Keepers of the Fire: the Onondaga

One of the original Five Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy, the Onondaga people called themselves the People of the Hill Place.  They were referred to by the other Iroquois Nations as being the Keepers of the Fire.  Their role in the Iroquois Constitution is central to the maintaining of the Great Law of Peace.  It is the Onondaga who maintain the meeting place for the Iroquois Council, including the central fire, and is an Onondaga Sachem, Todadaho, who presides over the meetings and serves as spokesman for the Council.  Their traditional homeland is in what is now New York State.

The Iroquois Confederacy was formed around 1140 AD from a series of five Iroquoian-speaking tribes who had been at constant warfare with one another.  The Great peacemaker, through his emissary Hiawatha, approached the Onondaga to propose a new path of unity and peace.  Their leader, Todadaho, accepted the Great Peacemaker's teachings.  After the Seneca had also joined the Confederacy, a solar eclipse signaled the blessing of the spirit world on their agreement.  Europeans encountered the Onondaga during Champlain's expedition in 1613 and a detailed drawing from the era describes his attack on one of their villages.  The village shows the typical palisade with longhouse structures common to Iroquoian culture.  Like the other tribes, the Onondaga practiced agriculture as well as hunting and gathering.  During the Beaver Wars, the Onondaga joined the other Iroquois nations as allies of the British and suffered severe French reprisals.  During the American Revolution, the Onondaga as a nation attempted to remain neutral.  An attack on their main village of Onondaga in 1779, during the Sullivan-Clinton expedition, forced them onto the side of the British to defend themselves.

Following the war, bands on Onondaga followed the other Iroquois tribes to Canada and settled on the Grand River.  However, some Onondaga leaders signed the Treaty of Canandaigua with the United States, being allowed to retain portions of their ancestral land.  They are both federally recognized and a First Nation of Canada.