Wyandot People - Emergence of The Wyandot

Emergence of The Wyandot

In the late 17th century, elements of the Huron Confederacy and the Petun joined together and became known as the Wyandot (or Wyandotte), a variation of Wendat. The western Wyandot eventually re-formed in the area of present-day Ohio and southern Michigan in the United States. Some descendants of the Wyandot Nation of Anderdon live in Ohio and Michigan, Toronto and Brantford Ontario, on The Six Nations Reserve, where they have intermarried with the Cayuga and other Indigenous Peoples. In 1819, the Methodist Church established a mission to the Wyandot in Ohio, its first to Native Americans.

In the 1840s, most of the surviving Wyandot people were displaced to Kansas through the US federal policy of forced Indian removal. Using the funds they received for their lands in Ohio, the Wyandot purchased 23,000 acres (93 km2) of land for $46,080 in what is now Wyandotte County, Kansas from the Delaware. They had been grateful for the hospitality the Wyandot had shown them in Ohio. It was a more-or-less square parcel north and west of the junction of the Kansas River and the Missouri River.

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, which they purchased from the Delaware in 1843. In addition, the government granted thirty-two "floating sections", located on public lands west of the Mississippi River.

In June 1853, Big Turtle, a Wyandot chief, wrote to the Ohio State Journal regarding the current condition of his tribe. The Wyandot 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. They invested $100,000 of the proceeds in 5% government stock. After removal to Kansas, the Wyandot 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 thrift of the Wyandot exceeded that of any tribe north of the Arkansas line. According to his account, the Wyandot nation was "contented and happy", and enjoyed better living conditions in the Indian Territory than formerly in Ohio.

By 1855 the number of Wyandot 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 elders who were trusted by their peers. The Wyandot offered some of the floating sections of land for sale on the same day at a price of $800. A section was composed of 640 acres (2.6 km2). Altogether 20,480 acres (82.9 km2) 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.

The Wyandot played an important role in the politics of Kansas. On July 26, 1853, William Walker, a Wyandot, was elected provisional governor of the territory of Nebraska (which included Kansas) at a meeting at the Wyandot Council house in Kansas City, Kansas. He was elected by Wyandot, white traders, and outside interests who wished to preempt the federal government’s organization of the territory and to benefit from settlement of Kansas by white settlers. Walker and the others were promoting Kansas as the route for the proposed trans-continental railroad. Although the federal government did not recognize Walker's election, the political activity prompted the federal government to pass the Kansas-Nebraska Act to organize Kansas and Nebraska territories.

An October 1855 article in The New York Times reported that the Wyandot were free (that is, they 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.

In 1867 after the American Civil War, additional members removed from the Midwest to Oklahoma. Today more than 4,000 Wyandot can be found in eastern Kansas and Oklahoma.

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. The last Wyandot to live in Ohio was Bill Moose 1836–1937