Onondaga Nation

Origins

The Onondaga lived in the hills south of Onondaga Lake in central New York, near modern Syracuse. Haudenosaunee tradition says their chief Tadodaho was the last and fiercest opponent of the Peacemaker, and that when he accepted the Great Law, his nation was made keeper of the central fire, with Tadodaho as the title of the presiding chief.

Rule and society

Fourteen Onondaga chiefs sat in the Grand Council, more than any other nation, and the Onondaga kept the wampum belts that recorded treaties and the Great Law. Their main town moved every few decades as soils and firewood were used up. Seventeenth-century leaders such as Garakontié pursued diplomacy with New France, which planted the short-lived Jesuit mission of Sainte-Marie de Gannentaha on Onondaga Lake in 1656.

To the present

In 1779 an American expedition burned the main Onondaga town, and many Onondaga moved to Grand River in Ontario. In New York they kept a small territory, which remains under traditional chiefs, issues its own passports and in 2005 sued to recover its homeland. Sidney Hill is the current Tadodaho.