History of Syracuse NY

By 1722, the Tuscarora people joined with the Iroquois and the confederacy then became known as the Six Nations.

French contact

The first known Europeans in the area were the French, who arrived in 1615 when Samuel de Champlain launched an attack on the Onondagas with the aid of the Huron and Algonquian Indians, who were bitter enemies of the Iroquois. Champlain's attack on the Onondaga fortress, the location of which has been heavily debated but is now believed to have been at the head of Onondaga Lake, lasted six days and ended when Champlain withdrew wounded and defeated.

During the 1640s, which were years of "troubling" battles between the French, Huron and Iroquois, many Jesuit priests were killed. Many French missionaries, who had arrived in the area from Canada, retreated to the north.

On August 5, 1654, Father Simon LeMoyne, a Jesuit missionary, arrived in the Onondaga village. During his short stay, he drank from a spring that the Onondagas believed to be foul due to an evil spirit. He found it to be a salt water spring and returned to Canada with salt from the water.

A French mission, Sainte Marie Among the Iroquois, or Ste. Marie de Gannentaha, was established in the summer of 1656, on Onondaga Lake.

British arrive

The British began to take an active interest in the land around Onondaga Lake in the early 1700s. They befriended the Onondagas by giving them guns, which were highly prized. A British agent, William Johnson,