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Huron Indian Tribe History
Huron (lexically from French huré,
bristly,' 'bristled,' from hure, rough hair' (of the head), head of
man or beast, wild boar's head; old French, 'muzzle of the wolf, lion,'
etc., 'the scalp,' 'a wig'; Norman French, huré,
'rugged'; Roumanian, hurée,
'rough earth,' and the suffix -on, expressive of depreciation and
employed to form nouns referring to persons). The name Huron., frequently
with an added epithet, like vilain, 'base,' was in use in France as
early as 1358 (La Curne deSainte-Palaye in Dict. Hist. de l'Ancien Langage
Françoise, 1880) as a name expressive
of contumely, contempt, and insult, signifying approximately an unkempt
person, knave, ruffian, lout, wretch. The peasants who rebelled against
the nobility during the captivity of King John in England in 1358 were
called both Hurons and Jacques or Jacques bons hornmes,
the latter signifying approximately 'simpleton Jacks,' and so the term
Jacquerie was applied to this revolt of the peasants. But Father
Lalement (Jes. Rel. for 1639, 51, 1858), in attempting to give the origin
of the name Huron, says that about 40 years previous to his time, i. e.,
about 1600, when these people first reached the French trading posts on
the St Lawrence, a French soldier or sailor, seeing some of these
barbarians wearing their hair cropped and roached, gave them the name
Hurons, their heads suggesting those of wild boars. Lalement declares that
while what he had advanced concerning the origin of the name was the most
authentic, "others attribute it to some other though similar origin." But
it certainly does not appear that the rebellious French peasants in 1358,
mentioned above, were called Hurons because they had a similar or an
identical manner of wearing the hair; for, as has been stated, the name
had, long previous to the arrival of the French in America, a well-known
derogatory signification in France. So it is quite probable that the name
was applied to the Indians in the sense of 'an unkempt person,' ' a
bristly savage,' 'a wretch or lout,' 'a ruffian.'
A confederation of 4 highly organized Iroquoian tribes
with several small dependent communities, which, when first, known in
1615, occupied a limited territory, sometimes called Huronia, around Lake
Simcoe and south and east of Georgian bay, Ontario. According to the
Jesuit Relation for 1639 the names of these tribes, which were independent
in local affairs only, were the
Attignaouantan (Bear people), the
Attigneenongnahac (Cord people), the
Arendahronon (Rock people), and the
Tohontaenrat (Atahonta'enrat or Tohonta'enrot, White-eared
or Deer people).
Two of the dependent peoples were the Bowl people and
the Ataronchronon. Later, to escape destruction by the Iroquois, the
Wenrohronon. an Iroquoian tribe, in 1639, and the Atontrataronnon, an
Algonquian people, in 1644,sought asylum with the Huron confederation. In
the Huron tongue the common and general name of this confederation of
tribes and dependent peoples was Wendat (8endat), a designation of
doubtful analysis and signification, the most obvious meaning being 'the
islanders' or 'dwellers on a peninsula.' According to a definite tradition
recorded in the Jesuit Relation for 1639, the era of the formation of this
confederation was at that period comparatively recent, at least in so far
as the date of membership of the last two tribes mentioned therein is
concerned. According to the same authority the Rock people were adopted
about 50 years and the Deer people about 30 years (traditional time)
previous to 1639, thus carrying back to about 1590 the date of the
immigration of the Rock people into the Huron country. The first two
principal tribes in 1639, regarding themselves as the original inhabitants
of the land, claimed that they knew with certainty the dwelling places and
village sites of their ancestors in the country for a period exceeding 200
years. Having received and adopted the other two into their country and
state, they were the more important. Officially and in their councils they
addressed each other by the formal political terms 'brother' and 'sister';
they were also the more populous, having incorporated many persons,
families, clans, and peoples, who, preserving the name and memory of their
own founders, lived among the tribes which adopted them as small dependent
communities, maintaining the general name and having the community of
certain local rights, and enjoyed the powerful protection and shared with
it the community of certain other rights, interests, and obligations of
the great Wendat commonwealth.
