{{short description|Historic Indigenous Confederation located in the Great Lakes region}} {{redirect|Neutral Nation|text=For a Neutral country that is also referred to as a "Neutral nation", see Neutral country. For related terms, see League of Armed Neutrality}}
{{Infobox former country | native_name = {{lang|iro|Attawandaron}} | conventional_long_name = Neutral Confederacy | common_name = Neutral Confederacy | status = | year_end = 1651 | date_start = | image_coat = | image_flag = | year_start = {{circa}}15th century | flag_type = | title_leader = | leader1 = | year_leader1 = | image_map = 250px | image_map_caption = Map showing the Neutral Confederacy in 1600. | government_type = Tribal Confederation{{sfn|Noble|2015}} | legislature = | national_motto = | national_anthem = | capital = Ounontisaston | common_languages = Neutral Huron<br>Erie<br>Wenro<br>Other Iroquoian languages | stat_year1 = 1626 | stat_pop1 = 40,000<ref>[https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/neutral "The Neutral Confederacy"]. ''The Canadian Encyclopedia''</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.puslinchtoday.ca/2016/01/07/3862/|title=History Corner: Étienne Brûlé – Discoverer of Southern Ontario|date=7 January 2016|access-date=29 March 2021|archive-date=16 June 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210616002026/https://www.puslinchtoday.ca/2016/01/07/3862/|url-status=dead}}</ref> | stat_year2 = 1640 | stat_pop2 = 16,000{{sfn|Jackes|2008|p=353}} | stat_year3 = 1641 | stat_pop3 = 12,000{{sfn|Trigger|1988}} | today = {{flagicon|Canada}} Canada<br>{{flagicon|US}} United States | religion = | demonym = Neutral | currency = }}
The '''Neutral Confederacy''' (also '''Neutral Nation''', '''Neutral people''', or '''{{lang|iro|Attawandaron}}''') was a tribal confederation{{sfn|Noble|2015}} of Iroquoian peoples. Its heartland was along the Grand River and the eastern end of Lake Ontario in what is now Ontario, Canada. At its height, its wider territory extended west along the shores of Erie to Huron, and east to the Niagara River. To the northwest were the neighbouring territories of the Wendat and Petun who called the Neutral the {{lang|iro|Attawandaron}}. East of the Neutral and south of Lake Ontario was the five-nation Haudenosaunee Confederacy.
Like other Iroquoian groups, the Neutral would raid neighbouring tribes. They were frequently at war Algonquian-speaking peoples who lived to the west such as the Mascouten who were known as the Fire Nation.
Iroquoian tribes are known to historians for the fierce ways in which they waged war. A largely agrarian society, the Neutral Confederacy developed farmsteads that were admired and marvelled over by European leaders writing reports to their sponsors.<ref name="AmHeritageBk"> {{cite encyclopedia |year=1961 |title=The American Heritage Book of Indians |editor=Alvin M. Josephy Jr. |pages=180–211|publisher=American Heritage Publishing Co. |lccn=61-14871}}</ref>{{unreliable source|date=May 2026}}
The Neutral Confederacy were proficient hunters and traded furs and dressed deerskins to the Wendat in exchange for European goods which the Wendat had acquired from the French.{{sfn|Trigger|1988|pp=95, 99}} The largest Neutral group was known as the '''''Chonnonton''''' ('keepers of the deer'), partly because of their practice of herding deer into pens, a strategy used while hunting. The '''Chonnonton''' territory also contained large deposits of flint, which was a valuable resource for sharp tools, fire-starting and, eventually, firearms, which, as a primary resource, allowed them to trade simultaneously with often-warring Wendat and Haudenosaunee tribes.{{sfn|Noble|2015}}<ref>[https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/neutral "The Neutral Confederacy"]. ''The Canadian Encyclopedia''</ref>Another group, the Onguiaahra whose name meant "near the big waters" or possibly "the strait," populated the Niagara Peninsula and allegedly account for the origin of the word "Niagara".<ref>{{Cite web|title = Where Does the Word Niagara Come From?|url = http://www.niagarafallstourism.com/blog/where-does-the-word-niagara-come-from/|access-date = 2015-08-29}}</ref>
Since they were not at war with the Wendat or the Haudenosaunee in the early-1600s, Jesuits travelling in the area of what is now Hamilton, the lower Grand Valley and Niagara, called them the Neutrals. However, the confederacy had feuds with an Algonkian people called the Mascouten or "Fire Nation", who were believed to live in what is present-day Michigan. In 1616, the Neutral Confederacy had an estimated 40 villages and 4,000 warriors.{{sfn|Jackes|2008}} In 1641, after a serious epidemic, the Jesuits counted 40 Neutral villages, with about 12,000 people.{{sfn|Trigger|1988}}
The nation was unable to survive the changes. In 1651, after attacks by the Iroquois in the Beaver Wars, they dispersed.<ref name="Wallace1961">{{cite book |last=Wallace |first=Paul A. W. |title=Indians in Pennsylvania |orig-year=1961 |edition=2nd |date=2007 |isbn=978-0-89271-017-1 |publisher=Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4ryqOZkO1LUC&pg=PP1}}</ref>{{rp|p=103}} One source indicates that the reasons included "wars, diseases and famine". The remaining members became a part of various other Iroquoian nations. Historical records kept by the French do not discuss the Neutrals as a nation or confederacy after 1672.{{sfn|Noble|2015}}
==Names== Some scholars argue that the Neutrals' name for themselves was '''''Chonnonton''''', or 'people of the deer', or, more precisely, 'the people who tend or manage deer,' however, others claim that was a name for only one of the nations in the Confederacy.{{sfn|Noble|2015}}<ref>{{cite web|url=http://wampumkeeper.com/wkauthorintro.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050327182249/http://www.wampumkeeper.com/wkauthorintro.html|url-status=usurped|archive-date=March 27, 2005|title=The Wampum Keeper|access-date=24 July 2017}}</ref> They were called '''''''Attawandaron''''''' by the Huron, meaning 'people whose speech is awry ''or'' a little different'.{{sfn|Noble|2015}} The Iroquois called them Atirhagenrat (Atirhaguenrek) and Rhagenratka. Some of the tribes of the Neutral confederacy included the Aondironon, the Wenrehronon, and the Ongniaahraronon.<ref name=NeutralIndians>{{cite web |last1=Bélanger |first1=Claude |title=Quebec History |url=http://faculty.marianopolis.edu/c.belanger/quebechistory/encyclopedia/NeutralIndians.htm |website=faculty.marianopolis.edu}}</ref> They spoke Iroquoian languages but were culturally distinct from the Iroquois and competed with them for the same resources.
