Native American Primary Resources: Collections Outside UB
Details
Further details on this selection of Special Collections at UB and the region can be found in the links below for each collection or as a whole through UB's Charles B. Sears Law Library's site: https://law.lib.buffalo.edu/collections/special-collections/nys-indians.html
SUNY Collections
- Genesee Valley Historical CollectionLocated in Geneseo College Libraries, State University College at Geneseo. In addition to a large number of books on the Iroquois, the collection includes a fully indexed microfilm collection of primary source materials.
- Seneca Indian Land Claims Collection Compiled by Paul G. ReillyLocated in the E.H. Butler Library Archives & Special Collections at Buffalo State College.
The original papers have been microfilmed. Paul G. Reilly was New York City attorney for the Seneca Nation and the Tonawanda Band of Seneca before the Indian Claims Commission between 1948 and 1970. Included are petitions, motions, responses, and opinions presented during federal judicial proceedings before the Indian Claims Commission, 1953-1971. The bulk of the collection consists of historical documents, including treaties, leases, legal proceedings, letters, and maps copied from the National Archives and historical repositories throughout the United States and Canada, and range in date from the early 18th century to the early 20th century. - The Wadsworth Family PapersLocated at the Geneseo College Libraries, State University of New York at Geneseo.
"The Wadsworth Collections concern the first and continued settlement of land in the Genesee region known as the Phelps and Gorham Purchase. They consist of approximately 50,000 items from land offices of two branches of the Wadsworth family and cover the years 1790 to about 1950...include business correspondence, voucher, business ledgers, copies of deeds, and maps."
Located in Reed Library, State University College at Fredonia. This microfilm collection contains material relating to the United States investment activities of the Holland Land Company, an early 19th-century Dutch corporation and spans the years 1879 to 1869.
Included are field notes, correspondence, and maps. An inventory is available online. A digital collection of Holland Land Company Maps is available at https://nyheritage.org/collections/holland-land-company-maps
Archives of the Holland Land Company are also available on the New York Heritage website.
Other Collections
- 19th Century Monographs on the History of Western New YorkA digital collection from Niagara University. Chapter IV of the History of Buffalo and Erie County (http://nyheritage.nnyln.net/cdm/search/collection/VVN001) covers the Iroquois.
- Papers of George P. Decker (1861-1936)Located in Lavery Library, St. John Fisher College. George Decker was a Rochester attorney who represented the Onondaga, Seneca and Tonawanda Seneca Nations and was involved in land claims by the Senecas and Cayugas in New York and Canada.
- Sir William Johnson PapersLocated in the Manuscripts and Special Collections in the New York State Library, the collection is available digitally at http://purl.org/net/nysl/nysdocs/423659
Johnson served from 1755 to 1774 as the British Superintendent of Indian Affairs in New York. His papers are primary documents from the colonial era which provide insight on the relations between the British, French and Haudenosaunee (Iroquois). - Papers of Samuel Kirkland (1741-1807)Located in the Burke Library Archives at Hamilton College.
Samuel Kirkland was a missionary to the Oneida Indians and founder of Hamilton College. Collection includes: correspondence; diaries; fragment of an autobiography, 1764-65; and census of the Six Nations, 1789. Correspondents include James Bowdoin, Joseph Brant, Israel Chapin, Henry Knox, Andrew Oliver, Timothy Pickering, Philip Schuyler, Peter Thatcher, the Rev. Stephen West, Eleazer Whellock, Edward Wigglesworth, and Joseph Willard.
Index: The Correspondence of Samuel Kirkland, indexed by James Freeman, John Hinge, & Christopher Barton. (K 62 C6 1979 - available only in the Burke Library Archives).
See also:The Journals of Samuel Kirkland, 18th Century Missionary to the Iroquois Walter Pinkerton, editor. (E99 I7 K5 1980). - Papers of Colonel George Morgan, Indian Agent, 1774-1778The Morgan Papers, along with the Isaac Craig Papers, are housed in the William R. Oliver Special Collections Room at the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh. For more information about this collection, contact archivist Greg Priore (email: prioreg@carnegielibrary.org phone: 412-622-1932).
Morgan was the first Indian Agent for the Continental Congress and was sent by Washington in 1776 to Onondaga with a great peace belt with 13 diamonds.
Other papers located also at :
Center for Indigenous Arts & Cultures
2300 W. Alameda, A-7,
Santa Fe, NM 87507.
Phone: 505-473-5375; FAX: 505-424-1025;
email: Indians@nets.com
See also:
Gregory Schaaf's The Morgan Papers : the impact of George Morgan and George Washington in formulating Indian policies at the outbreak of the American Revolution in 1776; his article, "Discovery of the Morgan Papers Adds to the Evidence," in Indian Roots of Indian Democracy, special issue of the Northeast Indian Quarterly, 1988 (E 99 I7 I385 1988) and his book, Wampum Belts & Peace Trees: George Morgan, Native Americans, and Revolutionary Diplomacy(E 93 M83 S33 1990). - Lulu Stillman PapersLocated in the Manuscripts and Special Collections in the New York State Library.
Lulu Stillman was the stenographer for Assemblyman Edward Everett who chaired the New York State Indian Commission from 1919 to 1922. The Everett Report documented the signing of a treaty with the U.S. in 1784 and concluded that the original six million acres of land ceded to the Indians reflected their current land status. The report was not accepted by the Legislature and lay unpublished until 1971 when Mrs. Stillman made the only remaining record available. Helen Upton, a researcher at Russell Sage College who wrote The Everett Report in Historical Perspective, added her own papers to this collection.