The provenience and the course of migration of the Rock
and Deer tribes to the Huron country appear to furnish a reason for the
prevalent but erroneous belief that all the Iroquoian tribes came into
this continent from the valley of the lower St Lawrence. There is
presumptive evidence that the Rock and the Deer tribes came into Huronia
from the middle and upper St Lawrence valley, and they appear to have been
expelled there from by the Iroquois, hence the expulsion of the Rock and
the Deer people from lower St Lawrence valley has been mistaken for the
migration of the entire stock from that region.
In his voyages to the St Lawrence in 1534-43, Jacques
Cartier found on the
present sites of Quebec and Montreal, and along both banks of this river
above the Saguenay on the north and above Gaspé
peninsula on the south bank, tribes speaking Iroquoian tongues, for there
were at least two dialects, a fact well established by the vocabularies
which Cartier recorded. Lexical comparison with known Iroquoian dialects
indicates that those spoken on the St Lawrence at that early date were
Huron or Wendat. Cartier further learned that these St Lawrence tribes
were in fierce combat with peoples dwelling southward from them, and his
hosts complained bitterly of the cruel attacks made on them by their
southern foes, whom they called Toudamani (Trudamans or Trudamani) and
Agouionda (Oñkhiionthǎ'
is an Onondaga form), the latter signifying 'those who attack us.'
Although he may have recorded the native names as nearly phonetically as
he was able, yet the former is not a distant approach to the well-known
Tsonnontowanen of the early French writers, a name which Champlain printed
Chouontouaroüon (probably
written Chonontouaroñon), the name of
the Seneca, which was sometimes
extended to include the Cayuga and Onondaga as a geographical group.
Lescarbot, failing to find in Canada in his time the tongues recorded by
Cartier, concluded that "the change of language in Canada" was due "to a
destruction of people," and in 1603 he declared (Nova Francia, 170, 1609):
"For it is some 8 years since the Iroquois did assemble themselves to the
number of 8,000 men, and discomfited all their enemies, whom they
surprised in their enclosures;" and (p. 290) "by such surprises the
Iroquois, being in number 8,000
men, have heretofore exterminated the Algoumequins, them of Hochelaga, and
others bordering upon the great river." So it is probable that the
southern foes of the tribes along the St Lawrence in Cartier's time were
the Iroquois tribes anterior to the formation of their historical league,
for he was also informed that these Agouionda "doe continually warre one
against another" a condition, of affairs which ceased with the formation
of the league.
Between the time of the last voyage of Cartier to the
St Lawrence, in 1543, and the arrival of Champlain on this river in 1603,
nothing definite is known of these tribes and their wars. Champlain found
the dwelling places of the tribes discovered by Cartier on the St Lawrence
deserted and the region traversed only rarely by war parties from
extralimital Algonquian tribes which dwelt on the borders of the former
territory of the expelled Iroquoian tribes. Against the aforesaid
Iroquoian tribes the Iroquois were still waging relentless warfare, which
Champlain learned in 1622 brad then lasted store than 50 years.
Such was the origin of the confederation of tribes
strictly called Hurons by the French and Wendat (8endat) in their own
tongue. But the name Hurons was applied in a general way to the Tionontati,
or Tobacco tribe, under the form "Huron du Pétun,"
and also, although rarely, to the Attiwendaronk in the form "Huron de la
Nation Neutre." After the destruction of the Huron or Wendat confederation
and the more or less thorough dispersal of the several tribes composing
it, the people who, as political units, were originally called Huron and
Wendat, ceased to exist. The Tionontati, or Tobacco tribe, with the few
Huron fugitives, received the name "Huron do Petun" from the French, but
they became known to the English as Wendat, corrupted to Yendat,
Guyandotte, and finally to Wyandot. The Jesuit Relation for 1667 says:
"The Tionnontateheronnons of to-day are the same people who heretofore
were called the Hurons de la nation du pétun."