The French called the people "Neutral" ({{langx|fr|la Nation neutre}}) because they tried to remain neutral in the many wars<ref name="AmHeritageBk"/> between the confederacy of the Huron tribes and the nations of the Iroquois Confederacy.{{sfn|Reville|1920|page=15}}
==Geography== During the late 16th and the early 17th centuries, the territory of the ''Attawandaron'', as they were called by the Huron Nation, was mostly within the limits of present-day southern Ontario. The Museum of Ontario Archaeology summarizes that territory as follows: <blockquote>they "inhabited dozens of villages in Southwestern Ontario stretching along the north shore of Lake Erie from the Niagara Peninsula to the Detroit River, perhaps as far north as Toronto in the east and Goderich in the west."<ref>{{cite web|url=https://archaeologymuseum.ca/the-attawandaron-discoveries/|title=The Attawandaron Discoveries – Museum of Ontario Archaeology|date=10 June 2016|access-date=3 November 2017|archive-date=30 April 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170430180009/http://archaeologymuseum.ca/the-attawandaron-discoveries/|url-status=dead}}</ref> </blockquote>They had population concentrations on the Niagara Peninsula and in the vicinity of the present-day communities of Hamilton and Milton, Ontario.<ref name=Ellis>Ellis 1990</ref> In addition to this main territory, there was a single population cluster to the east, across the Niagara River, near modern-day Buffalo, New York, which was west of the Wenro people.{{cn|date=March 2026}}
Souharissen was a warrior chief who lived in a village called ''Ounontisatan,'' which was visited by the French in 1625–1626. His trade agreement with the Neutral people provided protection for them by his warriors.{{sfn|Trigger|1988|p=399}} The principal headman took on and defeated the Fire Nation in what is present-day Michigan. The Recollect priest Joseph de La Roche Daillon lived with him for five months in the winter of 1626–1627. Daillon visited 28 Neutral villages, including the capital, which the French referred to as ''Nôtre Dame des Anges.'' The fertile flats of the various oxbows that Big Creek makes three miles from its mouth at Grand River, were ideal for long-term settlement. Noble uses the term "Neutralia" to designate the concentration of Iroquoian-speaking natives in the area.
