22 INDIAN TRIBES. [Chap. I. 



From this remarkable people, who with all the 

 ferocity of their race blended heroic virtues and 

 marked endowments of intellect, I pass to other 

 members of the same great family, wdiose different 

 fortunes may perhaps be ascribed rather to the 

 force of circumstance, than to any intrinsic inferi- 

 ority. 



The peninsula between the Lakes Huron, Erie, 

 and Ontario was occupied by two distinct peoples, 

 speaking dialects of the Iroquois tongue. The 

 Hurons or Wyandots, including the tribe called by 

 the French the Dionondadies, or Tobacco Nation,^ 

 dwelt among the forests which bordered the east- 

 ern shores of the fresh water sea, to which they 

 have left their name ; while the Neutral Nation, so 

 called from their neutrality in the war between the 

 Hurons and the Five Nations, inhabited the north- 

 ern shores of Lake Erie, and even extended their 

 eastern flank across the strait of Niagara. 



The population of the Hurons has been variously 

 stated at from ten thousand to thirty thousand 

 souls, but probably did not exceed the former esti- 



one Greenhalgh to ascertain their numbers. He visited all their towns 

 and villages, and reported their aggregate force at two thousand one hun- 

 dred and fifty fighting men. The report of Colonel Coursey, agent from 

 Virginia, at about the same period, closely corresponds with this state- 

 ment. Greenhalgh's Journal will be found in Chalmers's Political Annals, 

 and in the Documentary History of New York. Subsequent estimates, up 

 to the period of the Revolution, when their strength had much declined, 

 vary from twelve hundred to two thousand one hundred and twenty. 

 Most of these estimates are given by Clinton, in his Discourse on the Five 

 Nations, and several by Jefferson, in his Notes on Virginia. 



1 Hurons, Wyandots, Yendots, Ouendaets, Quatogies. 



The Dionondadies are also designated by the following names : 

 Tionontatez, Petuneux — Nation of Tobacco. 



