St. Lawrence Iroquoians

They concentrated along the shores of the St. Lawrence River in present-day Quebec and Ontario, Canada, and in the American states of New York and northernmost Vermont.

[2] The traditional view is that they disappeared because of late 16th-century warfare by the Mohawk nation of the Haudenosaunee or Iroquois League, which wanted to control trade with Europeans in the valley.

The name "St Lawrence Iroquoians" refers to a geographic area in which the inhabitants shared some cultural traits, including a common language, but were not politically united.

[5] For years historians, archeologists and related scholars debated the identity of the Iroquoian cultural group in the St. Lawrence valley which Jacques Cartier and his crew recorded encountering in 1535–36 at the villages of Stadacona and Hochelaga.

Since the 1950s, anthropologists and some historians have used definitive linguistic and archaeological studies to reach consensus that the St. Lawrence Iroquoians were peoples distinct from nations of the Iroquois Confederacy or the Huron.

[7] Before this, some scholars argued that the people were the ancestors or direct relations of historic Iroquoian groups in the greater region, such as the Huron or Mohawk, Onondaga or Oneida of the Five Nations of the Haudenosaunee encountered by later explorer Samuel de Champlain.

In 1998 James F. Pendergast, a Canadian archeologist, summarized the four major theories with an overview of evidence: and Since the 1950s, anthropologists, archaeologists, linguists and ethnohistorians have combined multidisciplinary research to conclude that "a wholly indigenous and discrete Iroquoian people were present in the St Lawrence Valley when Cartier arrived.

"[6] As noted, anthropologists and some historians have used definitive linguistic and archaeological studies to reach consensus that the St. Lawrence Iroquoians were a people distinct from nations of the Iroquois Confederacy or the Huron, and likely consisted of numerous groups.

"[12] Prehistoric Iroquoian culture and maize agriculture in Canada is first detected by archaeologists in 500 CE at the Princess Point site in Hamilton, Ontario.

[18] In addition to the characteristic villages, the St. Lawrence Iroquoian peoples had "a mixed economy, in which they drew their subsistence from growing maize, squash, and beans, hunting, fishing, and gathering.

Moreover, the Quebec area was the most northerly location in northeastern North America in which agriculture was practiced, especially during the cooler temperatures of the Little Ice Age in the 16th century.

In July 1534, during his first voyage to the Americas, Cartier met a group of more than 200 Iroquoians, men, women, and children, camped on the north shore of Gaspe Bay in the Gulf of St Lawrence.

[30] Archaeologists in the 20th century have unearthed similar villages further southwest, near the eastern end of Lake Ontario and are finding evidence of additional discrete groups of St. Lawrence Iroquoians.

[31] At just about the period Jacques Cartier contacted them, Basque whalers started to frequent the area in yearly campaigns (peaking at around 1570–80), holding friendly commercial relations with Saint Lawrence Iroquoians and other natives.

[5] Basques and American natives of the Labrador-Saint Lawrence area developed a simplified language for the mutual understanding, but it shows a strong Mi'kmaq imprint.

The archaeologist Anthony Wonderley found 500-year-old ceramic pipes in present-day Jefferson County, New York that were associated with the St. Lawrence Iroquoians and the tribes of the Haudenosaunee.

Historians and other scholars have developed several theories about their disappearance: devastating wars with the Iroquois tribes to the south or with the Hurons to the west, the impact of epidemics of Old World diseases, or their migration westward toward the shores of the Great Lakes.

The anthropologist Bruce G. Trigger believes the political dynamics were such that the Huron were unlikely to enter Iroquois territory to carry out an attack against the St. Lawrence people to the north.

The hypothesis about the St. Lawrence Iroquoians helps explain apparent contradictions in the historical record about French encounters with natives in this area.

When Cartier's crew suffered scurvy during their first winter in Canada, the St. Lawrence Iroquoians provided them with a remedy, an herbal infusion made of the annedda.

Given new evidence, it appears that Champlain met Five Nations Iroquois who, although related, did not speak the same language as the St. Lawrence Iroquoians—thus, they did not know the word annedda and its reference.

[35] In the late 20th century, First Nations activism, as well as increased interest in history of indigenous peoples renewed attention to the early St. Lawrence Iroquoian villages.