Huronia (region)

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Huronia is a historical region in the Great Lakes area of eastern North America. It is positioned between Lakes Erie, Ontario, and Huron. Similarly to the latter, it takes its name from the Huron, an Iroquoian society that flourished in the years leading up to contact with Europeans.

The term Huronia, which was coined by later Europeans, is distinct from the term the Huron themselves used for their dwelling place, which is wendake. Following the dispersal of the Ontario Iroquoians during and after the Beaver Wars, wendake came to mean new lands as far away as Quebec and Ohio where the Huron resettled.[1] Early European maps and accounts do not use the term Huronia; rather, Jesuit missionaries used terms such as Pays de Huron, or, later, Huronum.[2] In his 1745[3] Huron–French dictionary, the Jesuit Father Pierre Potier defined the Huron term wendake ehen as "La Defunte huronie", referring the pre-dispersal homeland.[4]

The geographic scope of Huronia has been fluid over time. One of the earliest European written conceptions of Huronia, by the Jesuit Jérôme Lalemant in 1639, included the land of the Petun (a related people whose territory is sometimes retrospectively called the Petun Country),[5] which lay to the west of the core Huron territory. This core Huron territory was termed "Huronia Proper" by the late 19th and early 20th century historian Arthur E. Jones.[6]

In the 20th century, it lent its name to the Huronia movement, a northern-oriented political movement in Ontario which pursued regional autonomy.[7]

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Citations[]

  1. ^ Garrad 2014, p. 31: "8endake does not refer to any one place, rather to anywhere that Wyandots live. This term is not limited to the former Huronia, or to the territory of the modern Hurons of Lorette near Quebec City. At various times, 8endake included the Petun and Neutrals countries of Ontario, as well as Detroit, Ohio, Kansas, and Oklahoma in later years."
  2. ^ Garrad 2014, p. 30: "The Jesuits did not use the term and it does not appear in the Jesuit Relations or on any contemporary maps. Instead, Contrée does Hurons or Pays des Hurons was favoured. It appears on some later Jesuit documents latinised as Huronum."
  3. ^ "Wendake (Huronia)". The Canadian encyclopedia. Retrieved 2015-08-27.
  4. ^ Garrad 2014, p. 31.
  5. ^ Garrad 2014, p. 30: "Father Superior Jérôme Lalemant certainly included the Petun Country in his description of the 'country of the Hurons' in 1639."
  6. ^ Garrad 2014, p. 30–31: "Father Arthur E. Jones was among those who believed the Petun Country extended to Owen Sound.... He used the term 'Huronia Proper' when he was referring specifically to the Hurons[.]"
  7. ^ Stos 2020.

Sources[]

Further reading[]

  • Cranston, J. Herbert (1960). Huronia: Cradle of Ontario's History.
  • Heidenreich, Conrad (1971). Huronia: A History and Geography of the Huron Indians 1600–1650. McClelland and Stewart.
  • Peace, Thomas; Labelle, Kathryn Magee, eds. (2016). From Huronia to Wendakes: Adversity, Migration, and Resilience, 1650–1900. University of Oklahoma Press.
  • Williamson, Ronald F.; Burchell, Meghan; Fox, William A.; Grant, Sarah (2016). "Looking Eastward: Fifteenth- and Early Sixteenth-Century Exchange Systems of the North Shore Ancestral Wendat". In Loewen, Brad; Chapdelaine, Claude (eds.). Contact in the 16th Century: Networks Among Fishers, Foragers and Farmers. Mercury Series. University of Ottawa Press. pp. 235–256. doi:10.2307/j.ctt22zmcgk.

Coordinates: 44°41′13″N 79°55′52″W / 44.686962°N 79.931059°W / 44.686962; -79.931059

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