Iroquois the decentralized political and diplomatic entity that emerged in response to European colonization. According to that theory, "The League" still exists. The Confederacy dissolved after the defeat of the British and allied Iroquois nations in the American Revolutionary War. Today's Iroquois/Six Nations people do not make any distinction between "The League" and "the Confederacy" and use the terms interchangeably, preferring the name Haudenosaunee Confederacy. After the defeat of the British, they ceded most of the Iroquois territory to the United States, without bringing their allies to the negotiating table. Many of the Iroquois migrated to Canada, forced out of New
Iroquois translate as "murderers". The Five Nations historically referred to themselves by a different autonym, Haudenosaunee, meaning "People of the Longhouse". It is also occasionally preferred by scholars of Native American history, who consider the name "Iroquois" to be derogatory in origin. This name derives from two phonetically similar but etymologically distinct words in the Seneca language: "Hodínöhšö:ni:h", meaning "those of the extended house," and "Hodínöhsö:ni:h", meaning "house builders". The name "Haudenosaunee" first appears in English in Lewis Henry Morgan (1851), where it is written as "Ho-dé-no-sau-nee". The spelling "Hotinnonsionni" is also attested from later in the nineteenth century. An alternate