Oil Springs Reservation or Oil Spring Reservation is an Indian reservation of the federally recognized Seneca Nation that is located in southwestern New York, United States. As of the 2010 census, the Indian reservation had one resident; in 2005 no tribal members had lived on the property. The reservation covers about one square mile (2.6 km2), divided between the present-day counties of Allegany and Cattaraugus. The reservation is northwest of the village of Cuba. It is bordered by the Town of Cuba and the Town of Ischua.
Avon is a village in the town of Avon, Livingston County, New York, United States. The village population was 3,394 at the 2010 census, out of 7,146 people in the entire town. The village and town are named after the River Avon in England.
The Seneca are a group of Indigenous Iroquoian-speaking people who historically lived south of Lake Ontario, one of the five Great Lakes in North America. Their nation was the farthest to the west within the Six Nations or Iroquois League (Haudenosaunee) in New York before the American Revolution. For this reason, they are called “The Keepers of the Western Door.”
John Abeel III known as Gaiänt'wakê or Kaiiontwa'kon in the Seneca language and thus generally known as Cornplanter, was a Dutch-Seneca chief warrior and diplomat of the Seneca people. As a war chief, Cornplanter fought in the American Revolutionary War on the side of the British. After the war Cornplanter led negotiations with the United States and was a signatory of the Treaty of Fort Stanwix (1784), the Treaty of Canandaigua (1794), and other treaties. He helped ensure Seneca neutrality during the Northwest Indian War.
Handsome Lake was a Seneca religious leader of the Iroquois people. He was a half-brother to Cornplanter, a Seneca war chief.
Arthur Caswell Parker was a Native American archaeologist, historian, folklorist, museologist and noted authority on Native American culture. Of Seneca, Scottish, and English ancestry, he was director of the Rochester Museum of Arts and Sciences from 1924 to 1945, when he developed its holdings and research into numerous disciplines for the Genesee Region. He was an honorary trustee of the New York State Historical Association. In 1935, he was elected first president of the Society for American Archaeology.
There are four treaties of Buffalo Creek, named for the Buffalo River in New York. The Second Treaty of Buffalo Creek, also known as the Treaty with the New York Indians, 1838, was signed on January 15, 1838 between the Seneca Nation, Mohawk nation, Cayuga nation, Oneida Indian Nation, Onondaga (tribe), Tuscarora (tribe) and the United States. It covered land sales of tribal reservations under the U.S. Indian Removal program, by which they planned to move most eastern tribes to Kansas Territory west of the Mississippi River.
Sayenqueraghta was the war chief of the eastern Seneca tribe in the mid-18th century. He was born the son of Cayenquaraghta, a prominent Seneca chief of the Turtle clan in western New York. He lived most of his life at Kanadaseaga, near the present day town of Geneva, New York. He obtained his rank of war chief in 1751. Before the American Revolution he was referred to as chief of the Senecas.
The Longhouse Religion is the popular name of the religious movement also known as the Code of Handsome Lake or Gaihwi:io/Kaliwihyo, founded in 1799 by the Seneca prophet Handsome Lake (Sganyodaiyoˀ). This movement combines and reinterprets elements of traditional Iroquois religious beliefs with elements adopted from Christianity, primarily from the Quakers. Anthropologist Anthony F. C. Wallace reported that the Gaihwi:io had about 5,000 practicing members as of 1969. Originally the Gaihwi:io was known as the "new religion" in opposition to the prevailing animistic beliefs, but has since become known as the "old religion" in opposition to Christianity.
The Kinzua Dam, on the Allegheny River in Warren County, Pennsylvania, is one of the largest dams in the United States east of the Mississippi River. It is located within the Allegheny National Forest.
Canawaugus was a Seneca Indian village. The village was located on the west side of the Genesee River, "about a mile above the ford", on the eastern edge of the Town of Caledonia. It was nearly opposite of the Avon sulphur springs. The name means "stinking waters" because of the sulphur.
The Buffalo Creek Reservation was a tract of land surrounding Buffalo Creek in the central portion of Erie County, New York. It contained approximately 49,920 acres (202.0 km2) of land and was set aside for the Seneca Nation following negotiations with the United States after the American Revolutionary War.
Jesse J. Cornplanter was an actor, artist, author, craftsman, Seneca Faithkeeper and decorated veteran of World War I. The last male descendant of Cornplanter, an important 18th-century Haudenosaunee leader and war chief, his Seneca name was Hayonhwonhish. He illustrated several books about Seneca and Iroquois life. Jesse Cornplanter wrote and illustrated Legends of the Longhouse (1938), which records many Iroquois traditional stories. Cornplanter was also the first Native American to play a lead in a feature film titled Hiawatha, which was released in 1913 and a year before the notable Western The Squaw Man.
The Iroquois, also known as the Five Nations, and later as the Six Nations from 1722 onwards; alternatively referred to by the endonym Haudenosaunee are an Iroquoian-speaking confederacy of Native Americans and First Nations peoples in northeast North America. They were known by the French during the colonial years as the Iroquois League, and later as the Iroquois Confederacy, while the English simply called them the "Five Nations". The peoples of the Iroquois included the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca. After 1722, the Iroquoian-speaking Tuscarora people from the southeast were accepted into the confederacy, from which point it was known as the "Six Nations".
Sanford Plummer (Seneca) was a Native American narrative watercolor painter from New York state. He painted works portraying traditional life and culture of the Seneca and people of other Iroquois nations. His works are held by the Iroquois Indian Museum, as well as Buffalo Museum of Science, Rochester Museum and Science Center, and the Newark Museum.
The Seneca Nation of Indians is a federally recognized Seneca tribe based in western New York. They are one of three federally recognized Seneca entities in the United States, the others being the Tonawanda Band of Seneca and the Seneca-Cayuga Nation of Oklahoma. Some Seneca also live with other Iroquois peoples on the Six Nations of the Grand River in Ontario.
The Treaty of Big Tree was a formal treaty signed in 1797 between the Seneca Nation and the United States, in which the Seneca relinquished their rights to nearly all of their traditional homeland in New York State—nearly 3.5 million acres. In the 1788 Phelps and Gorham Purchase, the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) had previously sold rights to their land between Seneca Lake and the Genesee River. The Treaty of Big Tree signed away their rights to all their territory west of the Genesee River except 12 small tracts of land for $100,000 and other considerations. The money was not paid directly to the tribe, but was to be invested in shares of the Bank of the United States, and to be paid out to the Senecas in annual earnings of up to six percent, or $6,000 a year, on the bank stock.
Edward Cornplanter or So-son-do-wa (1856–1918) was a chief of the Seneca people of the Iroquois Nation (Haudenosaunee) and a leading exponent of the Code of Handsome Lake.
Harriet Maxwell Converse was an American author of Scottish and Irish heritage. She was a folklorist, poet and historian of the Iroquois; by the late 19th century, they were a loose confederacy of six nations in New York State and Canada. She became an advocate for the rights of the Seneca and other Iroquois tribes in New York state, helping them retain their lands and preserve their culture. In recognition of her contributions, the Seneca made her a member of the tribe and gave her an honorary position as a Sachem or chief of the Six Nations.
Fish Carrier or "Ojageght," which translates to English as "he is carrying a fish by the forehead strap," was an Iroquois chief of the Cayuga people. He supported the British during the American Revolution, participating in the Battle of Wyoming in 1778 and the Battle of Newtown in 1779.
