Hurons History Canada
Based on linguistic evidence, it appears that the Iroquian-speaking people Jacques Cartier encountered in 1535 on the St. Lawrence River at Hochelaga (Montreal) were Huron. Sometime after Cartier's last visit in 1541, Hochelaga was abandoned probably due to wars with the Iroquois and Algonquins. Two groups of these so-called Laurentian Iroquois from the St. Lawrence, the Arendahronon and Tahonaenrat, moved west and by 1570 had combined with an older alliance of the Attignawantan and Attigneenongnahac to form the Huron Confederacy. Other Iroquian tribes in the region organized themselves in a similar manner, the most notable example being the Iroquois League in upstate New York. The Huron occupied the area of central Ontario at the south end of Georgian Bay. To the west, in the hills near the southeast end of Lake Huron, were the Tionontati, and southwest between Detroit and Niagara Falls were the Neutrals, another large confederacy so called because they remained neutral in the wars between the Huron and Iroquois.
Hurons History : Continued
After the destruction of Huronia in 1649, the French had been powerless and were forced to remain neutral while the Iroquois swallowed one tribe after another. All that remained of their former allies (other than the small group of Huron at Lorette) were the Wyandot and Ottawa far to the west. Rather than confront the Iroquois along the Ottawa River themselves, the French encouraged their former trading partners to come to Montreal to trade. Because they had grown dependent on French trade good, the Wyandot and Ottawa, in spite of all they had endured, accepted. Reinforced by Ojibwe warriors and travelling together in large canoe flotillas to break the Iroquois blockade, the Wyandot and Ottawa brought furs to Montreal, although not in the previous amounts. This continuing trade was a source of considerable annoyance to the Iroquois, and after their war with the Erie ended, they no longer had any reason to appease the French.
After the war, the Indian party returned to Oklahoma. It refused offers of reconciliation with the Citizen Party and petitioned the government to renew their tribal status. An omnibus treaty signed in 1867 granted recognition and permission for the Oklahoma Wyandotte to purchase 20,000 acres between the Neosho River and the Missouri state line as a reserve. This was later broken up into individual allotments by the Dawes Act. Some of the "citizen or absentee" Wyandot from Kansas were allowed to rejoin the tribe through adoption, but in general, the Oklahoma Wyandotte no longer recognized the Kansas Wyandot as tribal members and would not allow them to settle on their Oklahoma reserve without permission. Beginning with the division between Christian and traditional within the Huron Confederacy which contributed to their defeat by the Iroquois, factionalism has plagued the Huron and/or Wyandot for the last 400 years. The bitter fight for recognition between the Citizen and Indian Parties has persisted to the present-day between the Wyandot Nation of Kansas and the Wyandotte Tribe of Oklahoma.
