Seneca Nation – Legends of America
Alright, let’s dive into the story of the Seneca Nation, a fascinating group of people with a rich history. These guys were the big dogs of the Iroquois Confederacy, and they’ve got a tale to tell that stretches back centuries.
Who Were the Seneca?
So, picture this: way back when, the Seneca were hanging out south of Lake Ontario, one of the Great Lakes. They were the largest of the six Native American nations that made up the Iroquois Confederacy. Before the American Revolution, they were the westernmost tribe in New York, earning them the cool title of "The Keepers of the Western Door."
In their own language, they’re known as O-non-dowa-gah, which means "Great Hill People." And get this, their democratic government was around even before the United States Constitution! Talk about being ahead of the curve.
Now, here’s where it gets a little complicated. There were basically two Seneca groups: the Northeastern Seneca from New York and the Seneca from Ohio. The New York Seneca joined the Iroquois Nation, while the Ohio Seneca teamed up with the Algonquian Nation to fight against the Iroquois. The Ohio Seneca, also called the Mingo Indians, might have moved to Ohio to avoid getting bossed around by the New York Seneca.
The name "Seneca" itself is a bit of a linguistic journey. It’s an Anglicized version of how the Dutch pronounced a Mohegan word that originally referred to a bunch of tribes, including the Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and, of course, the Seneca.
The Iroquois Confederacy: A Powerful Alliance
When the Iroquois Confederacy was formed, it brought together the Seneca, Onondaga, Oneida, Cayuga, and Mohawk. These five nations controlled a huge chunk of land in the Northeast United States and Southeast Canada. Some folks think the Seneca joined the Iroquois around 1142 AD, based on an old story about a solar eclipse. By the 17th century, the Seneca were the most populous of the Iroquois, with about 4,000 people.
Historically, the Seneca lived in the Finger Lakes area of central New York and the Genesee Valley in Western New York. But it turns out their territory might have stretched all the way to the Allegheny River in Pennsylvania, especially after they took out the Wenrohronon and Erie Nations in the 17th century.
Life in Seneca Villages
The Seneca lived in villages and towns that were protected by wooden walls called palisades. They were famous for their longhouses, which were like giant apartments – up to 100 feet long and 20 feet wide! These houses were home to related families, sometimes as many as 60 people. Each pair of families shared a hearth in the middle of the house.
Now, here’s a fun fact: these towns didn’t stay in one place forever. Every 10 to 20 years, they’d pack up and move to a new location as the soil, animals, and other resources ran low.
In the 1800s, things started to change. Many Seneca people began adopting the customs of their American neighbors, building log cabins, practicing Christianity, and getting involved in farming.
Family Matters: Clans and Clan Mothers
The Iroquois had a matrilineal system, which means that inheritance and property were passed down through the mother’s side of the family. The most important social unit was the clan, which was made up of people descended from a single woman. Kids were born into their mother’s clan and got their social status from her family. The mother’s oldest brother was often more important than the biological father, who didn’t belong to the same clan. The head of each clan was a woman called the "clan mother."
Seneca women were the farmers of the community. They grew corn, beans, and squash, and they also gathered medicinal plants, roots, berries, nuts, and fruit. They even raised animals like dogs and turkeys.
Seneca men were in charge of finding good spots for towns and clearing forests to make fields. They also spent a lot of time hunting and fishing, often traveling away from the villages for these activities. And let’s not forget, they were fierce warriors! Seneca men held the title of war sachems, gathering the warriors and leading them into battle for the Iroquois Confederacy.
The Seneca and the Europeans
When Europeans showed up, the Iroquois became known to the French as the Iroquois League and later the Iroquois Confederacy. The English called them the Five Nations. After 1722, they welcomed the Tuscarora people from the Southeast into their group, and they became known as the Six Nations.
The Seneca nation had two main branches: the western and the eastern. The western Seneca lived around the Genesee River, gradually moving west along Lake Erie and the Niagara River, and then south along the Allegheny River into Pennsylvania. The eastern Seneca lived south of Seneca Lake and moved south and east into Pennsylvania and the western Catskill area.
Life wasn’t always easy. The Seneca were constantly under attack from the Huron to the south and the Susquehannock to the southeast. The Algonquian tribes of the Mohican blocked their access to the Hudson River in the east, and the Lenape people threatened them from eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and the Lower Hudson River.
