THE WYANDOTTE PEOPLE

TRIBE NAME: The traditional and ancient name of the Wyandotte is Wandat, historically it is also known as Wendat. The name Wyandotte is an English corruption of Wandat, which means “People of the Island.” Due to a geopolitical split within the tribe in 1867 there are two spellings commonly used today. Wyandotte is in reference to the tribe in Oklahoma, and Wyandot is in reference to the tribe in Kansas. The Wyandotte Nation in Oklahoma is the only federally recognized tribe.

LANGUAGE: The Wyandotte tribe belongs to the Iroquoian linguistic family. Other nations within the Iroquois linguistic group include the Cherokee, Tuscarora, Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga and Seneca, who share the closest vocabulary to the Wyandotte.

GENERAL HISTORY: In 1603 a Frenchman named Samuel de Champlain, made his first trip down the St. Lawrence River in Canada. He was following in the footsteps of another Frenchman, Jacques Cartier, who had explored the region between 1534 and 1541, initially making contact with a group of Native Americans known today as the St. Lawrence Iroquoians. Cartier did little to advance French relations with the natives. He was hoping to find a western route to China, through the St. Lawrence River, Champlain’s early exploration of the Great Lakes region, opened Canada for settlement by the French.

Champlain established relations with a group if Indians commonly called Hurons. The Hurons were a confederacy of five nations; the founder and oldest nation being the Attignawantan and along with the Attingueenongnahac they formed a confederacy and called themselves Wendat, ‘‘People of the Island’’. There were three other tribes in the confederacy, they being Arendaronon, Tahontaenrat and the Ataronchronon. To the south of the Attignawantan, lived a close neighbor, the Tionontati, they were not of the confederacy, but were almost identical to the Attignawantan. They would quickly proved to be an important ally of the Attignawantan.

Not long afterwards the French permanently settled in North America establishing Quebec, and the Dutch quickly followed. They settled along the Hudson River, establishing Fort Orange in 1624. They had little contact with the Wendat, the French made sure of this. Instead they aligned with five other nations living, in what is today, up state New York. These nations were the Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida and Mohawk. They often suffered at the hands of the Wendat Confederacy, who dominated everyone in the Great Lakes region. The  Iroquois Confederacy, out of economics and a desire for self preservation, aligned themselves with the Dutch.

French and Dutch explorers and settlers, used the Wendat and Iroquois Confederacies, as pawns, not only to gather fur but fight a series of wars from 1637-1652 known as ‘‘The Beaver Wars, here on the North American continent. The Wendat had been fighting the tribes of the Iroquois for many years, but it wasn’t warfare, like that fought by European nations, instead it was more like a game. Small raiding parties, would invade the others land, seeking revenge for a recent, raid within their own territory. Blood raids, were an endless cycle, not easily stopped. On rare occasions large parties would lay siege to an entire village, usually leaving before doing much damage. There was more honor in touching an enemy, rather than killing him. This would quickly change. As the Iroquois turned their efforts into total destruction of the Wendat empire.

After the destruction of the Wendat Confederacy the Iroquois continued their murderous onslaught against the Tionontati, as revenge for harboring the Attignawantan. Survivors of the Tionontati and Attignawantan nation’s accumulatively numbered around 1,000 in 1649, when just a few years earlier both had populations that numbered in the tens of thousands. Because of small pox contracted from the European explorers and settlers; and too losses suffered during the Beaver Wars, both nations were nearly decimated. Small in numbers and almost identical in language, and sharing common culture they joined forces and fled west in the winter of 1649-50 seeking survival; after suffering near extermination primarily at the hands of their cousins the Seneca.

In the dispersal of 1649 the surviving Tionontati and Attignawantan, weak and disorganized fled in the dead of winter, hoping that the Seneca would not pursue them. While on-the-run a people steeped in tradition united, and almost over night conformed to the circumstances presented them, consolidated their strengths, declared new tradition out of necessity, and became Wyandotte in early 1650. Initially moving to the French trading post of Michilimackinac on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, the Wyandotte found that it was not far enough to ensure safety from the Iroquois who still sent raiding parties. Unable to comfortably establish themselves they again moved and wandered without a home until 1701.

In 1701 the Wyandotte were invited by Antoine de Lamothe Cadillac, a Frenchman, to join him in the defense of his new Fort Detroit. With peace firmly established with the Iroquois, the Wyandotte settled in Detroit along with several other nations that too were invited by Cadillac. By 1725 because of stress caused by the French government and pressure from the other nations around Detroit, many of the Wyandotte decided to migrate into the Ohio Valley; which was left unoccupied because of the Iroquois onslaught from previous years. From Upper Sandusky the Wyandotte grew in strength and numbers and became the most influential nation in the Ohio Valley. They too were bestowed the honor of being Keepers of the Council Fire, by the other nations of the region. This was a sacred honor and meant that the Wyandotte would host any tribal councils when it became necessary for the nations to come together for any reason.

