Seneca (people)

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The Seneca within the five nations of the Iroquois, tribal area around 1650

The Seneca or Onondowahgah or Onödowá'ga: ' ("people of the great mountain") are the westernmost tribe of the Haudenosaunee ("people of the longhouse "), better known as the Iroquois League or Iroquois Confederation , an alliance of originally five (later six ) Tribes or nations of the Iraqi language family . In common parlance, these tribes are called the Iroquois . They are one of the indigenous groups of the Indians of North America .

The indigenous name in use today for the Iroquois League is derived from two phonetically similar but etymologically different words in the Seneca language: Hodínöhšö: ni: h ("people of the long house") or Hodínöhsö: ni: h ("long house builder "), the Mohawk, however, referred to the confederation in their language as Rotinonsionni ("people of the longhouse").

The indigenous names or designations for the individual tribes / nations are first given in the naming convention commonly used today, followed by the self-designation ( autonym ) if possible , then the Seneca designation (historically mostly the most common), then the Mohawk designation and finally the ceremonial council name (mostly borrowed from the Mohawk).

The nations of the Iroquois League included (from east to west):

  • Mohawk ( Kanien'kehá: ka / Kanien'kehake - "People from the Land of Flint ", Kanienkahagen; Council name: "Guardian / Guardian of the Eastern Gate")
  • Oneida ( Onyota'a: ka / Onyota'ake - "people of the (upright) standing stone", Onayotekaono or Oneniotehá: ka / Oneniote'á: ka; Council name: Latilutakówa (Onondaga) or Nihatironta'kó: wa (Mohawk) - "People of the big trees / tree trunks")
  • Onondaga ( Onoñda'gega '/ Onöñda'gaga' , Onundagaono or Ononta'kehá: ka - "people from the place on the hills, ie from Onondaga", council name: Gana'dagwëni: io'geh or Rotishennakéhte (Mohawk) or Kayečisnakwe 'nì · yu' (Tuscarora) - "keeper of the council fire")
  • Cayuga ( Gayogohó: no ' - "People of the Great Marshes", Guyohkohnyoh or Kanawakonhá: ka, Alternative Mohawk name: Kahoniokwenhá: ke - "People from the place where the boats are taken out of the water", Council name: Shotinennawen'tó : wane - "people / keepers of the great pipe")
  • Seneca ( Onondowahgah / Onödowá'ga: ' - "People from the great mountain", Tsonontowanehá: ka / Tsonontowane'á: ka - "People from Tsonontó: wane (the great mountain)", Alternative Mohawk name: Shotinontó: wane - " Your (inhabited) mountain is big ", council name: Rontehnhohanónhnha / Ratihnhohanónhnha or Ronatehnhóhonte / Rotihnhóhonte -" guardian / guardian of the western gate ") and from 1722
  • Tuscarora ( Ska-Ruh-Reh - "hemp collectors" or "shirt-wearing people", Thatihskarò: roks / Tehatiskaró: ros / Taskaroraha: ka / Taskarorahaka; had no right to vote in the council, were represented by the Oneida).

The territory of the Iroquois League was in what is now the central part of the US state of New York . The Mohawk's residential and hunting area was the largest within the Iroquois League and was furthest to the east; they were therefore called guardians of the eastern gate - the Seneca with about 4,000 tribesmen by far the largest tribe within the league were the westernmost nation and therefore the guardians of the western gate (since the Iroquois / Haudenosaunee compared their alliance with a longhouse).

The Iroquois League was first known to the French as Ligue des Iroquois and later as Confédération iroquoise ("Iroquois League ") or Ligue des Cinq-Nations and to the British as Five Nations ("Five Nations"); from 1722 with the entry of Tuscarora after the lost Tuscarora War as Ligue des Six Nations or Six Nations ("Six Nations"). Politically, the Seneca had the Haudenosaunee together with the Mohawk as so-called. "Older Brothers" (in the final decision-making in the Council (Grand Council) Elder Brothers ) and the Onondaga very big impact. Due to the central / central position of the tribal territory of the Onondaga, was their capital "Onondaga" at the same time the seat of the Grand Council (consisting of 50 selected communities chiefs , sachems and Hoyane ) of the Haudenosaunee and the Onondaga symbolically the "Keeper / guardians of the Council Fire" the Iroquois League; They were responsible for the preparation, organization and decision-making of the council meetings as well as the preservation of the wampums, which were used to document the council decisions. The chiefs were organized into three groups: the "older brothers" ( Older Brothers - 8 Seneca chiefs and 9 Mohawk chiefs), the "younger brothers" ( Younger Brothers , with 9 Oneida chiefs and 10 Cayuga chiefs) and the "keepers of the council fire" ( fire keepers , with 14 Onondaga chiefs), the Onondaga therefore had an outstanding and often decisive function. Today there are also 6 Tuscarora chiefs, previously the Tuscarora had no voting rights in the tribal council.

Today, around 10,000 Seneca live in the United States and Canada , most of them on reservations in western New York State , others in Oklahoma and near Brantford in Ontario, Canada.

