Cayuga Nation

Origins

The Cayuga lived in the Finger Lakes region of central New York, chiefly around Cayuga Lake between the lands of the Onondaga and the Seneca. According to Haudenosaunee tradition they accepted the Great Law of Peace in the mid-15th century, joining the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga and Seneca in the Iroquois Confederacy.

Rule and society

The Cayuga sent ten chiefs to the Grand Council, where they sat with the Oneida as the younger brothers. Their villages of longhouses stood among orchards and fields of maize, beans and squash, which by the 18th century were extensive enough to impress American soldiers. Clan mothers held the right to choose and depose chiefs. In the Beaver Wars and later colonial conflicts Cayuga warriors fought alongside the other nations.

To the present

Most Cayuga supported Britain in the American Revolution, and the Sullivan expedition burned their towns in 1779. After the war they ceded their lands to New York and scattered to Buffalo Creek, the Grand River in Ontario and Ohio, from where some reached Oklahoma. A Cayuga Nation survives in New York.