SENECA NATION Chronology for August – A Look Back in Our History
Seneca Nation Archives/Onöhsagwë:de’ Cultural Center – Allegany Territory
August 11, 1779 – Col. Daniel Brodhead leaves Ft. Pitt (now known as Pittsburgh, PA) heading up the Allegany River as part of the Sullivan invasion of Seneca territory, specifically, and Hodinöhsöni’ territory, in general. The invasion was ordered by George Washington. He wrote in a letter: “The expedition you are appointed to command is to be directed against the hostile tribes of the six nations of Indians, with their associates and adherents. The immediate objects are the total destruction and devastation of their settlements and the capture of as many prisoners of every age and sex as possible. It will be essential to ruin their crops now in the ground and prevent their planting more . . . whence parties should be detached to lay waste all the settlements around with instructions to do it in the most effectual manner, that the country may not be merely overrun but destroyed . . . .”
August 10, 1815 – Ganyödaiyo’ (Handsome Lake) passes and is buried at Onondaga. He established the Gaiwiyo:h (Good Message). He was born about 1735 in the town of Canawaugus along the Genesee River and his younger half-brother was Cornplanter.
August 31, 1964 – PL 88-533 AN ACT To authorize payment for certain interests to lands within the Allegany Indian Reservation in New York, required by the United States for the Allegheny River (Kinzua Dam) project, to provide for the relocation, rehabilitation, social and economic development of the members of the Seneca Nation, and for other purposes becomes law. Settlement in the amount of $15,000,053 was made to the Seneca Nation. The last section of the act called for the Seneca Nation to submit a plan for termination (withdrawal of Federal supervision) within three years of passage of this act.
Photo: Opening of the Haley Building in Jimersontown.
