Abstract
Scholarly inquiry into the post–World War II experiences of the Seneca Nation of Indians has focused on the consequences of the construction of the Kinzua Dam in the 1960s. To build the dam, the US government violated a 1794 treaty and condemned some 10,000 acres of Seneca lands, roughly one-third of the nation’s territory. Laurence Hauptman, Distinguished Professor Emeritus
of History at the State University of New York, New Paltz, acknowledges the devastating impact of the Kinzua crisis but calls for a broader view of the diffi - culties facing the Senecas at a time when “everything was stacked against them” (268). Hauptman chronicles the nation’s recovery from the nadir of the 1960s to becoming a major economic force in western New York in the 2010s. He regards that journey as part of the much larger and longer history of a people who have endured as a nation for centuries.