Oneida, North American tribe belonging linguistically to the Iroquoian family and forming part of the Iroquois Confederacy. The name by which the tribe is known is a corruption of an indigenous word meaning “standing rock,” referring to a boulder sacred to the tribe situated near the site of their ancient village on Lake Oneida, New York. Their territory included the region surrounding the lake and later extended south to the Susquehanna River.

The tribe was friendly toward the French colonists and Jesuit missionaries, although most members of the confederacy were hostile to the outsiders. During the American Revolution the Oneida sided with the colonists and were obliged to take refuge within the American settlements when their fellow tribes took the side of the British. After the war most of the Oneida returned to Canada and settled in the region of the Thames River, Ontario, where their descendants still remain. Between 1820 and 1835, most of the Oneida who had returned to their homes in New York State sold their land and moved to a reservation near Green Bay, Wisconsin.

The Oneida number about 3500.

"Oneida," Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2001 http://encarta.msn.com © 1997-2001 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Iroquois

Derived from an Algonkian word meaning "serpent."

In the seventeenth century, the five member tribes of the League of the Iroquois of the Five Nations Confederacy (Kayanerenh-kowa, "the great peace," also known as Kanonsionni, the "long house") inhabited the territory south of the St. Lawrence River and Lake Ontario, from roughly the Richelieu River and Lake Champlain to Rochester, in what is now the State of New York.

From east to west, they were: the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas and Senecas.

Their struggle with the Hurons for control of the fur trade largely dominated the military history of New France from the 1630s until the arrival of the Carignan-Salish regiment, in the summer of 1665.

(DCB Dictionary of Canadian Biography"," G. Brown"," ed.)
Museum of Civilization, Ottawa, Canada

The Tuscarora & Six Nations Website contains lots of information and links about the 'Six Nations'