The Wyandotte Nation is the only federally recognized Native American tribe of Wyandot people in the United States. Descended from the Petun and Wendat Confederacy, the Wyandotte formed after the dispersal of both peoples by the Haudenosaunee during the Beaver Wars. Originally dwelling near Georgian Bay in Ontario, pressure from the Haudenosaunee, then later from European settlers and the United States government, drove the nation south and west to Michigan, Ohio, Kansas, and finally Oklahoma in the United States. As of 2025, just over 7000 people were enrolled in the Wyandotte Nation.
Name and Identity The nation's traditional name in its own language is Waⁿdát (often rendered Wendat). The nation was renamed "Wyandot" or "Wyandotte" after merging with related groups from the northeastern woodlands in the seventeenth century. The name is commonly thought to mean "dwellers on a peninsula" or "islanders".
The nation's flag is white, with a central turtle emblem. The turtle, an earth symbol in the nation's creation stories, carries a peace pipe and war club representing peace and war, with willow branches signifying lasting life. A twelve‑pointed shield on the turtle's shell symbolizes the nation's clans, and a central council fire alludes to its traditional role as "Keepers of the Council Fire."
Government The Wyandotte Nation is a federally recognized Indian tribe in the United States. Under U.S. federal law, the Wyandotte Nation can participate in all programs and services provided to American Indians. The nation exercises inherent sovereignty and the "self-evident right to govern [itself]."
Administration
, the current administration is: Chief: Billy Friend Second Chief: Norman Hildebrand, Jr. Council Person: Vivian Fink Council Person: Eric Lofland Council Person: Rob Nesvold Council Person: Keith Gray
The chief serves a four-year term.
Land and Sovereignty The Wyandotte Nation’s tribal jurisdictional area is located in Ottawa County, Oklahoma, with its headquarters in the town of Wyandotte. Beyond Oklahoma, the Nation also controls the Wyandot National Burying Ground in Kansas City, Kansas.
In 2019, the Wyandot Mission Church and its three acres of land in Upper Sandusky, Ohio were returned to the Wyandotte Nation by the United Methodist Church.
Government Services The Wyandotte Nation operates two main health and wellness sites: the Bearskin Health and Wellness Center and the Bearskin Fitness Center. The Nation also operates environmental services, including the Lost Creek Recycling Center, managed by the tribe's Environmental Department and Planning and Natural Resources Department. The nation has its own newspaper, The Turtle Speaks.
The Wyandotte Nation issues its own tribal vehicle tags and operates its own housing authority. It has a ten-man police department providing 24-hour law enforcement response to the Nation and surrounding area.
Demographics As of May 2025, 7,254 people were enrolled citizens of the nation. Enrollment is based in lineal descent; that is, the nation has no minimum blood quantum requirement. This broad definition of enrollment was partially driven by negotiations between Chief Leaford Bearskin and the Bureau of Indian Affairs when determining eligibility for settlement compensation, as the BIA requested that the Wyandotte must distribute the settlement to all Wyandotte descendants regardless of blood quantum. This requirement is similar to other nations, such as the Cherokee Nation and Choctaw Nation.
Only about 25 percent of enrolled Wyandottes live within the state of Oklahoma. In 2011, 1,218 of the 4,957 Wyandotte citizens lived in Oklahoma.
Economic Development The Nation operates several gaming enterprises. Two of them, River Bend Casino & Hotel and Lucky Turtle Casino, are located in Wyandotte, Oklahoma. The nation also owns two casinos in Kansas: the 7th Street Casino in the former Scottish Rite Masonic Temple in Kansas City, Kansas and the Cross Winds Casino in Park City, Kansas.
The Nation also operates retail locations. It owns a truck stop, Turtle Stop fuel stations, and a smoke shop.
Culture The tribe's annual powwow is held in Oklahoma in September and features traditional dances, regalia, music, food vendors, and other family-friendly activities. It is a three day event that attracts dancers and drum groups from around the country. Dances include shawl dancing, fancy dancing, gourd dancing, and stomp dance.
Language Today, most members speak English. Although the last native speaker died in 1972, the Wyandot language is the subject of ongoing revitalization efforts. The Wyandotte Nation offers preschool and elementary‑level Wyandot classes and has developed online lessons for self‑study.
History The Wyandotte Nation descends from multiple groups: the Tionontati (Petun), the Wendats (Hurons), the Wenro, the Attiwandaronk (Neutrals) and the Erie. The Wyandotte Nation has continuity to the first Wendat Confederacy. This confederacy was created around 1400 CE, when the Attignawantan (Bear Nation) and Attigingueenongnahac (Cord People) combined forces. They, in turn, were joined by the Arendaronon (People of the Rocks), Ataronchronon (People of One Lodge), and the Tahontaenrat (Deer Nation). Archaeologists have excavated a number of large, 16th-century settlements north of Lake Ontario, including the Mantle Site, northeast of Toronto, suggesting that this may have been a location for the coalescence of the Wendat people. These ancestors of the Wyandottes later migrated further north to the area near Georgian Bay, where they were encountered by French explorers in the early 17th century.