Seneca men, like other Iroquois, wore hats with dried corn husks and a single feather sticking up.
War and Peace
In 1622, the Montagnais, Algonquin, and Huron wanted to make peace with the Iroquois because they were tired of fighting. They made a truce in 1624, but the Algonquin kept up their guerrilla warfare.
The Seneca made peace with them after defeating the Huron in 1634. The next year, the Huron sent a delegation to the Seneca’s main town to confirm the peace and learned that the Onondaga, Oneida, Cayuga, and Mohawk also wanted to join the treaty.
But the Huron started the war again in 1639 when they captured 12 Seneca prisoners. The war went back and forth for a while.
By 1643, the Seneca, Cayuga, Oneida, and Onondaga were as strong as, or even stronger than, the Huron. The Mohawk had three villages with 700 or 800 armed men and 300 guns from the Dutch, which they used skillfully.
Seneca warriors played a big part in the Iroquois’ attacks on the Huron tribes in 1648-49. In 1649, they destroyed the main towns of the Tionontati (Tobacco) tribe and helped defeat the Neuter in 1651 and the Erie in 1656.
In 1652, Maryland bought land claims on both sides of Chesapeake Bay from the Susquehanna Indians.
That same year, the Seneca and Mohawk plotted to destroy French settlements along the St. Lawrence River. But in 1654, the Seneca sought peace with the French, probably because they had split with the Erie tribe. However, the Mohawk, who were planning an attack on the Huron, killed two of the three Seneca ambassadors, and the French took the third hostage. This almost caused a war between the tribes, but other issues prevented it.
In 1657, the Seneca tribe added eleven other tribes to their political body by adopting conquered tribes who wanted to live under their government.
In 1663, 800 Seneca and Cayuga warriors were defeated by the Minqua, who were helped by the Marylanders. The Iroquois didn’t stop fighting until famine weakened the Conestoga so much that in 1675, when the Marylanders withdrew their support, the Five Nations completely subdued the Conestoga and claimed their lands to the head of Chesapeake Bay.
In 1677, the English allied with the Iroquois League in what was called the "Covenant Chain."
In 1686, 200 Seneca warriors attacked the Miami tribe. The Illinois tribe had already been defeated by the Iroquois in a five-year war. In 1687, the Marquis Denonville gathered a large group of Native American allies and 1,200 French soldiers to attack and destroy the Seneca. When Denonville reached Irondequoit, the Seneca landing spot on Lake Ontario, he built a stockade and led an attack on the Seneca villages. However, he was ambushed by 600 to 800 Seneca warriors, who pushed back his troops and caused confusion. Only the size of his force prevented Denonville from being defeated.
By 1744, the French were gaining influence among the Seneca. Meanwhile, Colonel Johnson was winning over the Mohawk as allies of the British, while the Onondaga, Cayuga, and Oneida tried to stay neutral under pressure from Pennsylvania and Virginia.
In 1763, at Bloody Run and the Devil’s Hole on the Niagara River, the Seneca ambushed a British supply train on the portage road from Fort Schlosser to Fort Niagara, killing all but three of the soldiers. They also ambushed a British force sent to help the supply train, killing all but eight of them.
In 1768, the English renewed their alliance with the Iroquois by signing the Treaty of Fort Stanwix. This treaty helped the British gain the Iroquois’ trust, as they believed the British had their best interests in mind. In contrast, the Seneca disliked the Americans because they often ignored the treaty. The Iroquois were angry about American expansion into the Ohio Territory. Despite this, the Americans respected the Iroquois’ fighting skills and tried to keep them out of their conflict with the British.
The American Revolution and Its Aftermath
Before the American Revolution, the Seneca Tribe had a thriving society. The Iroquois Confederacy had ended the fighting among the Iroquois tribes and allowed them to live in peace. The Iroquois tribes were known as fierce warriors and controlled a large area along the Appalachian Mountains. However, even though the Seneca and Iroquois tribes had stopped fighting each other, they continued to raid their European neighbors.
Despite these raids, the Iroquois tribes established profitable relationships with the Europeans, especially the English.
When the American Revolution began in 1775, the Seneca sided with the British. One of the first battles they were involved in was on August 6, 1777, in Oriskany, where they launched a brutal attack against the rebel Americans.
