Several of my recent hubs have been about New York State and Fort Niagara in the Niagara Falls area. Fort Niagara is near Lewiston and Youngstown New York. There is a reason for that. This past week I have been involved with a program, CROSSROADS OF EMPIRE: OLD FORT NIAGARA, through the Niagara University where I, along with other teachers and colleagues, am studying the history of New York, in regards to its early inhabitants and how they were affected by others individuals of the time. The professor who is in charge of the program has set up lectures with scholars who have studied the indigenous people of New York and how they interacted with the Europeans through the seventeenth century and beyond. There is a strong focus on the historical roles that the development of the forts in the area played in the progression of New York State.

The indigenous people greeted the various groups of Europeans with food and other gifts such that a good host would provide. The indigenous people gave fresh fruits and vegetables that they grew as farmers, they taught the Europeans about the more than 400 herbs they collected for medicinal purposes. The Europeans gave the people they named the Indians, as they believed they had arrived in India, gifts of glass beads, tools and other trinkets. As the interactions amongst the indigenous people and the Europeans continued, each group formulated judgmental opinions of the other although each tried to maintain an outward persona of acceptance and peace. Soon, however, the Europeans began outwardly imposing their missionaries on the indigenous to convert them to Christianity. The Europeans thought that the Indigenous people of North America dressed scantily and rejected their idea of body art in the form of tattoos.

Later when things evolved into a system of trade, as opposed to the earlier system of gifts, the Europeans would not allow the indigenous people to come into the forts, which they had given permission for construction for and had owned the land in the first place, unless they were clothed in a manner that the Eurpoeans deemed appropriate. This forced the indigenous people to alter their form of dress and to trade for cloth from the Europeans. The indigenous people enjoyed the glass beads that the Europeans brought. They quickly embraced the ease of use of the copper kettles, the steel tools and jewelry and soon felt that they could not live without such tools. They also enjoyed the benefit of muskets and other weapons. This created a dependence on the Europeans.

The Europeans had developed a system of water travel from the St. Lawrence River, the Niagara River, the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River to transport goods throughout the Northern America continent and back to Europe. The one glitch was Niagara Falls. The Europeans developed a system of unloading the goods coming from the southern and middle parts of the continent up through the Great Lakes and up the Niagara River. When they came upon the area that approached the falls, goods were unloaded and transported beyond the falls and reloaded to another ship and transported there to Europe. The Native Americans traded their services of transportation, which entailed carrying goods on their backs, for goods they desired from the Europeans. This worked until the Europeans created a roadway system and used oxen to transport the goods. The indigenous people, the Senecas, became angry and complained to the representative of France. Their voice went unheard, which meant very little at this time as the area was about to be taken over by another group of Europeans, the British. The British soon had established that they were in charge and expanded the road of passage for transporting goods beyond the Niagara Falls. The Senecas had lost their role as providing labor for trade. This left them with not much to trade with the Europeans other than land. Over time they utilized this asset and traded their land for goods that they had come to depend upon.

My brief overview of these scenarios is that the Europeans came to the table to get what they could for their country and its people. The indigenous people came to the table to get what they could for their people. It became a match of who needed who most. When the Native Americans began to trade off their land, they eventually had nothing else to trade. As we know today, some land was set aside, reservations, by the government for the indigenous people, which is where most reside today.

This is a very simple overview of my present understanding of a very complex system. There are clearly views that differ and recognize the perspectives of each respective side. I wish to be respectful of both views and realize the complexity of the situation. I have included a youtube video of an elder from an area other than NY; however, he speaks of how he views the white man and how he has treated the earth.