Iroquois Indians

The Iroquois Indians originally lived along the Genesee River, the Mohawk River, and in the Finger Lakes region south of Lake Ontario in New York State. Around 1600, five tribes, the Mohawks, the Oneidas, the Onondagas, the Cayugas, and the Senecas, banded together to form a confederacy. A sixth tribe -- the Tuscaroras -- joined in 1722. These people called themselves "Haudenosaunee" or "people of the long house". The name "Iroquois" is a French variant on a term for "snake" given these people by the Hurons, the Iroquois' linguistic relatives but also their political and military rivals. There were other Iroquoian-speaking tribes who were not part of the confederacy. For example, the Erie Indians were related to the Iroquois. They lived along the eastern shores of Lake Erie in New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. The Iroquois Confederacy considered them enemies and destroyed the tribe. Erie survivors eventually were absorbed into other Indian nations, including into the Seneca.

By 1650, the Iroquois Confederacy began to push their way into the rich Ohio Country between the Great Lakes and the Ohio River. They conquered and drove out various groups of Native Americans living in the area. The resulting wars were known as the Beaver Wars because the Iroquois wanted more land for hunting and trapping beaver and deer. The Iroquois participated in the fur trade with the Dutch and then with the British. Unlike many other tribes east of the Mississippi River, the Iroquois generally did not favor the French over the British. A small group of Mohawks, Onondagas, Cayuga, and Seneca converted to Catholicism and aided the French, but most of the Iroquois assisted the English against the French. During the American Revolution, many of these people joined with the British against the American colonists.

A small number of the Iroquois lived in modern-day Ohio. Probably only several hundred of these natives resided in Ohio at any one time. They came there primarily to hunt. Some Iroquois natives who remained in Ohio developed their own political system and separated themselves entirely from the Iroquois living in the East.