Leadership and citizens of the Seneca Nation traveled to Albany this week for an impact day, where they met with different commissioners, lawmakers, and New York Governor Kathy Hochul. Among the progress Nation President J.C. Seneca said was made is framework to address New York’s role in the Native residential boarding school system.
While the Seneca Nation’s casino interests are a major economic strength, President J.C. Seneca said it was important they go to the state capital with other matters in mind.
“We had a very good meeting. Addressed several issues with the governor, we went in there with an agenda talk about issues other than gaming, because I believe we're more than a gaming tribe," said Seneca, who began his tenure in November. "We have a lot of other issues that need resolve, and we addressed those that day. Number one on my list was the Thomas Indian School.”
The facility operated from 1855 until the late 1950s on Seneca territory, for decades under direct operation by New York State. In line with federal assimilation policies, Thomas Indian School ripped Native children from their families, and forcefully destroyed generations of Native culture through a system that included widespread manual labor, physical and mental abuse.
Many Indigenous historians and scholars have called it genocide.
Lori Quigley is a professor and department chair at Niagara University, and a member of the Seneca Nation. She said survivors of Native boarding schools, like her mother, were the victims of a genocide.
“I do really believe, unfortunately, that the residential boarding school era I think should be seen as a symbol of American colonialism at its most genocidal," said Quigley, who's mother was in Thomas from the age of four until 14. She's extensively researched state archives for Seneca survivors. "I mean, where else do you see that schools were actually created that have cemeteries next to them of the children who went there?”
And now, Nation President Seneca said New York Governor Hochul is working on an apology for the state’s role.
“We talked to the governor about what had happened there for all those many years, the effect that it's had on our people over the many years, and still today, with the intergenerational trauma that is in our community," the president said. "And so I asked her, I said, 'Would you consider coming to our territory and apologizing for what happened on behalf of New York State?' And she agreed.”
Quigley said apologies, like what then-President Joe Biden did last year, can’t be the only step.
“We have not learned this history, and I believe that by not including it in our historical counts, in our curriculum, that it's the continued erasure of Indigenous peoples from this land," she said. "And so for me, personally, and even for some of the survivors that I have interviewed, an apology seems quite hollow where they really would much prefer that this part of history at least be acknowledged.”
Erasure of Native people and Native sovereignty is something Quigley said continues with other “macroaggressions.” From tax wars waged by New York, to the freezing of Seneca Nation bank accounts Hochul said went to pay for the new Buffalo Bills stadium, and federal executive orders.
“It's part of the oppression of tribal nations in this country, and I think that our tribal sovereignty in this current day is really, I mean, it's, it's nearly in jeopardy," she said. "Especially with certain executive orders that the current administration is trying to enact, especially with, you know, whatever they want to say about DEI."
For many Haudenosaunee people, they don't see themselves through the popular lens of race.
“For us, we don't see ourselves as a racialized people," said Quigley. "We see ourselves as a political group, a political group because prior to any European colonization, we were able to govern ourselves. We have been able to maintain that self governance — that self sovereignty — for thousands of years."
Trust is a term Quigley said is at the center of any government-to-government relationship. In outlining his agenda items with the governor, President Seneca seemed to convey that as well.
“I believe we have to have a better foundation, and we have to deal with the past so we can solve the problems of today and the future," he said. "We also talked about the unkept promises, the Route 17 agreement of 1976, which she [Hochul] also agreed to address. We talked about economic development. And finally, we talked about our environmental issues that we have, like what we're having with Olean in regards to the release of raw sewage into the Allegheny River.”
No date has been confirmed on when Hochul will visit Seneca territory.