Traditional tribal area

Their traditional tribal area was in western Upstate New York (the regions: Western New York, Southern Tiers and Finger Lakes) between the Genesee River and Canandaigua Lake in the east. Their area was very water-rich and crossed by rivers and lakes, in the east the Canandaigua Lake was drained via the Seneca River (which flows into Lake Ontario via the Oswego River ), the western four Finger Lakes - Honeoye Lake , Canadice Lake , Hemlock Lake and Conesus Lake - however, are connected to Lake Ontario via the Genesee River. Their hunting and roaming area was considerably larger, stretching to Lake Ontario in the north and the foothills of the Allegheny Mountains in the south and the Allegheny River in northwestern Pennsylvania . Large Seneca villages were protected with wooden palisades . Ganondagan was the largest 17th century Seneca village with 150 long houses, while Chenussio was a large 18th century village with 130 long houses.

The Iroquois were surrounded on all sides by hostile Algonquian-speaking and Sioux-speaking peoples / confederations, who were also able to obtain military support from Nieuw Nederland or New France . Several Iroquois-speaking confederations as well as smaller tribes (the Iroquois, the Algonquin and the Sioux) had also joined this loose alliance - mostly passively oriented towards defense .

The Haudenosaunee (under the leadership of the Mohawk) therefore decided to launch a pre- emptive strike in 1628 against the powerful Mahican Confederation along the Hudson River to break their monopoly on trade with the Dutch. After the military defeat of the Mahican and their retreat to the east side of the Hudson River, the Haudenosaunee were able to win the Dutch as allies and slowly gain the upper hand militarily by delivering weapons from the Dutch and later the British.

After the Iroquois League in the subsequent so-called Beaver Wars (1629 to 1701) - supported first by Nieuw Nederland and from 1667 by the British Crown - the other Iroquois-speaking confederations in the region that had refused to join the Haudenosaunee, including the The mighty Wendat / Hurons , which Tionontati / Petun , the neutrals , the Wenrohronon (easternmost tribe of the neutrals) and the warlike and combat-ready Erie (direct western neighbors of the Seneca) had subjected, the Seneca were able to expand their hunting area considerably to the west and south; the Iroquois League achieved political and military hegemony over the Ohio Country and southern Ontario as well as over the tributary and dependent tribes resident there ( Lenni Lenape , Shawnee , Wyandot, etc.). Seneca established a few smaller settlements on the Niagara River .

The Haudenosaunne (including the Seneca) were able to consolidate these militarily won territories as an ally of the British (officially since 1677 by means of the Covenant Chain ) during the French and Indian Wars (1688 to 1763) and maintain them until the American War of Independence .

Archaeological finds and historical documents indicate that there was a western and an eastern Seneca group in the seventeenth century, each of which inhabited a large village. These two groups already existed when the Iroquois League was founded. The names of the two group chiefs ranked first and second on the League's list of chiefs. The closely spaced villages were a few miles north of Hemlock Lake . Like all Iroquois, the Seneca moved into a new village every ten to twenty years when the surrounding land was exhausted. During their numerous moves, the western Seneca followed Spring Brook north to its confluence with Honeoye Creek , while the eastern Seneca moved northeast along Honeoye Creek, then east into the valleys of Mud Creek, Fish Creek and Great Turn Brook.

When the Jesuits set up some missions in the villages in the second half of the seventeenth century , they were in the northern region of the tribal area. The first documented visit was made by Pierre Joseph Marie Chaumonot in 1756. He reported two large villages and a number of smaller settlements. The village of Gandagan was the main village of the eastern Seneca. He described a second village that was inhabited exclusively by adopted Hurons. These Hurons came from the village of Scanonaenrat and belonged to the tribe of the "Atahontaenrat / Deer People", in which the Jesuits once established the Saint Michel Mission . At that time, there were supposedly adopted prisoners from eleven foreign tribes living with the Seneca.

In 1668 the Jesuits established the first permanent mission among the Seneca. According to their reports, the Seneca at the time had two large villages with over 100 houses each and two smaller villages with 20 to 30 houses. The Jesuits established a mission in three villages around 1670. The main village of western Seneca was called Gandachioragon around 1670 , but was renamed Tiotohattan in 1677 and Totiakton in 1687 , apparently after a change of location. The main village of Gandagan in eastern Seneca was called Galinèe after a move in 1669 and was surrounded by palisades . After the final victory over the Susquehannock in 1675, the palisades were dismantled because they were no longer needed.

Culture in the seventeenth century

history

Fur trade and beaver wars

Robert Cavelier de La Salle.

Since the formation of the Iroquois League around 1450, the Seneca have been referred to as the guardians of the western door . This was to illustrate that with their tribal area in the west they were supposed to protect the other tribes of the League from enemy incursions from that direction. The Iroquois League was symbolically compared to a longhouse . Accordingly, the Mohawk were the guardians of the eastern door . The Seneca were by far the most populous tribe within the Five Nations .

