Wyandotte Nation - History

History

The Wendat, their name for themselves in their language, or Wyandotte, as they came to be called after merging with other related groups, are Iroquoian-speaking Indians from the eastern woodlands. Their name is thought to mean "dwellers on a peninsula" or "islanders."

The first Wendat Confederacy was created around 1400 CE, when the Attignawantan (Bear Nation) and Attigingueenongnahac (Cord People) combined forces. They, in turn, were joined by the Arendaronon (People of the Rocks), Ataronchronon (People of One Lodge), and the Tahontaenrat (Deer Nation). At one time scholars believed these peoples to be remnant bands of the St. Lawrence Iroquoians, who established villages located near present-day Montreal visited by early French explorers. But, archeologists have excavated large, 16th-century settlement sites north of Lake Ontario, with extensive evidence leading them to conclude that this was the original site of the coalescence of the Wendat people. They later migrated to the area near Georgian Bay, where they were encountered by French explorers in the early 17th century.

French explorers encountered the Wyandotte around 1536 and dubbed them the Huron. They were fierce enemies of the nations of the Iroquois Confederacy, then based in present-day New York. Decimated by smallpox epidemics, the Wendat Confederacy became seriously weakened during the early decades of the early seventeenth century. In 1659, they were defeated by the Iroquois and most migrated southwest for safety, where they settled with Odawa and Illinois tribes. Others moved east into Quebec.

Remnants of the associated Wendat and Petun peoples came together as a new group, which became known as the Wyandot of Wyandotte. By the beginning of the 18th century, the Wyandotte people had moved into the Ohio River Valley, extending into areas of what would become West Virginia, Indiana and Michigan. Around 1745, large groups settled near Sandusky, Ohio. After the American Revolution, a treaty signed with the United States in 1785 confirmed their landholdings. However, the 1795 Treaty of Greenville greatly reduced its size.

The 1817 Treaty of Fort Meigs reduced the Wyandotte lands drastically, leaving the people only small parcels in Ohio. In 1842, the Wyandotte lost all of their land east of the Mississippi River, under pressure of the United States government policy to remove the Native Americans to the West. They made a treaty with the U.S. government by which they were to be compensated for their lands.

They were removed to the Delaware Reservation in present-day Kansas, then considered Indian Territory. During this migration and the early months, their people suffered much illness. In 1843, survivors buried their dead on a high ridge overlooking the Missouri River in what became the Huron Cemetery in present-day Kansas City, Kansas. In 1971 it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It is now called the Wyandot National Burying Ground.

After the American Civil War, Wyandotte people who had not become citizens of the United States in 1855 in Kansas, were removed a final time in 1867 to present-day Oklahoma. They were settled on 20,000 acres (81 km2) in the northeast corner of Indian Territory. In 1893, the Dawes Act required that the tribal communal holdings in the Indian Territory be divided into individual allotments. The land was divided among the 241 tribal members listed on the Dawes Rolls. The Wyandotte members in Oklahoma retained some tribal structure, and still had control of the communal property of the Huron Cemetery, by then annexed into Kansas City.