Extinct Tribe; The Neutral

The Beaver Wars of the 17th century coupled with disease and ill-treatment decimated many Native tribes and caused others to lose their tribal identity entirely.  The Neutral, an Iroquoian-speaking people whose home range lay between that of the Five Nations, the Tobacco or Wenro, the Huron, the Susquehannock and the Erie, would suffer that fate. 

Although the name suggests that they were a buffer between larger Iroquoian-speaking tribes, or that they tried to remain neutral during the ongoing conflicts, there was constant friction within the Iroquoian peoples themselves, as well as with Algonquian-speaking tribes.  When the French first encountered them, they comprised about 40 permanent settlements.  Neutral is a French designation.  The people referred to themselves either as Keepers of the Dear, due to their practice of herding deer into pens to hunt.  Another group were the Onguiaarha, or Near the Big Water, from which the word Niagara may have come.  The Huron knew them as "People Whose Speech is Awry/Different".  Flint was found in their territory and became a valuable trade item until European firearms became more plentiful in the frontier and the market for local flint dropped off.  Jesuit sources in 1652 described the Neutral Natives' practice of tattooing. 

The Neutral occupied what is now southern Ontario and around modern-day Buffalo, New York.  At one time, they may have consolidated their power under a war leader named Souharissen.  Souharissen ranged as far as Michigan defending his people's home and hunting range and welcomed a French missionary who later wrote of the Neutral people's power at that time and of their war leader.  French missionaries and explorers of the 17th century made frequent mention of how powerful these people were, and the amount of plentiful wild game and food resources in their country.  Another leader, Tsouharrisen, Child of the Sun, who may be the same person or a relative, also led the Neutrals during their declining years in the latter 17th century as war and disease took their toll on all the Iroquoian peoples.  Constant wars with their fellow Iroquois, the Five Nations, led to the loss of the Neutral tribal identity, though individuals may have sought refuge with other tribes, such as the Huron and Wenro.  There is no further mention of this tribe in French sources after 1671.