Two Row Wampum Canoe Trip to Revive Original Treaty

Epic Canoe Trip Being Planned Down Hudson River This Summer for 400th Anniversary of the First Treaty

Excerpts from the website of Two Row Wampum Renewal Campaign

The Campaign:

In partnership with the Onondaga Nation, Neighbors of the Onondaga Nation (NOON) has begun developing a major statewide educational campaign to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the first treaty between the Haudenosaunee and European settlers.

To this day, our Haudenosaunee neighbors retain the Two Row Wampum Belt on which this treaty was originally recorded. The belt illustrates a mutual, three-part commitment to friendship, peace between peoples, and living in parallel in perpetuity.

Throughout the years, the Haudenosaunee have sought to honor this mutual promise and remind us of our own. In recent years, they have increasingly emphasized that ecological stewardship is a fundamental necessity for this continuing friendship, for a more just peace between peoples and to a sustainable, shared future in parallel. We, the people and governments of the United States and Canada, on the other hand, have too often fallen short on this promised commitment:

• We have repeatedly broken international treaties and written laws to justify and conceal these unjust actions.
• We have forced coercive and unjust policies on our neighbors, usually aimed at further reducing Native Nations’ sovereignty while appropriating more of their lands and resources;
• We have—through governmental, economic, industrial, and social policies and practices—sullied our shared environmental inheritance and committed too few resources to restoring them.

What’s more, too few of us possess even a passing understanding of the tangled history and ongoing present of these injustices perpetuated in our names. The time has come for us to renew our commitment, to learn and acknowledge this ongoing history, to make amends and work for justice. In the words of our Haudenosaunee neighbors, it is high time that the people of the United States and Canada “polish the covenant chain” that will help to ensure a just, peaceful, and livable future for all of us.

In the spirit of the Two Row Wampum, and as concerned peoples of Nations bound by the “Two Row” and scores of subsequent treaties signed on our behalf and subsequently betrayed in our names, we are committed to reinvigorating this powerful vision and renewing this mutual commitment beginning next year and continuing throughout 2013.

We hope to polish this centuries-old covenant chain of friendship between our peoples, and draw more people into the work of extending Indigenous sovereignty over their lands, protecting our shared environmental inheritance, and building support for a just resolution of the several Haudenosaunee Land Rights Actions.

As in the series, “Onondaga Land Rights and Our Common Future,” and our other previous projects, we intend to work in parallel with the Haudenosaunee Confederacy and the individual Native Nations to educate our governments and fellow citizens about the history of Two Row Wampum, its meaning, and its implications for peace, friendship, environmental responsibility and justice in 2013 and beyond. We are planning a variety of possible events including lectures, concerts, celebrations, historic enactments, and collaborations with related activities that focus on Indigenous Rights, peace-making and environmental healing for all. Please join us.

If you’d like to make a financial contribution, please click here.

Two Row History

The Two Row Wampum belt is the symbolic record of the first agreement between Europeans and American Indian Nations on Turtle Island/North America. 2013 marks the 400th anniversary of this first covenant, which forms the basis for the covenant chain of all subsequent treaty relationships made by the Haudenosaunee and other Native Nations with settler governments on this continent. The agreement outlines a mutual, three-part commitment to friendship, peace between peoples, and living in parallel forever (as long as the grass is green, as long as the rivers flow downhill and as long as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west). Throughout the years, the Haudenosaunee have sought to honor this mutual vision and have increasingly emphasized that ecological stewardship is a fundamental prerequisite for this continuing friendship. Here are links to some documents with more detailed background information.

[Onondaga Nation Chief Irving Powless Jr. displays the two row wampum belt at the Onondaga Land Rights forum at Syracuse Stage. Photo by Mike Greenlar]

Two Row History by Rick Hill, Tuscarora artist and historian
On Treaty Making by Chief Irv Powless
Two Row Translation and Context by Robert Venables
1924 New York Times article with Jesse Lyons and the Two Row
The Covenant Chain of Treaties Pt. 1 by Robert Venables
The Covenant Chain of Treaties Pt. 2 by Robert Venables
The Covenant Chain of Treaties Pt. 3 by Robert Venables
The Covenant Chain of Treaties Pt. 4 by Robert Venables
Analysis of the Two Row by Jon Parmenter

Epic Canoe Trip