F. Douglas Reville's ''The History of the County of Brant'' (1920) said that the hunting grounds of the Attawandaron ranged from Genesee Falls and Sarnia and south of a line drawn from Toronto to Goderich.{{sfn|Reville|1920|page=15}}
During their travels, Jean de Brébeuf and Pierre Joseph Marie Chaumonot gave each Neutral village a Christian name. The only ones that are mentioned in their writings were ''Kandoucho'', or All Saints, the nearest to the Huron Nation; ''Onguioaahra'', on the Niagara River; ''Teotongniaton'' or St. William, in the centre of their country; and ''Khioetoa'', or St. Michel (near what is now Windsor, Ontario).<ref name="newadvent">{{cite web|url=http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07565a.htm|title=CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Huron Indians|website=www.newadvent.org|access-date=24 July 2017}}</ref>
Reville described their territory as having been heavily forested and full of "wild fruit trees of vast variety," with nut trees, berry bushes, and wild grape vines. "Elk, caribou, and black bear; deer, wolves, foxes, martens and wild cats filled the woods."{{sfn|Reville|1920|page=16}}
According to the City of Waterloo, Ontario, the Indigenous people who lived in the area in the precontact era included the Neutral Confederacy.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.waterloo.ca/en/things-to-do/waterloo_s-history.aspx|title=Waterloo's history|date=8 March 2021|access-date=29 March 2021}}</ref> In 2020, a site in nearby Kitchener, Ontario was found to include artifacts from an Iroquioan village that was inhabited circa 1300 to 1600. Archeologists found some 35,000 objects including stone tools and a 4,000 year old arrowhead.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/remnants-iroquois-woodland-village-discovered-ontario-180976099/|title=Remnants of Woodland Iroquois Village Discovered in Ontario|access-date=29 March 2021}}</ref> Another source states that the site "is among a cluster of Attawandaron villages in this part of the region".<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.therecord.com/news/waterloo-region/2020/03/04/pottery-shards-stone-tools-among-indigenous-artifacts-found-on-kitchener-site.html|title=Pottery shards, stone tools among Indigenous artifacts found on Kitchener site|date=4 March 2020|access-date=29 March 2021}}</ref> In 1976, a Neutral Confederacy cemetery was unearthed in Grimsby, Ontario.{{sfn|Jackes|2008}} The area that now comprises Morriston in Puslinch, Ontario is said to have been inhabited by the Neutral Confederacy, in a village of 4,000.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://archaeologymuseum.ca/the-attawandaron-discoveries/|title=The Attawandaron Discoveries - Museum of Ontario Archaeology|date=June 10, 2016|website=Archaeologymuseum.ca|access-date=August 5, 2018|archive-date=April 30, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170430180009/http://archaeologymuseum.ca/the-attawandaron-discoveries/|url-status=dead}}</ref> This region may have had the largest Neutral Confederacy settlement in Ontario, at one time.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://archaeologymuseum.ca/the-attawandaron-discoveries/|title=The Attawandaron Discoveries|access-date=29 March 2021|archive-date=30 April 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170430180009/http://archaeologymuseum.ca/the-attawandaron-discoveries/|url-status=dead}}</ref>
Onondaga chert was plentiful in Neutral lands due to the presence of the Onondaga Limestone formation. This tool stone was also available to the Five Nations Iroquois in their own lands, but not to other neighbouring peoples. The Neutral territory marked the furthest northern and western extent of useable chert deposits, even though the Onondaga Limestone runs further.{{sfn|Engelbrecht|Jamieson|2016|p=86}}
==History== The Neutrals had an alliance with the Wenrohronon, also Iroquoian-language people, to defend against the powerful Iroquois Five Nations Confederacy, who were also Iroquoian speakers. That dissolved in 1639, with devastating effects, particularly to the Wenrohronon. The Wenrohronon made an alliance with the Huron, who were located farther away and could not offer much support.<ref>[http://www.accessgenealogy.com/native/tribes/wenrohronon/wenrohrononhist.htm Wenrohronon Indian Tribe History] - Access Genealogy</ref>
Traveling south from Midland, Ontario, Étienne Brûlé passed through the Attawandaron territory circa 1615 and spent a winter among the Nation, during 1625–1626.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://archaeologymuseum.ca/the-attawandaron-discoveries/|title=The Attawandaron Discoveries|access-date=29 March 2021|archive-date=30 April 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170430180009/http://archaeologymuseum.ca/the-attawandaron-discoveries/|url-status=dead}}</ref> A Franciscan Récollet, Father Joseph de La Roche Daillon, spent time with the Nation in 1626 and estimated the population as 40,000 at that time.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.puslinchtoday.ca/2016/01/07/3862/|title=History Corner: Étienne Brûlé – Discoverer of Southern Ontario|date=7 January 2016|access-date=29 March 2021|archive-date=16 June 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210616002026/https://www.puslinchtoday.ca/2016/01/07/3862/|url-status=dead}}</ref> About 14 years later, Brébeuf and Chaumonot visited 18 Neutral Confederacy settlements and stayed in ten villages. By that time, the estimated population was only "about 12,000 people and 4,000 warriors in about 40 villages and hamlets".{{sfn|Jackes|2008|p=353}}
After destroying the Hurons, the Iroquois attacked the Neutrals. Around 1650, during a period that is now loosely referred to as the Beaver Wars, referring to the theft of furs, the Iroquois Confederacy declared war on the Attawandaron.<ref name="newadvent"/><ref name="Reville 1920, p. 20">Reville 1920, p. 20.</ref> Some historians state that the Iroquois destroyed the Neutral society, which ended as a separate entity in 1651.<ref name=Souharissen>{{cite book |last1=Harris |first1=William Richard |title=The Catholic Church in the Niagara Peninsula, 1626–1895 |date=1895 |publisher=W. Briggs |pages=[https://archive.org/details/cihm_05379/page/n52 38]–39–42 |isbn=978-0-665-05379-5 |url=https://archive.org/details/cihm_05379 |quote=Neutral. |language=en}}</ref> However, the Neutral population had already been reduced by diseases such as smallpox and measles carried by Europeans.<ref name=AttawandaronDiscoveries>{{cite web |last1=Clark |first1=Marjorie |title=The Attawandaron Discoveries |url=https://archaeologymuseum.ca/the-attawandaron-discoveries/ |website=Museum of Ontario Archaeology |date=10 June 2016 |access-date=23 July 2017 |archive-date=30 April 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170430180009/http://archaeologymuseum.ca/the-attawandaron-discoveries/ |url-status=dead }}</ref> By 1652, the Iroquois had also destroyed the Huron, Petun and Erie Nations.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Brown |first1=Craig |title=Illustrated History of Canada |date=2012 |publisher=McGill-Queen's Press – MQUP |isbn=978-0-7735-8788-5 |page=110 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rSIo1UdbduUC&q=new+france+Iroquois+destroyed++the+Huron%2C+Petun%2C+Neutral+and+Erie&pg=PA110 |language=en}}</ref> Some of the Neutrals were incorporated into Seneca villages<ref name=NeutralIndians/> in upstate New York, and others were absorbed into various other societies.{{sfn|McMillan|Yellowhorn|2004|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=tvSrEUFH3vkC&q=Tsouharissen+Neutral&pg=PA88 88]}} The Kenjockety family, one of the last known families to trace their ethnicity to the Neutrals,<ref name=TheNiagaraFrontier>{{cite book|last1=Marshall|first1=Orsamus H.|title=The Niagara Frontier|date=1880|publisher=Bigelo Brothers, Buffalo Historical Society|location=Buffalo, New York|page=418|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IOJDAQAAMAAJ&q=%22of%20his%20many%20services%20in%20their%20behalf%22&pg=PA418|access-date=16 January 2015}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Parker|first1=Arthur C.|title=The Life and Times of Gen. Ely S. Parker|date=1919|publisher=Buffalo Historical Society|location=Buffalo, New York|page=15|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Chg8AAAAIAAJ&q=Scajaquada%20Kenjockety&pg=PA15|access-date=16 January 2015}}</ref> still lives among the Senecas.
