The Haudenosaunee Confederacy ( HOH-din-oh-SHOH-nee; lit. 'those who build the longhouse'), also known as the Iroquois ( IRR-ə-kwoy, -kwah), are a confederacy of Iroquoian-speaking indigenous peoples in northeast North America. They were known by the French during the colonial years as the Iroquois League, and later as the Iroquois Confederacy. They have also been called the Six Nations (Five Nations before 1722). Their country has been called Iroquoia and Haudenosauneega in English, and Iroquoisie in French. The peoples of the Haudenosaunee included (from east to west) the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca. After 1722, the Iroquoian-speaking Tuscarora people migrated from the southeast and were accepted into the confederacy, henceforth known as "Six Nations". Haudenosaunee oral history describes the formation of the Confederacy by the Great Peacemaker, Hiawatha, and Jigonhsasee under a constitution known as the Great Law of Peace, likely between 1142 and 1660, although there is little agreement on the date. Contact with Europeans began with the arrival of Dutch colonists to North America, which the Haudenosaunee describe as the origin of the Two Row Wampum Treaty. The acquisition of muskets through the fur trade led to a rapid expansion in Haudenosaunee strength during the Beaver Wars, during which time they dispersed or assimilated most neighboring tribes. At its peak around 1700, Haudenosaunee power extended from what is today New York State, north into present-day Ontario and Quebec along the lower Great Lakes–upper St. Lawrence, and south on both sides of the Allegheny Mountains into present-day Virginia, Kentucky, and the Ohio Valley. As colonial power on the continent grew, the Haudenosaunee maintained neutrality between the British and French colonies, but increasingly aligned with the British under the Covenant Chain, backing the British during the French and Indian War and securing protection from westward colonial expansion through the Royal Proclamation of 1763. During the American Revolution, Haudenosaunee unity collapsed, with the Oneida and Tuscarora fighting alongside the Patriots and the other nations of the confederacy allying with the British. In the wake of American independence and the devastating Sullivan Expedition, many Haudenosaunee fled to British Canada, establishing the Six Nations of the Grand River reserve. Haudenosaunee territory in the United States was further reduced by a series of land cessations and sales. Nonetheless, the Haudenosaunee continue to consider themselves sovereign and independent, attempting to join the League of Nations in 1923 and issuing their own passports. In 2010, more than 45,000 enrolled Six Nations people lived in Canada, and over 81,000 in the United States. They retain sovereignty over seven reserves in Canada and eleven reservations in the United States, divided between seventeen First Nations and nine Tribal nations.
Names
Haudenosaunee (People of the Longhouse) is the autonym by which the Six Nations refer to themselves. Iroquois is a term of colonial origin which some scholars consider a derogatory name adopted from the traditional enemies of the Haudenosaunee. A less common, older autonym for the people of the confederation is Ongweh’onweh (Original People). Haudenosaunee derives from two phonetically similar but etymologically distinct words in the Seneca language: Hodínöhšö꞉ni꞉h, meaning "those of the extended house", and Hodínöhsö꞉ni꞉h, meaning "house builders". The name "Haudenosaunee" first appears in English in Lewis Henry Morgan's work (1851), where he writes it as Ho-dé-no-sau-nee. The spelling "Hotinnonsionni" is also attested from later in the 19th century. An alternative designation, Ganonsyoni, is occasionally encountered as well, from the Mohawk kanǫhsyǫ́·ni "the extended house", or from a cognate expression in a related Iroquoian language; in earlier sources it is variously spelled "Kanosoni", "akwanoschioni", "Aquanuschioni", "Cannassoone", "Canossoone", "Ke-nunctioni", or "Konossioni". The word is Rotinonshón꞉ni in the Mohawk language. More transparently, the Haudenosaunee confederacy is often referred to as the Six Nations (or, for the period before the entry of the Tuscarora in 1722, the Five Nations.) The origins of the name Iroquois are somewhat obscure, although the term has historically been used in French texts, according to the Haudenosaunee Conferedacy. Its first written appearance as "Irocois" is in Samuel de Champlain's account of his journey to Tadoussac in 1603. Other early French spellings include "Erocoise", "Hiroquois", "Hyroquoise", "Irecoies", "Iriquois", "Iroquaes", "Irroquois", and "Yroquois", pronounced at the time as [irokwe] or [irokwɛ]. Competing theories have been proposed for this term's origin, but none has gained widespread acceptance. In 1978 Ives Goddard wrote: "No such form is attested in any Indian language as a name for any Iroquoian group, and the ultimate origin and meaning of the name are unknown." Jesuit priest and missionary Pierre François Xavier de Charlevoix wrote in 1744:
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