These were the so called Tobacco nation, and not the Wendat tribes of the
Huron confederation. So the name Huron was employed only after these
Laurentian tribes became settled in the region around Lake Simcoe and
Georgian bay. Champlain and his French contemporaries, after becoming
acquainted with the Iroquois tribes of New York, called the Hurons les
bons Iroquois, 'the good Iroquois,' to distinguish them from the
hostile Iroquois tribes. The Algonquian allies of the French called the
Hurons and the Iroquois tribes Nadowek, 'adders,' and Irinkhowek,
'real serpents,' hence, ' bitter enemies.' The singular Irinkowi,
with the French suffix -ois, has become the familiar "Iroquois."
The term Nadowe in various forms (e. g., Nottaway) was applied by
the Algonquian tribes generally to all alien and hostile peoples.
Champlain also called the Hurons Ochateguin and Charioquois,
from the names of prominent chiefs. The Delawares called them Talamatan,
while the peoples of the "Neutral
Nation" and of the Huron tribes applied to each other the term
Attiwendaronk, literally, 'their speech is awry,' but freely, 'they are
stainmerers,' referring facetiously to the dialectic difference between
the tongues of the two peoples.
In 1615 Champlain found all the tribes which he later
called Hurons, with the exception of the Wenrohronon and the
Atontrataronon, dwelling in Huronia and waging war against the Iroquois
tribes in New York. When Cartier explored the St .Lawrence valley, in
1534-43, Iroquoian tribes occupied the north bank of the river
indefinitely northward and from Saguenay river eastward to Georgian bay,
with no intrusive alien bands (despite the subsequent but doubtful claim
of the Onontchataronon to a former possession of the island of Montreal),
and also the south water shed from the Bay of Gaspé
west to the contiguous territory of the Iroquois confederation on the line
of the east watershed of Lake Champlain.
The known names of towns of these Laurentian Iroquois
are
Araste,
Hagonchenda,
Hochelaga,
Hochelay,
Satadin,
Stadacona,
Starnatan,
Tailla,
Teguenondahi, and
Tutonaguy.
But Cartier, in speaking of the people of Hochelaga,
remarks: "Notwithstanding, the said Canadians are subject to them with
eight or nine other peoples who are on the said river." All these towns
and villages were abandoned previous to the arrival of Champlain on the St
Lawrence in 1603. Of the towns of the Hurons, Sagard says: "There are
about 20 or 25 towns and villages, of which some are not at all shut, nor
closed [palisaded], and others are fortified with long pieces of timber in
triple ranks, interlaced one with another to the height of a long pike [16
ft], and re-enforced on the inside with broad, coarse strips of bark, 8 or
9 ft in height; below there are large trees, with their branches lopped
off, laid lengthwise on very short trunks of trees, forked at one end, to
keep them in place; then above these stakes and bulwarks there are
galleries or platforms, called ondaqna ('box' ), which are
furnished with stones to be hurled against an enemy in time of war, and
with water to extinguish any fire which might be kindled against them.
Persons ascend to these by means of ladders quite poorly made and
difficult, which are made of long pieces of timber wrought by many hatchet
strokes to hold the foot firm in ascending." Champlain says that these
palisades were 35 ft in height. In accord with the latter authority,
Sagard says that these towns were in a measure permanent, and were removed
to new sites only when they became too distant from fuel and when their
fields, for lack of manuring, became worn out, which occurred every 10,
20, 30, or 40 years, more or less, according to the situation of the
country, the richness of the soil, and the distance of the forest, in the
middle of which they always built their towns and villages. Champlain says
the Hurons planted large quantities of several kinds of corn, which grew
finely, squashes, tobacco, many varieties of beans, and sunflowers, and
that from the seeds of the last they extracted an oil with which they
anointed their heads and employed for various other purposes.
