IROQUOIS (ante), or Six • NATIONS, a confederacy originally consisting of the five tribes, Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas, to whom in 1712 were added the Tuscaroras. The league was then called the Six Nations- They inhabited the central and western part of New York, and numbered about 15,000. Each tribe was divided into families, and governed by sachems, but all matters of common interest were settled in a general meeting of all the sachems of the confederacy. They were the niost'powerful, enterprising, and intelligent of all the Indian tribes. They encouraged other nations to join them, and in the early part of the 17th c. had conquered all the neighboring tribes. They were alternately at war and in alliance with the Dutch, French, In the war of the revolution they took sides with the English under the brave leaders Brant of the Mohawks and Red Jacket of the Senecas, destroying with fire and sword several white settlements. After the war, treaties were made at different times for the cession of their lands, until, 1790, the Indian title was extinguished to the whole region from lake Champlain to the St. Lawrence, and most of the Iroquois emigrated to other places. The Mohawks settled on Grand river, Ontario, Canada, numbering now
2,000. Some from the Tuscaroras and other tribes joined them. In .1820 some of the Oneidas settled on a reservation in Green Bay, Wis., and some of the Senecas in Indian territory. Sonic of the Oneidas and Senecas removed in 1820 to Canada. The Cayugas in 1795 sold their lands in New York, and joined other tithes with whom they intermarried, a few living together at the Cattaraugus reservation in Erie, near Buffalo. In 1855 the Iroquois group in New York, Wisconsin, Arkansas, and Missouri numbered about 6,000. The languages of the Iroquois. though in grammar and vocabulthy related, are distinct. Most of the Protestant denominations have had missions among the Six Nations from the beginning of the century. The Book of Conmon Prayerhas been printed in Mohawk, and portions of the Bible in Mohawk and Seneca. The principal works on the Iroquois published are Cusick's Sketches of the History of the Six ltiatious, 1826; Colden's history of the Five Nations, 1727 and 1805; Schoolcraft's _Notes on the Iroquois, 1826; Stone's Ltfe of Brant, 2 vols., and Life of Red Jacket, 1841.