Map by Abigail Guinan. Image description: Satellite map of the STAMP site and surrounding protected lands. STAMP is an irregular block of land outlined in red in the center. To the left (west) is a beige block about five times the size covering Tonawanda Seneca Nation. Above (north) of that is a green area covering Tonawanda Wildlife Management Area. To the right (east) is Iroquois National Wildlife Refuge, also in green, followed by Oak Orchard Wildlife Management Area, in another shade of green. To the east of the STAMP site is the much smaller John White Wildlife Management Area.
Tonawanda Seneca Nation Statement at the 2025 World Canals Conference in Buffalo, NY - September 2025
Note: The Tonawanda Seneca Nation has asked us to read this statement on their behalf. Nation leadership and citizens are currently in fall ceremonies and are unable to attend. They invite you to learn more about their fight to Rethink the STAMP mega-industrial site, which poses an existential threat to the Nation. Please take a pamphlet and check out Allies of the Tonawanda Seneca Nation’s website to learn more and find out how you can take action in solidarity with this existential fight for the Nation’s future generations.
New York could not have become the Empire State without dispossessing our ancestors, and the Erie Canal was a crucial component in the State’s efforts to dispossess the Tonawanda Seneca Nation and the Haudenosaunee, and to profit from the sale and industrialization of our lands.
DeWitt Clinton was both a leading figure in each stage of the canal’s development and also the son of General James Clinton, who earlier carried out a genocidal campaign to systematically destroy Haudenosaunee communities and harvests. Neither father nor son succeeded in dispossessing our people entirely, but the damage they did to our ancestors and our communities reverberates to this day as historical trauma we carry.
The route for the Erie Canal and its feeder system crossed seven Seneca reservations (Tonawanda, Buffalo Creek, Big Tree, Canadea, Canawaugus, Gardeau, and Squawky Hill), and the skyrocketing value of land along the route further incentivized the land speculation that nearly dispossessed the Tonawanda Seneca Nation entirely. The canal system thus led to fraudulent treaties in the mid 1800s, including the treaty that claimed to sell off our reservation at Tonawanda. Our ancestors fought and died to prevent that from happening, and won a Supreme Court case that confirmed our right to remain, though we had to buy back our own lands. Moreover, the canal and the feeder ditch through our Territory completely changed the hydrology and ecology of the Tonawanda Seneca Nation, changes that have never been remediated.
New York State continues to impose trauma on our people and our lands. Not only through symbols like the so-called “Seneca Chief,” which takes our name without our permission and uses it to celebrate this canal that has caused us so much harm, but also by spending hundreds of millions of dollars to try to build an industrial park next to the only reservation territory we have left. And to use low-cost power from NYPA’s Niagara Power Project - created through the flooding of the Tuscarora Reservation - to market this monstrosity. The STAMP mega industrial site, or Science and Advanced Manufacturing Park, is today’s Erie Canal for our people: it is a shrine to corporate greed, promoted and facilitated by the State of New York, with the Haudenosaunee paying the price because we are right there, next door, downstream, and will be the ones who suffer from the environmental and cultural impacts of this industrial development.
Despite the vast environmental impacts of the Erie Canal, including dispossession, deforestation, industrialization, pollution, and the introduction of invasive species, the Erie Canal continues to be celebrated, including at this conference. We, the Haudenosaunee, do not celebrate the Erie Canal. Despite all efforts to remove us and dispossess us, we remain. We are still here.
Note: The Tonawanda Seneca Nation has asked us to read this statement on their behalf. Nation leadership and citizens are currently in fall ceremonies and are unable to attend. They invite you to learn more about their fight to Rethink the STAMP mega-industrial site, which poses an existential threat to the Nation. Please take a pamphlet and check out Allies of the Tonawanda Seneca Nation’s website to learn more and find out how you can take action in solidarity with this existential fight for the Nation’s future generations.
New York could not have become the Empire State without dispossessing our ancestors, and the Erie Canal was a crucial component in the State’s efforts to dispossess the Tonawanda Seneca Nation and the Haudenosaunee, and to profit from the sale and industrialization of our lands.
DeWitt Clinton was both a leading figure in each stage of the canal’s development and also the son of General James Clinton, who earlier carried out a genocidal campaign to systematically destroy Haudenosaunee communities and harvests. Neither father nor son succeeded in dispossessing our people entirely, but the damage they did to our ancestors and our communities reverberates to this day as historical trauma we carry.
The route for the Erie Canal and its feeder system crossed seven Seneca reservations (Tonawanda, Buffalo Creek, Big Tree, Canadea, Canawaugus, Gardeau, and Squawky Hill), and the skyrocketing value of land along the route further incentivized the land speculation that nearly dispossessed the Tonawanda Seneca Nation entirely. The canal system thus led to fraudulent treaties in the mid 1800s, including the treaty that claimed to sell off our reservation at Tonawanda. Our ancestors fought and died to prevent that from happening, and won a Supreme Court case that confirmed our right to remain, though we had to buy back our own lands. Moreover, the canal and the feeder ditch through our Territory completely changed the hydrology and ecology of the Tonawanda Seneca Nation, changes that have never been remediated.
New York State continues to impose trauma on our people and our lands. Not only through symbols like the so-called “Seneca Chief,” which takes our name without our permission and uses it to celebrate this canal that has caused us so much harm, but also by spending hundreds of millions of dollars to try to build an industrial park next to the only reservation territory we have left. And to use low-cost power from NYPA’s Niagara Power Project - created through the flooding of the Tuscarora Reservation - to market this monstrosity. The STAMP mega industrial site, or Science and Advanced Manufacturing Park, is today’s Erie Canal for our people: it is a shrine to corporate greed, promoted and facilitated by the State of New York, with the Haudenosaunee paying the price because we are right there, next door, downstream, and will be the ones who suffer from the environmental and cultural impacts of this industrial development.
Despite the vast environmental impacts of the Erie Canal, including dispossession, deforestation, industrialization, pollution, and the introduction of invasive species, the Erie Canal continues to be celebrated, including at this conference. We, the Haudenosaunee, do not celebrate the Erie Canal. Despite all efforts to remove us and dispossess us, we remain. We are still here.
