page_title: Wyandot people
section_title: Emergence of the Wyandot
hierarchical_section_title: Wyandot people / History / Emergence of the Wyandot
caption_attribution_description: English: Three Huron-Wyandot chiefs from the Huron reservation (Lourette) now called Wendake in Quebec Canada. At far left is Michel Tsioui (Teachendale), war chief. Center is Stanislas Coska (Aharathaha), second chief of the council. At far light is Andre Romain (Tsouhahissen), first chief of the council.
context_page_description: The Wyandot people or Wendat, also called the Huron Nation and Huron people, are Iroquoian-speaking peoples of North America who emerged as a tribe around the north shore of Lake Ontario.
  Today, numerous Wyandot people in the United States are enrolled members of Wyandotte Nation, the federally recognized tribe headquartered in Wyandotte, Oklahoma.
  In Canada, the Wyandot have a First Nations reserve in Quebec.
  By the 15th century, the precontact Wyandot had settled in the large area from the north shores of most of present-day Lake Ontario, northwards up to the southeastern shores of Georgian Bay. From this homeland, they encountered the French explorer Samuel de Champlain in 1615. They historically spoke the Wyandot language, a Northern Iroquoian language. They were believed to number more than 30,000 at the time of European contact in the 1610s to 1620s.
  In the late 17th century, the Huron Confederacy merged with the Tionontati nation. This may originally have been a splinter colony of the Huron, to their west to form the historical Wyandot.
context_section_description: In the late 17th century, elements of the Huron Confederacy and the Petun joined together 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.) The western Wyandot re-formed in the area of Ohio and southern Michigan in the United States.
  In August 1782, the Wyandot joined forces with Simon Girty, a British soldier. On Aug 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.
  Also in late 1782, the Wyandot joined forces with Shawnee, Seneca, and Delaware Indians in an unsuccessful siege of Fort Henry on the Ohio River.
  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.
  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. The Treaty of Brownstown was signed by Governor Hull on November 7, 1807 and provided the Indian 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. In 1819, the Methodist Church established a mission to the Wyandot in Ohio, its first to Native Americans.
  In the 1840s, most of the surviving Wyandot people were displaced to Kansas Indian 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 (93 km²) of land for $46,080 in what is now Wyandotte County, Kansas from the Delaware (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. 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. In addition, 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. 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 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 Indian Territory than they had in Ohio.
  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
caption: 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.
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