The government of these tribes was vested by law in a
definite number of executive officers, called "chiefs" (q. v. ) in
English, who were chosen by the suffrage of the child-bearing women and
organized by law or council decree into councils for legislative and
judicial purposes. There were five units in the social and political
organization of these tribes, namely, the family, clan, phratry, tribe,
and confederation, which severally expressed their will through councils
coordinate with their several jurisdictions and which made necessary
various grades of chiefs in civil affairs. In these communities the civil
affairs of government were entirely differentiated from the military, the
former being exercised by civil officers, the latter by military officers.
It sometimes happened that the same person performed the one or the other
kind of function, but to do so he must temporarily resign his civil
authority should it be incumbent on him to engage in military affairs, and
when this emergency was past he would resume his civil function or
authority.
In almost every family one or more chiefship titles,
known by particular names, were hereditary, and there might even be two or
three different grades of chiefs therein. But the candidate for the
incumbency of any one of these dignities was chosen only by the suffrage
of the mothers among the women of his family. The selection of the
candidate thus made was then submitted for confirmation to the clan
council, then to the tribal council, and lastly to the great federal
council composed of the accredited delegates from the various allied
tribes.
The tribes composing the Hurons recognized and
enforced, among others, the rights of ownership and inheritance of
property and dignities, of liberty and security of person, in names, of
marriage, in personal adornment, of hunting and fishing in specified
territory, of precedence in migration and encampment and in the council
room, and rights of religion and of the blood feud. They regarded theft,
adultery, maiming, sorcery with evil intent, treason, and the murder of a
kinsman or a co-tribesman as crimes which consisted solely in the
violation of the rights of a kinsman by blood or adoption, for the alien
had no rights which Indian justice and equity recognized, unless by treaty
or solemn compact. If an assassination were committed or a solemnly sworn
peace with another people violated by the caprice of an individual, it was
not the rule to punish directly the guilty person, for this would have
been to assume over hill', a jurisdiction which no one would think of
claiming; on the contrary, presents designed to "cover the death " or to
restore peace were offered to the aggrieved party by the offender and his
kindred. The greatest punishment that could be inflicted on a guilty
person by his kindred was to refuse to defend him, thus placing him
outside the rights of the blood feud and allowing those whom he had
offended the liberty to take vengeance on him, but at their own risk and
peril.
The religion of these tribes consisted in the worship
of all material objects, the elements and bodies of nature, and many
creatures of a teeming fancy, which in their view directly or remotely
affected or controlled their well-being. These objects of their faith and
worship were regarded as inan-beings or anthropic persons possessed of
life, volition, and orenda or magic power of different kind and degree
peculiar to each. In this religion ethics or morals as such received only
a secondary, if any, consideration. The status and interrelations of the
persons of their pantheon one to another were fixed and governed by rules
and customs assumed to be similar to those of the social and the political
organization of the people, and so there was, therefore, at least among
the principal gods, a kinship system patterned after that of the people
themselves. They expressed their public religious worship in elaborate
ceremonies performed at stated annual festivals, lasting from a day to
fifteen days, and governed by the change of seasons. Besides the stated
gatherings there were many minor meetings, in all of which there were
dancing and thanksgiving for the blessings of life. They believed in a
life hereafter, which was but a reflex of the present life, but their
ideas regarding it were not very definite. The bodies of the dead were
wrapped in furs, neatly covered with flexible bark, and then placed on a
platform resting on four pillars, which was then entirely covered with
bark; or the body, after being prepared for burial, was placed in a grave
and over it were laid small pieces of timber, covered with strong pieces
of bark and then with earth. Over the grave a cabin was usually erected.
At the great feast of the dead, which occurred at intervals of 8 or 10
years, the bodies of those who had died in the interim, from all the
villages participating in the feast, were brought together and buried in a
common grave with elaborate and solemn public ceremonies.