Afterward, the Iroquois participated in other battles, including the Cherry Valley Massacre and the Battle of Minisink, which were planned raids on a trail from the Susquehanna to the Delaware Valley and over the Pine Hill to the Esopus Country.
Although the Iroquois were active participants, some Seneca, like Governor Blacksnake, were fed up with the brutality of the war, including the killing of women and children at the Cherry Valley massacre and the clubbing of surviving American soldiers at Oriskany.
The raids on American settlements in New York continued, with the Iroquois tribes attacking and plundering the American colonists and setting fire to the Oneida and Tuscarora settlements. The attacks continued until their allies surrendered.
In 1782, the Iroquois finally stopped fighting when British General Frederick Haldimand recalled them pending peace negotiations in Paris.
With the Iroquois League dissolved after the American Revolution, the Seneca settled in new villages along Buffalo Creek, Tonawanda Creek, and Cattaraugus Creek in western New York. As allies of the British, the Seneca, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Mohawk were required to cede all their lands in New York at the end of the war, as Britain ceded its territory in the Thirteen Colonies to the new United States. The late-war Seneca settlements were assigned to them as their reservations in the Treaty of Fort Stanwix in 1784. Although the Oneida and Tuscarora were allies of the rebels, they were also forced to give up most of their territory.
On July 8, 1788, the Seneca and some Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, and Cayuga tribes sold their rights to land east of the Genesee River in New York.
On November 11, 1794, the Seneca and other Iroquois nations signed the Treaty of Canandaigua with the United States, agreeing to peaceful relations.
On September 15, 1797, at the Treaty of Big Tree, the Seneca sold their lands west of the Genesee River, retaining ten reservations. The sale opened up the rest of Western New York for settlement by European Americans.
The Seneca in Ohio and Oklahoma
During the 18th century, some Iroquoian bands and tribal remnants occupied Ohio. Known collectively as Mingo or Seneca, they were the ancestors of today’s Seneca-Cayuga Tribe of Oklahoma.
In 1817, the United States established two reservations for the Ohio Seneca. One was for the Seneca of Sandusky, a mingling of Cayuga, Erie, Conestoga, and others along the Sandusky River, and the other was for a consolidated band of Seneca and Shawnee at Lewistown. In 1831, both groups exchanged their Ohio reserves for adjoining land in the Indian Territory.
Approximately 358 Seneca of Sandusky reached the Elk River in present-day Delaware County, Oklahoma, in the summer of 1832. About 258 members of the Mixed Band of Seneca and Shawnee arrived later that year. Following negotiations with the Stokes Commission in December 1832, the tribes readjusted their reservation boundaries and joined as "the United Nation of Senecas and Shawnees."
On January 15, 1838, the U.S. and some Seneca leaders signed the Treaty of Buffalo Creek, which required the Seneca to relocate to a tract of land west of Missouri. However, most refused to go.
In 1848, most of the Seneca in New York formed a modern, elected government, the Seneca Nation of Indians.
Despite their leaders’ pro-Confederate stance, most Seneca and Shawnee spent the Civil War years as refugees in Kansas. The U.S. government separated the Seneca from the Shawnee in 1867.
During the 1870s and early 1880s, the Seneca in Oklahoma received newcomers from Canada and New York, including Cayuga, Mohawk, and more Seneca, and had a population of roughly 255 in 1890.
The Seneca Today
Today, the Seneca’s culture and values remain strong. Language, song, art, dance, and sports are all important parts of their culture.
The Seneca language was rated "critically endangered" in 2007, with fewer than 50 fluent speakers, mostly elderly. However, efforts have begun to preserve and revitalize the language.
In the 21st century, more than 10,000 Seneca live in the United States, with three federally recognized Seneca tribes. Two are in New York: the Seneca Nation of Indians, with five territories in western New York near Buffalo, and the Tonawanda Seneca Nation. The Seneca-Cayuga Nation is in Oklahoma, where their ancestors were relocated from Ohio during the Indian Removal. Approximately 1,000 Seneca live in Canada, near Brantford, Ontario, at the Six Nations of the Grand River First Nation. They are descendants of Seneca who resettled there after the American Revolution because they had been allies of the British and forced to cede much of their lands.
So, there you have it – a glimpse into the history of the Seneca Nation. They’ve been through a lot, but they’re still here, keeping their culture alive and strong.