After many years of resisting removal, in 1843 the Wyandotte succumbed to pressure and left Ohio for Kansas, with the promise of 148,000 acres of free unoccupied land in Indian Territory west of the Mississippi. The Wyandotte moved, only to find that there was no land. The Delaware Nation gave three sections of land to the Wyandotte at the junction of the Missouri and Kansas Rivers, with an additional thirty nine sections, later being sold, for a total of forty two sections totaling only 26,880 acres. Originally known as Wyandotte City, the area that initially brought much grief and devastation upon the Wyandotte people through typhoid outbreaks killing hundreds, is known today as Kansas City, Kansas.

Removal to Kansas was supposed to eliminate ‘‘white encroachment’’ upon Wyandotte lands. Wrong! With the establishment of the Kansas and Nebraska Territories in 1854, a Wyandotte citizen and chief, William Walker served as Provisional Governor of the newly established Nebraska Territory. Now living on some of the most valuable land west of the Mississippi River, the whites poured onto Wyandotte lands and not even the governor could stop them. ‘‘The Wyandotte Indians having become sufficiently advanced in civilization and being desirous of becoming citizens...’’ were asked to sign a treaty in 1855, dissolving their status as an Indian tribe and relinquishing all claims to land in Kansas. A large number of Wyandotte accepted this treaty and became United States citizens, but a small band under the leadership of Matthew Mudeater fled to Indian Territory... Oklahoma in 1857, the last, safe place for Indians to live in peace

Moving to Indian Territory did not afford or guarantee the Wyandotte peace or protection. With the outbreak of the Civil War old Wyandotte foes, the Cherokee, brought chaos and terror upon the small numbers that was peaceably neutral and struggling just to live off of the land. Again in an attempt to just survive and not be annihilated the Wyandotte moved back to “friends and family” in the Kansas City area. Moving back to Indian Territory after the Civil War had ended, in 1867 the United States Government signed a treaty with the Wyandotte, recognizing land ceded by the Seneca, as land for a future home. This treaty recognized that the small band that refused to accept the terms of the 1855 treaty was indeed again a recognized Indian tribe. The Wyandotte that accepted United States citizenship were excluded from tribal citizenship and were classified as Absentee Wyandot, and remain so to this day.

From 1867 through the early 1900’s the Wyandotte in Indian Territory numbered only a few hundred people. Culturally stressed and already intermarried with whites the Wyandotte struggled at keeping their cultural and national identity. In 1911 and 1912 a Canadian linguist named Charles Marius Barbeau spent the summer months in Oklahoma collecting cultural material in the form of language and oral traditions that would prove to be national treasures. With Oklahoma becoming a state in 1907, now for the third time, the Wyandotte people were faced with the loss of land because of direct white encroachment.

Economically the Wyandotte were in a terrible shape as most were farmers and produced just enough to live on, their only wealth was the land and many sold out to the whites. In the early 1900’s it was not popular or safe to be an Indian, as you may be taken and sent across country to a reform school. Many Wyandotte already looking very white chose to set aside their heritage and live among the whites safely and comfortably in peace. Others not wanting to forsake their heritage left the Wyandotte and went to the Seneca-Cayuga, where today there are many Wyandotte that can be found on the Seneca-Cayuga rolls. Many of the Wyandotte and Seneca traditions are similar and because of this when it became too much of a burden to continue the traditional Wyandotte ways, the Green Corn Feast was “buried” or “absorbed“ into the Seneca-Cayuga.

For most of the early 1900‘s it seemed that the Wyandotte in Oklahoma were embattled with the Absentee Wyandot in Kansas over the Huron Indian Cemetery in downtown Kansas City, Kansas. A lot of bad press and legal strife, added to the struggles of retaining even a glimmer of cultural identity, losing speakers of the traditional language, made it near impossible for any Wyandotte to speak his or her native tongue. Things seemed to be falling apart, it appeared that very few wanted to be Wyandotte or took an interest in Wyandotte things. Because of these reasons and others in 1956 Congress terminated the Wyandotte Nation of Oklahoma as a Federally recognized tribe. But not all was lost. Through the efforts of a dedicated few like Chief Leonard Cotter and Artie Nesvold, they would not let the Wyandotte die, the Wyandotte were to live again, oddly enough because of the Huron Indian Cemetery.