In the seventeenth century there was a growing need for European goods exchanged for furs. As the westernmost of the five tribes of the Iroquois League, the Seneca were furthest from the Dutch traders in Albany and the French on the Saint Lawrence River . Their tribal area, however, was close to the rich occurrences of beavers in the west. With the growing need for beaver pelts, the beaver population shrank rapidly, and the Seneca sought to expand their hunting grounds further west. The Wenro's decision to leave their country and ally with the Hurons and Neutral was probably related to the expansion of the Seneca. By 1630 the Hurons, with the help of the French, had protected the neighboring northern tribes against the Iroquois aggressors. In the 1640s, the Seneca and other tribes of the League began their war of annihilation against the Hurons. In 1649, an estimated 1,000 Seneca and Mohawk warriors destroyed the Huron villages of Saint Ignace and Saint Louis . Next, the Iroquois turned against the allies of the Hurons and destroyed the Petun in the winter of 1649/50. The Neutral suffered the same fate the following year.

In the meantime, some of the Iroquois had decided to negotiate a peace treaty with the French and therefore sent a delegation to Montreal in 1653 . The Seneca were not involved but supported the effort. The following year, a council meeting was held in Onondaga with the participation of Father Simon Le Moyne , in which a peace treaty was expressly approved. In 1656 the Jesuits established the Sainte Marie Mission in Onondaga and Father Chaumonot visited the Seneca. In 1658, however, new hostilities forced the Jesuits to leave the new mission. It was not until 1668 that they made a new attempt to proselytize the Seneca.

As a result of the Seneca war against the Erie, a new conflict developed with the French. At the same time, the Seneca waged war against the Susquehannock in the south. These attacked the Seneca fur traders on their long way to Albany, who subsequently had to be protected by accompanying warriors. Because of this, the Seneca were forced to keep peace with the French. They also needed French rifles and ammunition. The Mohawk were suspicious of these efforts by the Seneca, because they controlled the trade of the western tribes with Albany and collected a kind of customs. In 1668, Father Jacques Frémin appeared with the Seneca to establish a mission. In the same year Robert Cavelier de La Salle also visited the Seneca with a small group. He was looking for boy scouts to show him the way to the Ohio River . The French took advantage of the current peace with the Iroquois to explore the area to the west and set up trading posts on the Upper Great Lakes.

In 1675 the long war against the Susquehannock ended with their crushing defeat. This freed up the forces of the Seneca to begin the next war against the tribes allied with the French in the north. They even accepted a new conflict with the French. In 1679 the Seneca La Salle allowed a fortified trading post to be established in Niagara. La Salle had recognized that from Niagara the trade route between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario could be controlled. The peace still held between the French and the Seneca, who were suspicious of French trade with the western tribes.

In 1680 there was a war against the Illinois and their allies, in which the French also intervened. In 1684 Joseph-Antoine Le Fèbvre de la Barre undertook a campaign against the Seneca. By the time he reached Fort Frontenac , much of his army was sick. At a meeting with Seneca leaders at the mouth of the Salmon River, Barre and the Iroquois agreed to withdraw without a fight. Governor La Barre's successor, Jacques René de Brisay, Marquis de Denonville , led a second army against the Seneca in 1687. The Seneca raided the advancing French soldiers on July 13 before Denonville's army reached their main village. Given that they were outnumbered, the Seneca then withdrew and burned their own village. The French destroyed the Indian maize supplies and set out on their way back without following the Seneca who had fled. Denonville had a fort built in Niagara. In the years that followed, the Seneca and other tribes of the Iroquois League carried out numerous raids on the St. Lawrence River. The French undertook two more punitive expeditions, the first against the Mohawk in 1693 and the second against the Onondaga and Oneida in 1696. It was not until 1701 that a peace treaty was concluded between the Iroquois League and the French and the English.

Colonial Wars and American Revolutionary War

Pontiac uprising, map of the fighting
Seneca chief Cornplanter , portrait by F. Bartoli, 1796

The peace treaty concluded in 1701 with the French and English lasted half a century. This gave the Iroquois a free hand to relocate their war campaigns against tribes in the south and west and to control the local trade in beaver furs for European goods. In addition, they tried to pit the two European colonial powers against each other and even to influence trade throughout the continent.

After the destruction of their villages by Denonville's troops, the Seneca left the region. The Eastern Seneca moved eastward and established a village on Lower Canandaigua Lake and their main village on Seneca Lake . The western Seneca moved west and settled on the fertile banks of the middle Genesee River. From there they moved to the Allegheny River and downstream to Ohio. Since they no longer had to fear attacks, their villages were no longer surrounded by palisades, but the houses were widely scattered along the river.

The Jesuits returned, but their initial missionary successes were short-lived. The French interpreter and trader Louis-Thomas Chabert de Joncaire , who was a Seneca captive in his youth, attracted more attention . After the King William's War (1689–1697) he built a trading post in Niagara to develop the fur trade from there. During the colonial wars with Great Britain in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, the French began building a series of fortifications designed to keep the British out of the Great Lakes area . In this context they built Fort Niagara in 1726 with the permission of the Seneca , which was supposed to monitor the passage between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario.

The influence of the French was particularly strong on the western Seneca, which were also called Chenussios . During the French and Indian War they continued to be pro-French, while the eastern Seneca were pro-English and in 1756 allowed Sir William Johnson to build a fort near their village of Canadasaga on Seneca Lake. The western Seneca continued to side with France and supported Pontiac's 1763 uprising against Great Britain. They conquered Fort Venango, Fort Le Boeuf and, together with other tribes, Fort Presque Isle . But Pontiac's rebellion failed and after the peace treaty the Seneca had to cede their land on the Niagara River to the British as a condition.

