As Long as the Grass Grows · Episode 3 of 15 · 38 min
How the Founders Broke Their Word to the Iroquois
The 1794 Treaty of Canandaigua with the Haudenosaunee is still marked by an annual treaty-cloth payment. The episode shows both sides of the founders' word: the punitive 1784 Fort Stanwix treaty, states and land companies that undercut federal treaties, and twentieth-century projects, Kinzua Dam and the Niagara Power Project, that took land sworn protected.
Who's who
- George Washington+5 more episodesOrdered the 1779 campaign and authorized the Canandaigua negotiation
- John SullivanGeneral who led the 1779 scorched-earth expedition
- CornplanterSeneca leader and diplomat who signed at Fort Stanwix
- Joseph BrantMohawk leader who left Fort Stanwix talks before signing
- Timothy PickeringWashington's agent who negotiated the Treaty of Canandaigua
- Oliver PhelpsLand speculator in the Genesee tract purchase
- Nathaniel GorhamLand speculator in the Genesee tract purchase
- John LivingstonOrganizer of the Genesee Land Company's 999-year lease scheme
Where it happens
- Fort Stanwix, New YorkSite of the 1784 treaty dictated to the Six Nations
- Canandaigua, New YorkSite of the 1794 treaty and annual commemoration
- Kinzua Dam, Allegany Reservation, New York and PennsylvaniaFlooded about 10,000 acres of Seneca treaty land
- Niagara Power Project, New YorkTook about 550 acres of Tuscarora reservation land
Timeline
- June-October 1779The Sullivan Expedition burns roughly 40 Haudenosaunee towns
- October 22, 1784The Treaty of Fort Stanwix is dated; the Six Nations council later refuses to ratify
- November 11, 1794The Treaty of Canandaigua affirms peace and promises a perpetual annuity in goods
- March 7, 1960FPC v. Tuscarora Indian Nation upholds the Niagara land taking
- 1965Kinzua Dam is completed, flooding Seneca land and displacing some 600 Seneca
Still debated
Whether Fort Stanwix was ever a valid treaty is disputed, since the U.S. ratified it and the Six Nations council rejected it. The Tuscarora taking is often conflated with the St. Lawrence Seaway but was the Niagara project, and the Town Destroyer name predates Washington.
← PreviousThe First Treaty the United States Ever BrokeNext →The "Permanent" Native Border That Lasted Barely a Decade
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