BUSHNELL] NATIVE VILLAGES AND VILLAGE SITES 105} 
and others, they crossed the mountains and the Ohio and settled 
within the future State of Ohio. Here they were joined by the 
Shawnee from the Cumberland, who had been compelled, by reason 
of the acts of the Chickasaw and Cherokee, to abandon their villages 
and hunting grounds in central Tennessee and to seek a home beyond 
the Ohio. The movement from the south began about the year 1714 
and was hastened by the pressure exerted by the neighboring tribes. 
_And thus the tribe was again united. 
The valley of the Neuse, in central North Carolina, was the carly 
home of Iroquoian tribes, of which the Tuscarora was the most im- 
portant. The Coree on the coast may have been of this linguistic 
group. The Tuscarora was the most powerful tribe between the sea 
and the mountains, and in the year 1708 had 15 towns and 1,200 
warriors. Butsoon the encroachment of European settlements caused 
them and their allies to revolt and attack the colonists. This resulted 
in the ‘‘Tuscarora War,” which began in 1711, and ultimately caused 
many of the tribe to leave the colony and go north among their kin- 
dred of the Five Nations, which after the consolidation became the 
Six Nations—the League of the Iroquois. These closely confeder- 
ated Iroquoian tribes, whose home since earliest historic times has 
been in the central and western parts of the present State of New 
York, although at times dominating a much wider region, spoke a 
language quite distinct from that of their Algonquian neighbors, by 
whom they were practically surrounded. The five nations were the 
Mohawk, Cayuga, Oneida, Onondaga, and Seneca, and in 1722 the 
Tuscarora became the sixth nation. The league was probably formed 
during the latter part of the sixteenth century when they were forced 
to unite for mutual protection against the neighboring tribes. Soon 
the Dutch arrived on the Hudson, and with firearms obtained from 
the traders the power of the Iroquois was greatly increased, and 
they became feared by all as far west as the distant Mississippi. 
The Cherokee, the most important of the detached Iroquoian 
tribes, claimed and occupied the rough region of the southern Alle- 
ghenies. The mountains of western North and South Carolina, of 
southwestern Virginia, eastern Kentucky and Tennessee, and northern 
Georgia, were occupied by them from the earliest historic times. 
Other tribes of this linguistic family were the Nottoway and Meherrin 
of southeastern Virginia; the Susquehanna or Conestoga, first en- 
countered by a party of the Jamestown colonists under Capt. John 
Smith during the summer of 1608, near the head of Chesapeake Bay, 
their villages being located on the banks of the stream which now 
bears their tribal name; the Erie or Cat nation, who lived south of 
Lake Erie, but who early vanished from history; the Huron, later 
known as the Wyandot, and others. 
