Huron Indians
Name applied by the French to a confederacy of four
Iroquoian tribes. When French missionaries and explorers first went
among them, they occupied the country about Lake Simcoe and Georgian
Bay. They had been at enmity with the Iroquois for many years, and had
repeatedly ravaged their country. Finally the Iroquois determined to
make an end of the Hurons. They invaded their country in force in 1648,
and in 1650 had destr
yed all their villages, killed most of the
inhabitants, and driven the remnant far to the westward. A few of the
Hurons escaped to Quebec, and settled at the mission of Lorette. In the
seventeenth century their population was estimated at from 20,000 to
35,000. In 1905 there remained a total of 832, in Canada and the United
States. =Index=: (Count Frontenac era) Destruction of, by Iroquois, 26, 35; join
Frontenac's expedition to Cataraqui, 79; dread being abandoned to
Iroquois, 222. (Bishop Laval era) Extermination of, by the Iroquois, 39; devotion
displayed by a band of, 64; desert Dollard at Long Sault, 70; burnt by
their enemies, 72. (Samuel de Champlain era) Champlain visits country of, 88; their
cultivation of the soil, 89; their language very widely spoken, 90;
their mode of life, 94; customs and beliefs, 95-100. =Bib.=: Hodge,
Handbook of American Indians; Parkman, Old Regime.