Anthropologist Jackes discussed the year 1651 as particularly significant: "during the final Iroquois onslaught...the Neutral fled into the woods and dispersed for the last time ... The years of famine and disease no doubt contributed to the rout".{{sfn|Jackes|2008|p=353}}
The last reference to the Neutrals as an independent society is from the fall of 1653.<ref name=Souharissen/> A historical mention in 1864 refers to the "Huron de la nation neutre" and "Hurons neutres" (neutral Hurons).<ref name=NeutralIndians/>
==Society and culture== The Neutral Confederacy had much in common with the Petun Nation and may have had shared ancestry.{{sfn|Garrad|2014|p=39}} The Jesuit Relations in 1652 describes tattooing among the Petun (also called the Tobacco Nation){{sfn|Trigger|1988}} as well as the Neutrals: "And this (tattooing) in some nations is so common that in the one which we called the Tobacco, and... the Neutral. I know not whether a single individual was found, who was not painted in this manner, on some part of the body."{{sfn|Thwaites|1898}}
The Museum of Ontario Archeology describes the society as "semi-nomadic", living in villages for about 20 years before abandoning a site after depleting the game and the soil of the area. A historian in 1997 stated that the Nation "also made use of hamlets, agricultural field cabins, specialized camps ... and cemeteries.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://archaeologymuseum.ca/the-attawandaron-discoveries/|title=Stage 1 Archaeological Assessment Harrington Dam and Embro Dam, page 5 and 6|access-date=29 March 2021|archive-date=30 April 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170430180009/http://archaeologymuseum.ca/the-attawandaron-discoveries/|url-status=dead}}</ref> Another source describes the Neutrals as a "hunter-gatherer society who lived in longhouses that sheltered multiple families".<ref>{{cite web|url=https://theontarion.com/2017/08/30/the-importance-of-land-acknowledgements-and-the-attawandaron/|title=The importance of land acknowledgements and the Attawandaron|date=30 August 2017|access-date=29 March 2021}}</ref> Research conducted by anthropologist Mary Jackes states that they remained neutral "in the conflicts between the Iroquois from south of the Great Lakes and the Ontario Iroquoians who lived to the north" and thrived through active trading instead of war, although the Huron nation aggressively worked to prevent trade between the Neutrals and the French.{{sfn|Jackes|2008|pp=350, 352}}
The chief of 28 villages, villas, and towns in the last years of the Neutral confederacy was named Tsouharissen or Souharissen<ref name=NeutralIndians/> ("Child of the Sun") who led several raids against the Mascouten (or "The Fire Nation"), who lived in territory in present-day Michigan and Ohio. A 1627 report called him the chief of all of the nation (Neutrals).{{sfn|McMillan|Yellowhorn|2004|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=tvSrEUFH3vkC&q=Tsouharissen+Neutral&pg=PA88 88]}} Tsouharissen died around 1646.{{sfn|Noble|2015}} Within a generation (by the early 1670s), all of the nearby first nations, the Erie, the Huron, Neutrals, Tobacco tribes, and even the fierce Susquehannocks would all fall between rampaging epidemic diseases<ref name="AmHeritageBk"/> or in the bloody Beaver Wars between themselves<ref name="AmHeritageBk"/> and/or to the last tribe standing with any significant military power,<ref name="AmHeritageBk"/> the Iroquois.
