History
An early date for the Onondaga comes from attempting to date an oral tradition related to The Great Peacemaker, a Huron, who approached the Onondaga and others to found the Haudenosaunee. The dates he lived are not fixed but when the Seneca nation debated joining the Haudenosaunee based on his teachings there is a tradition of a solar eclipse happening. The most likely eclipse for this event was in 1142AD which actually fell over the land of the Seneca. Carbon dating of particular sites of Onondaga habitation shows dates starting close to 1200AD ± 60 years with growth for hundreds of years.
In the American Revolutionary War, the Onondaga were at first officially neutral, although individual Onondaga warriors were involved in at least one raid on American settlements. After an American attack on their main village on April 20, 1779, the Onondaga later sided with the majority of the League and fought against the American colonists in alliance with the British. Thereafter, many Onondaga followed Joseph Brant to Six Nations, Ontario, after the United States was accorded independence.
On November 11, 1794, the Onondaga Nation, along with the other Haudenosaunee nations, signed the Treaty of Canandaigua with the United States, in which their right to their homeland was acknowledged by the United States in article II of the treaty.
Those Onondaga remaining in New York are under the government of traditional chiefs nominated by clan mothers, rather than elected.
On March 11, 2005, the Onondaga Nation of Nedrow, New York, filed a land rights action in federal court, seeking acknowledgment of title to over 3,000 square miles (7,800 km2) of ancestral lands centering in Syracuse, New York. In doing so they hope to obtain increased influence over environmental restoration efforts at Onondaga Lake and other EPA Superfund sites in the claimed area. This lawsuit is facing a motion to dismiss based on the precedent established in the Cayuga nation's land claim and other defenses.
Read more about this topic: Onondaga People
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