Oneidas

The Oneida reservation in northeast Wisconsin is a thriving community today. The economy is fueled by a tobacco industry and a tourist center with lavish hotels and energized casinos. The community's self-sufficiency, however, did not come easy. The Oneida peoples have been inhabitants of North America for approximately 10,000 years. They were the smallest of the five nations of the Iroquois Confederacy. The other nations were the Mohawk, Cayuga, Onondaga, and the Seneca. The Iroquois Confederacy was founded in the sixteenth century and dissolved around the Revolutionary War. The Confederacy divided over the war with the Oneida and Tuscarora (later admitted into the confederacy) fighting on the side the colonists while the remaining nations sided with the British. The Oneidas were alienated from the confederacy because of their participation in the war. The United States, however, vowed to support the nation in exchange for...

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