===Flintworking and trade=== The Neutrals quarried Onondaga chert from the Onondaga Limestone formation in their lands. Prior to European contact, they used this chert as a tool stone for arrowheads, bifaces, and other weapons and tools. This extended into the protohistoric and post-contact periods, and has been documented at sites associated with the Onondaga, Oneida, and St. Lawrence Iroquoians.{{sfn|Engelbrecht|Jamieson|2016|p=86}} It was superior for toolmaking to other local chert varieties around the St. Lawrence Lowlands.{{sfn|Engelbrecht|Jamieson|2016|p=86}}
That important resource was used to make spearheads and arrowheads and so gave the Neutrals the power to maintain their neutrality.<ref name="newadvent" /> Once the neighbours began receiving firearms through trade with the Europeans, however, the possession of the flint grounds was much less of an advantage. Flints were still used in trade for the flintlocks on guns. The Neutral continued to trade commodities such as maize, tobacco, and black squirrel and other high-grade furs for steel axes, glass beads, cloaks, conch shells, gourd containers, and firearms.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Kehoe |first1=Alice Beck |title=North American Indians: A Comprehensive Account |date=2017 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-351-21996-9 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=W0g4DwAAQBAJ&q=Ontario+Neutral+indians+trading+nation&pg=PT464 |language=en}}</ref>{{sfn|Jackes|2008}}
===Language=== {{main|Neutral Huron language}}
Records left by Jesuit priests in the 1600s indicate that the Neutral language was similar to Huron and so was a dialect of Iroquoian. They believed that all three groups had once been a part of a single group.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Ricky |first1=Donald |title=Indians of Maryland |date=1999 |publisher=Somerset Publishers, Inc. |isbn=978-0-403-09877-4 |page=190 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=88z94nv6rlwC&q=Ontario+neutral+indians&pg=PA190 |language=en}}</ref>
Their neighbours, the Wendat (or Huron) Nation referred to the Neutrals (Chonnonton) impolitely as "Attawandaron," meaning ''"Those whose speech is awry"'' because their dialect was different. (Apparently, the Chonnonton referred to the Wendat by the same term.) Because the language of the Neutral Confederacy has been extinct for more than three centuries, little is known about the Neutrals' language. Mithun (1979:145, 188–189)<ref name="Mithun1979">{{cite book |last=Mithun |first=Marianne |editor-last1=Campbell |editor-first1=Lyle |editor-last2=Mithun |editor-first2=Marianne |title=The Languages of Native America: Historical and Comparative Assessment |date=1979 |publisher=University of Texas Press |pages=133–212 |chapter=Iroquoian |isbn=}}</ref> cites Jesuits pointing out that the Neutral language was different from the Wendat language, in that the Neutrals were "vne Nation differente de langage, au moins en plusieurs choses" (Thwaites 21.188)<ref name="Thwaites">{{cite book |last=Thwaites |first=Reuben G. |title=Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents |date=1896–1901 |publisher=Burrows Brothers |isbn=}}</ref> / "a Nation different in language, at least in many respects" (Thwaites 21.189).<ref name="Thwaites"/> Mithun further cites work by Roy Wright (Mithun 1979:160)<ref name="Mithun1979"/> where the latter notes from the Neutral name given to Chaumonot that the Neutral language did not have sound changes that distinguish Wendat from other Northern Iroquoian languages. Hanzeli (1969),<ref>{{cite book |last=Hanzeli |first=Victor Egon |title=Missionary Linguistics in New France: a Study of Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Descriptions of American Indian Languages |location=The Hague |publisher=Mouton de Gruyter |year=1969 |isbn=3-11-099521-2}}</ref> referencing Thwaites (21:228–230),<ref name="Thwaites"/><ref group=note>(p. 228) "Ce fut sans doute vne prouidence de Dieu toute speciale, que le retardemẽt des Peres en ce lieu : car en vingt cinq iours qu'ils demeurerent en cette cabane, ils eurent le moyen d'ajuster le Dictionnaire, & les Peuples [sc. Regles] de la langue Huronne, à celle de ces Peuples, & faire vn ouurage qui seul meritoit qu'on fist vn voyage de plusieurs années dans le païs : nos Sauuages se plaisans beaucoup plus auec ceux qui parlent leur propre langue, qu'auec ceux qui n'en font qu'approcher, qu'ils tiennent iusques là pour estrangers." / (pp. 229–230) "The delay of the Fathers in this place was, doubtless, an exceptional providence of God: for, in the twenty-five days that they remained in this cabin, they were able to harmonize the Dictionary and the Syntax of the Huron language with those of these Tribes, and accomplish a work which of itself would deserve that one make a stay of several years in the country, – as our Savages take much more pleasure in those who speak their own language than in those who only attempt it, and whom they consider for that reason as strangers."</ref> notes Brébeuf and Chaumonot considered Neutral different enough from Wendat to write a separate Neutral grammar and dictionary, now lost.
