game seasons. Women did most of the agricultural work, although men helped in the heaviest work of clearing the fields. This was usually done by the
slash and burn method of clearing trees and brush. Men did most of the fishing and hunting, and constructed the houses, canoes, and tools. Each family owned a plot of land which they farmed; this land reverted to the common property of the tribe when the family no longer used it.
Hurons lived in villages spanning from one to ten acres (40,000 m²), most of which were fortified in defense against enemy attack. They lived in
long houses, similar to other Iroquoian cultural groups. The typical village had 900 to 1600 people organized into 30 or 40 longhouses.
[Gary Warrick, "European Infectious Disease and Depopulation of the Wendat-Tionontate (Huron-Petun)", World Archaeology 35 (October 2003), 258–275.] Villages were moved about every ten years as the soil became less fertile and the nearby forest, which provided firewood, grew thin. Hurons engaged in trade with neighboring tribes, notably for
tobacco with the neighboring
Petun and
Neutral nations.
Tuberculosis was endemic among Hurons, aggravated by the close and smoky living conditions in the long houses. Hurons were on the whole healthy, however; the
Jesuits wrote that the Huron were "more healthy than we."
European contact and Wendat dispersal
thumb|Le Grand Voyage du Pays des Hurons, Gabriel Sagard, 1632.
The earliest written accounts of the Huron were made by the French, who began exploring North America in the 16th century. News of the Europeans reached the Huron, particularly when
Samuel de Champlain explored the
Saint Lawrence River in the early 1600s. Some Hurons decided to go and meet the Europeans for themselves.
Atironta, the principal headman of the
Arendarhonon tribe, went to
Quebec and made an alliance with the French in 1609.
The total population of the Huron at the time of European contact has been estimated at about 20,000 to 40,000 people.
[Heidenreich, Huron, 369.] From 1634 to 1640, Hurons were devastated by European infectious diseases, such as
measles and
smallpox, to which they had no immunity. Numerous villages and areas were permanently abandoned. About two-thirds of the population died in the epidemics,
decreasing the population to about 12,000.
Before the French arrived, the Huron had already been in conflict with the
Iroquois to the south. Several thousand Huron lived as far south as present-day central
West Virginia along the
Kanawha River by the late 1500s, but they were driven out by the Iroquois' invading from present-day
New York in the 1600s. Once the European powers became involved in trading, this conflict intensified significantly. The French allied with the Huron, because they were the most advanced trading nation at the time. The Iroquois tended to ally with the
English, who took advantage of their hatred of the Huron and new French allies.
Introduction of European weapons increased the severity of inter-tribal warfare and, by about 1650, the Iroquois had almost completely destroyed the Huron tribes. The Jesuit mission of
Sainte-Marie among the Hurons, near modern
Midland, Ontario, was one target of Iroquois attacks. Many of the Jesuit missionaries were killed (see
North American Martyrs); the Jesuits burned the mission after abandoning it in 1649, to prevent its capture. After relocating and spending the bitter winter of 1649-50 on
Gahoendoe, some Huron relocated near
Quebec City and settled at
Wendake, Quebec. They absorbed other refugees and became the
Huron-Wendat Nation.
Emergence of the Wyandot
In the late 17th century, elements of the Huron Confederacy and the
Petuns joined together and became known as the
Wyandot (or
Wyandotte), a variation of
Wendat.
The western Wyandot eventually re-established themselves across the border in the area of
Ohio and southern
Michigan in the present-day United States. Some descendants of the Wyandot Nation of Anderdon still live in
Michigan.
However, in the 1840s, most of the surviving Wyandot people were displaced to
Kansas through
Indian removal. In 1867 after the
American Civil War, additional members removed to
Oklahoma. Today more than 4,000 Wyandot can be found in eastern
Kansas and
Oklahoma.
In June 1853, Big Turtle, a chief of the Wyandot tribe, wrote to the
Ohio State Journal regarding the current condition of his tribe. The Wyandots received nearly $127,000 for their lands in 1845. Big Turtle noted that in the spring of 1850, the tribal chiefs retroceded the granted land to the government. $100,000 of the proceeds was invested in 5% government stock.
