HAUDENOSAUNEE HUNTING RIGHTS
HISTORY OF RELATIONS WITH OUR BROTHERS
Dr. Robert Venables
July 1, 2012

Chief Irving Powless Jr and Dr. Robert Venables (retired professor of Native American Studies at Cornell) have formed a relationship over the past 30+ years.  They would like to share information about the belt returned to the Onondaga’s last week. 

Click to read more of Chief Powless Jr & Dr. Venables’ essays.

HAUDENOSAUNEE HUNTING RIGHTS
DESCRIBED BY COLONEL TIMOTHY PICKERING DURING THE NEGOTIATIONS THAT LED TO THE TREATY OF CANANDAIGUA

On the afternoon of October 28, 1794, the United States commissioner, Colonel Timothy Pickering, made a speech carefully detailing the terms of the Treaty of Canandaigua to the Haudenosaunee gathered in council at Canandaigua. The Quaker William Savery was present at this meeting.  Savery recorded in his journal what Colonel Pickering told the Haudenosaunee about their rights to hunt in all their territories.  Pickering began by noting that the Haudenosaunee could even hunt on a tract of land ceded to the British in 1764.  This tract was used for travel and transportation between Lake Ontario and Lake Erie and specifically provided a land route for military supplies around Niagara Falls.  Pickering then went on to include all lands ceded by the Haudenosaunee since the Peace of Paris in 1783.  Thus Pickering included the lands involved in the negotiations in 1784 at Fort Stanwix and all the lands involved in the negotiations with the State of New York.

The commissioner observed, that the four mile path on the side of the inlet, between lake Erie and lake Ontario, was ceded to our predecessors, the British, in the days of sir William Johnson; yet, that the Indians shall have the right of hunting on these lands, as well as on all those ceded at the treaty of fort Stanwix; and on all other lands ceded by them since the peace.

Reference: William Savery, A Journal of the Life, Travels and Religious Labours of William Savery compiled in 1837 from his original memoranda by Jonathan Evans.  Philadelphia: The Friends Library, Volume One, p. 359.  This quote can also be found in another edition of Savery’s journal: William Savery, A Journal of the Life, Travels, and Religious Labors of William Savery, edited by Jonathan Evans (Philadelphia: published for the Friends' Bookstore, 1873), 124.  This quote, with modernized spelling, can also be found in the Appendix of G. Peter Jemison and Anna M. Schein, eds., Treaty of Canandaigua 1794 (Santa Fe, New Mexico: Clear Light Publishers, 2000), p. 278.