==Archaeology== The Southwold Earthworks, near St. Thomas, Ontario, contains the remains of a pre-contact Neutral village and is a National Historic Site of Canada. It is known for conspicuous earthworks, which were rare in southern Ontario, and are well preserved.<ref>{{cite web |title=HistoricPlaces.ca – HistoricPlaces.ca |url=https://www.historicplaces.ca/en/rep-reg/place-lieu.aspx?id=11706 |website=www.historicplaces.ca}}</ref>
The Museum of Ontario Archaeology in London, Ontario, is located adjacent to the Lawson site. It is another 500-year-old Neutral village which has been under study since the early 1900s. An Ontario historical plaque commemorates the site, which was occupied by Neutrals in the 1500s.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.ontarioplaques.com/Plaques_MNO/Plaque_Middlesex08.html|title=Ontario Plaque|access-date=24 July 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303223252/http://www.ontarioplaques.com/Plaques_MNO/Plaque_Middlesex08.html|archive-date=3 March 2016}}</ref> About 1000 to 2000 people lived in longhouses in the fortified community. Scientific excavation was first completed in 1921–1923, when the site was owned by the Lawson family. The searches have recovered 30,000 artifacts and the remains of 19 longhouses.<ref>{{cite web |title=Visit Indigenous Longhouse at the Lawson Site |url=http://archaeologymuseum.ca/discover-archaeology/lawson-site/ |website=Museum of Ontario Archaeology}}</ref> Some of the longhouses and the pallisade have been reconstructed.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.uwo.ca/museum/village.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051210185106/http://www.uwo.ca/museum/village.html |archive-date=2005-12-10 |title=London Museum of Archaeology}}</ref>
The McMaster University professor William Noble has excavated and documented the existence of many villages southwest of Hamilton, comprising a Neutral Confederacy, which he believes to have been centred at the Walker site and was presided over by the chief Souharissen.{{sfn|Trigger|1986}} Noble was instrumental in excavating and documenting other Neutral sites in Thorold, Grimsby, and Binbrook. Reports from those and other Southern Ontario sites near Milton (Crawford Lake) and Oakville have indicated that the Neutral Confederacy hunted not only deer but also elk, moose, beaver, raccoons, squirrels, black bear, fox and muskrat. The remains of catfish, whitefish, salmon and trout were also common at many of the sites.{{sfn|Stewart|2000|pp=102–3}}
{{anchor|Ivan Elliot site}}{{anchor|Raymond Reid site}}In 1983–1985, another site was excavated. One of the largest Attawandaron villages, the location covered 13 acres of the Badenoch section of Puslinch, on the east side of Morriston, Ontario.<ref>{{cite web |title=First Story: The Neutrals in Wellington County |url=https://www.wellington.ca/en/discover/firststorytheneutralsinwellingtoncounty.aspx |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171107011238/https://www.wellington.ca/en/discover/firststorytheneutralsinwellingtoncounty.aspx |archive-date=2017-11-07}}</ref> The estimated population of the Ivan Elliot site was 4,000; the Neutrals lived in longhouses and used the village for about 20 years.<ref name=AttawandaronDiscoveries/> Another nearby site, on the McPhee farm, owned by Raymond Reid, was excavated in 1983. The village had a population of about 1,000 around 1500–1530.<ref name=AttawandaronDiscoveries/>
The Neutral Confederacy decline and eventual end can be attributed to genocide. The final catastrophe that led to its end by the early 1650s was investigated by the archaeologist Mary Jackes. The demise of the Neutral Confederacy occurred in spite of reports by the French, who first met it, "in 1610 as strong, healthy and numerous. They lived in the most fertile and warmest part of Ontario. They were determined to remain neutral in the conflicts between the Iroquois from south of the Great Lakes and the Ontario Iroquoians who lived to the north of the Neutral. They throve on trade, rather than war."{{sfn|Jackes|2008}} Jackes re-examined French reports including the Jesuit Relations and the artefacts found in the Grimsby site.{{sfn|Jackes|2008}}
When grounds were prepared for a new housing development in Grimsby, Ontario, in 1976, a Neutral Confederacy burial site was uncovered in sheltered embayment of the Niagara Escarpment.{{sfn|Jackes|2008}} The excavation by Kenyon was closed after only two months in 1977, and the skeletons were reburied near the original site. It was estimated that over 100 bodies were recovered at the time. "Natural disruption, disease, famine and years of severe weather would have been sufficient to begin population decline. Intensifying war, with many killed, taken captive or forced to become refugees, led to almost complete population collapse."{{sfn|Jackes|2008|pages=367–8}} Jackes suggested that this burial site "had significance and that it was a place of refuge... especially for women and children."{{sfn|Jackes|2008|page=368}}
