Iroquois

Iroquois, formerly a great confederation of Indian tribes, recognised as a distinct branch of the American family. At the beginning of the 17th century they included the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas, and became known as the 'Five Nations'; in 1715 they were joined by a related tribe, the Tuscaroras, and henceforward were known as the 'Six Nations.' Each tribe managed its own affairs, under its own sachems, and a council of fifty sachems met annually and disposed of questions affecting the confederation as a whole. The chiefs, who, like the sachems, were of equal rank, but who owed their position to personal valour alone and did not form a hereditary body, exercised leadership in time of war only. The confederation was found by the earliest settlers in possession of the greater part of the present state of New York, but by the end of the 17th century all the tribes between the Atlantic and the Mississippi, and from the St Lawrence to the Tennessee, had been brought under its influence. With the Dutch, and afterwards with the English, the Iroquois always maintained friendly relations, even taking sides with their allies during the Revolution; to the French, on the other hand, they were bitterly hostile, and their enmity had an important effect in checking the growth of French influence in North America. After the Revolution the Mohawks crossed into Canada under Joseph Brant (q.v.), and are now settled on two reservations to the north of Lakes Erie and Ontario. The Cayugas are scattered, and some hundreds only of the Tuscaroras have found a home among the Mohawks; but most of the Oneidas are settled at Green Bay, Wisconsin, most of the Senecas in Western New York, and the Onondagas still hold their beautiful valley near Syracuse, New York. The Iroquois probably never exceeded 25,000, and they still number nearly half as many, most of them in the United States. Schools and missions have met with considerable success, and civilisation is making marked progress among the descendants of this remarkable confederation, while some of their number have attained to distinction as soldiers, engineers, &c.