Tobacco Nation

Tobacco Nation or Tionontati, Native North Americans of the Iroquoian branch of the Hokan-Siouan linguistic stock (see Native American languages). In 1616, when visited by the French, they were living S of Nottawasaga Bay, in Ontario. The French called them the Tobacco Nation for their large fields of the crop. After the dispersion (1648–49) of the Huron by the Iroquois, many Huron refugees fled to the Tobacco Nation, and later in 1649 the wrathful Iroquois attacked. The remnants of the Tobacco Nation, with the Huron, were forced to flee to a region SW of Lake Superior. About 1670 the two tribes were at Mackinac; soon after they assimilated into one tribe, known to history as the Wyandot (see under Huron). In 1990 there were some 2,500 Wyandot in the United States.