This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page . (Learn how and when to remove these template messages)
|
Sainte Marie de Ganentaa | |
Established | 1656 (Mission), 1930s (French "Fort"), 1990s (Mission Recreation) |
---|---|
Location | Liverpool, New York, United States |
Coordinates | 43°05′35″N76°11′47″W / 43.09300°N 76.19637°W |
Type | park/living museum |
Website | https://www.skanonhcenter.org |
Sainte Marie among the Iroquois (originally known as Sainte Marie de Gannentaha [1] or St. Mary's of Ganantaa) was a 17th-century French Jesuit mission located in the middle of the Onondaga nation of the Iroquois. It was located on Onondaga Lake near modern-day Syracuse, New York. The original mission, led by Jesuit priest Simon Le Moyne, was in use only from 1656 to 1658. [2]
A modern replica of the mission’s encampment is in operation as a museum and interpretive center. It is open between May and October as a "living history" project, with costumed interpreters on weekends during the Summer.
Sainte Marie among the Iroquois is a living history museum and part of the Onondaga County parks system, and is therefore designated as a municipal park itself. The site, while county-owned, is operated by volunteers who provide all of the programming and maintain the displays. The site is currently being renovated and the interior of the fort is closed.
The interpretive center/museum is a two-story building which houses some of Onondaga County Park's collection of artifacts. Inside visitors can see exhibits and is able to schedule tours for all age groups. A gift shop is also inside on the first floor.
The Mission itself is located behind the museum and accessed by using the second floor doors. There is a small encampment between the museum and mission site where reed huts stand. The Haudenosaunee and French used encampments like this as camp sites when traveling. They were located in between traveling paths, roughly a days hike from each other.
The Mission itself is surrounded by a high palisade and contains a chapel, refectory (dining hall), dormitory (sleeping area), workshops (carpentry and blacksmith), and pens for animals. Outside the palisade are gardens (vegetable and herb) and a baking oven.
The Jesuits built the mission at the invitation of the Onondaga nation of the Iroquois Confederation. The Iroquois Confederation was also known as the Iroquois League previously. Due to ongoing warfare between the Mohawks and French in Quebec, the Onondagas were anxious to broker peace between the two parties. The French built a stockade and a few buildings overlooking Onondaga Lake (Ganantaa in Iroquois). In addition to the Jesuit missionaries and their Doneé servants/tradesmen, a contingent of French Coureur des bois (Runners of the Wood) were sent to defend the mission.
After two years, the Mohawks threatened to attack the mission, and a new French Governor lost interest in the project. The entire group fled safely in 1658. No further missions in Iroquois territory were attempted by the French.
In the 1930s, a replica of Sainte Marie de Ganentaa was built on a bluff overlooking Onondaga Lake as part of the Works Progress Administration/WPA program. However, a "wild west" style fort was built instead of a more historically accurate French mission. It is believed this is due to a passing reference to a "French fort" that a French war expedition, led by Louis de Buade de Frontenac, had built in 1696 on the shore of Onondaga Lake. This "fort" was just an encampment of tents with a small palisade around it and was only occupied for about two weeks. The site that the new "French fort" was built upon was close to the original location since the original was covered by the parking lot of LeMoyne Manor. Starting in the 1970s it was run by Onondaga County Parks with costumed interpreters who portrayed the French and Haudenosaunee who had lived there. The style of interpretation was 3rd-person, meaning that the people portraying the characters dressed like the characters they represented, but spoke of them in the third person (Third-person).
In the early 1990s a redesign of the "Fort" was executed. The entire site was rebuilt to match more closely what the original French mission was like. Money was raised along with grants, such as from the LWCF (Land and Water Conservation Fund), to fund the massive undertaking. The design was planned using research gathered from the Jesuit Relations, other first-hand accounts, and the design of Sainte Marie's sister mission - Sainte Marie among the Hurons. While the more historically accurate mission site was much smaller than the "French Fort", an interpretive center/museum was also built. This allowed Sainte Marie to have a variety of displays about Native and French culture ca. 1650.
By the early 2000s Sainte Marie was closed. This was due to waning public attendance (due to the mission never changing its programming) and budget cuts. However, a dedicated grassroots movement began to petition for the re-opening of the site. The Friends of Historic Onondaga Lake (FoHOL) formed as a non-profit volunteer based fund-raising organization that offered to run the site for the county. In 2004 Onondaga County Parks formed an agreement with FoHOL that the organization's volunteers would run the site, provide programming, and raise money to fund such endeavours. In return the County would allow the use of the facility, access to the museum's collection, and provide utilities/maintenance.