When the American War of Independence broke out in 1776, the Seneca tried to remain neutral, as did the other tribes of the Iroquois League. A year later, the British were able to convince the majority of Seneca to fight on their side. The first skirmish involving Seneca warriors was one of the bloodiest of the entire war. Fort Stanwix was besieged by the English when a relief force under the American General Nicholas Herkimer advanced to break the siege ring. In a ravine by Orkany Creek , an Indian force assaulted Herkimer's men. In this battle there were heavy casualties on both sides and the Americans finally fled. Even so, the British could not conquer Fort Stanwix.

In 1778 Seneca warriors took part in the battles of Wyoming and Cherry Valley. Part of the British strategy was also to weaken the front region economically through numerous actions by the Indians. General George Washington sent a punitive expedition to the Iroquois Country to end the ongoing looting and raids by the Seneca and other Iroquois allies of England. First there was an attack by the Americans under Colonel Goose Van Schaik on several Onondaga villages. An expeditionary army under General James Clinton moved from Canajoharie down the Susquehanna River to Tioga . There the army joined forces with General John Sullivan's troops who had come up the Susquehanna River from Easton. From Tioga, the united troops marched up the banks of the Chemung River and met British rangers and Indians at Newton, who were able to drive them to flight. They next attacked Canadasaga on the east bank of Seneca Lake and destroyed the Seneca village, as well as the villages of Canandaigua and Honeoye . On the Genesee River, the Americans also burned down the villages there, including Genesee Castle with nearly 130 houses. On the march back over the same route, they commissioned two departments to destroy the Cayuga villages and a Mohawk village. At the same time, American troops under Colonel Daniel Brodhead marched up the Allegheny River from Fort Pitt to destroy all Seneca villages they could find there.

After the Battle of Newton, the Indians no longer resisted Sullivan's advance, but left their villages. Sullivan's army burned their villages and destroyed their winter supplies. They burned beans, pumpkins, potatoes, watermelons, and cucumbers, as well as a large amount of corn. In the gardens they felled apple, peach and other fruit trees and destroyed the corn fields. Numerous Iroquois fled to Niagara, where they spent the winter of 1779/1780, one of the toughest in living memory. In the spring, however, they carried out new raids and took part in an expedition against American settlements in the Mohawk Valley. Until the end of the war, no settlement in the region was safe from Iroquois attacks.

Moving to reservations

Seneca War Chief Red Jacket, lithograph by Henry Corbould after a painting by CB King

In the Peace Treaty of Paris in 1783, which ended the war between Great Britain and the American Colonies, the affairs of the Indians were not regulated. As a result, they had to negotiate with both powers where to live in the future. Some of the Indians opted for Canada, including 78 Seneca who moved to the Grand River in Ontario with Iroquois from other tribes in 1784. Their descendants still live in the reservation there with the Six Nations of the Grand River . In the same year, representatives of the Six Nations met with US officials in Fort Stanwix to negotiate a peace treaty and clarify land claims. The Iroquois contracted their land in western New York and Pennsylvania to the United States. There were, however, opponents of this decision: some chiefs could not take part in the negotiations due to illness and a second group, who had little choice but to sign the contract. The contract was finally confirmed in Fort Hamar in 1789 . However, Seneca's dissatisfaction with the contract grew and there were numerous attempts to improve the negotiated terms. In the negotiations with the Americans, the Iroquois were by no means without a chance. In the Ohio area there was fierce fighting between the local tribes and the US Army at that time and the United States feared an intervention by the Seneca warriors. In 1794 there was another meeting of a US delegation under Timothy Pickering and a number of Iroquois tribal representatives in Canandaigua . In the wake of General Anthony Wayne's victory at the Battle of Fallen Timbers , a new treaty was signed that confirmed the reservations for the Oneida, Onondaga and Cayuga, and defined the boundaries of the Seneca areas.

In 1796 Pennsylvania gave the Seneca chief Cornplanter a piece of land measuring 2.56 km² on both sides of the Alleghany River. This land donation was made in view of his services to the whites. During the Indian Wars in Ohio and Indiana , Cornplanter managed to convince the Seneca to remain neutral. He also tried to negotiate with the Shawnee on behalf of the US government . In grateful recognition of his help, Cornplanter and his descendants were given an area along the Allegheny River in Pennsylvania "forever". In the 1790s, there were between 1700 and 1800 Seneca in New York. Around a third of them lived in the Genesee River valley , another third in Buffalo Creek and the rest in Allegany , Cattaraugus and Tonawanda .

In the Big Tree Treaty of 1797, the Seneca and the United States negotiated that the rest of the land west of the Genesee River could be opened for settlement. The Seneca received ten reserves, regular annual payments, and hunting and fishing rights in western New York.

