Precontact Tutelo
oral history states that they originated in Ohio implicitly part of the
Fort Ancient culture. They likely migrated toward the coast a few centuries before
European arrival. Their language shares many words with the
Mosopelea language, suggesting that they were once neighboring cultures or relatives. Tutelo houses are similar to that of
Monongahela culture, and their burial mounds are similar to those found in northeast Ohio and western
Pennsylvania.
17th century The Tutelo homeland was said to include the area of the
Big Sandy River on the
West Virginia–
Kentucky border, which they called the "Totteroy River." The Haudenosaunee conquered the region and dispersed the Tutelo during the later
Beaver Wars (c. 1670), after which the Haudenosaunee established the Ohio Valley as their hunting ground. Charles Hanna believed their name, first appearing as Oniasont on 17th-century French maps, to be a variation of the names recorded in West Virginia and western Virginia at the same time period, as Nahyssan, Tutelo and Monahassanough. For a time, the Tutelo had a settlement on the banks of the
New River. Many of the
sherds collected there and the small triangular points, suggest a mid- to late 16th-century or an early 17th-century date. Between 1671 and 1701, Tutelo were forced to abandoned their homelands and join the
Occaneechi.
18th century In 1701, they were noted as living at the headwaters of the
Yadkin River in
North Carolina. After 1714, the Saponi and Tutelo, collectively known as a Nahyssan, resided at Junkatapurse around
Fort Christanna in
Brunswick County, Virginia, near the border with North Carolina. In the 1730s, Tutelo people moved north to
Shamokin,
Pennsylvania, There they lived under the protection of the Cayuga until Coreorgonel, along with many other towns, was destroyed during the
American Revolutionary War by the
Sullivan Expedition of 1779. The Tutelo went with their new relatives to
Canada, where the British offered land for resettlement at what became known as the
Six Nations of the Grand River First Nation. In 1785, 75 Tutelos lived among 1,200 residents on the Six Nations reserve. They continued to live among the Cayuga and could no longer maintain their culture due to low populations and intermarriage. The last known native Tutelo speaker,
Nikonha or Waskiteng ("Old Mosquito") died in 1870 at the age of 105. He had given extensive linguistic material to the scholar
Horatio Hale, who confirmed the
Tutelo language as a Siouan language. His father's name was Onusowa, a Tutelo leader who established a village in New York state. Their village was attacked during the
Sullivan Expedition, an American operation to destroy the
pro-British elements of the Six Nations in New York.
19th century John Key, also known as Gostango (meaning "Below the Rock") and Nastabon ("One Step") survived Nikonha as the last recorded fluent speaker of the Tutelo language. He died on March 23, 1898, at 78 years old. Chief
John Buck (
Onondaga/Tutelo, ca. 1818–1893) was a Haudenosaunee firekeeper at the Oshweken Longhouse on the Six Nations Reserve in Ontario. He recounted Tutelo stories to American ethnologists
John Napoleon Brinton Hewitt and
Frank Speck. == See also ==