(Photo above: Dr. Randy John holds two pieces of muslin delivered to the Seneca Nation of Indians as a responsibility of the United States and the 1794 Treaty at Canandaigua, known to the Senecas as the Pickering Treaty. One is from the 1980s and the other is from this year (2014). Photo taken at the Buffalo Creek Treaty Commemoration back in 2014 at the Burchfield Nature & Art Center in West Seneca.)
Nya:wëh sgë:nö’ ga;gwehgoh’
Today, I’d like to express what a treaty means to the People of the Great Hill. We are the Onondowa’ga:’. In English we are commonly called the Senecas.
What is now Western New York State is only a portion of what was once the land we controlled as members of the Hodinohsoni, or Iroquois. European Nations coveted our freedom and our land since their immigration to Turtle Island (North America).Indian land was purchased only through an egalitarian nation-to-nation relationship.
It might be surprising to most Americans that land negotiations were significantly greater in number prior to the existence of the United States. For the Six Nations along there are 356 treaties, councils, and events between Native Nations and European Nations 1613 to 1775. From 1776 to the 1867Native Nations and European Nations from 1613 to 1775. From 1776 to the 1867 there are 55 treaties, councils, and events since the American Rebellion (Jennings, F. et al., ed., 1985). This is almost a 7 to 1 ratio. This is largely unknown to most Americans. Again, this data is only for Hodinohso:ni treaties
The data shows us that Iroquois Nations had been negotiating treaties with Europeans for 2.5 centuries before the mid-1800s. Treaties today are a central component to the identity of native people. Treaties recognize our inherent sovereignty and our contemporary tribal territories. We are zealous about our rights and land. Our way of life is an expression of our treaty rights.
Treaties are not antiquated. They are still in effect today. They are as relevant as the United States Constitution. The Two Row Wampum Treaty of 1613 with the Dutch is over 300 years old and 176 years older than the American Constitution (ratified in 1789).
The Buffalo Creek Treaties occur at the tail end of Onondowaga:’ treaty-making. The Seneca people and other Native Nations originally took refuge at Buffalo Creek in 1780 just after the Sullivan Campaign during the American Revolution. Most of our crops and houses were burnt to the ground.
Buffalo Creek became an important native settlement. The multiple Nations that populated the territory include Cayugas, Delawares, Mahicans, Nanticokes, Oneidas, Onondagas, Shawnees, Tuscaroras, and Tutelos. Saponis and the Stockbridge people would arrive there as well. This reconstructed community became the new site for the central fire of the Hodinohsoni with the abandonment of the Onondaga “capital”. The “fire ‘ would return Onondaga after the loss of Buffalo Creek. Buffalo Creek began and ended during a time of social disorganization for the Senecas, the former during warfare and the latter due to the political pressure of the federal Indian Removal Policy of the United States.
The American Revolution characterized the policy of genocide common in warfare since the Senecas supported the British. However, the Onondowaga have been in alliance and at peace with the United States since the early 1780s. Peace and friendship was the policy for almost 60 years before we were nearly swindled out of all of our land in 1838. The Seneca People fought for the Americans in the war of 1812. Some of our greatest leaders were pro-American. The list includes Major Jack Berry, Farmers Brother. Captain Pollard, Little Billy, Henry O’Bail, Young King, Red Jacket, and Governor Blacksnake.
By the 1830’s, Buffalo Creek Buffalo Creek was one of the most coveted areas sought by New York State. Bribery, forgery, and the exploitive use of alcohol was the means to the negotiations of the 1838 Buffalo Creek Treaty (Hauptman, 1999), In addition to all the Seneca lands in New York, our Menominee land in Wisconsin was surrendered for almost 2 million acres in Kansas and a payment of $200,000.00 These lands were intended for the Seneca Removal to the west. The Hodinohsoni that went to Kansas experienced a “Trail of Tears” that brought native loss and death. Like the Buffalo Creek territory, the Menominee lands were never returned to us. The Tonawanda territory would be returned 15 years after the Compromise Treaty of 1842.
Dislocation was not a new phenomenon to the Seneca. In 1687, during the beaver wars the French Governor of New France, Denonville, destroyed the major Onondowaga villages. The Brodhead, Clinton, and Sullivan Campaigns of the American Resolution destroyed villages causing native flight to Fort Niagara and to Buffalo Creek. The Great Hill People would experience dislocation again in their 1960s in the building of the Kinzua Dam by the United States Army Corps against our will.
The economic determination is obvious in the Denonville attack. The 1838 Buffalo Creek Treaty, and the Kinzua Dam displacement of my ancestors. During the 1830s, the United States was still trying to annihilate Seminoles in the South. Yet in 1842, the year of the compromise treaty, the United States President John Tyler was honoring the independence of Hawaii (although Hawaii was later annexed in 1898).
We review these military, political, and economic attacks upon our ancestors today for several reasons. The Onondowaga are adaptable and resilient and we remain so. Our message Our message today is for our younger members, to be like our ancestors, to actively defend our sovereign rights in the face of contemporary challenges that threaten our way of life and our remaining lands. We have succeeded in survival as a Nation for centuries against all odds. We are still here. Our treaty rights shine today. We continue to develop our own economy. We honor our treaties. Our sovereignty is recognized in our treaties. I will close with two classic examples of this in the 1794 Pickering Treaty and the 1842 Buffalo Creek Treaty.
I hold before me two pieces of muslin delivered to the Seneca Nation of Indians as a responsibility of the United States and the 1794 Treaty at Canandaigua, known to the Senecas as the Pickering Treaty. One is from the 1980s and the other is from this year.
Our sovereignty is recognized in Article 3 of the Pickering Treaty. “Now, the United States acknowledge all the land within the aforementioned boundaries, to be the property of the Seneca Nation; and the United States will never claim the same, nor disturb the Seneca Nation, nor any of the Six Nations, or of their Indian friends residing there on, and united with them, in the free use and enjoyment thereof; but it shall remain theirs, until they choose to sell the same, to the people of the United States.”
Article 9 of the 1842 Buffalo Creek Compromise Treaty states:
The parties to this compact mutually agree to solicit the influence of the Government of the United States to protect such of the lands of the Seneca Indians, within the State of New York, as may from time to time remain in their possession from all taxes, and assessments for roads, highways, or any other purpose until such lands shall be sold and conveyed by the said Indians and the possession thereof shall have been relinquished by them. We thank the Seneca ancestors for their leadership and we thank our Hicksite Quakers and Whig Party allies of 1842. Daneho
References:
Hauptman, Laurence M.
Conspiracy of Interests: Iroquois Dispossession and the Rise of New York State. Syracuse, N.Y.; Syracuse University, 1985.
Jennings, Francis, Ed. The History and Culture of Iroquois Diplomacy: An Interdisciplinary Guide to the Treaties of the Six Nations and Their League. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University. 1985.
Mt. Pleasant, Alyssa. After the Whirlwind: Maintaining a Haudenosaunee Place at Buffalo Creek, 1780-1825. Disst. Cornell University, May 2007.
Seneca-Iroquois National Museum
https://www.senecamuseum.org/Educators/SenecaHistoryTimteline.aspx
