History of the Wyandotte (Wyandot)
The Huron and the Formation of the Wyandotte
The Wyandotte (Wandat) were originally separate Iroquois-speaking tribes, such as the Attignawantan and Attingueenongnahac that were part of the Huron Confederacy. They lived along the Great Lakes and the Saint Lawrence River. They held the original claim to lands west of the Ohio River and north of Lake Erie, and helped the Shawnee and Delaware find places in Ohio to settle.1Hurt, The Ohio Frontier, 17
Like the Lenape, the Wyandotte have twelve main clans: Big Turtle, Little Turtle, Mud Turtle, Striped Turtle, Highland Turtle, Bear, Porcupine, Wolf, Deer, Snake, Hawk, and Beaver.2“Our History,” Wyandotte Nation, 2022. The Wyandotte also have historic kinship ties to the Shawnee and often referred to them as their “nephew.” The Wyandotte are the Keepers of the Council Fire in the Northeast, and have acted as negotiators and diplomatic advisors for other tribes.
Like the Shawnee, the Wyandotte were impacted by the Iroquois during the Beaver Wars, and the two defeated members of the Huron Confederacy joined the Tionontati to form the Wyandotte.
The Wyandotte in Ohio
The Wyandotte traded with the French and the British. They first crossed over into Ohio to hunt furs to trade with the French at Detroit. Some then came to Ohio in the 1740s when British troops built a blockhouse in Sandusky, Ohio. As the Wyandottes became more allied with the British in trade, they moved further into Ohio.4Hurt, The Ohio Frontier, 14-15.
The British called the Wandat the “Wyandotte,” which has become their most recognized name. Like the Shawnee and Delaware, the Wyandotte created settlements and relied on hunting, agriculture, and trade to sustain their communities. Their main settlements were Sandusky and Half King’s Town, which were both west of Wayne County, but they lived across northern Ohio. For a short time in the 1750s, Wyandotte settlements and trade posts existed by the Muskingum and Tuscarawas rivers near Wayne County, but then they returned to Sandusky.5Hurt, The Ohio Frontier, 14. Like their Shawnee and Delaware neighbors, the Wyandotte would find themselves caught in conflicts between the British, French, and eventually the Americans. However, the War of 1812 would not be the end of the Wyandotte in Ohio.