Conestoga (people)

Conestoga (people), formerly an important Native North American tribe of the Iroquoian family. They occupied the region from the Susquehanna River to Chesapeake Bay, claiming dominion over several smaller tribes on both sides of the bay. The Conestoga, when first known, were a powerful people, defying the invading Iroquois, until the latter defeated them about 1675. A part of the tribe fled to the Roanoke River and others subsequently settled at Conestoga, near what is now Lancaster, Pennsylvania. They rapidly decreased in number until 1763, when those remaining were massacred by European settlers.