ONONDAGA

ONONDAGA, a reservation of 7,300 acres just south of Syracuse, New York, is both the geographic and the political center of the Iroquois Confederacy in New York State. The community is also the religious center of the Gaiwiio, the traditional religion of the Iroquois founded in 1799–1800 by Handsome Lake, the Seneca prophet, who is buried there.

Originally centered in and around Onondaga Lake, Onondaga before the American Revolution was 12 million acres, extending north to Lake Ontario and south to the Susquehanna River. Ten of the Onondaga villages were destroyed by an American army in 1779. The reservation was established in 1788 by the Onondaga–New York State Treaty of Fort Schuyler, an accord that set aside a tract of one hundred square miles. In a series of state treaties from 1793 to 1822, all negotiated in violation of federal law, Onondaga was reduced in size.

The Onondagas, "fire keepers" and "wampum keepers" of the Iroquois Confederacy, convene Grand Councils on the reservation. Their fourteen chiefs include the Tadodaho or spiritual leader who presides at the Grand Councils. During the second half of the twentieth century, the reservation became the center of Iroquois political activism. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, approximately 1,600 enrolled Onondagas lived in New York State.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Blau, Harold, Jack Campisi, and Elisabeth Tooker. "Onondaga." Handbook of North American Indians. Edited by William C. Sturtevant et al. Volume 15: Northeast, edited by Bruce G. Trigger. Washington. D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1978.

Hauptman, Laurence M. Conspiracy of Interests: Iroquois Dispossession and the Rise of New York State. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1986.

———. The Iroquois Struggle for Survival. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1986.

———. Formulating American Indian Policy in New York State, 1970–1986. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1988.

———. The Iroquois and the New Deal. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1999.

Vecsey, Christopher, and William A. Starna, eds. Iroquois Land Claims. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1988.

Laurence M.Hauptman

Onondaga

The Onondaga were one of the original member tribes of the League of the Iroquois or the Five Nations Confederacy. The Onondaga live mostly on Six Nations Reserve in Ontario, Canada, and the Onondaga Indian Reservation in New York State. In the 1980s they numbered approximately 1,500. In late aboriginal and early historic times the Onondaga occupied a narrow strip of territory extending from the extreme southeastern shore of Lake Ontario south to the upper waters of the Susquehanna River. In 1650 they numbered about 1,750.

During the American Revolution the Onondaga were forced by circumstances to side with the British and subsequently had to cede much of their territory in New York to the United States. Between 1788 and 1842 their remaining lands, which formed the Onondaga Indian Reservation, located south of Syracuse, New York, were gradually reduced through treaties and land sales. In the mid-nineteenth Century the majority of Onondaga sold their remaining New York lands and resettled on Six Nations Reserve.

Traditionally, the Onondaga were a hunting and farming people, but gathering and fishing were also important Subsistence activities. Onondaga village was the site of the founding of the Iroquois Confederacy and was considered to be its capital. The Onondaga held fourteen of the fifty hereditary sachem positions in the council of the League of the Iroquois, one of which was the chief of the council, and were known as the "Keepers of the Council Fire."

See alsoIroquois

Bibliography

Blau, Harold (1967). "Mythology, Prestige and Politics: A Case for Onondaga Cultural Persistence." New York Folklore Quarterly 23:45-51.

Bradley, James W. (1987). Evolution of the Onondaga Iroquois: Accommodating Change, 1500-1655. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press.

Tuck, James A. (1971). Onondaga Iroquois Prehistory: A Study in Settlement Archaeology. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press.

On·on·da·ga / ˌänənˈdôgə; ˌōnən-; -ˈdāgə/ • n. (pl. same or -gas) 1. a member of an Iroquois people, one of the Five Nations, formerly inhabiting an area near Syracuse, New York.2. the Iroquoian language of this people.• adj. of or relating to this people or their language.

Onondaga One of the members of the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy. A major group of Native North Americans, they lived around Onondaga County, New York, where some 1,400 still live.