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Seneca people
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Seneca people
The Seneca (/ˈsɛnɪkə/ SEN-ik-ə; Seneca: Onöndowa'ga:' (O-non-dowa-gah), lit. 'Great Hill People') 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."
In the 21st century, more than 10,000 Seneca live in the United States, which has three federally recognized Seneca tribes. Two of them are centered in New York: the Seneca Nation of Indians, with five territories in western New York near Buffalo; and the Tonawanda Seneca Nation. The Seneca-Cayuga Nation is in Oklahoma, where their ancestors were relocated from Ohio during the Indian Removal. Approximately 1,000 Seneca live in Canada, near Brantford, Ontario, at the Six Nations of the Grand River First Nation. They are descendants of Seneca who resettled there after the American Revolution, as they had been allies of the British and forced to cede much of their lands.
The Seneca's own name for themselves is Onöndowa'ga:' or O-non-dowa-gah, meaning "Great Hill People" The exonym Seneca is "the Anglicized form of the Dutch pronunciation of the Mohegan rendering of the Iroquoian ethnic appellative" originally referring to the Oneida. The Dutch applied the name Sennecaas promiscuously to the four westernmost nations, the Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca, but with increasing contact the name came to be applied only to the latter. The French called them Sonontouans. The Dutch name is also often spelled Sinnikins or Sinnekars, which was later corrupted to Senecas.
Seneca oral history states that the tribe originated in a village called Nundawao, near the south end of Canandaigua Lake, at South Hill. Close to South Hill stands the 865-foot-high (264 m) Bare Hill, known to the Seneca as Genundowa. Bare Hill is part of the Bare Hill Unique Area, which began to be acquired by the state in 1989. Bare Hill had been the site of a Seneca (or Seneca-ancestral people) fort.
The first written reference to this fort was made in 1825 by the Tuscarora historian David Cusick in his history of the Seneca Indians.
The traces of an ancient fort, covering about an acre, and surrounded by a ditch, and formerly by a formidable wall, are still to be seen on top of Bare Hill. They indicate defenses raised by Indian hands, or more probably belong to the labors of a race that preceded the Indian occupation. The wall is now about tumbled down, the stones seem somewhat scattered, and the ground is overgrown with brush.
— S. C. Cleveland, History of Yates County, New York (1873)
In the early 1920s, the material that made up the Bare Hill fort was used by the Town of Middlesex highway department for road fill.
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Seneca people
The Seneca (/ˈsɛnɪkə/ SEN-ik-ə; Seneca: Onöndowa'ga:' (O-non-dowa-gah), lit. 'Great Hill People') 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."
In the 21st century, more than 10,000 Seneca live in the United States, which has three federally recognized Seneca tribes. Two of them are centered in New York: the Seneca Nation of Indians, with five territories in western New York near Buffalo; and the Tonawanda Seneca Nation. The Seneca-Cayuga Nation is in Oklahoma, where their ancestors were relocated from Ohio during the Indian Removal. Approximately 1,000 Seneca live in Canada, near Brantford, Ontario, at the Six Nations of the Grand River First Nation. They are descendants of Seneca who resettled there after the American Revolution, as they had been allies of the British and forced to cede much of their lands.
The Seneca's own name for themselves is Onöndowa'ga:' or O-non-dowa-gah, meaning "Great Hill People" The exonym Seneca is "the Anglicized form of the Dutch pronunciation of the Mohegan rendering of the Iroquoian ethnic appellative" originally referring to the Oneida. The Dutch applied the name Sennecaas promiscuously to the four westernmost nations, the Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca, but with increasing contact the name came to be applied only to the latter. The French called them Sonontouans. The Dutch name is also often spelled Sinnikins or Sinnekars, which was later corrupted to Senecas.
Seneca oral history states that the tribe originated in a village called Nundawao, near the south end of Canandaigua Lake, at South Hill. Close to South Hill stands the 865-foot-high (264 m) Bare Hill, known to the Seneca as Genundowa. Bare Hill is part of the Bare Hill Unique Area, which began to be acquired by the state in 1989. Bare Hill had been the site of a Seneca (or Seneca-ancestral people) fort.
The first written reference to this fort was made in 1825 by the Tuscarora historian David Cusick in his history of the Seneca Indians.
The traces of an ancient fort, covering about an acre, and surrounded by a ditch, and formerly by a formidable wall, are still to be seen on top of Bare Hill. They indicate defenses raised by Indian hands, or more probably belong to the labors of a race that preceded the Indian occupation. The wall is now about tumbled down, the stones seem somewhat scattered, and the ground is overgrown with brush.
— S. C. Cleveland, History of Yates County, New York (1873)
In the early 1920s, the material that made up the Bare Hill fort was used by the Town of Middlesex highway department for road fill.