The Wyandot people (, also known as the Wyandotte) are an Indigenous Iroquoian people who emerged in the Great Lakes region in the mid-17th century. The Wyandot developed through a process of ethnogenesis during the Beaver Wars, when refugees from the Etionnontateronnon (Petun), Wenrohronon, and Wendat (Huron) coalesced following their dispersal by the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois). The Petun/Wendat relocated several times until settling at Michilimackinac in 1671. They migrated to the Détroit area in 1701 and by the mid-18th century had spread into the Ohio Country where they became known as the Wyandot. The Wyandot actively supported the French during the French and Indian War and the British during the American Revolutionary War. They were part of the Northwestern Confederacy formed after the war to resist American expansionism. In the early 1840s, American removal policies forced the Wyandot to relocate to Indian Territory (Kansas) west of the Mississippi River and a few years later to northeastern Oklahoma.
In the United States, the Wyandotte Nation is a federally recognized tribe headquartered in Wyandotte, Oklahoma. The Wyandot Nation of Kansas and the Wyandot of Anderdon Nation located in Michigan are organizations that self-identify as Wyandot. Since 1999, three nations are affiliated with the related Wendat Nation of Quebec through the Wendat Confederacy.
Name and language
The Wyandot are primarily the descendants of the Etionnontateronnon (Tionontati) and Wendat who historically lived near the southern shores of Georgian Bay, part of Lake Huron, in what is now south-central Ontario. They are closely related to other Iroquoian peoples from the Great Lakes region including the Haudenosaunee, Erie, Neutral and Wenrohronon (Wenro).
In the early 17th century, the Wendat, a confederacy of four nations, occupied the territory they called Wendake (Huronia) located between Georgian Bay and Lake Simcoe. The Etionnontateronnon, also known as the Tionontati or the Petun. lived to the southwest of Wendake along the base of the Niagara Escarpment. The Wendat and Etionnontateronnon were essentially two branches of the same cultural tree, sharing an almost identical way of life rooted in Iroquoian traditions. Both societies were organized into matrilineal clans and lived in palisaded villages of bark-covered longhouses, where they practised a "Three Sisters" (maize, beans, and squash) agricultural economy.
Wyandot (Wyandotte) stems from the Wendat word Waⁿdát which translates roughly as "dwellers on the peninsula." They were known to the French as the "Huron." This name is believed to be a derivation of the word hure (boar's head), a reference to the hairstyle of Wendat warriors. The Etionnontateronnon, an Wendat word meaning "people of the hill" were known to the French as the "Petun," an obsolete French word meaning tobacco. The Wendat and Petun spoke mutually intelligible languages of the Northern Iroquoian language family. Research by linguist John Steckley suggests that the Wyandot language which evolved after the Petun and Wendat were driven from their homeland is effectively a Petun dialect. Steckley argues that the Petun element was the most significant contributor to the Wyandot's lasting cultural and linguistic identity.
By the time the Petun/Wendat settled near Detroit around 1701 they were effectively functioning as the Wyandot people. Although they referred to themselves as the Wendat, the French continued to call them the Huron. British traders who encountered the Wendat in the Ohio Country in the mid-18th century recorded their name as Wyandot, and later applied this name to those in the Detroit area as well.
History Emergence of the Wyandot
The Wyandot were the result of Wendat refugees merging with the Petun following the destruction of Wendake by the Haudenosaunee in 1649. Although the Wendat had been in conflict with the Haudenosaunee for many years, the nature of the conflict changed in the late 1640s. Supplied with firearms by the Dutch, the Haudenosaunee began conducting large-scale attacks against Wendat villages in 1647. After the destruction of roughly half their villages, the Wendat decided to abandon Wendake in 1649. Many fled to Gahoendoe (Christian Island) and later to Île d'Orléans on the St. Lawrence River near Quebec, where they became the modern Wendat Nation. Others, primarily from the Attignawantan nation, took refuge with the Petun. With them was a population of Wenro who had fled Haudenosaunee aggression a decade earlier.
The Petun were attacked by the Haudenosaunee in late 1649, dispersing them along with the Wendat and Wenro. They decided take refuge with the Odawa (Ottawa) to the north. They settled briefly on Mackinac Island before moving further west to Rock Island on Lake Michigan at the mouth of Green Bay. In 1659, they moved inland to the Black River. Conflict with the Sioux pushed them north to Chequamegon Bay on Lake Superior in 1661. In 1671, they moved to Michilimackinac where the Jesuits had established the St. Ignace Mission.
Kondiaronk Kondiaronk, a Petun known to the French as Le Rat, became leader of the Petun/Wendat at Michilimackinac and gained fame as a skilled diplomat and brilliant negotiator of the Wyandot, famed for his oratory. In 1689, fearing that a treaty between the French and the Haudenosaunee would marginalize his people, he led an ambush against an Onondaga peace delegation travelling to Montreal. He captured the delegates and convinced them that the French had ordered the attack, a deception that effectively shattered the peace talks and reignited the war. In 1701, at the age of 52, he played a critical role in the negotiations that led to the Great Peace of Montreal. Despite being terminally ill, he gave a powerful final speech that helped unite 39 different Indigenous nations, ending decades of conflict between the Haudenousaunee, the French, and France's Indigenous allies. He died a few days before the signing of the treaty in Montreal on Aug 4, 1701 and was accorded a grand funeral. His signature was added posthumously to the treaty in recognition of his contribution to the success of the event.