In 1615, when the Hurons were first visited by the
French under Champlain, he estimated from the statements of the Indians
themselves that they numbered 30,000, distributed in 18 towns and
villages, of which 8 were palisaded; but in a subsequent edition of his
work Champlain reduces this estimate to 20,000. A little later Sagard
estimated their population at 30,000, while Brebenf gave their number as
35,000. But these figures are evidently only guesses and perhaps munch
above rather than below the actual population, which, in 1648, was
probably not far from 20,000.
When the French established trading posts on the St
Lawrence at Three Rivers and elsewhere, the Hurons and neighboring tribes
made annual trips down Ottawa river or down the Trent to these posts for
the purpose of trading both with the Europeans and with the Montagnais of
the lower St Lawrence who came up to meet them. The chief place of trade
at this time was, according to Sagard (Histoire, i, 170, 1866), in the
harbor of Cape Victory, in Lake St Peter of St Lawrence river, about 50
miles below Montreal, just above the outlet of the lake, where, on
Sagard's arrival, there were "already lodged a great number of savages of
various nations for the trade of beavers with the French. The Indians who
were not sectarians in religion invited the missionaries into their
country. In 1615 the Recollect fathers accepted the invitation, and Father
Le Caron spent the year 1615-16 in Huronia, and was again there in
1623-24. Father Poulain was among the Hurons in 1622, Father Viel from
1623 to 1625, and Father De la Roche Daillon in 1626-28. The labors of the
Jesuits began with the advent of Father Biebeuf in Huronia in 1626, but
their missions ended in 1650 with the destruction of the Huron
commonwealth by the Iroquois. In all, 4 Recollect and 25 Jesuit fathers
had labored in the Huron mission during its existence, which at its prime
was the most important in the French dominions in North America. As the
first historian of the mission, Fr. Sagard, though not a priest, deserves
honorable mention.
From the Jesuit Relation for 1640 it is learned that
the Hurons had had cruel wars with the Tionontati, but that at the date
given they had recently made peace, renewed their former friendship, and
entered into an alliance against their common enemies. Sagard is authority
for the statement that the Hurons were in the habit of sending large war
parties to ravage the country of the Iroquois. The well-known hostility
and intermittent warfare between the Iroquois and the Huron tribes date
from prehistoric times, so that the invasion and destruction of the Huron
country and confederation in 1648-50 by the Iroquois were not a sudden,
unprovoked attack, but the final blow in a struggle which was already in
progress when the French under Cartier in 1535 first explored the St
Lawrence. The acquirement of firearms by the Iroquois from the Dutch was
all important factor in their subsequent successes. By 1643 they had
obtained about 400 guns, while, on the other hand, as late as the final
invasion of their country the Hurons had but very few guns, a lack that
was the direct cause of their feeble resistance and the final conquest by
the Iroquois confederation of half of the country east of the Mississippi
and north of the Ohio. In July, 1648, having perfected their plans for the
final struggle for supremacy with the Hurons, the Iroquois began open
hostility by sacking two or three frontier towns and Teanaustayaé
(St Joseph), the major portion of the invading warriors wintering in the
Huron country unknown to the Hurons; and in March, 1649, these Iroquois
warriors destroyed Taenhatentaron (St Ignace) and St Louis, and carried
into captivity hundreds of Hurons. These disasters completely demoralized
and disorganized the Huron tribes, for the greater portion of their people
were killed or led into captivity among the several Iroquoian tribes, or
perished from hunger and exposure in their precipitate flight in all
directions, while of the remainder some escaped to the Neutral Nation, or
" Hurons de la Nation Neutre," some to the Tobacco or Tionontati tribe,
some to the Erie, and others to the French
settlements near Quebec on the island of Orleans. The Tohontaenrat,
forming the populous town of Scanonaenrat, and a portion of the
Arendahronon of the town of St-Jean-Baptiste surrendered to the Seneca and
were adopted by them with the privilege of occupying a village by
themselves, which was named Gandougarae (St Michel). As soon as the
Iroquois learned of the Huron colony on Orleans island, they at once
sought to persuade these Hurons to migrate to their country. Of these the
Bear people, together with the Bowl band and the Rock people, having in an
evil day promised to remove thither, were finally, in 1656, compelled to
choose between fighting and migrating to the Iroquois country. They chose
the latter course, the Bear people going to the Mohawk and the Rock people
to the Onondaga. The Cord people alone had the courage to remain with the
French.
