Iroquois Indians

Iroquois Indians. The heart of the Iroquois country was the lake region of central New York and the Mohawk Valley. It was a land of water, forest, and fine soil. Fish filled the water. Beaver built their dams in streams. The Iroquois Indians were hunters, fishermen, gatherers. But they relied chiefly upon tilling the soil for their food.

The women were Iroquois farmers. They owned the fields and passed them on to their daughters. The Iroquois men cleared a patch of earth, and the women planted the seeds. The longhouse, the home of the Iroquois Indians, was often up to 100 feet long. Four or five families lived on each side of a hallway that was the length of the house. There were no windows. Smoke escaped through smoke holes in the ceiling.

Beetwen 20 and 50 longhouses, plus one large council house,made up an Iroquois village. Iroquois Indians Villages were usually located near lake or streams. Pallisades (walls) of pointed poles often surrounded the villages for defense.

The Iroquois Indians devoted much time to war, festivals, play and work in secret societies. Iroquois Man who had especially powerful dreams became medicine men and could become members of False Face Society. Wearing a mask, the Iroquois medicine men entered the longhouse of sick person. He danced around the sick person, sprinkling tobacco on his face and asking the spirits to help cure the illness.

But the Iroquois Indians are probably best known for the creation of the League. The Iroquois Indian Tribes had fought each other many times in the 15th and early 16th centuries. The Iroquois League was formed to keep peacer among themselves. Mohawk Indian, Oneida Indian, Onondaga Indian, Cayuga Indian and Seneca Indian banded together about 1570. A sixth tribe, the Tuscarora Indian, joined after the original five nations were formed. Together they fought the French and waged war on other Indian tribes. Iroquois Indians war parties raided north to the St. Lawrence River, south to the borders of Tennesse, and west to lake Michigan. But the League could not withstand the American Revolution.

During the American Revolution, many Tuscarora Indian and the Oneida Indian sided with the Americans, while the Mohawk Indian, Seneca, Onondaga and Cayuga remained loyal to Great Britain. This marked the first major split among the Six Nations. After a series of successful operations against frontier settlements, led by the Mohawk war chief Joseph Brant, other war chiefs, and British allies; the United States reacted with vengeance. In 1779, George Washington ordered the Sullivan Campaign led by Col. Daniel Brodhead and General John Sullivan against the Iroquois nations to "not merely overrun, but destroy," the British-Indian alliance.

After the war, the ancient central fireplace of the confederacy was reestablished at Buffalo Creek. Captain Joseph Brant and a group of Iroquois left New York to settle in Canada. As a reward for their loyalty to the British Crown, they were given a large land grant on the Grand River. Brant's crossing of the river gave the original name to the area: Brant's ford. By 1847, European settlers began to settle nearby and named the village Brantford, Ontario. The original Mohawk Indian settlement was on the south edge of the present-day city at a location favorable for landing canoes. Prior to this land grant, Iroquois settlements did exist in that same area and elsewhere in southern Ontario, extending further north and east (from Lake Ontario eastwards into Quebec around present-day Montreal).

The total number of Iroquois Indians today is difficult to establish. About 45,000 Iroquois Indian lived in Canada in 1995. In the 2000 census, 80,822 people in the United States claimed Iroquois ethnicity, with 45,217 of them claiming only Iroquois background. However, tribal registrations in the United States in 1995 numbered about 30,000 in total.
The Iroquois Indians have a representative government known as the Grand Council. The Grand Council is the oldest governmental institution still maintaining its original form in Eastern North America. Each tribe sends chiefs to act as representatives and make decisions for the whole nation. The number of chiefs has never changed. Onondaga 14, Cayuga 10, Oneida 9, Mohawk 9, Senerca 8, Tuscarora 0.