Iroquoian Peoples in the context of "Iroquoian"

The Susquehannock, also known as the Conestoga, Minquas, and Andaste, were an Iroquoian people who lived in the lower Susquehanna River watershed in what is now Pennsylvania. Their name means “people of the muddy river.”

The Susquehannock were first described by John Smith, who explored the upper reaches of the Chesapeake Bay in 1608. The Susquehannocks were active in the fur trade and established close trading relationships with Virginia, New Sweden, and New Netherland. They were in conflict with Maryland until a treaty was negotiated in 1652, and were the target of intermittent attacks by the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois).

The Erie people were an Indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands historically living on the south shore of Lake Erie. An Iroquoian-speaking tribe, they lived in what is now western New York, northwestern Pennsylvania, and northern Ohio before 1658. Their nation was almost exterminated in the mid-17th century by five years of prolonged warfare with the powerful neighboring Iroquois for helping the Huron in the Beaver Wars for control of the fur trade. Captured survivors were adopted or enslaved by the Iroquois.

Their villages were burned by Haudenosaunee warriors. This destroyed their stored maize and other foods, added to their loss of life, and threatened their future, as they had no way to survive the winter. The attacks likely forced their emigration. The Haudenosaunee Confederacy was known for adopting captives and refugees into their tribes. The surviving Erie are believed to have been largely absorbed by other Iroquoian tribes, particularly families of the Seneca, the westernmost of the Five Nations. Susquehannock families may also have adopted some Erie, as the tribes had shared the hunting grounds of the Allegheny Plateau and Kittanning Path that passed through the gaps of the Allegheny. The members of remnant tribes living among the Iroquois gradually assimilated to the majority cultures, losing their independent tribal identities.

The Cherokee (/ˈtʃɛrəkiː/ CHEH-rə-kee, /ˌtʃɛrəˈkiː/ CHEH-rə-KEE; Cherokee: ᎠᏂᏴᏫᏯᎢ, romanized: Aniyvwiyaʔi / Anigiduwagi, or ᏣᎳᎩ, Tsalagi) people are one of the Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, they were concentrated in their homelands, in towns along river valleys of what is now southwestern North Carolina, southeastern Tennessee, southwestern Virginia, edges of western South Carolina, northern Georgia and northeastern Alabama with hunting grounds in Kentucky, together consisting of around 40,000 square miles.

The Cherokee language is part of the Iroquoian language group. In the 19th century, James Mooney, an early American ethnographer, recorded one oral tradition that told of the tribe having migrated south in ancient times from the Great Lakes region, where other Iroquoian peoples have been based. However, anthropologist Thomas R. Whyte, writing in 2007, dated the split among the peoples as occurring earlier. He believes that the origin of the proto-Iroquoian language was likely the Appalachian region, and the split between Northern and Southern Iroquoian languages began 4,000 years ago.

The St. Lawrence Iroquoians were an Iroquoian Indigenous people who existed until about the late 16th century. They concentrated along the shores of the St. Lawrence River in present-day Quebec and Ontario, Canada, and in the American states of New York and northernmost Vermont. They spoke Laurentian languages, a branch of the Iroquoian family.

The Pointe-à-Callière Museum estimated their numbers as 120,000 people in 25 nations occupying an area of 230,000 square kilometres (89,000 sq mi). However, many scholars believe that this estimate of the number of St. Lawrence Iroquoians and the area they controlled is too expansive. The current archaeological evidence indicates that the largest known village had a population of about 1,000 and their total population was 8,000–10,000. The traditional view is that they disappeared because of late 16th-century warfare by the Mohawk nation of the Haudenosaunee or Iroquois League, which wanted to control trade with Europeans in the valley.