I strongly suspect that this would be covered in some source book, somewhere....

Historically the Iriquois were mostly centered in what is now upstate New York, with some enclaves in what are now southern Quebec and Ontario (basically along the shores of Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River.

The shadowrun wiki seems to have the Iriquois as a major ethnic group in the Algonkian-Manitou council. Which suggests a large scale migration or expulsion at some point? Given that the Iriquois have maintained strong group identity than have many tribes, a wholesale move seems not entirely unlikely, and while they'd not want to leave their lands, for more autonomy I could imagine it happening. Likewise I could see them having attempted an uprising, getting suppressed, then large numbers emigrating to the NAN or possibly even being deported. But I'd like a clue in the story (I'm planning on bringing in an NPC from the false-face society, and would like to bring in some of the tribal back-story to emphasize some of the human impact of the re-ordering of the world)

I'd also love to know anything about where they settled. (that maybe makes more sense that the 'manitou' tribe taking over an area that pretty much defines inhospitable....you might get driven into lands like that, you don't choose them!)

How does anyone settle anywhere? Lasers. Deadly deadly lasers. Seriously though my group is going to be going through Algonkian-Manitou and it would be good to know.

They were probably moved to the same concentration camps the rest of the native Americans, their supporters, and anyone else who was politically inconvenient got sent to.

It happened back before VITAS came through, and before the awakening really got fun.

Also (but I can't quote a specific reference for it), remember the the Denver treaty was negotiated. The SAIM claimed all of North America when it started its insurgency war, but that's not what it get. So tribes like the Iroquois somehow got the short straw: their ancestral land was still occupied by European colonies, but the other Amerindian tribes were no longer willing to fight to help them retrieving it. They could either try to return and co-exist with the people they've been at war with for half a decade, or settle within one of the new nations. Actually, I'd expect the US and Canadian governments to enforce a ban on any person involved in armed actions against them to move outside the disputed areas and enter their territory, so as to avoid having another guerilla springing up before the ink on the Denver Treaty was dry.

Thanks for the info, Iduno and Nath (and for the smile, Shortstraw)!

I figured it was something like that, but I couldn't bring to mind any relevant facts. I don't know if I'd forgotten that part of the SR future-history, or if it wasn't covered back in the 1st/2nd edition rules (given that 5th is pretty useless for history, and I skipped 20+ years of content). So I guess I'm free to put the Iroquois as either spread out or clumped up in enclaves. Given that the ones in Quebec are currently fairly involved in the cross-border cigarette trade (the legality is an interesting discussion....) I could imagine them providing fair contributions to the future smuggling operations, which could argue for a more spread out network.

Funny you should mention this, I've been doing some research for an AMC campaign myself. I can't remember which book I saw it in, but I did some research on this very question just recently while I was trying to figure out what happened to the Cree and Blackfoot and how the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) ended up here instead. The parts I do remember are pretty much what Nath said about "well, you can try to make peace with the UCAS or you can move", with the addition that one branch the so-called "Algonkian" tribes (not really a useful name, the terminology they used is seriously fragged up) do actually have a presence in the parts of Canada that became the AMC. The majority of First Nations people living in the future AMC are either some flavour of Cree or Blackfoot, though, both of which seem to have vanished except for a passing mention of the Montana Plains Cree population in the Sioux. tl;dr, the problem is in this image.

I don't think the books say if the Haudenosaunee settled in a specific area, but if you're looking for more information on the AMC in general, check out the Wiki pages on Calgary (western population centre and Azzie stronghold), Saskatchewan (home of the AMC capital, Saskatoon), Manitoba (home of the Manitou capital, Lynn Lake; the only major population centre, Winnipeg, is part of the UCAS), and Northwestern Ontario (where Thunder Bay and all its smuggler-y goodness is located, and the part of the AMC that the Algonkian/Ojibwa/Anishinaabe actually do live in).

As far as where the Haudenosaunee actually went, if I were the one writing it I'd keep them relatively clustered around Saskatoon, Regina, or possibly Thunder Bay (if they're tolerant of smugglers). Calgary's too much of an in-canon Azzie stronghold, plus it's on the wrong end of the country, and anywhere else is both devoid of anything interesting and flat-out fraggin' difficult to get to.

NAN Vol.2 pg 62 claims that the homeland of the Iriqouis ended up in AMC while calling them a tribe of the Eastern Woodlands. As far as one can believe wikipedia the former is wrong. There seem to be "Canadian Iriqouis", too, but neither maps nor text puts any in the AMC area.

I know little about American Geography, but the new settlement area looks harsher than what they traditionally owned. On the other hand realistically getting those areas back would have required several other cities with Seattles special enclave status. At some point you would not have a relevant UCAS left.

Yah, I just assumed that the cree are there and the book skipped them Although given that the Algonkian got their name on the territory, I'd hazard a guess that the status of the Cree lands was under negotiation for long, so that an Algonkian territory was determined early on and named, then once further lands were agreed to be going to NAN they agreed to join them to the Algonkian territories.

