ABSTRACT
The indigenous population affected by the War of 1812 lived across enormous expanses of territory, ranging from the west side of the Mississippi River to the Atlantic coast in the United States, and from the northerly reaches of the Great Lakes watershed in Upper and Lower Canada to the Spanish colonies of East and West Florida. The aboriginal peoples involved in the conflict belonged largely to four linguistic families, each of which encompassed a number of distinct tongues and nations. One language group was the Iroquoian. Most famously it included the Six Nations Iroquois (or Haudenosaunee): Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, Senecas, and Tuscaroras living in New York and in the two Canadas. Other Iroquoians comprised people such as the Wyandots in the Ohio country and Cherokees in Tennessee, Georgia, and the Mississippi Territory. A second language group was the Algonquian, which embraced such tribes as the Foxes (or Mesquakies) and Sauks of the upper Mississippi; the Shawnees, Miamis, and Potawatomis of the Old Northwest (centered around Lake Michigan); the Ojibwas and Mississaugas who occupied both sides of the Great Lakes border regions; and natives who pursued their lives in New England and beyond, such as the Abenakis and Mohegans. A third language group was the Siouan, which saw people such as the Dakota Sioux from the western part of the upper Mississippi River and Tutelos in Upper Canada take up arms in the war. The fourth group was the Muskogean language family, which most famously incorporated the Creeks of Georgia and the Mississippi Territory, but included nations such as the Chickasaws and Choctaws. 1
