Ethnos

Oneida

The Oneida were a tribe of American Indians and comprised one of the five founding nations of the Iroquois Confederacy. They were known among the Iroquois as Haudenosaunee ("The people of the longhouses") in reference to their communal lifestyle and the construction of their dwellings.

Originally inhabiting the area that later became New York, they aided George Washington in the Revolutionary War and in particular at Valley Forge in 1777. After the war they were displaced by retaliatory and other raids. In 1794 they were granted 6 million acres of lands (in New England, primarilyl in New York). Subsequent treaties and actions by the State of New York pared this down to almost nothing (32 acres). In the 1830s many of the Oneida relocated into Canada and west to Wisconsin.

In 1974 and 1985 the US Supreme Court ruled that the treaties between the State of New York and the Oneida that had deprived them of these lands were illegal. Litigation in these matters is ongoing. ***
See also: Oneida Nation Website