Wyandotte Nation

The Wyandotte Nation is the only federally recognized Native American tribe in the U.S. descended from the Wendat Confederacy. Historically, they lived near Georgian Bay in Canada. Under pressure from Haudenosaunee and other tribes, then from European settlers and the United States government, the tribe gradually moved south and west to Michigan, Ohio, Kansas, and finally Oklahoma in the United States. As of 2025, just over 7000 people were enrolled in the Wyandotte Nation.

Name and Identity

The nation's traditional name in its own Iroquoian language is Waⁿdát (often rendered Wendat). The nation was renamed "Wyandotte" after merging with related groups from the Northeastern woodlands in the seventeenth century. The name is commonly thought to mean "dwellers on a peninsula" or "islanders".

The nation's flag is white, with a central turtle emblem. The turtle, an earth symbol in the nation's creation stories, carries a peace pipe and war club representing peace and war, with willow branches signifying lasting life. A twelve‑pointed shield on the turtle's shell symbolizes the nation's clans, and a central council fire alludes to its traditional role as "Keepers of the Council Fire."

Government

The Wyandotte Nation is a federally recognized Indian tribe in the United States. Under U.S. federal law, the Wyandotte Nation can participate in all programs and services provided to American Indians.

Administration

, the current administration is:

Chief: Billy Friend
Second Chief: Norman Hildebrand, Jr.
Council Person: Vivian Fink
Council Person: Eric Lofland
Council Person: Rob Nesvold
Council Person: Keith Gray

The chief serves a four-year term.

Land and Sovereignty

The Wyandotte Nation’s tribal jurisdictional area is located in Ottawa County, Oklahoma, with its headquarters in the town of Wyandotte.

Government Services

The Wyandotte Nation operates two main health and wellness sites: the Bearskin Health and Wellness Center and the Bearskin Fitness Center. The Nation also operates environmental services, including the Lost Creek Recycling Center, managed by the tribe's Environmental Department and Planning and Natural Resources Department. The nation has its own newspaper, The Turtle Speaks.

The Wyandotte Nation issues its own tribal vehicle tags and operates its own housing authority. It has a ten-man police department providing 24-hour law enforcement response to the Nation and surrounding area. Enrollment is based in lineal descent; that is, the nation has no minimum blood quantum requirement.

Only about 25 percent of enrolled Wyandottes live within the state of Oklahoma. In 2011, 1,218 of the 4,957 Wyandotte citizens lived in Oklahoma. The nation also owns two casinos in Kansas: the 7th Street Casino in the former Scottish Rite Masonic Temple in Kansas City, Kansas and the Cross Winds Casino in Park City, Kansas.

The Nation also operates retail locations. It owns a truck stop, Turtle Stop fuel stations, and a smoke shop.

Culture

The tribe's annual powwow is held in Oklahoma in September and features traditional dances, regalia, music, food vendors, and other family-friendly activities. It is a three day event that attracts dancers and drum groups from around the country. Dances include shawl dancing, fancy dancing, gourd dancing, and stomp dance.

Language

Today, most members speak English. Although the last native speaker died in 1972, the Wyandot language is the subject of ongoing revitalization efforts. The Wyandotte Nation offers preschool and elementary‑level Wyandot classes and has developed online lessons for self‑study.

History

The Wyandotte Nation descends from multiple groups: the Tionontati (Petun), the Wendats (Hurons), the Wenro, the Attiwandaronk (Neutrals) and the Erie. The Wyandotte Nation has continuity to the first Wendat Confederacy. This confederacy was created around 1400 CE, when the Attignawantan (Bear Nation) and Attigingueenongnahac (Cord People) combined forces. These ancestors of the Wyandottes later migrated further north to the area near Georgian Bay, where they were encountered by French explorers in the early 17th century.

Early European contact

The key historical record for this period is The Jesuit Relations, which describes the groups that would become the Wyandotte. At this time, the Wendat were fierce enemies of the nations of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, then based in present-day New York. The Wendat allied more closely with the French while the Haudenosaunee allied more closely with the Dutch and later the British. As they fled, many of the remaining Wendat "died by the hundreds" from starvation and lost most of their valuables, such as furs. Many felt that the Wyandottes were secure, given that the Ohio River had been considered a natural boundary between the Great Lakes and American settlers.

In 1893, the Dawes Act required that the tribal communal holdings in the Indian Territory be divided into individual allotments. The land was divided among the 241 tribal citizens listed on the Dawes Rolls. The Wyandotte citizens in Oklahoma retained some tribal structure, and still had control of the communal property of the Huron Cemetery, which by then annexed into Kansas City, Kansas. One of the stipulations required that a parcel of land in Kansas City, Kansas, reserved as the Huron Cemetery, which had been awarded to the Wyandot by treaty on January 31, 1855, was to be sold by the United States. Litigation was filed by a group of Absentee Wyandot against the United States and Kansas City, prohibiting the federal government from fulfilling the terms of the termination statute and ultimately preventing the termination of the Wyandotte Nation. The Bureau of Land Management records confirm that the Federal Register never published the termination of the Wyandotte lands and thus they were never officially terminated.

Congress later restored several Oklahoma Tribes, including the Wyandotte. On May 15, 1978, in a single Act titled Public Law 95-281, the termination laws were repealed, and the three tribes were reinstated with all rights and privileges they had prior to termination. In 1983, former civil servant Leaford Bearskin was elected chief. The next year, he led the Wyandottes in receiving compensation for eight million acres of Ohio land, which gave the Wyandottes a trust fund to operate the government.

21st century

In August 1999, the Wyandotte Nation joined the contemporary Wendat Confederacy, together with the Wyandot Nation of Kansas, the Huron-Wendat Nation of Wendake (Quebec), and the Wyandot of Anderdon Nation in Michigan. The tribes pledged to provide mutual aid to each other in a spirit of peace, kinship, and unity.

This followed an important meeting of Huronia reconciliation in Midland, Ontario, Canada, attended by representatives of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, Wyandotte nations, British, French, Dutch, Anglican Church, and Catholic Jesuit brothers. The weekend of events was organized by the Huronia Reconciliation Committee.

References

External links

7th Street Casino, official website