NEUTRAL

The Neutral, or Neutrals, received their name from the French as Neutre Nation because they attempted to remain neutral in the 17th-century wars among fellow Iroquoian-speaking tribes the IROQUOIS (hau-DENOSAUNEE) and the HURON (WYANDOT). The Neutral in fact were as aggressive as the Iroquois and maintained their autonomy because of the number of their warriors and their skill in fighting. They were known as fierce enemies of ALGONQUIANS living to their west, such as the POTAWATOMI. Another name for the Neutral was Attiwandaronk, meaning “those whose speech is different from ours,” applied to them by the Huron and Iroquois in reference to their differing dialect (interestingly, the Neutral used this term to describe the Huron). The heart of the Neutral homeland was the north shore of Lake Erie from the Niagara River in the east to the Grand River in the west. Their palisaded villages—at least 28 of them—of bark-covered longhouses, typically located on high, defensible grounds, were mostly in present-day southern Ontario but also in present-day southeastern Michigan, northeastern Ohio, and western New York. The Wenro (Wenrohronon) to their east were possibly a subgroup. The name Wenro is translated as “the people of the place of floating scum” in reference to an oil spring at present-day Cuba, New York, which the Indians used for healing surface wounds and stomach ailments.

The French fur trader Etienne Brule, exploring for Samuel de Champlain, the first known non-Indian to visit Lake Erie in 1615, is thought to have encountered the Neutral just before meeting up with the ERIE living to the south of the lake. From that time on, the Neutral became part of the extensive trade network between the French and area tribes, with the Huron acting as middlemen. In exchange for European trade goods, the Neutral and the TIONONTATI provided agricultural products— especially corn, tobacco, and hemp—which the Huron traded to nonagricultural tribes in exchange for furs and fish. They took the furs to the French. In the late 1630s, intertribal contact or perhaps contact with French missionaries, such as Joseph de La Roche Daillon of the Recollect order, who stayed with them in 1636, led to a smallpox epidemic, a disease introduced to the region by Europeans, killing as many as half of some tribes. That same year, the Neutral ceased their protection of the Wenro in order to avoid trouble with the Iroquois; Wenro tribal members settled among the Neutral and Huron.

Invasions by the SENECA and other Iroquois into Huron territory in 1648—49 put an end to the trade enterprise. After the Huron defeat, the Neutral tried to avoid conflict with the Iroquois by taking Huron refugees captive, thus ending their neutrality, but the Iroquois, in their ambitions to control more lands for the fur trade, conquered the Neutral in 1650—51, killing or absorbing many of them. Some Neutral managed to escape, fleeing west. Some tribal members were reported living in Michigan near Detroit in 1653, the last recorded mention of any Neutral.

The name of one of the Neutral subdivisions, Ongni-aahra, pronounced nie-AG-uh-ruh by non-Indians, came to be applied to the Niagara River, which forms the boundary between New York and Canada, and the famous Niagara Falls.