The volunteers worked to replace the displays, some of which had been moved to other museums, and redesign the layout. It was also decided that the interpretive aspect of the museum would become 3rd-person. This allowed the volunteers, and the museum itself, to have some latitude in providing tours to the public. It meant that the tour guides could discuss what happened after the mission was abandoned, offer new/changing programming, and to tailor their tours to the interests of the groups who came.
In 2011, the museum and mission site were temporarily closed to the public. This was due to the Onondaga County Parks, led by the Parks Commissioner William Lansley, County Executive Joanne Moahoney, and retiring Onondaga County Legislature Chair James Rhinehart seeking to turn half of the second floor display area into rentable offices for the Onondaga County Soil & Water Conservation District. [3] However, New York State has said that the parkland upon which the facility is on is protected by the LWCF (Land and Water Conservation Fund), [4] due to the fund money used in the construction of the museum/visitor's center and thus designated for recreational park use only. In order for the Onondaga County Soil and Water Conservation District to move into the planned rentable space, an Alienation Act, related to Alienation (property law), must be passed in the New York State Senate and Assembly. Despite this, Matthew J. Millea, the Deputy County Executive for Physical Services for the Mahoney administration, [5] insisted that the current project did not need to follow the LWCF.
Due to the closure, and the locks being changed on the volunteers who provide all of the museum's programming, the popular Christmas Around the World event was canceled along with all other planned events.
According to Onondaga County Parks, "As of January 1, 2013, the Onondaga Historical Association (OHA) took over management of the Onondaga County facility formerly known as 'Sainte Marie among the Iroquois' located on the eastern shore of Onondaga Lake. In November of 2015, the site reopened as Skä•noñh Center – Great Law of Peace Center, a Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Heritage Site. Skä•noñh, is an Onondaga welcoming greeting meaning Peace and Wellness." [6]
Moriah is a town in Essex County, New York, United States. Lying within the Adirondack Park, it is situated in the eastern part of the county, 47 miles (76 km) by road south-southwest of Burlington, Vermont, 55 miles (89 km) south of Plattsburgh, 115 miles (185 km) north of Albany, and 116 miles (187 km) south of Montreal, Quebec. The population was 4,798 at the 2010 census.
Liverpool is a lakeside village in Onondaga County, New York, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 2,242. The name was adopted from the city of Liverpool in the United Kingdom. The village is on Onondaga Lake, in the western part of the town of Salina and is northwest of Syracuse, of which it is a suburb.
Ogdensburg is a city in St. Lawrence County, New York, United States. The population was 10,064 at the 2020 census. In the late 18th century, European-American settlers named the community after American land owner and developer Samuel Ogden. The city is at the northern border of New York at the mouth of the Oswegatchie River on the south bank of the St. Lawrence River. The only formally designated city in the county, it is located between Massena, New York to the east and Brockville, Ontario to the west.
Alexandre de Prouville de Tracy was a French military leader, statesman, and the seigneur of Tracy-le-Val and Tracy-le-Mont in Picardy, France. A professional soldier, he was a regimental commander during the Thirty Years Wars, and was later appointed commissary general of French forces in Germany. In 1663, he was commissioned lieutenant-général of the French colonies in the Americas. In 1664, he led an expedition that expelled the Dutch from Guiana. The following year he sailed to New France where, in 1666, he led the Carignan-Salieres Regiment and Canadien volunteers in an invasion of the Mohawk homeland. He returned to France after reaching peace settlements with the Mohawk and the other Iroquois nations, and was appointed commandant at Dunkirk, and later governor of the Château Trompette in Bordeaux.
Events from the 1640s in Canada.
Fort Michilimackinac was an 18th-century French, and later British, fort and trading post at the Straits of Mackinac; it was built on the northern tip of the lower peninsula of the present-day state of Michigan in the United States. Built around 1715, and abandoned in 1783, it was located along the Straits, which connect Lake Huron and Lake Michigan of the Great Lakes of North America.
Onondaga Lake is located in Central New York, immediately northwest of and adjacent to Syracuse, New York. The southeastern end of the lake and the southwestern shore abut industrial areas and expressways; the northeastern shore and northwestern end border a series of parks and museums.