["Civilization of the Wyandot Indians"], New York Times, June 1, 1853, Page 3.]Removed from Ohio to the
Indian Territory, the Wyandot tribe had founded good libraries along with two thriving Sabbath Schools. They were in the process of organizing a division of the Sons of Temperance and maintained a sizable
Temperance Society. Big Turtle commented on the agricultural yield, which produced an annual surplus for market. He said that the Wyandot's general thrift exceeded that of any tribe north of the
Arkansas line. The Wyandot nation
was
contented and happy, and enjoyed better living conditions in the Indian Territory than formerly in Ohio.
A United States government treaty ceded the Wyandot Nation a small portion of fertile land located in an acute angle of the
Missouri River and
Kansas River. In addition the government granted thirty-two "floating sections", located on public lands west of the
Mississippi River. By 1855 the number of Wyandots had diminished to 600 or 700. On August 14 of that year the Wyandot nation elected a chief. The Kansas correspondent of the
Missouri Republican reported that the judges of the election were three elderly braves, who were trusted by their peers. Some of the floating sections of land were offered for sale on the same day at a price of $800. A section was composed of . Altogether were sold for $25,600. They were located in Kansas, Nebraska, and unspecified sites. Surveys were not required, with the title becoming complete at the time of location.
An October 1855 article in
The New York Times reported that the Wyandots were free (that is, had been accepted as US citizens) and without the restrictions placed on other tribes. Their leaders were unanimously
pro-slavery, which meant 900 or 1,000 additional votes in opposition to the
Free State movement of Kansas.
The last of the original Wyandot of Ohio was Margaret "Grey Eyes" Solomon, a.k.a. "Mother Solomon". The daughter of Chief John Grey Eyes, she was born in 1816 and departed Ohio in 1843. By 1889 she had returned to Ohio, when she was recorded as a spectator to the restoration of the Wyandot's "Old Mission Church", a Wyandot Mission Church at
Upper Sandusky. She died in Upper Sandusky on August 17, 1890. For photograph see .
20th century to present
In February 1985 the U.S. government agreed to pay descendants of the Wyandot Indians $5.5 million. The decision settled the 143-year-old treaty, which in 1842 forced the tribe to sell their Ohio lands for less than fair value. A spokesman for the
Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) said that the government would pay $1,600 each, in July 1985, to 3,600 people in Kansas and Oklahoma who could prove they were Wyandot descendants.
["Wyandot Indians Win $5.5 Million Settlement", New York Times, February 11, 1985, Page A10]A program founded in the 1940s to address grievances filed by various Native American tribes allocated $800 million to rectify promises broken by settlers who invaded their territories. The Wyandot settlement was based on an 1830 Federal law which required Native Americans to move west of the Mississippi River. Originally the Wyandots were paid 75 cents per acre for land that was worth $1.50 an acre.
In 1999, representatives of the far-flung Wyandot bands of Quebec, Kansas, Oklahoma and Michigan gathered at their historic homeland in Midland, Ontario, and formally re-established the Wendat Confederacy.
Each modern Wyandot community is an autonomous band:
- Wyandot Nation of Anderdon, in Michigan, with headquarters in Trenton, Michigan, perhaps 800 members
The Wyandot Nation of Kansas has had legal battles with the Wyandotte Nationa of Oklahoma over the
Huron Cemetery in Kansas City, Kansas. It has been a point of contention for over 100 years. Because of complications from the Indian removal process, the land was legally under control of the Wyandotte Nation, who wanted to redevelop it for the benefit of its people. The local Kansas group strongly opposed most such proposals, which would have required reinterment of Indian remains, including many of their ancestors. In 1998 the two nations finally agreed to preserve the cemetery for religious, cultural and other uses appropriate to its sacred history and use.
The approximately 3,000 Wyandots in
Quebec are primarily
Catholic and speak
French as a first language. They have begun to promote the study and use of the
Wyandot language. For many decades, a leading source of income for the Wyandots of Quebec has been selling pottery and other locally produced crafts.
