Ganondagan State Historic Site, (pronounced ga·NON·da·gan) also known as Boughton Hill, is a Native American historic site in Ontario County, New York in the United States. Location of the largest Seneca village of the 17th century, the site is in the present-day Town of Victor, southwest of the Village of Victor. The village was also referred to in various spellings as Gannagaro, Canagora, Gandagora, Gandagaro and Gannontaa.
It consists of two areas: the Boughton Hill portion, the area of longhouses and burials, has been designated as a National Historic Landmark. It has been identified as the location of the Jesuit Mission of St. Jacques (or St. James), which was mentioned in the Jesuit Relations. The Fort Hill portion was the location of a fortified granary and consists of ; it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The complex is operated by the state of New York.
History
Seneca traditions
Like many indigenous peoples, the Seneca cultivated the Three Sisters: staple crops of corn, beans, and squash. Women bred and cultivated different varieties of each staple, experimenting with a range of seeds. These crops were typically grown near each other, so that beans could climb the cornstalks, and the typically large leaves of squashes would prevent weeds from growing.
Ganondagan was once the largest Seneca town; the Seneca nation was considered to occupy the western gateway of Haudenosaunee (Iroquois Confederacy) territory. This site is at the center of the story of the Peacemaker, who unified the five major peoples and created the Haudenosaunee confederacy. It survives to this day.
Seneca oral tradition tells of a Huron man who arrived among the Mohawk speaking of the Gayanesshagowa (aka The Great Law of Peace). This prophet is known today as The Great Peacemaker. The Mohawk, Oneida, and Cayuga pledged to join his proposed confederation and, following a dramatic interlude, the Seneca agreed also.
The discussion about how to bring in the Onondaga took place in the Ganondagan house of Jikonsase (or Jikonhsaseh), a Seneca woman elder now known as the "Mother of Nations." She proposed a solution which eventually brought the Onondaga into the fold, for it gave them a prominent place in the confederacy. She lived in the vicinity of Ganondagan, and is buried nearby.
Because of this tradition, the Seneca refer to Ganondagan as the "Town of Peace". They revere and protect the burial site of Jikonsase. The relation to their Great Law of Peace is more important than the attack that destroyed the village, for the people have carried forward their means of negotiating for solutions. The United States Senate acknowledged the contribution of the Iroquois Confederacy of Nations to the development of the United States Constitution in H.CON. RES 331 on October 5, 1988.
Contact with Europeans
In 1656, Jesuit Father Pierre-Joseph-Marie Chaumonot traveled from the Cayuga nation to the Seneca nation. Then, "Having assembled all the Elders of Gandagan, the principal village of Sonnontouan [the Seneca], and having bestowed the presents that are usually given as tokens of alliance, he commenced in a fervent and loud tone to explain the principal truths of the Gospel, which he sealed with the three finest presents of all, which he had reserved for this purpose."
By the close of 1668, the Jesuits had established a mission in each of the five Iroquois nations; the Seneca, and the Mission of St. Jacques, had been assigned to Father James Fremin. The Seneca finally forced the missionaries to leave in 1684, after rising tension with the French.
In August 1669, René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle and Father René de Bréhant de Galinée, traveled to Ganondagan via Irondequoit. Galinée wrote:
In 1677, Wentworth Greenhalgh, an English colonial government official, traveled to the Iroquois nations and secured them as allies for the British. One of his stops was at Ganondagan, which he referred to as Canagora and as Canagorah:
Greenhalgh wrote that none of the Seneca towns were "stockadoed" (stockaded), and related the following incident:
In 1678, René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle and Father Louis Hennepin traveled to Ganondagan, which Hennepin called Tagorondies. Hennepin remarked on the presence of Jesuits Julien Garnier and Pierre Raffeix, and a "little Chapel made of Barks of Trees". About the inhabitants, he wrote: