Huron Indians

   Name applied by the French to a confederacy of four Iroquoian tribes. When French missionaries and explorers first went among them, they occupied the country about Lake Simcoe and Georgian Bay. They had been at enmity with the Iroquois for many years, and had repeatedly ravaged their country. Finally the Iroquois determined to make an end of the Hurons. They invaded their country in force in 1648, and in 1650 had destroyed all their villages, killed most of the inhabitants, and driven the remnant far to the westward. A few of the Hurons escaped to Quebec, and settled at the mission of Lorette. In the seventeenth century their population was estimated at from 20,000 to 35,000. In 1905 there remained a total of 832, in Canada and the United States.

   Index: F Destruction of, by Iroquois, 26, 35; join Frontenac's expedition to Cataraqui, 79; dread being abandoned to Iroquois, 222. L Extermination of, by the Iroquois, 39; devotion displayed by a band of, 64; desert Dollard at Long Sault, 70; burnt by their enemies, 72. Ch Champlain visits country of, 88; their cultivation of the soil, 89; their language very widely spoken, 90; their mode of life, 94; customs and beliefs, 95-100.

   Bib.: Hodge, Handbook of American Indians; Parkman, Old Régime.