Woodland Native Nations
The great Shawnee Chief Tecumseh
Left: Picture credit, Deinocheirus, Bust of Tecumseh, Royal Ontario Museum by Hamilton MacCarthy in 1896.
Right: Controversial colorized version of an 1812 pencil sketch drawing by Lossing done about 1868.
The Woodland Natives of North America were the first to be assimilated, and the first to lose their culture, their land and ultimately their lives to the invaders who took without asking and left nothing unscathed.
Woodland Nations are usually considered to be all of those Native People who lived East of the Mississippi River, from Maine to Florida, they were all called Woodland People.
Although their geographical areas and numbers were vast, these Native People shared many commonalities in their cultures.
Many Woodland People were Nomads or those who lived as they traveled in the hunt of their food, while others, stayed put and raised their own food.
Housing was also similar among the Woodland People, with Longhouses, round houses or wigwams and Tipis being the most common types of lodging.
Some People, like my Shawnee and the Creek Nations, were Matrilineal, meaning that control was passed down through Tribal women and their relatives.
**There have been rebukes of this statement by readers, however, my information came from a very elder Creek chief many years ago who stated that the Shawnee and Creek people were at one time united in the South and that both were Matrilineal.
Patrilineal Tribes were controlled by the Men.
Within the Tribes, were smaller groups called clans which were sorted by different families and their relatives.
Despite their differences as Native Peoples, eventually all Woodland Nations would face a common enemy, the encroaching non Natives landing on their shores who while accepting the kind generosities of the Natives, were methodically planning how to annihilate them.
Unlike the Western Native Nations, the Woodland People did not get any advanced warnings, by the time that they learned what these new people were really like, it was too late.
These are some of the Woodland Nations:
People of the Place of the Fire
After reading this document you will understand
why our own constitution was formed from it.
Constitution of the Iroquois Nations
Description of the creation of the Iroquois League,
with an excellent depiction of their Longhouses.
Founding of the Iroquois League
People Building a Long House
The Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida,
Mohawk and Tuscarora Nations.
The Ho-Chunk or Winnebago,
the People of the Big Voice.
The Lenapes:
Indiana Native People’s History
The Eastern Woodland Natives were the first to
be displaced by the encroachment of Europeans.
Indians of the Lower Hudson Valley
The Lumbee People of North Carolina
A look at the early culture of New England Natives.
Indians of New England 1637
People of the Waters that are Never Still.
Stockbridge – Munsee Band
Native American Tribes of the Hudson River
The traditionals of the Oneida Nation
finally, once again, have a website:
For more about the Oneidas,
please see the Issues Page
The Lenni-Lenape:
Original People of the Schuylkill Watershed
The first to see the sun rise each day.
The Passamaquoddy Tribe of Maine
Passamaquoddy Tribe at Pleasant Point
One of the first American Native peoples of
Michigan, Indiana, Illinois and Ohio
The Mohegan People Of Connecticut
One of the six tribes of the Iroquois Confederacy
who occupy aboriginal lands in the state of New York.
There are few web sites about the Shawnee people,
and most of them are either biased or flawed,
this is one that may be considered to be fairly accurate.
An excellent paper describing many details
of early New England Indian history.
Seventeenth Century Indians in New England
An historical and informative look at the tribes of Virginia.
Indigenous or First People of Florida
tahtonka - A Journey Through Global Culture 
One response to “Woodland Native Nations”