The Wyandotte have connections to the Wendat-Huron through their lineage from the Attignawantan, the founding nation of the Confederacy.[2][3] After the Wendat’s defeat in 1649 during prolonged warfare with the Five Nations of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois Confederacy), the surviving members of the confederacy dispersed; some took residence at Quebec with the Jesuits and others merged with neighboring nations to become the Wyandot. Afterward, they occupied territory extending into what is now the United States, especially Michigan, and northern Ohio. In the 1830s, they were forced west to Indian Territory (Kansas and finally northeastern Oklahoma) due to U.S. federal removal policies.[4] They are related to other Iroquoian peoples in the region, such as their powerful competitors, the Five Nations of the Iroquois who occupied territory mostly on the south side of Lake Ontario but also had hunting grounds along the St. Lawrence River. They are also related to the neighboring Erie, Neutral Nation, Wenro, Susquehannock, and Tionontate — all speaking varieties of Iroquoian languages, but traditional enemies of the Five Nations of the Iroquois. At various points in history these other nations have also engaged in trade and warfare with one another.[citation needed]
History
Emergence of the Wyandot
Three Huron-Wyandot chiefs from the Huron reservation (Lourette) now called Wendake in Quebec, Canada. After their defeat by the Iroquois, many Huron fled to Quebec for refuge with their French allies, where a reserve was set aside for their use. Others migrated across Lake Huron and the St. Clair River, settling in the northern Ohio and Michigan region.Huron-Plume group – Spencerwood, Quebec City, 1880William Walker (1800–1874), a leader of the Wyandot people and a prominent citizen of early-day Kansas.
In the late 17th century, elements of the Huron Confederacy and the Petun joined and became known as the Wyandot (or Wyandotte), a variation of Wendat. (This name is also related to the French transliteration of the Mohawk term for tobacco.)[5] The western Wyandot re-formed in the area of southern Michigan but migrated to Ohio after their alliance with the "Flathead" Catawba got them in trouble with their former ally the Odawa.[6]
In August 1782, the Wyandot joined forces with Simon Girty, a British soldier. On August 15 through 19, 1782, they unsuccessfully besieged Bryan Station in Kentucky (near present-day Lexington). They drew the Kentucky militia to Lower Blue Licks, where the Wyandot defeated the militia led by Daniel Boone. The Wyandot gained the high ground and surrounded Boone's forces.
During the Northwest Indian War, the Wyandot fought alongside British allies against the United States. Under the leadership of Tarhe, they were signatories to the Treaty of Greenville in 1795.[7]
In 1807, the Wyandot joined three other tribes – the Odawa, Potawatomi, and Ojibwe people – in signing the Treaty of Detroit, which resulted in a major land cession to the United States. This agreement between the tribes and the Michigan Territory (represented by William Hull) ceded to the United States a part of their territory in today's southeastern Michigan and a section of Ohio near the Maumee River. The tribes were allowed to keep small pockets of land in the territory.[8] The Treaty of Brownstown was signed by Governor Hull on November 7, 1807, and provided the Indigenous nations with a payment of $10,000 in goods and money along with an annual payment of $2,400 in exchange for an area of land that included the southeastern one-quarter of the lower peninsula of Michigan.[9] In 1819, the Methodist Church established a mission to the Wyandot in Ohio, its first to Native Americans.[10]
In the 1840s, most of the surviving Wyandot people were displaced to Kansas Indigenous territory through the US federal policy of forced Indian removal. Using the funds they received for their lands in Ohio, the Wyandot purchased 23,000 acres (93km2) of land for $46,080 in what is now Wyandotte County, Kansas from the Lenape. The Lenape had been grateful for the hospitality which the Wyandot had given them in Ohio, as the Lenape had been forced to move west under pressure from Anglo-European colonists. The Wyandot acquired a more-or-less square parcel north and west of the junction of the Kansas River and the Missouri River.[11] A United States government treaty granted the Wyandot Nation a small portion of fertile land located in an acute angle of the Missouri River and Kansas River, which they purchased from the Delaware in 1843. Also, the government granted 32 "floating sections", located on public lands west of the Mississippi River.
