Oneida (redirected from Oneidas)

Oneida, city, United States

Oneida (ōnī`də), city (1990 pop. 10,850), Madison co., central N.Y.; inc. 1901. Silverware is its best-known product; factories also manufacture industrial wire and cable, and paper and plastic goods. Nearby was the

Oneida Community, a religious society of Perfectionists that was established (1848) by John Humphrey Noyes. Members of the sect held all property in common and practiced complex marriage and common care of the children. The community prospered by making steel traps and silverware. In 1881 it was reorganized as a joint stock company, and the social experiments were abandoned.

Bibliography

See C. N. Robertson, ed., Oneida Community (1981).

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Oneida, indigenous people of North America

Oneida: see Iroquois Confederacy.

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Oneida

North American Indian people living mainly in what are now central New York and Wisconsin, U.S., and Canada. They constitute one of the original five nations of the Iroquois Confederacy. Their language is Iroquoian. They call themselves Oneyoteaka, meaning “people of the standing stone.” The Oneida were semisedentary and practiced corn agriculture. Longhouses sheltered families related through maternal descent and belonging to one of three clans—Bear, Turtle, or Wolf. Each community had a local council that guided the chief or chiefs. The Oneida supported the colonist cause in the American Revolution and were attacked by the pro-British Iroquois under Joseph Brant. By the mid-19th century most Oneida had dispersed. Early 21st-century population estimates indicated approximately 23,000 individuals of Oneida descent.

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Oneida

1. Lake. a lake in central New York State: part of the New York State Barge Canal system. Length: about 35 km (22 miles). Greatest width: 9 km (6 miles)

2. a North American Indian people formerly living east of Lake Ontario; one of the Iroquois peoples

3. a member of this people

4. the language of this people, belonging to the Iroquoian family

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Oneida

founded by John Humphrey Noyes in New York; based on extended family system. [Am. Hist.: EB, X: 315]

See : Utopia