Aviva Directory » People & Daily Life » Ethnicity » American Indians » Wyandot

Also known as the Huron, the Wyandot (Wyandotte, Wendat, Waⁿdát) emerged as a confederacy of Northeastern Woodlands people inhabiting an area along Lake Huron, in what is now the Canadian province of Ontario and the U.S. state of Michigan. This area included Georgian Bay of Lake Huron and Lake Simcoe in Ontario and extended south as far as northern Ohio.

The Wyandot descended from remnants of the Attignawantan, Tionontati, and Wenrohronon (Wenro) people, who united around 1650 after being defeated by the Iroquois Confederacy. The Wyandot have connections to the Wendat-Huron through their lineage from the Attignawantan, the founding tribe of the Huron.

Today, the Wyandot are represented in the federally recognized Wyandotte Nation in Oklahoma, the unrecognized Wyandot Nation of Kansas, and the Wyandot of Anderdon Nation in Michigan. In Canada, the Huron-Wendat Nation has two First Nations reserves in Quebec.

Historically, the Upper Sandusky Reservation in Ohio was home to several Wyandot people from 1818 to 1842 when it was dissolved. Additionally, Kuskusky (Kuskuskies Towns, Kuskuskie Towns, or Kuskuskies' Indian Town) referred to several American Indian communities in Pennsylvania and Ohio, which included Wyandot people. These Indian towns were abandoned after 1758, possibly due to military actions at the end of the French and Indian War.

At various times, the Wyandot people have inhabited parts of New England, north into Quebec, and west to Michigan, Minnesota, and Ohio. In the 1830s, they were forced onto reservations in Kansas and northeastern Oklahoma.

Although they are related to Iroquoian people, the Five Nations of the Iroquois, who occupied territory on the south side of Lake Ontario, were among their chief rivals. They are also related to the Erie, Neutral Nation, Wenro, Susquehannock, and Tionontate, all of whom speak Iroquoian languages.

The earliest written accounts of the Huron were made by the French, who explored North America in the 16th century. When news of the Europeans reached the Huron, members of the tribe decided to go meet them. In his chronicle of the Jesuit missions, François du Peron described the Huron people as follows:

They are robust, and all are much taller than the French. Their only covering is a beaver skin, which they wear upon their shoulders in the form of a mantle; shoes and leggings in winter, a tobacco pouch behind the back, a pipe in the hand; around their necks and arms bead necklaces and bracelets of porcelain; they also suspend these from their ears and around their locks of hair. They grease their hair and faces; they also streak their faces with black and red paint.

Estimates of their populations at the time of European contact range from 20,000 to 40,000. However, like many other American Indian tribes, the Huron were devastated by infectious diseases, such as measles and smallpox, within a few years of meeting the Europeans. They lost so many people that several Huron villages were abandoned. Up to two-thirds of their population died during the epidemics.

Perhaps because their chief rivals, the Iroquois, were allied with the Dutch and, later, the English, the Huron favored the French, with whom they traded. However, while the Iroquois were able to obtain iron tools and firearms from the Dutch, the Huron were required to convert to Christianity in order to obtain guns from the French.

As a consequence, they were driven from many of their areas by the Iroquois, relocating to an area near Quebec City, where they settled at Wendake, while others went further west into Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, absorbing remnants of other tribes along the way.

In the late 17th century, the Huron Confederacy merged with the Tionantati to form the historical Wyandot.

In the latter stages of the American Revolution, the Wyandot supported the British. In 1782, they joined a British force led by Simon Girty to besiege Bryan Station in Kentucky, defeating a militia led by Daniel Boone. Later that same year, the Wyandot joined forces with the Shawnee, Seneca, and Lenape in an unsuccessful siege of Fort Henry on the Ohio River.

During the Northwest Indian War, the Wyandot again fought with the British against the United States, and were signatories to the Treaty of Greenville in 1795. In 1807, the Wyandot, Ottawa, Potawatomi, and Ojibwa signed the Treaty of Detroit, resulting in a major land cession, and in the 1830s and 1840s, they were displaced to Kansas, where they purchased 23,000 acres in Wyandotte County from the Delaware.

Wyandot leaders were pro-slavery in the lead-up to the American Civil War so, although they did not take part in the conflict, after the Civil War, many of them were moved to northeastern Oklahoma, although they continue to have a presence in eastern Kansas and northeastern Oklahoma, as well as in Quebec, with smaller numbers in Michigan.

 

 

Recommended Resources


Search for Wyandot on Google or Bing