In 1971 the Huron Indian Cemetery is entered on the National Register of Historic Places and major renovation of the cemetery property is begun. At the dedication ceremony in 1978, it is announced that President Jimmy Carter had restored the Wyandotte Tribe of Oklahoma’s status as a Federally recognized supervised tribe on the previous day – May 15th. The Wyandotte had just been granted a start to a new life; hope had once again been given to a proud, historic nation. In 1983 Leaford Bearskin was elected Chief of the Wyandotte in Oklahoma and his ambitious vision was shared with the Wyandotte people... to be economically independent and reinstated as a self governing Nation. Under his direction in 1995 the Wyandotte Nation of Oklahoma again acquires “Self-Governance” status from the B.I.A., and is doing well at becoming economically independent.

With a tribal roll numbering 4,467 members worldwide, the Wyandotte are a relatively small Nation. But their impact upon the history of the North American continent is tremendously rich and scattered from Lake Huron to Wyandotte, Michigan; Wyandot County Ohio; Kansas City, Kansas (originally incorporated as Wyandotte City, Corp. in 1856); Wyandotte, Oklahoma and Wyandotte, California. Through the efforts of an ambitious Wyandotte Tribal Corporation and economic development, and too with a resurgence in the reinstatement of the traditional language, using the collection of Charles Marius Barbeau when he was in Oklahoma almost 100 years ago... the Wyandotte people are alive and doing very well.

ARE THE WYANDOTTE ALSO HURON? Many histories of the Wyandotte have stated that they are Huron, implying that they are “official” descendants of the Huron (Wendat) Confederacy. The Wyandotte do hold a direct connection to the Huron through the lineage brought into the tribe by the Attignawantan; but the Wyandotte are not the people historically known as Huron. Survivors of the Huron Confederacy, primarily those converted to the Catholic faith, fled to Quebec, Canada and sought refuge among the French. These people are historically known as the Huron of Lorette and today are known as the Huronne-Wendat Nation of Wendake. The people of this magnificent and proud nation are the true descendants of the Huron Confederacy.

ANCIENT CULTURE: Like other ancient peoples, the Wyandotte had evolved a way of living together. They had made rules and established customs for the family, the clan, and the tribe. The unit of this system was the clan, not the individual, not the family. The Wyandotte tribe was divided into twelve clans. In theory, at least, all the members of a clan were related by blood. The names of the twelve clans are:

1. Big Turtle         7. Deer
2. Little Turtle       8. Porcupine
3. Mud Turtle        9. Striped Turtle
4. Wolf               10. Highland Turtle
5. Bear               11. Snake
6. Beaver            12. Hawk

Each clan had a government of its own, at the head of which stood the clan council. This council was composed of at least four women and one man. There might be as many women as the council should determine, but there could be but one man. The man was selected by the women, and was chief of the clan. The clan council administered the clan affairs, civil and criminal.

The clans followed the woman. The children belonged to her clan. If a man of the Deer clan married a woman of the Porcupine clan, their children would belong to the Porcupine clan, etc. Children could not inherit the property of the father, for that would take the property out of the clan of the father, this was not permissible. His property descended to his relatives through his mother. The woman is by law the head of the Wyandotte family.

Before clan chiefs could become members of the tribal council it was necessary that they be inaugurated or installed with certain ceremonies called investiture. This investiture was a function of the tribe. For misconduct these clan chiefs could be deposed and expelled from the tribal council. But the tribe could not deprive a chief of his clan office. That was a clan matter.

The tribal council administered the tribal affairs and determined, the relations to other tribes. It was composed of the tribal chief, to some extent hereditary, and the clan chiefs. Women could not become members. Distinguished citizens of the tribe might be called to the council fire. A question was decided by a vote, which was by clans. Women could appear before the council and urge any action. A matter of supreme importance was submitted to a vote of the tribe for settlement, and women had the right of suffrage.

There was, with the Wyandotte a sort of dual tribal government. There was a War Chief, and a military organization over which he presided. The War Chief was usually appointed by the sachem or head chief, and was often called the Little Chief, and sometimes the War Pole. In time of war the civil government was subverted, and the military government ruled the tribe. The War Chief was then the head of all tribal affairs. He announced his assumption of power by erecting a war pole in front of the council house. It was taken down when the war was concluded, and the civil power reinstated.

The ancient Wyandotte came to believe that they were descended from those animals for which their clans were named. But the particular animals from which they were descended were different from the animals of the same species of today. They were deities. They could and often did assume and retain the forms of men and women. The animals of like kind, of our time, are descended from them. Those ancient Animals were, in some sense, creators of the universe. The Wyandotte had special deities. There was the god of war, the god of dreams, a god of nature, and other minor deities. They were to be propitiated rather than worshiped.

CURRENT TRIBAL ROLL: Total tribal members nationwide is 4,467, with 1,258 of them residing in Oklahoma.

TRIBAL HEADQUARTERS: Wyandotte Oklahoma.

For more information, visit the Nations website at www.wyandotte-nation.org