Christian missions and schools

The French missionaries tried in vain to convert the Seneca to Christianity in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The Protestant missionary Samuel Kirkland , who lived with the Seneca from 1764–1765, was also unsuccessful. He gave up his efforts and instead established a mission with the Oneida. The Quakers were somewhat more successful towards the end of the eighteenth century. They began their missionary work in 1798 to teach the Seneca the "art of civilization". They were first active in Genesinguhta and from 1803 in Tunessassa near the Allegany Reservation. In the early years of the nineteenth century, the New York Missionary Society attempted to establish a mission and school in Buffalo Creek, but unsuccessfully. It was not until the 1820s that schools and churches were able to establish themselves in the Seneca reservations. In 1820 a permanent school was built by the Mission Society in Buffalo Creek. Shortly thereafter, a missionary came to Buffalo Creek and had a church built in 1823. Although neither the teacher nor the missionary were allowed to live on the reservation, both institutions remained on the reservation until 1846. That year the reservation land was sold and the residents moved to Cattaraugus. In late 1821, both the Society of Friends and the United Foreign Missionary Society expressed their interest in building a school on the Tonawanda Reservation. A little later, however, the Seneca who lived there decided to have the school run by Baptists. In 1822 the United Foreign Missionary Society sent a teacher to Cattaraugus to lead the school there. There was a church in Cattaraugus since 1827 and in Allegany since 1830.

It was the intention of the mission societies not only to impart the Christian religion and to convert the Indians to Christianity, but also to teach the "art of civilization". For them, Christianity and civilization were inextricably linked. They viewed Christianity not only as a particular religion, but also as the only correct path to the white way of life . The boys had lessons in agricultural skills and the girls in homework, in addition to English, reading, writing and arithmetic. In the first schools there was only one teacher. Boarding schools were set up as soon as possible, led by a so-called mission family. This usually consisted of the missionary as boarding school director, his wife and several teachers. In general, however, day schools were considered more successful than boarding schools.

The missionaries of the Baptists and Presbyterians in the reservations of Buffalo Creek, Cattaraugus and Tonawanda by no means neglected the religious interests, but rather formed a congregation from the converted Seneca as soon as possible . This usually consisted of the mission family, some school children and adult reservation residents. The Quakers did not form comparable parishes, but instead placed the emphasis on the integration of the Indians and corresponding instructions for the way of life of the whites.

Whites with business relationships with Indians needed interpreters, as did the missionaries and teachers in the mission schools. This enabled Asher Wright , parts of the Bible and some hymns to translate into Senecasprache and spread among the missionaries and Seneca. He also set up a printing press and published a bilingual newspaper in Seneca and English, "The Mental Elevator". Wright went to Buffalo Creek Reservation as a missionary in 1831, where he lived with the Seneca for the next 15 years. When the reserve was sold, he moved to Cattaraugus with his wife and spent the rest of his life there.

Handsome Lake

At the end of the eighteenth century, a new religious movement developed among the Iroquois that was later called the New Religion of Handsome Lake, or the Longhouse Religion for short . Handsome Lake was a Seneca chief, was born in Canawaugas on the Genesee River in 1735 and lived on the estate of his half-brother Cornplanter on the Allegheny River. There he had the first of a series of visions in 1799 . In this and the following visions, messengers of the Creator appeared to announce to him what the Creator expected of the Iroquois people. Handsome Lake immediately formulated a religious doctrine from this, which he spread among the Iroquois. His new religion fell on fertile ground, especially among the Seneca, Onondaga and Cayuga. First he preached on his half-brother's estate until a dispute with Cornplanter in 1803 forced him to move with his followers to Coldspring on the Allegany Reservation. There, as well as later in Tonawanda, he continued his attempts at conversion. He died in 1815 while visiting Onondaga.

Sale of the tribal land

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the Seneca were increasingly pressured to sell their remaining land and move west. In 1826, Buffalo Creek signed the first contract in which the Seneca sold much of their remaining tribal land. This included the entire area on the Genesee River, as well as large parts of Buffalo Creek, Tonawanda and the Cattaraugus Reserves. Around 1826 there were around 550 people living in Buffalo Creek, 350 in Cattaraugus, 500 in Allegany and 325 in Tonawanda. The approximately 450 Seneca from the Genesee River were distributed over the next few years to the other reserves. The sell-off continued. In 1838, the Ogden Land Company bought the remainder of the tribal land on the four reservations with the Buffalo Creek Second Contract . As it turned out later, the Seneca had been betrayed. The land, valued at around $ 2 million, changed hands for just $ 200,000. The Seneca had around 90 chiefs at the time, but only 43 of them had signed the contract of sale. At least 16 of them had been bribed, while others testified that their signature had been forged. The Seneca should move to Kansas .

A small number of chiefs wanted to agree to the treaty, while the vast majority of the tribe opposed it. With the support of the Society of Friends and other influential whites, the 1838 treaty was finally declared invalid. In 1842, as a compromise, a third treaty was signed in which the Seneca renounced the Buffalo Creek and Tonawanda Reserves while retaining the remaining Cattaraugus and Allegany Reserves. In 1845 there were a total of around 2,280 Seneca on the reservations in New York State, including 400 in Buffalo Creek, 710 in Cattaraugus, 670 in Allegany, and 500 in Tonawanda. The residents of Buffalo Creek and Tonawanda were to move to the other two reservations.

However, some Seneca decided to move west in 1846 and moved to Kansas, along with Iroquois from other tribes. There some of them got sick and died. Almost all of the survivors returned the following year. A subsequent census found that of the 66 Seneca emigrants, 26 had died while 2 remained in the west and 38 had returned.