The Diocese of Syracuse is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory, or diocese, of the Catholic Church in Upstate New York in the United States. Its episcopal see is located in Syracuse. It is a suffragan diocese in the ecclesiastical province of the metropolitan Archdiocese of New York.
Sainte-Marie among the Hurons was a French Jesuit settlement in Huronia or Wendake, the land of the Wendat, near modern Midland, Ontario, from 1639 to 1649. It was the first European settlement in what is now the province of Ontario. Eight missionaries from Sainte-Marie were martyred, and were canonized by the Catholic Church in 1930. Sainte-Marie Among the Hurons was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1920. A reconstruction of the mission now operates as a living museum.
Ganondagan State Historic Site, also known as Boughton Hill, is a Native American historic site in Ontario County, New York in the United States. Location of the largest Seneca village of the 17th century, the site is in the present-day Town of Victor, southwest of the Village of Victor. The village was also referred to in various spellings as Gannagaro, Canagora, Gandagora, Gandagaro and Gannontaa.
The Erie people were Indigenous people historically living on the south shore of Lake Erie. An Iroquoian group, they lived in what is now western New York, northwestern Pennsylvania, and northern Ohio before 1658. Their nation was almost exterminated in the mid-17th century by five years of prolonged warfare with the powerful neighboring Iroquois for helping the Huron in the Beaver Wars for control of the fur trade. Captured survivors were adopted or enslaved by the Iroquois.
Nicolas Perrot, a French explorer, fur trader, and diplomat, was one of the first European men to travel in the Upper Mississippi Valley, in what is now Wisconsin and Minnesota.
Jean de Lamberville was a Jesuit priest who arrived in New France from France in 1669. He was the older brother of Jacques de Lamberville. Jean became a missionary to the Onondagas and had success in converting their chief, Garakontie. He also was well known for his knowledge in the medical treatments of his time.
Father Simon Le Moyne, sometimes spelled Simon Le Moine, was a French Jesuit priest who became involved with the mission to the Hurons and Iroquois in the Americas. Le Moyne had acquired sixteen years of education and experience through priesthood in France before his arrival in New France in 1638. During that same year, he headed out to his mission in Huron country. The destruction of the Huron nation by the Iroquois brought him back east to what is modern day Quebec in 1650.
The Petun, also known as the Tobacco people or Tionontati, were an indigenous Iroquoian people of the woodlands of eastern North America. Their last known traditional homeland was south of Lake Huron's Georgian Bay, in what is today's Canadian province of Ontario.
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".
Jesuit missions in North America were attempted in the late 16th century, established early in the 17th century, faltered at the beginning of the 18th, disappeared during the suppression of the Society of Jesus around 1763, and returned around 1830 after the restoration of the Society. The missions were established as part of the colonial drive of France and Spain during the period, the "saving of souls" being an accompaniment of the constitution of Nouvelle-France and early colonial Mexico. The efforts of the Jesuits in North America were paralleled by their China missions on the other side of the world, and in South America. They left written documentation of their efforts, in the form of The Jesuit Relations.
Caughnawaga Indian Village Site is an archaeological site located just west of Fonda in Montgomery County, New York. It is the location of a 17th-century Mohawk nation village. One of the original Five Nations of the Iroquois League, or Haudenosaunee, the Mohawk lived west of Albany and occupied much of the Mohawk Valley. Other Iroquois nations were located west of them and south of the Great Lakes.
Syracuse is a city in Central New York sited on the former lands of the Onondaga Nation. Officially incorporated as a village in 1825, it has been at a major crossroads over the last two centuries, first of the Erie Canal and its branch canals, then on the railway network. The city grew on the back of its salt and chemical industries, and later as a center of manufacturing and engineering. Although its industries have dwindled, the city has remained the economic and educational hub of Central New York, a region with over a million inhabitants; the population of the city, though, has been in decline since peaking in the 1950s.
The Onondaga Historical Association (OHA) is a private nonprofit entity that operates as a research center on the history of Onondaga County, with museums, educational centers, retail operations, and exhibits at multiple locations throughout Onondaga County. Founded in 1862, OHA's mission is to preserve the history of Central New York and encourage the Onondaga County community to appreciate and utilize its history.
Peter R. Eisenstadt (ed.), Laura-Eve Moss (ed.): The Encyclopedia of New York State. Syracuse University Press, 2005, ISBN 9780815608080, p. 1346