A large village site found and excavated by Archaeologix, Inc. in Tillsonburg, Ontario, in 2000-2001, is unique for the absence of a pallisade, suggesting central location not needing protection. The site, in southwestern Ontario, is on a southern incline of the height of land for Lake Erie's central north shore, west of the Grand River, which flows south into Lake Erie; the watershed of the west-flowing Thames River is the other side of the height of land. The village "covered in excess of 8 hectares (20 acres), making it the largest known pre-contact Iroquoian village of its time in southern Ontario. The combination of the extremely large village size and the dispersed community pattern represents a site type that has not been previously documented for the Middle to Late Iroquoian period in southern Ontario." <ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.tillsonburg.ca/town-hall/plans-reports-and-studies/archaelogical-assessment-tillsonburg-indigenous-village/ |title=Archaelogical Assessment |website=tillsonburg.ca |access-date=3 April 2026}}</</ref>
Though driven by American Iroquois from their territory in the 1650s, the Neutral name remained attached to it as the "Neuter Nation" at least until the 1836 map of North American Native Nations by Swiss-American politician, diplomat, and ethnographer Albert Gallatin.<ref>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Gallatin</ref>
==See also== {{Portal|Ontario}} * Beaver Wars * Kandoucho * Petun
==References== ===Citations=== {{Reflist|30em}}
===Notes=== {{reflist|group=note}}
===Sources=== {{refbegin|indent=yes|30em}} * {{cite book |title=The Archaeology of Southern Ontario to A.D. 1650 |editor1-last=Ellis |editor1-first=Chris J. |editor2-last=Ferris |editor2-first=Neal |year=1990 |publisher=London Chapter of the Ontario Archaeological Society|isbn=0-919350-13-5 |pages=410–411}} * {{cite journal |last1=Engelbrecht |first1=William |last2=Jamieson |first2=Bruce |date=2016 |title=St. Lawrence Iroquoian Projectile Points: A Regional Perspective |journal=Archaeology of Eastern North America |publisher=Eastern States Archaeological Federation |volume=44 |pages=81–98 |jstor=44808365}} * {{cite book |last=Garrad |first=Charles |year=2014 |editor-last1=Pilon |editor-first1=Jean-Luc |editor-last2=Fox |editor-first2=William |title=Petun to Wyandot: The Ontario Petun from the Sixteenth Century |series=Mercury Series |publisher=University of Ottawa Press |isbn=978-0-7766-2144-9}} * {{citation |last=Jackes |first=Mary |year=2008 |title=The mid seventeenth century collapse of Iroquoian Ontario: examining the last burial place of the Neutral Nation |url=http://www.arts.uwaterloo.ca/~mkjackes/Valbonne.pdf |work=9e: journées d'anthropologie de Valbonne:Vers une anthropologie des catastrophes |publisher=Éditions APDCA/INED |location=Antibes |pages=347–373 }} * {{cite book |last1=McMillan |first1=Alan D. |last2=Yellowhorn |first2=Eldon |year=2004 |title=First Peoples In Canada |publisher=Douglas & McIntyre |edition=3rd |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tvSrEUFH3vkC&pg=PA77 |isbn=1-55365-053-0 }} * {{cite encyclopedia |last=Noble |first=William C. |date=November 20, 2015 |title=The Neutral Confederacy |encyclopedia=The Canadian Encyclopedia |publisher=Historica Canada |url=https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/neutral |access-date=January 18, 2023 }} * {{cite journal |last=Stewart |first=Frances L. |date=2000 |title=Variability in Neutral Iroquoian Subsistence A.D. 1540{{endash}}1651 |journal=Ontario Archaeology |publisher=Ontario Archaeological Society |volume=69 |pages=92–117 |url=https://ontarioarchaeology.org/wp-content/uploads/oa069_part_07.pdf |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190307113051/https://ontarioarchaeology.org/Resources/Publications/oa_69_part_07.pdf |archive-date=March 7, 2019}} * {{cite book |editor-last=Thwaites |editor-first=Reuben Gold |editor-link=Reuben Gold Thwaites |date=1898 |title=Travels and Explorations of the Jesuit Missionaries in New France 1610–1791 |publisher=The Burrows Brothers |location=Cleveland |url=http://puffin.creighton.edu/jesuit/relations/relations_38.html |access-date=2014-12-15 |archive-date=2009-02-07 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090207025836/http://puffin.creighton.edu/jesuit/relations/relations_38.html }} * {{cite book |last=Trigger |first=Bruce |date=1986 |title=Natives and Newcomers: Canada's "Heroic Age" Reconsidered |publisher=McGill–Queen's University Press |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wOf9028ySTMC |isbn=978-0-7735-6132-8 }} * {{cite book |last=Trigger |first=Bruce G. |date=1988 |title=Children of Aataentsic: A History of the Huron People to 1660 |publisher=McGill–Queen's University Press |isbn=978-0-7735-6149-6}} * {{cite book |last=Reville |first=F. Douglas |date=1920 |title=The History of the County of Brant |url=http://www.brantford.library.on.ca/genealogy/pdfs/reville1.pdf |location=Brantford |publisher=Hurley Printing Company |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100215232423/http://www.brantford.library.on.ca/genealogy/pdfs/reville1.pdf |archive-date=2010-02-15 }} {{refend}}
