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Seneca

 
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Seneca
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North American Indian people living mainly in western New York, U.S. Their language belongs to the Iroquoian linguistic group, and their traditional homeland is western New York and eastern Ohio. They were the largest nation of the Iroquois Confederacy and were known as the "Keepers of the Western Door." They call themselves Onondowahgah, meaning "People of the Great Hill." The Seneca have eight clans, with clan membership determined through the maternal line. Historically, families linked by maternal kinship lived together in longhouses. Each community had a council of adult males, which guided the village chief. In the autumn small parties would leave the villages for the annual hunt, returning about midwinter; spring was the fishing season. Seneca women cultivated corn and other vegetables. Warfare with other indigenous nations was frequent. In the American Revolution the Seneca were British allies, as a result of which Gen. John Sullivan destroyed their villages in 1779. In 1797 they secured land for 12 reservations in western New York, some of which still exist. Early 21st-century population estimates indicated some 16,000 individuals of Seneca descent. See also Cornplanter; Ganioda'yo.

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US Military Dictionary: Seneca
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The largest tribe of the Iroquois-speaking Five Nations. Located in western New York, in the 1760s the Senecas actively urged Indian resistance to the British in the Ohio Valley and Great Lakes region and thus provoked what came to be called Pontiac's Rebellion (1763-66).

See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.

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Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
US Military Dictionary. The Oxford Essential Dictionary of the U.S. Military. Copyright © 2001, 2002 by Oxford University Press, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more