“Some Native American groups were not chiefdoms at all, but instead granted political authority to councils of sachems, or leaders. This was the case with the Iroquois Confederacy. Sometime shortly before the arrival of Europeans, probably around 1500, five nations occupying the region between the Hudson River and Lake Erie- the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas- banded together to from the Iroquois.”