Early European contact
The key historical record for this period is The Jesuit Relations, which describes the groups that would become the Wyandotte. At this time, the Wendat were fierce enemies of the nations of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, then based in present-day New York. The Wendat allied more closely with the French while the Haudenosaunee allied more closely with the Dutch and later the British.
Eventually the Wendat Confederacy was devastated by smallpox epidemics and became seriously weakened during the early decades of the early 17th century. After the third and most deadly epidemic of smallpox, the Wendat population was reduced from about 18,000 in 1634 to about 9,000 people in 1640 From 1648-1649, the Haudenosaunee killed many of the remaining Wendat. As they fled, many of the remaining Wendat "died by the hundreds" from starvation and lost most of their valuables, such as furs.
Some Wendat moved east into Quebec and became the present-day Wendat Nation. Others went west as refugees within other communities that were enemies of the Haudenosaunee such as the Wenro, Petun, and Neutrals. The Haudenosaunee pursued the Wendat within these communities and dispersed them as well, forcing them to head farther west to lands occupied by the Ho-Chunk, Menominee, and Dakota. For some time, they settled with Odawa and Illinois tribes. These Wendat survivors and the other refugees from the Haudenosaunee formed a new, unified group, known as the Wyandot or Wyandotte. This group, which was mostly Petun, is the group from which today's Wyandotte Nation descends.
These ancestors of the Wyandotte Nation spent most of the second half of the seventeenth century looking for a new home, traveling as far as Michilimackinac in Michigan and the Apostle Islands and Rock Island in Wisconsin. They returned east to present-day Detroit, where the ancestors of the present-day Wyandot of Anderdon Nation split from the Wyandotte Nation and remain today.
18th-century developments By the beginning of the 18th century, the Wyandotte people had moved into the Ohio River Valley. Around 1745, large groups settled near Upper Sandusky, Ohio. These Ohio Wyandots, dominated by former Wenro became more distinct from those who remained at Detroit, who were more former Petun. By the end of the 18th century, the Ohio Wyandots (who would become the Wyandotte Nation) were the dominant community.
The area around Ohio seemed safe from colonial expansion, as the Royal Proclamation of 1763 at the end of the French and Indian War suggested that colonists could not expand west of the Appalachians. Even after more territory was opened to colonists in the 1768 Treaty of Fort Stanwix, Wyandottes in Upper Sandusky were far from any borders with colonists. After the American Revolution, some newly independent Americans were eager to expand beyond the terms laid down by the British. Some Wyandottes signed the Treaty of Fort McIntosh with the United States in 1785 to confirm their landholdings and appease the Americans. Many felt that the Wyandottes were secure, given that the Ohio River had been considered a natural boundary between the Great Lakes and American settlers.
Northwest Indian War Despite this treaty, the Kentucky militia attacked Native Americans in incidents such as Logan's raid to begin the Northwest Indian War. The Wyandottes joined the Indigenous Northwestern Confederacy and at first argued for conciliation with the United States, but later joined raids against the Americans. The Wyandottes were part of the Confederacy throughout the war, including at St. Clair's defeat in 1791, one of the American army’s worst defeats in history. But the war turned against the Indigenous coalition. The Wyandottes asked for help from the British, were joined by a few volunteers from the Canadian militia, but were ultimately defeated at the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794.
After this defeat, the Wyandottes were among the first to advocate for peace among the coalition. Under their chief Tarhe, they negotiated a peace at Greenville in 1795. The chief declared the United States to be the Wyandottes "Father," with Tarhe telling the American commander, Major General Anthony Wayne about his "happiness in becoming your children" and asking the American government to now "take care of all your little ones." The Wyandottes lost most of their territory under the Treaty of Greenville.
19th-century developments
After the Treaty of Greenville, the Wyandottes were divided on whether to pursue war or peace with the United States. While Tarhe preferred peace, the war chief Roundhead took a leading role in Tecumseh's confederacy against the United States during the War of 1812. Allied with British forces led by Colonel Henry Procter, Roundhead led Wyandottes and other Indigenous warriors in a victory over the Americans at the Battle of Frenchtown. But the Wyandottes and the British eventually suffered defeat at the Battle of the Thames. With Roundhead and Tecumseh dead, the Wyandottes sued for peace. During the war, the British had sought an "Indian barrier state" that would include Wyandotte lands and stop American expansion, but the Americans rejected this in the 1814 Treaty of Ghent. Three years later, the Treaty of Fort Meigs reduced Wyandotte lands drastically, leaving the people only small parcels in Ohio and the Michigan territory.