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.



More

;