Revolution in the Seneca Nation

In 1848 the Seneca, who lived in Cattaraugus and Allegany, petitioned the federal government to change the mode of pension payments. So far, the amounts have been distributed by the chiefs after they have diverted a portion for the tribal government. The new method provided for pensions to be paid directly to the heads of families. The chiefs were strictly against it, and a new dispute arose.

On December 4, 1848 a congress met in Cattaraugus and abolished the chief government in Allegany and Cattaraugus. Congress approved a constitution that established an annually elected tribal council. This consisted of 18 members and an executive branch consisting of the president, treasurer and clerk. The institution of an official peacemaker introduced by the chiefs was retained. The Tonawanda Band of Seneca Indians arose from the residents of Tonawanda and the Seneca Nation from the residents of Allegany and Cattaraugus. The Old Chiefs Party opposed the new government, although Washington recognized it. After the old chiefs realized the pointlessness of their struggle against the new constitution, they gave up their resistance and took part in the elections as a political party.

Buyback of the Tonawanda Reserve

In the 1840s and 1850s, the Tonawanda Seneca looked for ways to reclaim their reservation, which had been sold along with the large Buffalo Creek reservation around 1842. A fifteen year campaign to reclaim the reservation began under the leadership of Chief John Blacksmith and a grandson of Handsome Lake, Jimmy Johnson . After years of litigation the case reached the Supreme Court of the United States (United States Supreme Court), whose decision the Senate of the United States requesting it to take care of the case. In 1857 the fourth contract was finally signed, which enabled the Seneca to buy back approximately 30.5 km² (7,549 acres) of the Tonawanda reservation with the money that had been made available for the move to Kansas. The Tonawanda Seneca did not take part in the revolution of 1848, as a result of which the leadership of the reservations of Cattaraugus and Allegany was transferred from hereditary chiefs to tribal councils. After the reserve was bought back, they also changed their form of government and set up an elected tribal council, but in contrast to the other reserves they also retained a council of hereditary chiefs. In the 1970s, this council consisted of 16 hereditary chiefs, traditionally chosen by the clan mother in consultation with other women of the clan .

Lease of tribal land in the Allegany Reserve

Since the compromise treaty of 1842, no more tribal land has been sold to the whites, but leased. The first railway line ran through the Allegany Reserve on leased land in the 1830s. On both sides of the tracks, villages arose that were also built on leased land. The leasing was carried out either by individual Seneca or the Seneca National Council (Seneca National Council). However, these leases were illegal and not approved by the US Congress . A law passed by Congress in 1875 authorized six villages on the reserve area that white residents can lease a total of around 40 km² of land for five years. The villages are called Salamanca, Carrollton, West Salamanca, Vandalia, Great Valley and Red House . The term of the leases was extended to 12 years in 1880 and to 99 years in 1892.

Reserve life at the end of the nineteenth century

Pretty Flower, young Seneca woman, 1908.

In the first half of the nineteenth century, the focus of livelihood shifted from hunting, fishing, and gardening to agriculture and wage labor . At the end of the century, there were fewer farms and farm workers among the Seneca, like their white neighbors. The number of ranchers, especially sheep, had also decreased. Nonetheless, farm work was still widespread among the Seneca, but production was often only for their own use. In some cases, the lack of equity prevented a major investment in agriculture. As a result, Native American owners leased substantial parts of their land to white farmers and this trend continued into the twentieth century. The Seneca became increasingly dependent on wage labor.

The majority of Seneca learned the English language and attended schools. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, few Seneca knew English, so most of them needed the help of two interpreters in their dealings with whites. Horatio Jones and Jasper Parrish were once prisoners of the Seneca and had learned their language there. The mission schools were replaced by district schools from 1846. In 1890 there were 10 district schools in the Cattaraugus reservation, six in Allegany and three in Tonawanda. Each of the schools was run by a teacher, and in some cases it was Seneca with normal schooling. At the end of the century, some children were attending boarding schools outside the reservation, such as the Hampton Institute or the Carlisle Indian School . Others attended the Thomas Indian School , a boarding school established on the Cattaraugus reservation in 1855.

Of the around 3,000 Seneca living in the three New York reservations around 1890, over two thirds could speak English and about 930 could also write. At this time, 2,664 Seneca lived in the three reservations, 1,355 of them in Cattaraugus, 792 in Allegany and 517 in Tonawanda. There were 87 Seneca on Cornplanters Land in Pennsylvania, 183 in the Six Nations Reserve in Canada, and a few in the other Iroquois reservations in New York State. In the second half of the nineteenth century, the number of churches in all three reservations increased. By 1890 there were Presbyterian , Baptist, and Methodist churches in Cattaraugus and Tonawanda. Allegany had Presbyterian and Baptist churches, and Cornplanter's territory had a Presbyterian church. Fewer than 400 were communicants among the total Native American population in the three reservations .

