Haudenosaunee

The Haudenosaunee Confederacy ( HOH-din-oh-SHOH-nee; lit. 'those who build the longhouse'), also known as the Iroquois ( IRR-ə-kwoy, -⁠kwah), is a confederacy of Iroquoian-speaking indigenous peoples in northeast North America. They were known by the French during the colonial years as the Iroquois League, and later as the Iroquois Confederacy. They have also been called the Six Nations (Five Nations before 1722). Their country has been called Iroquoia and Haudenosauneega in English, and Iroquoisie in French. The Haudenosaunee originally comprised (from east to west) the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca. After 1722, the Iroquoian-speaking Tuscarora people migrated from the southeast and were accepted into the confederacy, henceforth known as "Six Nations". Haudenosaunee oral history describes the formation of the Confederacy by the Great Peacemaker, Hiawatha, and Jigonhsasee under a constitution known as the Great Law of Peace, likely between 1142 and 1660, although there is little agreement on the date. Contact with Europeans began with the arrival of Dutch colonists to North America, which the Haudenosaunee describe as the origin of the Two Row Wampum Treaty. The acquisition of muskets through the fur trade led to a rapid expansion in Haudenosaunee strength during the Beaver Wars, during which time they dispersed or assimilated most neighboring tribes. At its peak around 1700, Haudenosaunee power extended from what is today New York State, north into present-day Ontario and Quebec along the lower Great Lakes–upper St. Lawrence, and south on both sides of the Allegheny Mountains into present-day Virginia, Kentucky, and the Ohio Valley. For nearly 200 years, the Haudenosaunee were a powerful factor in North American colonial policy. Alliance with the Haudenosaunee offered political and strategic advantages to the European powers, with the Haudenosaunee often holding the balance of power between the French and British colonies. By the 1700s, the Haudenosaunee...