The adopted inhabitants of the new town of St Michel (Gandougarae)
were mostly Christian Hurons who preserved their faith under adverse
conditions, as did a large number of other Huron captives who were adopted
into other Iroquois tribes. In 1653 Father Le Moine found more than 1,000
Christian Hurons among the Onondaga. The number of Hurons then among the
Mohawk, Oneida, and Cayuga is not known.
Among the most unfortunate of the Huron fugitives were
those who sought asylum among the Erie, where their presence excited the
jealousy and perhaps the fear of their neighbors, the Iroquois, with whom
the Erie did not fraternize. It is also claimed that the Huron fugitives
strove to foment war between their protectors and the Iroquois, with the
result that notwithstanding the reputed 4,000 warriors of the Erie and
their skill in the use of the bow and arrow (permitting them dextrously to
shoot 8 or 9 arrows while the enemy could fire an arquebus but once), the
Erie and the unfortunate Huron fugitives were entirely defeated in 1653-56
and dispersed or carried away into captivity. But most pathetic and cruel
was the fate of those unfortunate Hurons who, trusting in the
long-standing neutrality of the Neutral Nation which the Iroquois had not
there to fore violated, fled to that tribe, only to be held, with the
other portion of the Huron people still remaining in their country, into
harsh captivity (Jes. Rel. 1659-60).
A portion of the defeated Hurons escaped to the
Tionontati or "Huron du Petun," then dwelling directly westward from them.
But in 1649, when the Iroquois had sacked one of the Tionontati palisaded
towns, the remainder of the tribe, in company with the refugee Hurons,
sought an asylum on the Island of St Joseph, the present Charity or
Christian island, in Georgian bay. It is this group of refugees who became
the Wyandots of later history. Finding that this place did not secure them
from the Iroquois, the majority fled to Michilimakinac, Mich., near which
place they found fertile lands, good hunting, and abundant fishing. But
even here the Iroquois would not permit them to rest, so they retreated
farther westward to Manitoulin island, called Ekaentoton by the Hurons.
Thence they were driven to He Huronne (Potawatomi island, because formerly
occupied by that tribe), at the entrance to Green bay, Wis., where the
Ottawa and their allies from Saginaw bay and Thunder bay, Manitoulin, and
Michilimakinac, sought shelter with them. From this point the fugitive
Hurons, with some of the Ottawa and their allies, moved farther westward 7
or 8 leagues to the Potawatomi, while most of the Ottawa went into what is
now Wisconsin and northwest Michigan among the Winnebago and the
Menorninee. Here, in 1657, in the Potawatomi country, the Hurons,
numbering about 500 persons, erected a stout palisade. The Potawatomi
received the fugitives the more readily since they themselves spoke a
language cognate with that of the Ottawa and also were animated by a
bitter hatred of the Iroquois who had in former times driven
them from their native country, the north peninsula of Michigan. This
first flight of the Potawatomi must have taken place anterior to the visit
by Nicollet in 1634.
Having murdered a party of Iroquois scouts through a
plot devised by their chief Anahotaha, and fearing the vengeance of the
Iroquois, the Hurons remained here only a few months longer. Some migrated
to their compatriots on Orleans island, near Quebec, and the others, in
1659-60, fled farther west to the Illinois country, on the Mississippi,
where they were well received. Anahotaha was killed in 1659 in a fight at
the Long Sault of Ottawa river, above Montreal, in which a party of 17
French militia under Sieur Dolard, 6 Algonkin under Mitameg, and 40 Huron
warriors under Anahotaha (the last being the flower of the Huron colony
then remaining on Orleans island) were surrounded by 700 Iroquois and all
killed with the exception of 5 Frenchmen and 4 Hurons, who were captured.
