Indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands facts for kids

The Indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands are the original inhabitants of a large area in North America. This region includes the northeastern and Midwest parts of the United States and southeastern Canada. These groups are part of a bigger family of peoples called the Eastern Woodlands.

The Northeastern Woodlands area is split into three main parts:

• The Coastal area covers the Atlantic Provinces in Canada and the Atlantic coast of the United States, reaching down to North Carolina.
• The Saint Lawrence Lowlands area includes parts of Southern Ontario, upstate New York, and the areas around the Saint Lawrence River and Susquehanna Valley.
• The Great Lakes-Riverine area covers the inland parts of the northeast. This is where people who spoke Central Algonquian languages and Siouan languages lived.

The Great Lakes region is sometimes seen as its own special cultural area because so many different tribes lived there. The Northeastern Woodlands region borders the Subarctic to the north, the Great Plains to the west, and the Southeastern Woodlands to the south.

Joseph Brant, a Mohawk leader, painted around 1835.

Three Lenape people, painted by George Catlin in the 1860s.

Meet the Peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands

Many different Indigenous groups have lived in the Northeastern Woodlands for thousands of years. Here are some of the main peoples:

First Nations in Canada

Many Indigenous groups in Canada are known as First Nations. They have their own governments and communities.

United States Federally Recognized Tribes

In the United States, some tribes are officially recognized by the federal government. This recognition means they have a special relationship with the U.S. government.

A Look at History

Map of the Northeastern United States showing the areas of Iroquoian (purple) and Algonquian (pink) tribes in present-day New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New York state.

Around 200 BCE, a culture called the Hopewell culture began to grow in the Midwest of what is now the United States. Its main center was in Ohio. The Hopewell people were known for their large trading network. This network connected communities from the Great Lakes all the way to Florida.

They created beautiful art, often showing animals like deer, bears, and birds. The Hopewell culture also built amazing ceremonial sites. These sites usually had a burial mound and geometric earthworks (shapes made from earth). A famous example is in the Scioto River Valley in Ohio. The Hopewell culture started to fade around 400 CE, and we're not entirely sure why.

By about 1100 CE, two distinct language groups, the Iroquoian-speaking and Algonquian-speaking cultures, had developed. These were in what is now New York State and New England.

Some important Algonquian tribes included the Abenakis, Mi'kmaq, Penobscot, Pequots, Mohegan, Narragansetts, Pocomtucs, and Wampanoag. In the 1600s, the Mi'kmaq, Maliseet, Passamaquoddy, Abenaki, and Penobscot tribes formed the Wabanaki Confederacy. This alliance covered much of present-day Maine in the U.S., and parts of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Cape Breton Island, Prince Edward Island, and Quebec in Canada.

The five nations of the Iroquois League formed a powerful alliance around the 15th century. They controlled land across present-day New York, into Pennsylvania, and around the Great Lakes. The Iroquois Confederacy, also known as the Haudenosaunee, became the strongest political group in the Northeastern Woodlands. It still exists today. The Confederacy includes the Mohawk, Cayuga, Oneida, Onondaga, Seneca, and Tuscarora tribes.

The area that is now New Jersey and Delaware was home to the Lenape, also an Algonquian people. Most Lenape were forced to leave their homeland in the 1700s as European colonies grew. Today, most of them live in Oklahoma.

Culture and Daily Life

The Indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands had unique ways of life. They used wigwams and longhouses for shelter. They also used wampum, which were small beads made from quahog shells, as a way to trade and exchange goods.

The birchbark canoe was first used by the Algonquin people. Its use then spread to other tribes and to early French explorers and traders. These canoes were used for carrying goods, hunting, fishing, and even for warfare. They could be anywhere from about 4.5 meters (15 feet) to 30 meters (100 feet) long for large war canoes.

The main crops grown in the region were the Three Sisters: winter squash, maize (corn), and climbing beans. These three crops came from Mesoamerica and were carried north over many centuries. They were usually planted together on small mounds of soil. This method, called companion planting, helps the plants grow better. The tall corn plants provide a pole for the beans to climb. The beans add nitrogen to the soil, which helps the other plants. The squash spreads along the ground, blocking sunlight to stop weeds and keeping the soil moist.

Before Europeans arrived, most Indigenous groups in the Northeast lived in villages with a few hundred people. They lived close to their farms. Generally, men did the planting and harvesting, while women processed the crops. Some settlements were much larger, like Hochelaga (modern-day Montreal), which had thousands of people. Cahokia might have had 20,000 residents between 1050 and 1150 CE.

For many tribes, the basic social group was a clan. Clans were often named after animals like the turtle, bear, wolf, or hawk. The animal for a clan was considered sacred and had a special connection with the clan members.

The spiritual beliefs of the Algonquians centered around the idea of Manitou. This is a spiritual and fundamental life force that is everywhere. Manitou also appears as the Great Spirit or Gitche Manitou, who is seen as the creator of all life. The Haudenosaunee have a similar concept called orenda.

See also

• Classification of indigenous peoples of the Americas
• Hopewell tradition
• Native American tribes in Massachusetts
• Southern New England Algonquian cuisine
• Three Sisters (agriculture)
• War of 1812