Wendat

The Wendat, also known as the Huron, are an Indigenous people of North America whose traditional territory lay along the north shore of Lake Ontario and the Georgian Bay region of the Great Lakes. The name Wendat is their endonym; Huron is the exonym used by French explorers, and Wyandot is an Anglophone form used for some descendant communities in the United States. They spoke an Iroquoian language, known as Wendat or Huron-Wendat.

Historically, the Wendat lived in a cluster of villages organized into a loose confederacy that included several autonomous nations. They practiced agriculture, growing maize, beans, and squash, supplemented by hunting and gathering. They built fortified settlements and longhouses that housed extended families and kin groups.

From the early 17th century, the Wendat engaged in trade and relations with French explorers and missionaries, notably at Sainte-Marie among the Hurons near present-day Midland, Ontario. They became involved in alliances and conflicts during the Beaver Wars of the mid-17th century, often facing pressure from the Iroquois Confederacy, along with devastating epidemics. By the late 1640s and 1650s, many Wendat villages were destroyed or dispersed; survivors relocated to new settlements in Quebec and Ontario, while others migrated to the Ohio country, where they formed Wyandot communities.

Today, descendants are represented by the Huron-Wendat Nation in Wendake, Quebec, and by Wyandot communities in the United States, including the Wyandotte Nation in Oklahoma. The Wendat language and cultural heritage are the focus of ongoing preservation and revitalization efforts.