Tonawanda Reservation

Religion of the Six Nation Tribes

With the exception of the Tuscaroras, each of the Six Nations has one or more council houses, in which the people assemble for business or purely Indian ceremonies, religious or social. There is also a council house or town hall on the Mount Hope road of the Tuscarora reservation, but the pagan party has no footing among this people. The council houses, formerly built of logs, are practically in disuse, and frame buildings, about 40 by 80 feet, with fireplace or simple chimney at each end, which allows separate sittings for the sexes, have taken their place. A new building … Read more

Iroquois Tribe

Iroquois Indians, Iroquois People, Iroquois First Nation (Algonkin: Irinakhoiw, ‘real adders’, with the French suffix –ois). The confederation of Iroquoian tribes known in history, among other names, by that of the Five Nations, comprising the Cayuga, Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, and Seneca. Their name for themselves as a political body was Oñgwanonsioñni’, ‘we are of the extended lodge.’ Among the Iroquoian tribes kinship is traced through the blood of the woman only; kinship means membership in a family, and this in turn constitutes citizenship in the tribe, conferring certain social, political, and religious privileges, duties, and rights which are denied to … Read more

Reservations of the Six Nations in New York and Pennsylvania, 1723-1890

Map of the Country of the Five Nations

The accompanying map was prepared in 1771 under the direction of William Tryon, captain general and governor in chief of the province of New York, and is as nearly suggestive of the then recognized boundary of the Six Nations as any that has had official sanction. In 1851 Lewis H. Morgan, assisted by Ely S. Parker, a Seneca chief; and afterward an efficient staff Officer of General Grant, and the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, prepared a map for a volume entitled League of the Iroquois, which aimed to define the villages, trails, and boundaries of the Five Nations as they … Read more

Tonawanda Reservation Map and Occupants, 1890

The Tonawanda Reservation, in the counties of Erie, Genesee, and Niagara, New York, as originally surveyed in 1799, and as reserved by the treaty at Big Tree, covered 71 square miles. Coincident with a treaty between the United States and this band of Seneca Indians, March 31, 1859, promulgated November 5, 1859, the claim of the Ogden Land Company was extinguished, and the present reservation limits embrace 7,549.73 acres, lying partly in each of the counties of Erie, Genesee, and Niagara. One heavy dirt road, almost impassable in the spring or an ordinarily wet season, runs out from the center … Read more

Ely S. Parker Homestead, Tonawanda Reservation

Ely S. Parker Homestead

Ely Parker was a Seneca Indian of the Wolf Clan. He was born on the Tonawanda Seneca Reservation in 1832. His boyhood name was Hasanoanda ‘Coming to the Front’. Later he was made a chief of his clan and received the title, Do-ne-ho-ga-weh ‘He Holds The Door Open’. Ely Parker received an academic education and studied law and civil engineering. At Galena, Illinois, while he was employed as an engineer on a government project, he met Ulysses S. Grant. He became a close friend of Grant. This friendship continued till death. Ely Parker took part in the Civil War of … Read more

Seneca Tribe

Seneca Tribe: A prominent and influential tribe of the Iroquois. When first known they occupied that part of western New York between Seneca Lake and Geneva River, having their council fire at Tsonontowan, near Naples, in Ontario county.