What was the Iroquois confederacy? How long did it endure?

Indian Cultures in North America-As Indians spread throughout North America, they developed an astonishing array of cultures to adapt to the diverse environments of North America. Still, we can identify several broad culture regions of Indians. Indians within a culture region shared broad similarities in their way of life.

Eastern Woodland Indians-In the Northeast woodland Indians lived in villages and engaged in a mixture of agriculture, hunting, and gathering to provide food for themselves. Eastern Woodland Indians predominated. Some Eastern Woodland Indians moved from place to place during the year following sources of food, but many also resided in the same spot for much of the year in order to cultivate their crops. Indians who practiced agriculture were necessarily less mobile than hunters and gatherers, but they generally enjoyed a more secure food supply. Many Eastern Indians raised maize (corn), a crop first cultivated in Mexico, which eventually spread northward. Some Indians in easternmost North America grew and smoked tobacco. Indians would introduce English settlers to tobacco in the 1600s, providing the English their first valuable cash crop.

Northeastern woodland Indians mixed hunting, gathering, and agriculture to supply their needs for food. The most numerous and powerful Indians in Northeastern America were the Iroquois, including the Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, and Mohawk tribes. The Tuscarora people later migrated northward and joined the Iroquois. These peoples inhabited present-day New York state, living in lodges or longhouses.

The Iroquois, who often cooperated in a loose Iroquois Confederacy with one another from the 1400s, were collectively the most powerful Indian peoples of the Northeast. The Iroquois Confederacy lasted for more than three centuries, until the Iroquois people became divided during the American Revolution, during which some Iroquois sided with the British and others with the American rebels.

Some Eastern Indians built enormous trading centers. The location of these centers is known to us today because Indians marked these important centers by building symbolic ceremonial mounds. Examples of mound-building can be found from the present-day Middle West across the Southeast. The most famous of these was Cahokia, in present-day Illinois, which was an important city and trading center for many different Indian peoples from at its peak from roughly 500 to 1000 CE. Some scholars believe that Cahokia's population may have been as large as 40,000 at its peak.

Southeastern Indians-Southeastern Indians shared many of the characteristics of Eastern Woodland Indians. Many Southeastern Indians settled in villages and practiced agriculture. Many of these Indians were also mound-builders. The most numerous and influential Indian peoples in this portion of North America were the Creek, Catawba, Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Natchez.