18th century
In 1701, Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac invited the Petun/Wendat at Michilimackinac to settle near Fort Pontchartrain du Détroit. While based at Détroit, they participated in the Fox Wars against the Meskwaki, and were often in conflict with the Odawa who had been invited to settle nearby.
In the summer of 1728, the Jesuit Father Armand de La Richardie, established a mission across the river from Fort Pontchartrain at La Pointe de Montréal. It was given the imposing name of The Mission of Our Lady of the Assumption among the Hurons of Detroit. In 1742, the mission moved to Bois Blanc Island but returned to La Pointe de Montréal in 1748.
In 1738, the Petun/Wendat relocated to Sandusky Bay due to Odawa harassment following the end of their alliance against the Catawba (Flathead). They returned to Détroit the following year but split into two factions. One faction settled on Bois Blanc Island while a second faction, led by Nicholas Orontony founded the village of Junundat south of Sandusky Bay. English traders referred to Orontony's band as the Wyandot, a name that eventually encompassed all of the Petun/Wendat.
During King George's War, the Petun/Wendat at Détroit initially supported the French, but withdrew their support when the war curtailed the supply of trade goods. Meanwhile, Orontony supported the British. After a failed attempt to destroy Fort Pontchartrain du Détroit in 1747, his faction abandoned Junundat and established the village of Conchake at the head of the Muskingum River, a tributary of the Ohio River. Following the death of Orontony in 1750, a smallpox epidemic in 1752, and the attack on the nearby British-aligned Miami village of Pickawillany, the Muskingum River settlement was abandoned. A number of the Conchaké Wyandot returned to Détroit, however, many returned to Sandusky Bay and reestablished Junundat.
In 1755, during the French and Indian War, Wyandot from Détroit and Sandusky participated in the defeat of the Braddock's Expedition at the Battle of the Monongahela.
In 1763, the Wyandot were key participants in the Indigenous coalition that opposed the British during Pontiac's War. In May 1763, the Sandusky Wyandot attacked Fort Sandusky and slaughtered the small British garrison. Two months later Junundat was destroyed by Captain James Dayell who was proceeding to Fort Detroit with reinforcements. The Wyandot abandoned their village at Dayell's approach and moved west to the Sandusky River valley. The Detroit Wyandot took part in the Siege of Fort Detroit led by the Odawa chief Pontiac. They participated in an attack at Point Pelee on a British detachment bringing supplies to the fort, and in the ambush of British reinforcements at the Battle of Bloody Run.
In August 1763, at the Battle of Bushy Run, a combined force of Lenape, Shawnee, Mingo and Wyandot were narrowly defeated after they attacked and surrounded Colonel Henry Bouquet's detachment of British regulars.
The Wyandot fully supported the British during the American Revolutionary War. The British Indian Department appointed interpreter Simon Girty to work with the Wyandot in the Ohio Country. The Wyandot, accompanied by Girty, participated in the February 1779 attack on Fort Laurens, the June 1780 attacks on Ruddle's Fort and Martin's Station in Kentucky, Lochry's Defeat in August 1781, and the Battle of Sandusky in June 1782.. Wyandot warriors were also present at the unsuccessful Siege of Fort Henry in September 1782.
During the Northwest Indian War, Girty was chosen to lead the Wyandot contingent when more than a thousand Shawnee, Miami, Lenape, Wyandot, Odawa, Potawatomi, and Ojibwe warriors soundly defeated the expedition led by Arthur St. Clair at the Battle of the Wabash in November 1791. In August 1794, the Wyandot, led by Tarhe, fought at the Battle of Fallen Timbers when the Northwestern Confederacy was defeated by the Legion of the United States commanded by Anthony Wayne. Tarhe was a signatory to the Treaty of Greenville in 1795.
Early 19th century
In 1807, the Wyandot in the Detroit area joined the Odawa, Potawatomi and Ojibwe in signing the Treaty of Detroit. Under its terms, the tribes ceded to the United States a tract of land comprising roughly the southeast quarter of the lower peninsula of Michigan and a small section of Ohio north of the Maumee River. The Wyandot retained small pockets of land within the ceded territory. The treaty was signed by William Hull, the Governor of the Michigan Territory, on November 7, 1807, and provided the four Indigenous nations with a payment of $10,000 in goods and money, and an annuity of $2,400 per year.
Shortly before the War of 1812, Roundhead (Stayeghtha), an early supporter of the Shawnee war leader Tecumseh and his brother the Prophet (Tenskwatawa), led 300 Wyandot from Ohio to the Michigan Territory. When war was declared, he convinced the reluctant Michigan Wyandot leader Walk-in-the-Water (Myeerah) to support the British. Roundhead led Wyandot warriors at the Battle of Brownstown and the siege of Detroit. Wyandot warriors were instrumental in defeating the Americans at the Battle of Frenchtown in January 1813 and took part in the siege of Fort Meigs a few months later. Roundhead died of natural causes in August 1813. Shortly before the Battle of the Thames in October 1813, Walk-in-the-Water and about 60 of his followers withdrew their support and defected to the Americans. Meanwhile, the Wyandot in Ohio, led by Tahre, remained mostly neutral during the war.