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About the Huron Indians

Culturally the Huron Indians wereby European standardsthe most advanced Native Americans living in the Great Lakes. A confederation of four Indian tribes of the Iroquoian family, the Huron lived in the Georgian Bay area of present-day Ontario, Canada. When the French arrived in the early seventeenth century, the Huron were at the height of their power. The Huron population varies, but as many as thirty thousand people lived in about twenty-five villages. The Huron were sedentary, living in large villages with a high degree of community and tribal organization. One of the most farm-oriented Great Lakes tribes, the Huron supplemented their diets by fishing and hunting. As French missionaries began establishing missions among the Huron they also brought disease, especially smallpox, which greatly reduced the tribe. Raids from the Iroquoian tribes in New York destroyed the Huron. Survivors were adopted into other tribes or became refugees.

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