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Show 1800] EASTERN INDIANS movement ^ and influence from the Hudson River to the lakes. K West of these tribes theJWyandot, or Huron, and the Neutral Nation heldth? 58untry between lakes Ontario ancT Huron; while south of Lake Erie lived the tribe from which that lake takes its name. In the valley of the Susquehanna and south to the Potomac were the Conestoga. or Susquehannock, while still farther south on the Roanoke River were the Tuscarora. <} n the Tennessee River lived the Cherokee, who are now pretty definitely proven to be of Iroquoian stock, but will be described independently. The special achievement of the Iroquois was the organization, probably between 1400 and 1450, of the famous League of the Iroquois, 1 a confederation of the Five Nations just named, for purposes of defence and offence. \ The conception of the league is traditionally ascribed to a Hiawatha, who may or may not have been an historical personage, who, it is said, enlisted the support of a leading chief of the Onondaga; and acting in concert they succeeded in successftilly carrying out the idea. 2 The salient features of the league were that it was a confederacy of the five tribes, each remaining independent in matters of local concern but delegating supreme authority in questions of general import to a council of sachems elected from the con- 1 Morgan, League of the Iroquois; Ancient Society; Houses and House Life, etc.; Hale, Iroquois Book of Rites; Colden, History of the Five Nations. ' Hale, Iroquois Book of Rites, 21. |