Cayuga Nation

Two Kettles Together: Sarah Martin Tyonajanegen

March 8, 2026 by Editorial Staff 1 Comment

Tyonajanegan, who Europeans called Sarah Martin Tyonajanegen or Two Kettles Together, was a mother of four who took up arms alongside her husband as their Oneida Nation chose to support the colonists in the American Revolution.

Almost nothing is known about her early life, although at least one family historian reports that she was “taken prisoner with her sister Katy from the Shawanoes, & remained with the Mohawks.”

However, she and her husband and his family had significant roles in early New York history. [Read more…] about Two Kettles Together: Sarah Martin Tyonajanegen

Treaties Between the Six Nations and the United States

January 12, 2026 by Guest Contributor Leave a Comment

Immediately following the American Revolutionary War (1775-1783), states in the newly created United States competed for control and settlement of Indigenous lands. This included much of Western New York, which was within Indian lands designated by the 1768 Treaty of Fort Stanwix, which set the boundary line between the colonies and native nations.

The Treaty of Paris of 1783 did not include the allied Native nations, leaving their legacy treaties with different European parties unresolved and their future to be determined through separate treaties with the new American government. [Read more…] about Treaties Between the Six Nations and the United States

How The American Revolution Divided & Weakened The Six Nations

January 8, 2026 by Guest Contributor 1 Comment

As tensions leading to the American Revolution developed, Native nations were divided in their loyalties to England, the American rebels, and their own alliances. Initially, Haudenosaunee Nations viewed the conflict as a civil war between colonists and chose to remain neutral.

Over time, it became clear to Haudenosaunee leaders that the winners of the revolution would ultimately be the parties they negotiated their futures with. Loyalties and allyship among the Nations diverged, weakening the overall power of the Iroquois Confederacy. [Read more…] about How The American Revolution Divided & Weakened The Six Nations

Pontiac’s Uprising: The American Indian War for Independence

January 7, 2026 by Guest Contributor Leave a Comment

In April 1763, the American Indian War for Independence (1763-1766) — also called Pontiac’s Rebellion or Pontiac’s Uprising for the Ottawa Nation leader who organized a coalition against European colonial powers — started with the siege of Fort Detroit.

In July 1764, an English colonial force that included 500 Native fighters departed from Oswego for operations against Pontiac’s forces to the west. Attacks by Native forces spread east and south as a result of continued European colonists’ trespassing and settlement on Native lands. [Read more…] about Pontiac’s Uprising: The American Indian War for Independence

The Erie Canal’s Impacts on Indigenous People

November 19, 2025 by Guest Contributor 3 Comments

New York’s canal building boom and the urban explosion that it triggered dramatically accelerated the dispossession and disruption of traditional life ways of the region’s Native American inhabitants that had been initiated by the introduction of European trade, diseases, colonial wars, the American Revolution, and encroaching settlement by non-natives. [Read more…] about The Erie Canal’s Impacts on Indigenous People

Pricing the Land: The Buying and Selling of Frontier New York

May 8, 2025 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

Pricing the Land: The Buying and Selling of Frontier New York and Cayuga Reservation (Cornell University Press, 2024) reconstructs the complicated history of buying and selling land along the New York frontier after the American Revolution.

Scott W. Anderson focuses on the prices bid for lots in Central New York that had been set aside for veterans of the war (the New Military Tract) and within the Cayuga Reservation created by treaty in 1789, comprising a hundred square miles of land on both shores of the northern end of Cayuga Lake. [Read more…] about Pricing the Land: The Buying and Selling of Frontier New York

DEC Relations with Indigenous Nations

November 22, 2024 by Guest Contributor Leave a Comment

November is Native American Heritage Month, a nationwide celebration of the contributions of Indigenous peoples and celebration of their heritage, traditions, culture, art, and history while acknowledging how society has impacted Indigenous peoples and culture. New York State was the first state to recognize “American Indian Day” in 1916, originally observed on the second Saturday in May. [Read more…] about DEC Relations with Indigenous Nations

Social and Religious Movements in Central New York

November 17, 2023 by Guest Contributor Leave a Comment

Central New York communities that flourished with canal-related development and rail connections throughout the 19th century also became hotbeds for religious and social movements of the early 1800s as the area’s population rapidly grew.

Religious freedom granted by the United States Bill of Rights combined with rapid societal and technological changes experienced by Americans living through western expansion fueled an American spiritual movement that was exemplified in the newly opened frontier of New York. [Read more…] about Social and Religious Movements in Central New York

The American Revolution in the Finger Lakes

September 10, 2023 by Guest Contributor 3 Comments

Initially, the Haudenosaunee Confederacy (Iroquois) claimed neutrality during the conflict between Britain and the colonists, seeing the disagreement as a civil war and valuing loyalty to their families and to their lands above all else. When the political discontent erupted into the American Revolutionary War, the member nations of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy split their support between the British and newly formed American forces. [Read more…] about The American Revolution in the Finger Lakes

Euro-American Expansion Into The Finger Lakes Region

August 27, 2023 by Guest Contributor 7 Comments

The Treaty of Paris of 1783 officially ended hostilities between the British and Americans; however, the treaty did not include the allied Indian Nations, leaving their legacy treaties with the Europeans unresolved and their future to be resolved through separate treaties with the new American government. [Read more…] about Euro-American Expansion Into The Finger Lakes Region

Early Inhabitants of the Finger Lakes Region

August 14, 2023 by Guest Contributor 2 Comments

According to archeological records, groups of nomadic Paleo-Indians traveled through the Finger Lakes region approximately 8,000 to 9,000 years ago. Small bands of these hunters and gatherers followed large game during the last stages of the Ice Age when the glaciers that formed the area’s notable lakes were receding.

Somewhat more recent early archaic archeological sites scattered across Western New York reflect a culture that was highly mobile and left little in terms of an archeological record. [Read more…] about Early Inhabitants of the Finger Lakes Region

National Park Service Declares Finger Lakes Eligble For National Heritage Designation

July 19, 2023 by Editorial Staff 2 Comments

On Tuesday, July 18th, the National Park Service delivered the Finger Lakes National Heritage Area Feasibility Study to Congress. The feasibility study determined that the study area in the Finger Lakes region of New York state meets the criteria to be eligible for inclusion as part of the National Heritage Area System. [Read more…] about National Park Service Declares Finger Lakes Eligble For National Heritage Designation

White Pines: Physically & Culturally Colossal

July 15, 2023 by Paul Hetzler 1 Comment

The eastern white pine (Pinus strobus) isn’t really a crop-bearing tree, but it has borne priceless fruit for American democracy. Physically as well as culturally massive, there are many accounts from the early 1800s of white pines over 200 feet tall being harvested. One credible report pegs a white pine at 247 feet, and unverified accounts have claimed that 300-foot-tall leviathans were cut back then. [Read more…] about White Pines: Physically & Culturally Colossal

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