Photo by Catherine Landis. Image description: Tonawanda Chief Roger Hill dressed in traditional dress speaks into a microphone at a podium. Behind him is a large black flatscreen TV and in the foreground are the backs of the heads of people in the audience who are facing him.
The following are excerpts from sworn affidavits taken on May 27, 2021 in the context of the Nation's litigation against STAMP project tenant Plug Power.
I am a citizen of the Tonawanda Seneca Nation and have lived on the Territory my entire life. I live about a quarter of a mile from the STAMP site. I live a subsistence lifestyle. I harvest all my meat mostly from the Territory and do not purchase meat at a grocery store. I heat my house with wood harvested from the Territory. I hunt deer, turkey, squirrel, pheasants, raccoons, rabbits, and frogs. I also fish on the Territory. I do most of my fishing and hunting activities in the area adjacent to the Western New York Science and Technology Advanced Manufacturing Park (“STAMP”), known as the Big Woods. I also gather medicine plants from the Big Woods area and am continuing to learn the knowledge from the elders regarding plant medicines. One of the main medicines that our people use is located in the Big Woods. I do not know of another location where that medicine is located. We have relied on this medicine for thousands of years…
I have serious concerns if [STAMP] goes forward. I believe that the project would have a significant impact on the Traditional Cultural Property of the Tonawanda Seneca Nation. If [STAMP] moves forward and is eventually constructed, I would no longer harvest meat or gather traditional medicines in the Big Woods and in other areas impacted by the development on the Tonawanda Territory as I would no longer feel comfortable consuming resources from this impacted area. If I could no longer harvest meat from the Big Woods area, I would have no alternate location to harvest meat… I am not aware of any other place to harvest my traditional medicines other than the Big Woods, so if I am unable to continue to harvest there due to [STAMP], I will not be able to continue that part of our traditions.
- -Levi Winnie, Tonawanda Seneca Nation
I am a biologist by education and currently serve as Assistant Director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment located at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry. In 2019, the Tonawanda Seneca Nation requested a short-term biological survey of the Territory. I was part of the team that conducted the survey and found that the area, particularly the area that is adjacent to the Western New York Science and Technology Advanced Manufacturing Park (“STAMP”), contains an unusually high quality and diversity of plants and animals, including many species of conservation concern at both State and Federal levels; a remarkably low incidence of invasive plant species, along with robust populations of forest floor herbs; and a significant complement of trees with old-growth or mature forest characteristics, along with vertebrate species dependent on this uncommon forest type. We concluded that the Tonawanda Territory serves as a habitat island in the middle of a landscape modified for agriculture, as well as urban and suburban development…
I believe that natural and cultural resources are inseparable, such that impacts to any of the natural resources of the Territory are also impacts to the cultural resources of all Haudenosaunee. There is an ongoing and deep cultural connection to the places that benefit all Haudenosaunee, so that if the Tonawanda Territory is impacted, it will have an impact on all Haudenosaunee…
I have serious concerns if [STAMP] goes forward. I believe that the project would have a significant impact on the Traditional Cultural Property of the Tonawanda Seneca Nation and on all Haudenosaunee. The area adjacent to the STAMP site serves as a wildlife corridor in an area fragmented by agricultural land and suburban and urban development. I’m concerned that increased pressure on the species that inhabit the Big Woods from [STAMP] could cause a tipping point from which certain species might not be able to return.
-Neil Patterson, Jr., Tuscarora Nation
The Tonawanda Seneca Nation is part of the Haudenosaunee. The Haudenosaunee is made up of Seneca, Tuscarora, Mohawk, Oneida, Cayuga, and Onondaga Nations. The Great Law is the oral constitution of the Haudenosaunee, which dates back centuries prior to European contact.
The Tonawanda Senecas have lived on the Territory and surrounding areas well before written documents chronicle their history. The importance of the Territory is documented by ancient trail maps that show major routes the Haudenosaunee used. These trails connected Haudenosaunee communities across New York and served as major communication routes for runners, as well as roadways for travel. These trails include an ancient trail that led through modern-day Basom, New York, that connected various Tonawanda communities to present-day Route 77/63. The trail then connected Tonawanda to other Seneca and Haudenosaunee communities.
Tonawanda Creek and its several tributaries run through Tonawanda Territory. Both in ancient times and today, these waterways serve as important sources of traditional foods and important medicine plants that grow within the watershed.
In many cases, Tonawanda families reside on the lands of their direct ancestors going back several generations. Samuel Kirkland’s census of 1789 documented the Tonawanda families living on the Territory at that time and the same names and clans can be seen today on the territory…
The 1794 Treaty with the Six Nations confirmed Seneca rights to most of Western New York, including the modern-day Tonawanda Seneca reservation and the STAMP site. The Treaty of Big Tree [1797] dramatically reduced the lands confirmed to the Senecas but retained a reservation for the Tonawanda Senecas that spanned seventy square miles. That territory was further reduced through the concerted efforts of the Ogden Land Company and the State of New York, and in 1838 and 1842, the State unsuccessfully attempted to dispossess the Tonawanda Senecas completely. The Nation resisted these efforts and by the Treaty of 1857, the United States permanently confirmed the Nation’s right to its Reservation Territory.
In 1898, the Supreme Court found in Tonawanda’s favor in New York Indians v. U.S., finding that they had never left their reservation home and confirming that New York’s efforts to dispossess them had failed. The Tonawanda Territory has great historical and cultural value.
- Jare Cardinal, Director of the Salamanca Rail Museum