The longhouse religion

Mask of false faces, Ethnological Museum in Berlin

The Longhouse Religion - actually Gai'wiio (The Good News) - was a religious movement founded by Handsome Lake in 1799. In the course of an alcohol delirium , he had a vision : Four angels came as messengers of the “Great Spirit” (an equation of the Christian God with the Iroquois life force Orenda ) and brought him the new teaching of the “Good News”. It is based on a syncretic mixture of traditional cults and Christianity . Many Iroquois, torn between the two cultures, gratefully accepted the new religion.

The creed is heavily influenced by Quakerism . The original world of spirits and gods was integrated into a world view with a personal creator god, the devil, heaven, hell and supreme judgment: the old gods were reinterpreted as the most important angels and Jesus identified with a local mythological figure. Handsome Lake's teaching touched many areas of life for the Indians: He admonished them not to drink alcohol, to stop believing in sorcery , to end abortion and adultery, and to treat children and the elderly well. It also included the call to switch from traditional shifting agriculture to agriculture and livestock. Handsome Lake declared the traditional longhouses, in which large families of twenty or more people lived, to be "churches" (hence the name "longhouse religion").

The religious cult was based on the traditional rituals, which Handsome Lake reduced to the four sacred ceremonies of Feather Dance, Thanksgiving Dance, Personal Chant (personal mantra) and Bowl Game (bowl game). In addition, he forbade those medicine union ceremonies that took place at night. After his death, the teaching became known as The Code of Handsome Lake and his sermons became an annual religious event. The Tonawanda Seneca received the title of Keepers of the New Religion, and each year the Tonawanda Longhouse sent out invitations to the remaining longhouses to come to Tonawanda to hear Handsome Lakes sermons. The sermons were finally given every two years, one year in the Coldspring Longhouse in the Allegany Reservation and the other year in the Cattaraugus Reservation.

The number of followers of the longhouse religion grew steadily in a short time and spread from the Seneca to most of the other of the Six Nations, so that around 20 to 25 percent of the Iroquois accepted it in the mid-19th century. After a substantial decline in the 1960s, it came in the wake of the growing strength of political Akwesasne to a revitalization so again today 20 to 25 percent are accepted. Nevertheless, the number of long houses fell sharply at the beginning of the twentieth century. So there were only three of them left with the Seneca in New York: The Tonawanda Longhouse in the Tonawanda Reservation, the Newton Longhouse in the Cattaraugus Reservation and the Coldspring Longhouse in the Allegany Reservation. All three were no longer inhabited, but still serve as churches of the nave religion to this day. This is where the Code of Handsome Lake sermons and the annual ceremonial cycle take place. This includes the Midwinter Ceremony , which begins on the fourth night after the January new moon . This is followed by the Maple Ceremony (maple ceremony) and the Planting (planting), Strawberry (strawberry), Green Bean (green bean), Green Corn (green corn) and Harvest Ceremony (harvesting ceremony). The Sun (Sun), Moon (Moon) and Thunder Ceremony (thunder ceremony) only takes place occasionally .

The traditional Iroquois medicine associations have their own rituals. Some of them are performed as part of the midwinter ceremony , others to heal the sick. The medicine associations include the Society of Medicine Men ( Association of Medicine Men ), the Little Water Society ( Small Water Association ), the Pygmy Society ( Dwarf Association ), the False Face Society ( Association of False Faces ), the Husk Face Society ( Bund of corn straw faces ) and the Bear ( bear ), Buffalo ( buffalo ), eagle ( eagle ) and otter bundle .

The Kinzua Dam

See main article: Kinzua Dam

There were some notable political reforms in the 1950s and 1960s. The previous practice of using different colored ballot papers for each party was changed and the usual buying of votes was prevented. Women were given the right to vote in 1964 and could be elected to office from 1966. These political reforms came in the face of an unprecedented disaster. The United States government had the United States Corps of Engineers work out a plan to build a dam to control the Allegheny River in Kinzua , Pennsylvania. The reservoir created behind the dam would flood a third of the Allegany reserve. All attempts by Seneca to judge the construction of the dam failed. Arthur E. Morgan developed an alternative plan, calling the Corps of Engineers plan an "example of extreme incompetence and inappropriateness". President John F. Kennedy also looked into the case, but decided to build the dam, which was built from 1960 to 1965.

With the support of the Quakers, the Seneca Nation fought for compensation. After a long and disappointing legal battle, the Seneca received a total of $ 15,000,573 for lost lands and homes. The most important project consisted in the resettlement of around one hundred Seneca families in the two new villages of Jimersontown and Steamburg . On June 12, 1965, the nave fire, accompanied by a ceremony, was brought from Coldspring to Steamburg. The construction of several public buildings in Cattaraugus County and the Allegany Reservation , including a high school, also counted towards compensation. The Southern Tier Expressway cuts through Allegany and the New York Thruway touches northwest of Cattaraugus. In the 1970s, unemployment was widespread in the Seneca reservations, but was nowhere near as much of a problem as it was in many other North American reservations.

The presence

Around 7,800 members of the Seneca Nation of New York now live in the US state of New York. These registered members reside on the five reservations Allegany near Salamanca , Cattaraugus near Gowanda , Buffalo Creek near Buffalo , Niagara Falls near Niagara Falls and Oil Springs near Cuba . The three latter reservations are small in size and have few tribal members and are mainly used to run casinos and own businesses. The Seneca Nation has been democratically organized since 1848.

The Tonawanda Band of Seneca Indians lives on the Tonawanda Reservation near Akron , New York, and has about 700 people. The group split off from the rest of Seneca after the Treaty of Buffalo Creek in 1838 and is ruled to this day by Sachem s, the traditional clan mothers . It consists of eight tribes (as of 2012).

Other Seneca are organized in the Seneca- Cayuga Nation in Oklahoma . In 2020 it had over 5,000 registered members.

Some Seneca are organized with other Iroquois groups in the Six Nations of the Grand River in Canada . The associated Six Nations reservation is located near Brantford in Ontario. The Konadaha Seneca and Niharondasa Seneca are among the First Nations recognized in Canada .

Nearly a third of all registered Seneca tribesmen live outside the reservations, and according to the mailing list, Seneca members are in all 50 states.

Seneca personalities

See also

literature

  • Laurence M. Hauptman: In the Shadow of Kinzua: The Seneca Nation of Indians since World War II. Syracuse University Press, Syracuse 2014, ISBN 978-0-8156-5238-0 .
  • Bruce G. Trigger (Ed.): Handbook of North American Indians . Vol. 15: Northeast. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington DC 1978. ISBN 0-16004-575-4 .
  • Anthony FC Wallace: The Death and Rebirth of the Seneca , New York: Alfred A. Knopf 1970.

Web links

Commons : People of the Seneca  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ In the historical specialist literature and to this day the names for the Iroquois League, whose tribes and institutions are borrowed from the Seneca language (the largest tribe within the league at the time) - today these are supplemented or replaced by the Mohawk language, as this is currently the most widely spoken language of the Iroquois League (Onkwehonwehneha).
  2. ^ Haudenosaunee Confederacy - The League of Nations
  3. ↑ Kanienkeha - An open source endangered language initiative
  4. ↑ Kahnawà: ke Branch of the Mohawk Nation
  5. ↑ According to today's Haudenosaunee, however, the Mohawk council name most often given as "guardian / guardian of the eastern gate" is a frequent misunderstanding on the part of Europeans and can be traced back to their interpretation that the Mohawk as the easternmost nation as the "guardian of the eastern door within the Confederation "were known; however, this name was never officially used among the Haudenosaunee, but only used and spread by the Europeans.
  6. ↑ a b c d Bruce G. Trigger (Ed.): Handbook of North American Indians . Vol. 15: Northeast, pp. 505/506
  7. ↑ a b c d e Bruce G. Trigger (Ed.): Handbook of North American Indians . Vol. 15: Northeast, pp. 506/507
  8. ↑ a b c d e f g Bruce G. Trigger (Ed.): Handbook of North American Indians . Vol. 15: Northeast, pp. 507/508
  9. ↑ a b c Bruce G. Trigger (Ed.): Handbook of North American Indians . Vol. 15: Northeast, pp. 508/509
  10. ↑ a b c d Bruce G. Trigger (Ed.): Handbook of North American Indians . Vol. 15: Northeast, pp. 509/510
  11. ↑ a b Bruce G. Trigger (Ed.): Handbook of North American Indians . Vol. 15: Northeast, pp. 510/511
  12. ↑ a b c d e f Bruce G. Trigger (Ed.): Handbook of North American Indians . Vol. 15: Northeast, pp. 511/512
  13. ↑ a b c d Bruce G. Trigger (Ed.): Handbook of North American Indians . Vol. 15: Northeast, pp. 513/514
  14. ↑ a b c Handsome Lake cult . In: Encyclopædia Britannica online, accessed December 26, 2015.
  15. ↑ Christian F. Feest : Animated Worlds - The religions of the Indians of North America. In: Small Library of Religions , Vol. 9, Herder, Freiburg / Basel / Vienna 1998, ISBN 3-451-23849-7 . Pp. 195-196.
  16. ^ Jordan D. Paper: Native North American Religious Traditions: Dancing for Life. Greenwood Publishing Group, Westport (USA) 2007, ISBN 0-275-99097-4 . Pp. 64, 91-92.
  17. ^ Nancy Bonvillain: The Mohawk. Chelsea House Publishing, Philadelphia (USA) 2005, ISBN 0-7910-7991-0 . P. 73.
  18. ↑ a b Bruce G. Trigger (Ed.): Handbook of North American Indians . Vol. 15: Northeast, pp. 514/515
  19. ↑ a b Bruce G. Trigger (Ed.): Handbook of North American Indians . Vol. 15: Northeast, p. 515
  20. ^ Territories. In: Seneca Nation of Indians. Retrieved June 23, 2020 (English).
  21. ^ Government. In: Seneca Nation of Indians. Retrieved June 23, 2020 (English).
  22. ^ Tonawanda Seneca Nation, Genesee County, NY. In: Waymarking.com. Retrieved June 23, 2020 (English).
  23. ^ Tonawanda Band of Seneca. In: Native-Americans.com. July 10, 2012, accessed June 23, 2020 (American English).
  24. ↑ Seneca-Cayuga Nation (Ed.): 2020 Annual Program Reports . June 6, 2020, p. 6 (English, sctribe.com [PDF; accessed June 23, 2020]).