==Further reading== {{refbegin|indent=yes|30em}} * {{cite journal |last1=Campbell |first1=Celina |last2=Campbell |first2=Ian D. |date=1988 |title=The Little Ice Age and Neutral Faunal Assemblages |journal=Ontario Archaeology |publisher=Ontario Archaeological Society |volume=49 |pages=13–33 |url=https://ontarioarchaeology.org/wp-content/uploads/oa049-02_campbell.pdf}} * {{cite book |last=Cooper |first=Martin S. |chapter=Chapter 11: 'In Order to Bring Them to Trade' |pages=257–268 |doi=10.2307/j.ctt22zmcgk.17 |editor1-last=Loewen |editor1-first=Brad |editor2-last=Chapdelaine |editor2-first=Claude |date=2016 |title=Contact in the 16th Century: Networks Among Fishers, Foragers and Farmers |series=Mercury Series |publisher=University of Ottawa Press}} * {{cite journal |last=Fitzgerald |first=William R. |date=March–April 1984 |title=An Introduction to the Raymond Reid (HiHa-4) Hamlet |journal=Arch Notes |publisher=Ontario Archaeological Society |pages=3–24 |url=https://ontarioarchaeology.org/wp-content/uploads/an1984-02.pdf}} * {{cite journal |last=Fitzgerald |first=W. R. |date=1982 |title=A Refinement of Historic Neutral Chronologies: Evidence from Shaver Hill, Christianson and Dwyer |journal=Ontario Archaeology |publisher=Ontario Archaeological Society |volume=38 |pages=31–46 |url=https://ontarioarchaeology.org/wp-content/uploads/oa038-03_fitzgerald.pdf}} * {{cite thesis |last=Fitzgerald |first=William |date=1981 |title=Lest the Beaver Run Loose: The Early 17th Century Christianson Site and Trends in Historic Neutral Archaeology |type=Master's thesis |publisher=McMaster University |hdl=11375/10428 |url=http://hdl.handle.net/11375/10428}} * {{cite journal |last=Fitzgerald |first=W. R. |date=1979 |title=The Hood Site: Longhouse Burials in an Historic Neutral Village |journal=Ontario Archaeology |publisher=Ontario Archaeological Society |volume=32 |pages=43–60 |url=https://ontarioarchaeology.org/wp-content/uploads/oa032-05_fitzgerald.pdf}} * {{cite thesis |last=Ionico |first=Daniel A. |date=December 2018 |title=The Products of Turbulent Times: Continuities and Change of 17th Century Neutral Iroquoian Ceramic Technology |type=Master's thesis |publisher=McMaster University |url=https://macsphere.mcmaster.ca/bitstream/11375/23824/2/Ionico_Daniel_A_2018December_MA_Anthropology.pdf}} * {{cite journal |last=Jamieson |first=Susan M. |date=1981 |title=Economics and Ontario Iroquoian Social Organization |journal=Canadian Journal of Archaeology |publisher=Canadian Archaeological Association |number=5 |pages=19–30 |jstor=41058597}} * {{cite thesis |last=Lennox |first=Paul Anthony |date=November 1977 |title=The Hamilton Site: A Late Historic Neutral Town |publisher=McMaster University |type=Master's thesis |url=https://macsphere.mcmaster.ca/bitstream/11375/10406/1/fulltext.pdf}} * {{cite journal |last=Noble |first=William C. |date=1984 |title=Historic Neutral Iroquois Settlement Patterns |journal=Canadian Journal of Archaeology |publisher=Canadian Archaeological Association |volume=8 |number=1 |pages=3–27 |jstor=41102288}} * {{cite journal |last=Noble |first=William C. |date=1985 |title=Tsouharissen's Chiefdom: An Early Historic 17th Century Neutral Iroquoian Ranked Society |journal=Canadian Journal of Archaeology |publisher=Canadian Archaeological Association |volume=9 |number=2 |pages=131–146 |jstor=41102340}} * {{cite journal |last1=Prevec |first1=Rosemary |last2=Noble |first2=William C. |date=1983 |title=Historic Neutral Faunal Utilization |journal=Ontario Archaeology |publisher=Ontario Archaeological Society |volume=39 |pages=41–56}} * {{cite book |last=Ridley |first=Frank |date=1961 |title=Archaeology of the Neutral Indian |publisher=Etobicoke Historical Society |location=Port Credit, Ontario}} * {{cite journal |last1=Stewart |first1=Frances L. |last2=Finlayson |first2=William D. |date=2000 |title=Subsistence at the Irving-Johnston Village and the Question of Deer Tending by the Neutrals |journal=Canadian Journal of Archaeology |publisher=Canadian Archaeological Association |volume=24 |number=1 |pages=17–40 |jstor=41058127}} * {{cite journal |last=White |first=Marian E. |date=1972 |title=On Delineating the Neutral Iroquois of the Eastern Niagara Peninsula of Ontario |journal=Ontario Archaeology |publisher=Ontario Archaeological Society |volume=17 |pages=62–74 |url=https://ontarioarchaeology.org/wp-content/uploads/oa017-03_white.pdf }} {{refend}}
==External links== * [https://artsandculture.google.com/exhibit/the-attawandaron-niagara-historical-society-museum/OwIikX4rv8JVKA?hl=en The Attawandaron] by Niagara-on-the-Lake Museum * [http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07565a.htm Huron Indians] in the ''Catholic Encyclopedia'' * [http://www.dickshovel.com/neutral.html http://www.dickshovel.com/neutral.html]
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Category:Neutral people Category:Extinct Native American peoples Category:Extinct Native American tribes Category:First Nations history in Ontario Category:History of Bruce County Category:History of Hamilton, Ontario Category:History of Oxford County, Ontario Category:History of the Regional Municipality of Waterloo Category:History of Wellington County, Ontario Category:Iroquoian peoples Category:Native American tribes in New York (state) Category:Tribal Confederacies of indigenous peoples of North America Category:Genocide of Indigenous peoples of North America Category:Former Native American polities