Onondadega

The Onondadega, or People of the Hills, are the central nation of the five founding members of the Haudenosaunee, or Iroquois Confederacy, with their homeland south of Lake Ontario. Oral tradition holds they were the last to accept the Great Peacemaker, joining after Hiawatha healed the feared chief Tadodaho, an event linked to an eclipse possibly seen in 1142.

The Tree of Peace was planted on their land and Onondaga became the confederacy's capital and the seat of its Grand Council. As Keepers of the Fire they supply the council's presiding officer, the Tadodaho, and fourteen of its chiefs.

In the American Revolution they began neutral, but after American troops burned their main village in April 1779 they joined the British. At the peace many followed Joseph Brant to Six Nations in Upper Canada; those who remained kept their reservation through the Treaty of Canandaigua of 1794.