Neutral Nation

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The Neutrals were a tribe of American Indians who lived in what is now upstate New York and southern Ontario. Their own name for themselves has been lost, but they were called Attawandaron by the Hurons, meaning "people of a slightly different language". The name Neutral was applied to them by the French because they tried to be neutral between the warring Huron and Iroquois peoples. During the Beaver Wars, the Iroquois conquered and absorbed the Neutral tribe in the year 1651. Some of the Neutrals seem to have had a close relationship with the Erielhonan people, and some of their neighbors referred to them collectively as the "Cat nation".

Their territory was almost entirely within southern Ontario, save for three or four villages to the east, across the Niagara River in New York State; their western border was about Lake St. Clair and the St. Clair River, their southern limit the north shore of Lake Erie, and the northern limit approximately a line drawn between modern Oakville, Ontario on the shore of Lake Ontario west to near Grand Bend, Ontario on the shore of Lake Huron.

They possessed about forty villages in a highly productive agricultural, mostly treed region.

The Southwold Earthworks near St. Thomas, Ontario contains the remains of a Neutral village and is a National Historic Site of Canada.

The name Niagara comes from the Neutral word Onghiar (pronounced on-ge-ara), meaning "thunder of waters".