Indigenous Experience

[00:10.00] We bring our minds together to offer these gratitudes and we say [words of gratitude and thanks in Mohawk]. [00:20.810] We bring our minds together to offer our gratitudes to our Mother Earth, but she provides everything for us that we might need here on our journey. [00:28.530] We offer our gratitude with our minds together as one. [00:33.330] For millennia, many different Indigenous Nations have inhabited what we now call Western New York. [00:40.210] All across New York state, the Haudenosaunee have lived and thrived using the natural resources to support their traditional lifestyle. [00:49.990] Today the Seneca People and Tuscarora’s inhabit Western New York and historically used a sophisticated system of trails and existing waterways as routes of trade and cultural exchange. [01:05.180] Clan Mothers, women responsible for each of the nine different families, had many important roles within Haudenosaunee society, including selecting the leaders and watching over their families and their cultural health. [01:22.130] We have this system that has been put in place for us that is about the well-being of the people, and all of that is built into the Great Law of Peace. [01:31.810] This system of choosing your leader was one that was really recognized. [01:37.330] And then the unity that we had of our five nations, originally, into a confederacy, that influenced Benjamin Franklin, that influenced Thomas Jefferson to see that in unity there was strength. [01:52.000] When they looked at our whole system, that form of government with these different responsibilities, a Senate, a House of Representatives, and the Executive Branch, that is influenced by the Haudenosaunee system of government. [02:07.810] We had been relocated to Buffalo Creek because of the Sullivan-Clinton Campaign, which rolled through our territories, both Cayuga and Seneca, burning our homes, destroying all the food that we could eat. [02:25.630] Many treaties were signed with the Haudenosaunee, but unfortunately many of them were questionable and all of them were broken. [02:33.620] Treaty of Fort Stanwix, Treaty of Canandaigua, Treaty of Big Tree, Buffalo Creek Treaty. [02:42.820] The creation of the Erie Canal disrupted the natural ecosystem and brought devastation, displacement, and cultural genocide to the Indigenous Peoples. [02:53.300] Throughout the 19th century the Haudenosaunee were forced to change their traditional lifestyle but were resilient in maintaining their languages, beliefs, and traditional ways of thinking. [03:07.630] Today, the Haudenosaunee continue to live in, prosper, and contribute to the history of New York state. [03:14.940] Cultural traditions thrive, including storytelling, traditional and contemporary artwork and dancing, and the Great Game of lacrosse. [03:25.420] The belief of looking towards the seventh generation as we make decisions can influence everyone as we share in the future of the Erie Canal. [03:36.660] We bring our minds together to acknowledge all of the Stars in the heaven. [03:41.140] They represent our ancestors, all of those that have gone on before us, and we offer up those gratitudes that they're here to help guide us along on this journey. [03:49.900] And we've seen that. [03:51.100] They followed a nation of people, following those waters, the Erie Canal, up to Buffalo, crossing over into these places of peace and freedom.