Huron (people)

Huron (people), originally, a confederation of four Native North American tribes of the Iroquoian family, living in the region between Lakes Huron, Erie, and Ontario. Early in the 17th century, when the first French settlers and missionaries arrived in this region, the Huron were at the height of their power, with their main concentration in about 25 villages near Georgian Bay, an arm of Lake Huron, and a population that has been variously estimated at from 10,000 to 30,000. Their numbers, however, were greatly reduced about 1625 by smallpox and other epidemics. The French missionaries began to establish Jesuit missions among them about this time and brought a measure of stability to the communities in which they worked. Many Huron towns contained large homes of eastern longhouse style; communal dwellings, these were between 45 and 55 m (150 and 180 ft) long and were made of slabs of bark over a pole frame. The Huron grew corn, beans, squash, tobacco, and sunflowers. Fishing was a major food source.

The Huron confederacy consisted entirely of indigenous people of the Iroquoian family, and the culture of the tribes was similar to that of the Iroquois, but the Iroquois and the Huron were bitter hereditary enemies. Between 1648 and 1650, Iroquoian invasions decimated the tribes and drove them westward, where they first attempted to settle with a closely related tribe, the Tionontati. In company with this tribe, the Huron continued their westward migration, eventually settling around the present site of Detroit. By the time they were formally admitted to the friendship of the Iroquois in 1723, the Huron were a small, comparatively diffuse group. The most important descendants of the members of the confederacy, organized in the Wyandot, acquired a certain prominence in the areas of Ohio in the early 19th century. The remaining Huron survivors are now found at Jeune Lorette, near Québec, and at Sandwich, Ontario, in Canada, and at the Wyandot reservation in Oklahoma. In the 2000 U.S. census about 200 people identified themselves as Huron only; an additional 100 people reported being part Huron.