Lecture: Escape to the Lakes: A Story of New York Refugees from the Yankee-Pennamite Wars

Presenter Kathleen Earle shares her journey to discover her ancestors' role in the Yankee-Pennamite Wars in the Wyoming Valley of the late 1700s. The conflict involved Connecticut Yankees, Pennsylvania settlers, and the Haudenosaunee. Several of her ancestors were involved in the kidnapping of Pennsylvania official Timothy Pickering and later settled land in the Finger Lakes region around Geneva. She speaks about the conflict, early colonial life, and the men who escaped to the lakes.
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[@MeMyselfAndUs903]

@14:58. Where were these 5 original tribes located? Also, when you say “original tribes” does that mean original tribes of that certain area? I’m curious because I live in a neighborhood that some people call “the Indian neighborhood” because all of our street names are those of Indian tribes. Every one of those 5 tribes listed has a street in our neighborhood…plus, many more.

[@HistoricGeneva]

The map shown in the presentation gives their approximate location. The five nations of the Haudenosaunee are also known as the Iroquois. The nations covered different territory at different times throughout New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio, but generally the Seneca were the westernmost ranging from the Rochester area to Seneca Lake in New York. The Cayuga lived in the area around Cayuga Lake, the Onondaga near Syracuse and Central NY, the Oneida in the Rome/Utica region and the Mohawk in the Adirondack region to the north. The Tuscarora were admitted to the confederacy later and granted lands in central New York. Many place names throughout the state were derived from native words or English pronunciations of them, not only the names of the nations, but also Canandaigua, Tonawanda, Coneseus, and Keuka. You can find more information about the Haudenosaunee on the New York State Museum website: www.nysm.nysed.gov/exhibitions/ongoing/first-peoples