The Iroquois, also known as the Haundenosaunee people, are a group of indigenous North American tribes who settled in Upper New York around 1000 AD. They formed an alliance known as the Iroquois Nation in the 1400s to defend against enemies, including European settlers. Their culture and way of life varied due to assimilating conquered tribes. Today, there are less than 100,000 Iroquois in Canada and the US, with over 80,000 claiming to be descendants in the US.
The Iroquois are a group of indigenous inhabitants of North America, made up of many different tribes. The tribe name they were given was the Haundenosaunee people, meaning “people of the longhouse,” but Iroquois was the name given to them by European settlers. They originally settled in areas around the northeastern parts of the United States, commonly known as Upper New York, and can still be found in that area, along with the bordering territories of Canada.
It is estimated that along with the rest of the Native American tribes, the Iroquois settled the Northeast around 1000 AD and then migrated in various directions to find better climates for their agriculture. The most common crops grown included corn, beans, squash, sunflowers, and tobacco. During this time the Iroquois tribes were peaceful, tending to their farms and living a life of little violence and unrest. Beginning in 1350 AD, a Little Ice Age fell upon the area and wars began as other Native American tribes tried to move into the warmer climes where they had settled and built their tribes.
During the 1400s the Iroquois people formed an alliance known as the Iroquois Nation, or Confederacy, which originally consisted of five different tribes. Major tribes included the Mohawk Nation, Oneida, Cayuga, Seneca, and Onondaga tribes. This alliance was between several Iroquois tribes in an effort to ally against the various enemies that were beginning to emerge, including the European people as they began settling the area. This tribe lasted as a Native American group to be reckoned with until the beginning of the American Revolution, at which time part of the group fought alongside the colonists, while the remaining groups remained as troops for Great Britain.
Due to the melting pot nature of the Iroquois, their culture, religion and way of life varied in many different ways. They have grown in strength and numbers by taking and assimilating the surviving members of the tribes they have conquered. At their greatest power, they numbered approximately 12,000 in the early 1600s. Over the next two centuries, the Iroquois people would be involved in many wars and European settler policies, eventually leading to the extermination and removal of many tribes in various territories of the Native Americans in the mid-1800s. It is difficult to determine the exact number of Iroquois living today, but 1995 tribal records put the number below 100,000 in Canada and the United States. According to the 2000 census, more than 80,000 people in the United States claim to be descendants of the Iroquois nation.
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