Tonawanda Indian Reservation
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Tonawanda Reservation Tonawanda Creek Reservation |
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|---|---|
| Indian reservation | |
 Location of Tonawanda Reservation in New York |
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.svg) Location of New York in the United States |
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| Coordinates: 43°04′05″N 78°26′42″W / 43.06806°N 78.44500°WCoordinates: 43°04′05″N 78°26′42″W / 43.06806°N 78.44500°W | |
| Country | United States |
| State | New York |
| Counties | Erie, Genesee, and Niagara |
| Area | |
| • Total | 0.80 sq mi (2.07 km2) |
| • Land | 0.80 sq mi (2.07 km2) |
| • Water | 0.00 sq mi (0.00 km2) |
| Population (2010) | |
| • Total | 2,662 |
| • Estimate (2016) | 0 |
| • Density | 0.00/sq mi (0.00/km2) |
| Time zone | EST (UTC-5) |
| • Summer (DST) | EDT (UTC-4) |
| Area code(s) | 716 |
| Website | Seneca Nation of Indians |
The Tonawanda Indian Reservation is an Indian reservation of the Tonawanda Band of Seneca Indians located in western New York, United States. The band is a federally recognized tribe and, in the 2010 census, had 693 people living on the reservation. The reservation lies mostly in Genesee County, extending into Erie and Niagara counties. It is bordered by the Towns of Alabama, Pembroke, Newstead, and Royalton.
The Tonawanda Reservation is also known as the Tonawanda Creek Reservation. Currently, it has more than a half dozen businesses located on Bloomingdale Road within the reservation. Several sell untaxed, low-price cigarettes and gasoline. Other businesses sell Seneca craft goods, groceries, and prepared food.
After various cultures of indigenous peoples succeeded each other in the Great Lakes area, in late prehistoric times, the five nations of the Iroquois coalesced. Before the mid-14th century, they had formed the Iroquois Confederacy. The Seneca were one of the Five Nations of the Haudenosaunee. The current location of the Tonawanda Reservation is believed to be close to the likely poorly-defined border between the historic Seneca homeland and its rivals, the Neutral Nation that occupied the Niagara Region at the time of French missionary Joseph de La Roche Daillon's arrival in the area in 1627. During the Beaver Wars of the 17th century, the Seneca invaded what is now Western New York, wiping out the Neutrals and other tribes in the region.
The Iroquois pledged allegiance to the British Crown in the Nanfan Treaty. During the French and Indian War, the Iroquois and British defeated New France; the Iroquois and other native territory was placed in a massive Indian Reserve. During the American Revolutionary War, most of the Iroquois sided with the British Crown, as they hoped to end colonial encroachment; to this effect, the Iroquois led several massacres on colonial settlements, which provoked the Continental Army to respond with the scorched-earth Sullivan Expedition, wiping out much of the Senecas' already destitute homelands. After the Crown's defeat, some of the Seneca, along with other Iroquois, migrated with Joseph Brant to the Grand River reservation in the still British-controlled territory of upper Canada (now known as the province of Ontario).
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