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The Wyandot or Wendat (also called the Huron) are a First Nations people originally from Southern Ontario, Canada. The early French explorers called the members of a four-tribe confederacy the 'Huron'. In French, a hure is the rough-haired head of wild boars. According to Jesuit Father Gabriel Lalemant , this is where the name would come from. Another possibility is that it refered to French huron peasant, because the Huron were seen growing corn and sunflowers.
When the French encountered the Hurons in the 17th century they learned their language and discovered their social organization. They were divided into various "nations" comprising the Huron Confederacy. These nations were four to six in number, and included the Attignaenognehac , the Attignawantan , the Ataronchronon , and the Tahontaenrat . (The Hurons were not the only Iroquoian people in the area to be organized into confederacies. The Petun nation , the tribes who lived around Georgian Bay in southern-central Ontario, were further divided into Bear, Cord, Deer, and Rock tribes. To the south, on southern Lake Huron and northern Lake Erie, were the Neutral nations, who were less well known to the French. And of course, the Iroquois themselves were a league of five (later six) nations.)
Before the French arrived the Hurons were already at war with the Iroquois. The war was extended to the French, who allied with the Huron because they were, at the time, the most advanced trading nation. The Iroquois also tended to be allies of the English who took advantage of their hatred of the Hurons and their new French allies. The introduction of European weapons increased the severity of the war, and by about 1650 the Iroquois had almost completely destroyed the Huron tribes. The Jesuit mission of Sainte-Marie among the Hurons, near modern Midland, Ontario, was one focus of Iroquois attacks; it was destroyed in 1648Events Peace treaty signed at Westphalia ends the Thirty Years' War. The Dutch and the Spanish sign the Treaty of Munster, ending the Eighty Years' War. The Spanish Empire recognizes the Dutch Republic of United Netherlands as a sovereign state, (governed and many of the Jesuit missionaries were killed (see Canadian MartyrsThe Canadian Martyrs were eight Jesuit missionaries from Sainte-Marie among the Hurons, who were martyred in the 17th century in Canada. The Martyrs are St. Jean de Brebeuf ( 1649), St. Noel Chabanel ( 1649), St. Antoine Daniel ( 1648), St. Charles Garnie). After a bitter winter on Christian Island, Ontario , some Huron-Wendat relocated near Quebec City and settled in an area they call WendakeWendake is the current name for the Huron-Wendat reserve a short distance north of Quebec City, Quebec. This was formerly known as Village-des-Hurons or "Huron Village". Its inhabitants are the predominantly Catholic descendents of Hurons displaced from t.
The western Hurons eventually established themselves in the area of OhioOhio is a Midwestern state in the northeastern corner of the United States. It was the first and eastern-most state in the Midwest admitted to the Union under the Northwest Ordinance. postal abbreviation is OH its old-style abbreviation is O. Ohio is an I and southern MichiganMichigan is a state in the United States. The name is derived from Lake Michigan, which in turn is believed to come from the Chippewa Indian word meicigama meaning "great water. Bounded by four of the Great Lakes, Michigan has the longest state shoreline. It is this group that became commonly known to English speakers as "Wyandots" (notably in James Fenimore CooperJames Fenimore Cooper ( September 15, 1789 September 14, 1851), American novelist, was born at Burlington, New Jersey, on the 15th of September 1789. Reared in the wild country round Otsego Lake, New York, on the yet unsettled estates of his father Willia's novel WyandotteWyandotte is the name of some places in the United States of America: Wyandotte, Michigan Wyandotte, Oklahoma Wyandotte County, Kansas Wyandotte Township, Minnesota Wyandotte is an alternative spelling of Wyandot or Wendat, the name of a First Nations gro, published in 1843). In the late 18th century, the Wyandots obtained a position of symbolic importance as the "uncles", or senior members, of the Wabash Confederacy, which waged war against the United States in the 1790s. Some Wyandot still live in southern Ontario and Michigan. However, most of the surviving people were displaced through Indian Removal in the early 19th century, and a large population of Wyandot (over 4,000) can be found in Kansas and Oklahoma.
The approximately 3,000 Huron-Wendat in Quebec are primarily Catholic and have French as their first language, although there are currently efforts afoot to promote the use and study of the Wendat language. For many decades, a leading source of income for the Huron-Wendat of Quebec has been selling pottery and other locally produced crafts.
In 1999, representatives the far-flung Wendat bands of Quebec, Kansas, Oklahoma and Michigan gathered at their historic homeland in Midland, Ontario, and formally re-established the Wendat Confederacy.
The historian Georges Sioui is a Wendat active in the local politics of Wendake; Bruce Trigger is a noted scholar in Huron-Wendat studies and has been adopted as an honorary Wendat.