It was not long before the Hurons found new enemies in the Illinois
country. The Sioux brooked no rivals, much less meddlesome, weak
neighbors; and as the Hurons numbered fewer than 500, whose native, spirit
and energy had been shaken by their many misfortunes, they could not
maintain their position against these new foes, and therefore withdrew to
the source of Black river, Wis., where they were found in 1660. At last
they decided to join the Ottawa, their companions in their first removals,
who were then settled at Chequamigon bay, on the south shore of Lake
Superior, and chose a site opposite the Ottawa village. In 1665 Father
Allouez, the founder of the principal western missions, met them here and
established the mission of La Pointe du Saint Esprit between the Huron and
the Ottawa villages. He labored among them 3 years, but his success was
not marked, for these Tionontati Hurons, never fully converted, had
relapsed into paganism. The Ottawa and the Hurons fraternized the more
readily here since the two peoples dwelt in contiguous areas south of
Georgian bay before the Iroquois invasion in 1648-49. Father Marquette
succeeded Father Allouez in 1669 and founded the missions of the Sault Ste
Marie and St Francois Xavier de la Baiedes Puants. The Sioux, however,
sought every possible pretext to assail the settlements of the Hurons and
the Ottawa, and their numbers and known cruelty caused them to he so
feared that the latter tribes during Marquette's regime withdrew to the
French settlements, since the treaty of peace between the French and the
Iroquois in 1666 had delivered them from their chief enemies. The Ottawa,
however, returned to Manitotilin island, where the mission of St Simon was
founded, while the Hurons, who had not forgotten the advantageous
situation which Michilimakinac had previously afforded them, removed about
1670 to a point opposite the island, where they built a palisaded village
and where Marquette established the mission of St Iguace. Later, some of
the Hurons here settled moved to Sandusky, Ohio, others to Detroit, and
still others to Sandwich, Ontario. The last probably became what was
latterly known as the Anderdon band of Wyandots, but which is now entirely
dissipated, with the possible exception of a very few persons.
In 1745 a considerable party of Hurons under the
leadership of the war chief Orontony, or Nicholas, removed from Detroit
river to the marsh lands of Sandusky bay. Orontony was a wily savage whose
enmity was greatly to be feared, and he commanded men who formed an alert,
unscrupulous, and powerful body. The French having provoked the bitter
hatred of Nicholas, which was fomented by English agents, he conspired to
destroy the French, not only at Detroit but at the upper posts, and by
Aug., 1747, the "Iroquois of the West," the Hurons, Ottawa, Abnaki,
Potawatomi, "Ouabash," Sauteurs, Missisauga, Foxes, Sioux, Sauk, "Sarastau,"
Loups, Shawnee, and Miami, indeed all the tribes of the middle west, with
the exception of those of the Illinois country, had entered into the
conspiracy; but through the treachery of a Huron woman the plot was
revealed to a Jesuit priest, who communicated the information to Longueuil,
the French commandant at Detroit, who in turn notified all the other
French posts, and although a desultory warfare broke out, resulting in a
number of murders, there was no concerted action. Orontony, finding that
he had been deserted by his allies, and seeing the activity and
determination of the French not to suffer English encroachments on what
they called French territory, finally, in Apr., 1748, destroyed his
villages and palisade at Sandusky, and removed, with 119 warriors and
their families, to White river, Ind. Not long after he withdrew to the
Illinois country on Ohio river, near the Indiana line, where he died in
the autumn of 1748. The inflexible and determined conduct of Longueuil
toward most of the conspiring tribes brought the coalition to an end by
May, 1748.
After this trouble the Hurons seem to have returned to
Detroit and Sandusky, where they became known as Wyandots and gradually
acquired a paramount influence in the Ohio valley and the lake region.