What is odd is that Winnipeg stayed entirely in the UCAS--it has one of the highest proportions of native americans of any substantial city. In my game I made North Winnipeg a special administrative district under joint AMC/UCAS jurisdiction, with 'the North Winnipeg corridor' giving a road route from there to the rest of AMC territory (and the whole area being very porous, border-wise). But in canon I'd assume that there was terrible violence in Winnipeg, with the army eventually imposing control and expelling a large portion of the population. (could even have been a big part of the motivation for the Nepean Act).

Thinking a bit more......by tradition the Iriquois were farmers (although modern reservations haven't had the room or quality of land to make that a major activity). It would not be crazy to think that they were happy to take over a lot of the seized/forfeited/sold-for-a-song farming lands. The four things that AMC has going for it are Thunder Bay, some big hydro-electric developments, a certain degree of hard to access mineral deposits, and a big swathe of prairie farmland in a hungry world. It is not clear to me how much, in canon, the prairies are being farmed, versus allowed to go wild for grazing by bison and horses? But I'm suspecting that a good chunk would still be farmed. So putting them around Saskatoon and Regina--in the middle of the prairie lands, could make a lot of sense. Especially as Winnipeg already has its own issues.

and Ryu wrote:


In current Canada, the Iriquois reserves run between Montreal and southern Ontario (west of Lake Ontario). Far, far, from the AMC lands. This is like saying that the Dakotas are heavily populated by Pennsylvanians

And you are totally correct about harsher.

Parts of the prairies (south west part of the AMC--basically west of Winnipeg, as far north as around Edmonton -- you can see it on this Google earth image, it is the browner areas https://www.google.ca/maps/@51.0704677,-104...#33;3m1!1e3 ) are some of the most fertile soil you'll find anywhere, but coupled with a very short growing season and long, bitterly cold, winters. Think a more fertile Siberia (yes, I grew up in Manitoba....by way of illustration it was exciting when we reached March, because it would usually warm up enough that you could make snowmen, most of the rest of the winter was too cold and dry for the snow to stick together). Farmers get fairly massive crops of cereals, oil seeds, and soy beans most years, but if the weather is just a little off they can get largely wiped out, because the window is so narrow.

The rest is mostly what we call the precambrian shield. This is the roots of billions of year old mountains, scraped bare by many cycles of glaciers scraping over the land. It leaves behind granite ridges with very thin, poor, soil, separated by boggy valleys with poor drainage (and not very good soil either)--combined with a climate similar to on the prairies. Up around Hudson's Bay is just basically boggy ground that is frozen for half the year, and up where the Manitou tribe is supposed to have established themselves, I think you are getting into tundra at the northernmost part. this link should take you to a google earth view of some of the Manitou lands--the grainy lines you can see are twisting granite ridges, with the valleys forming many lakes. https://www.google.ca/maps/@60.4458308,-97....#33;3m1!1e3 All of this area currently has a population density averaging no more than one person per two square kilometers, and I'm sure most of it is in fact far lower than that (it is just that generally population density maps don't bother show fine graduations of 'nobody wants to live here').

Warning: Nerd drive active.

The only line of reasoning that makes any sense to me as far as "Algonkian" is concerned is that the original writers were going by the Algonquian language family - which does cover roughly the portions of the Prairies that became the AMC, along with a large portion of the northeastern United States - rather than the Algonquin First Nations proper. Then again, the Algonquin First Nations are categorised as part of the Anishinaabe (Ojibwa), who are... part of the Algonquian language family. ("Yo dawg, we heard you like Algonquian...") I ended up justifying the Algonkian tribe moving westward as saying it had precedents, in the form of the Anishinaabeg living in northwestern Ontario, and the Saulteaux (basically Ojibwa who migrated west) that already exist in Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

Y'know who aren't part of the Algonquian language family? The Iroquois. I don't think there's any out-of-universe way of justifying their move, but I like the ideas you have about Haudenosaunee farming history and the agricultural prospects of the Prairies. That, and my understanding is that the Haudenosaunee bands in Ontario/Quebec and the States aren't exactly invisible - they'd be awfully easy targets for an angry populace post-Treaty of Denver, especially all the Anglos who'd just been kicked out of their homes by the newly-formed NAN.

Also some are in Quebec, and I'm assuming that when Quebec seperated it took a pretty hard line versus the natives (there are various NA groups that have some claims over the majority of norther quebec, the only way I see Quebec having kept its territory intact is that they they moved faster and more ruthlessly than did other governments. Then the rest get caught up with everything else that happens.

I'd tend to agree with you there, especially if the First Nations in Quebec are Anglophone. Considering the forced relocations started a year before Québec separated, it would be feasible that the Canadian government's response was "well, you're not settling in Ontario..."

You could pick up Montreal 2074 and get the answer to that

Ah, that would have come out in the 20+ years I wasn't paying attention to ShadowRun, lol. I'll add that to my list of things to pick up--I've lived in Montreal and visit fairly often, so I'm curious to see what you've done with the place!