VICTOR, N.Y. — A historic site in the town of Victor holds stories dating centuries before the United States was born.
News10NBC’s Garrett Chan visited the Ganondagan Historic Site to learn more. Ganondagan, also known as the Town of Peace, is the 17th century home of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy and Seneca people. The community, rich with raw materials, traded with Europeans. But in 1687, French forces destroyed the town.
“At the time, it was just Seneca territory, but they had an interest in removing Seneca people because their eyes were looking to the west, western Great Lakes, where there was an abundance of furs and other commodities which they were engaged in that supported their colony and of course, supported the state of France at the time,” said Michael Galban, site manager at Ganondagan Historic Site.
The Seneca people were forced to relocate and rebuild. Nearly a century later, the Seneca people had to pick a side in the Revolution.
“It was a divide, literally community by community, where people decided for themselves which way they should support,” Galban said.
Those supporting the British faced consequences. The Sullivan Expedition targeted thousands of Indigenous towns and villages. But it became clear the goal was acquiring land, not retribution.
As the nation celebrates 250 years, for the people who called this country home long before, the history of the United States isn’t a tale of pride and triumph. Galban said it took more than 10 years after the American Revolution ended to really resolve that peace. A treaty took place in Canandaigua, N.Y., in 1794 that settled it forever and also achieved a lasting peace between the Six Nations of the Haudenosaunee and the new American government.
That lasting peace is symbolized in a row of beads known as a wampum belt.
“And so long ago, the individual they called the peacemaker, he utilized wampum beads in a ceremony that would help relieve and take away that pain from an individual in a nation. So if we could take care of you in your spiritual sense, visually, vocally and auditory, we can then communicate clearly to one another,” Galban said.
Today, the beliefs, teachings and practices of the Seneca and Haudenosaunee live on in our American principles. But the dark history still requires reflection.
“Some people say we commemorate this moment. We should also be very considerate of all the loss that took place and maybe pull from that time. What shiny examples of the good qualities that have emerged from that?” Galban said.
Galban told Chan the work continues to highlight the long history of the Seneca, Haudenosaunee and other Native tribes who they say are just as integral to our nation’s history. Ganondagan doesn’t have any American 250 celebrations planned, but the site will hold Educators Day on Aug. 31.
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