In June 1853, Big Turtle, a Wyandot chief, wrote to the Ohio State Journal regarding the current condition of his tribe. The Wyandot had received nearly $127,000 for their lands in 1845. Big Turtle noted that, in the spring of 1850, the tribal chiefs retroceded the granted land to the government. They invested $100,000 of the proceeds in 5% government stock.[12] After removal to Kansas, the Wyandot had founded good libraries along with two thriving Sabbath schools. They were in the process of organizing a division of the Sons of Temperance and maintained a sizable temperance society. Big Turtle commented on the agricultural yield, which produced an annual surplus for the market. He said that the thrift of the Wyandot exceeded that of any tribe north of the Arkansas line. According to his account, the Wyandot nation was "contented and happy", and enjoyed better living conditions in the Indigenous territory than they had in Ohio.[12]
By 1855 the number of Wyandot had diminished to 600 or 700 people. On August 14 of that year, the Wyandot Nation elected a chief. The Kansas correspondent of the Missouri Republican reported that the judges of the election were three elders who were trusted by their peers. The Wyandot offered some of the floating sections of land for sale on the same day at $800. A section was composed of 640 acres (2.6km2). Altogether 20,480 acres (82.9km2) were sold for $25,600. They were located in Kansas, Nebraska, and unspecified sites. Surveys were not required, with the title becoming complete at the time of location.[13]
The Wyandot played an important role in Kansas politics. On July 26, 1853, at a meeting at the Wyandot Council house in Kansas City, William Walker (Wyandot) was elected provisional governor of Nebraska Territory, which included Kansas. He was elected by Wyandot, white traders, and outside interests who wished to preempt the federal government's organization of the territory and to benefit from the settlement of Kansas by white settlers. Walker and others promoted Kansas as the route for the proposed transcontinental railroad. Although the federal government did not recognize Walker's election, the political activity prompted the federal government to pass the Kansas–Nebraska Act to organize Kansas and Nebraska territories.[14]
An October 1855 article in The New York Times reported that the Wyandot were free (that is, they had been accepted as US citizens) and without the restrictions placed on other tribes. Their leaders were unanimously pro-slavery, which meant 900 or 1,000 additional votes in opposition to the Free State movement of Kansas.[15] But the truth was that Kansas Wyandot were abolitionists and antislavery. They were forcefully relocated to what became Quindaro, Kansas. In the years prior to the Civil War, Quindaro was a hub for abolitionists. Wyandot tribal members actively helped people fleeing slavery. Founded in 1856 on the Missouri River about 6 miles (10km) above the mouth of the Kansas River, It was an important part of the Underground Railroad.[16][17] The Quindaro Townsite received National Historic Landmark status in May 2025.[18]
The last known original Wyandot of Ohio was Margaret Grey Eyes Solomon, known as "Mother Solomon". The daughter of Chief John Grey Eyes, she was born in 1816 and left Ohio in 1843. By 1889 she had returned to Ohio, when she was recorded as a spectator to the restoration of the Wyandot Mission Church in Upper Sandusky. She died in Upper Sandusky on August 17, 1890.[20] The last full blood Wyandot was Bill Moose Crowfoot who died in Upper Arlington, Ohio in 1937. He stated that 12 Wyandot families remained behind.[21]
20th century to present
Interior of a longhouse, near Toronto
Archeological work in Canada and the United States has revealed the Wyandot's ancestral roots in what are now Canada and the United States. It also has provided evidence about the peoples' migrations and interactions with other Indigenous groups, as well as the French and British colonists. Beginning in 1907, archaeological excavations were conducted at the Jesuit mission site near Georgian Bay. The mission has since been reconstructed as Sainte-Marie among the Hurons, a living museum to interpret Wyandot and Jesuit history; it is adjacent to the Martyrs' Shrine. This Roman Catholic shrine is consecrated to the ten North American martyrs.
Since the mid-century, the Wyandot pursued land claims in the United States since they had not been fully compensated for lost lands. The US federal government set up the Indian Claims Court in the 1940s to address grievances filed by various Native American tribes. The court adjudicated claims, and Congress allocated $800 million to compensate tribes for losses due to treaties broken by the US government, or losses of land due to settlers who invaded their territories. The Wyandot filed a land claim for compensation due to the forced sale of their land in the Ohio region to the federal government under the 1830 Indian Removal Act, which forced Native Americans to move west of the Mississippi River to an area designated as Indian Territory. Originally the United States paid the Wyandot for their land at the rate of 75 cents per acre, but the land was worth $1.50 an acre.[22]
Although Congress intended to have a deadline by which Indigenous claims had to be settled, Federal district courts continued to hear land claims and other cases for compensation. In February 1985, the US government finally agreed to pay descendants of the Wyandot $5.5 million to settle the tribe's outstanding claim. The decision settled claims related to the 143-year-old treaty. In 1842 the United States had forced the tribe to sell their Ohio lands for less-than-fair value. A spokesman for the Bureau of Indian Affairs said that the government would pay $1,600 each, in July 1985, to 3,600 people in Kansas and Oklahoma who could prove they were descendants of Wyandot affected by Indian Removal.[22]
During the 20th century, contemporary Wyandot continued to assert their culture and identity. On August 27, 1999, representatives of the far-flung Wyandot bands from Quebec, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Michigan gathered at their historic homeland in Midland, Ontario. There they formally re-established the Wendat Confederacy.
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