They laid claim to the greater part of Ohio, and the settlement of the
Shawnee and Delawares within that area was with their consent; they
exercised the right to light the council fire at all intertribal councils,
and although few in number they joined all the Indian movements in the
Ohio valley and the lake region and supported the British against the
Americans. After the peace of 1815 a large tract in Ohio and Michigan was
confirmed to them, but they sold a large part of it in 1819, under treaty
provisions, reserving a small portion near Upper Sandusky, Ohio, and a
smaller area on Huron river, near Detroit, until 1842, when these tracts
also were sold and the tribe removed to Wyandotte county, Kans. By the
terms of the treaty of 1855 they were declared to be citizens, but by the
treaty of 1867 their tribal organization was restored and they were placed
on a small tract, still occupied by them, in the northeast corner of
Oklahoma.
That portion of the Hurons who withdrew in 1650
and later to the French colony, were accompanied by their missionaries.
The mission of La Conception, which was founded by them, although often
changed in name and situation, has survived to the present time. The
Hurons who wintered in Quebec in 1649 did not return to their country
after learning of its desolation by the Iroquois, but were placed on land
belonging to the Jesuits at Beauport, and when the Huron fugitives came
down to Quebec to seek protection, the others followed these in May, 1651,
to Orleans island, settling on the lands of Mademoiselle de Grand Maison
that had been bought for them. Here a mission house was erected near their
stockaded bark lodges. In 1654 they numbered between 500 and 600 persons.
But again the Iroquois followed them, seeking through every
misrepresentation to draw the Hurons into their own country to take the
place of those who had fallen in their various wars. By this means a large
number of the Hurons, remnants of the Bear, Rock, and Bowl tribes, were
persuaded in 1656 to migrate to the Iroquois country, a movement that met
with such success that the Iroquois even ventured to show themselves under
the guns of Quebec. In the same year they mortally wounded Father Garreau,
near Montreal, and captured and put to death 71 Hurons on Orleans island.
These misfortunes caused the Hurons to draw nearer to Quebec, wherein they
were given asylum until peace was concluded between the French and the
Iroquois in 1666. The Hurons then withdrew from the town about 5 m., where
in the following year the mission of Notre Dame de Foye was founded. In
1693 the Hurons moved 5 miles farther away on account of the lack of wood
and the need of richer lands; here the missionaries arranged the lodges
around a square and built in the middle of it a church, to which father
Chaumonot added a chapepatterned after the Casa Sancta of Lorette in
Italy, and now known as Old Lorette. Some years later the mission was
transferred a short distance away, where a new village, Younger Lorette,
or La Jeune Lorette, was built. About the remains of this mission still
dwell the so-called Hurons of Lorette.
The old estimates of Huron population have been
previously given. After the dispersal of the Huron tribes in 1649-50, the
Hurons who fled west never seem to have exceeded 500 persons in one body.
Later estimates are 1,000, with 300 more at Lorette (1736), 500 (1748),
850 (1748), 1,250 (1765), 1,500(1794-95),1,000 ((1812), 1,250 (1812). Only
the first of these estimates is inclusive of the " Hurons of Lorette,"
Quebec, who were estimated at 300 in 1736, but at 455, officially, in
1904. In 1885 those in Indian Territory (Oklahoma) numbered 251, and in
1905, 378, making a total of 832 in Canada and the United States.
For sources of
information consult Bressany, Relation-Abregée
(1953), 1852; Connolley in Archaeol. Rep. Ontario 1899, 1900; Jesuit
Relations, i-iii, 1858, and also the Thwaites edition, i-lxxiii,
1896-1901; Journal of Capt. William Trent (1752), 1871; Morgan, Ancient
Society, 1878; N. Y. Doc. Col. Hist., i-xv, 1853-87; Perrot, Mémoire,
Tailhaned.,1864; Powell in 1st Rep. B. A. E., 1881.
The books presented are for their
historical value only and are not the
opinions of the Webmasters of the site.
Handbook
of American Indians, 1906
Index of Tribes or Nations
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