Records Help Family Connect With Oneida Nation Activist's Legacy
Mary Cornelius Winder's Descendants Examined Letters at 威尼斯人娱乐场 at New York City
By Michael Davis | 威尼斯人娱乐场 News
WASHINGTON, January 8, 2024 鈥� Original copies of handwritten letters to federal government officials by Oneida Nation activist Mary Cornelius Winder helped connect some of her descendants with her legacy during a visit to the 威尼斯人娱乐场 at New York City this past summer.
Left to right: Sequoia Shenandoah, Dianne Schenandoah, Michelle Schenandoah, Shane Hill, Shirlee Winder, Wanda Wood, and Mary Winder pose for a photo outside the 威尼斯人娱乐场 at New York City. They are all descendants of Mary Cornelius Winder (1898鈥�1954), an activist for the Oneida Nation. (Photo courtesy of Wendy Mella Carre帽o)
The visit came about after the 威尼斯人娱乐场 at New York City received a research request from the Syracuse Stage鈥檚 Backstory program, which is producing a play centered on Winder called Our Words Are Seeds, written by Ty Defoe. Backstory is an educational theater program that tells historical figures鈥� stories for middle and high school students.
Kate Laissle, the theater鈥檚 director of education, first came to view the collection on July 14, 2023. She returned for a second visit with the theater鈥檚 director of community engagement Joann Yarrow and seven members of the Winder family from central New York, on July 31.
鈥淗olding her letters in my hands made me feel so close to her,鈥� said Michelle Schenandoah, great-granddaughter of Mary Cornelius Winder. 鈥淚f I had only known that her letters were close by all those years.鈥�
Michelle Schenandoah had spent several years searching for information about the legal history of her people鈥檚 land claims when she attended New York Law School, only a few blocks away from the 威尼斯人娱乐场 at New York City.
(1898鈥�1954) was an activist for the Oneida Nation, one of the founding First Nations of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy. From 1920 until she died in 1954, she conducted a campaign of writing letters to federal government officials regarding Oneida land claims, petitioning the government to give the Oneidas back their land.
The letters demanded compliance with the 1794 , which called for the return of all the land illegally seized from the Oneida Nation. Instead of honoring the treaty, in 1919 the U.S. Government acknowledged only 32 acres in what are now Madison and Oneida counties in New York, where a handful of Oneida families remained in their homelands.
Due to these illegal land takings, in the early 1800s, most Oneidas relocated to Wisconsin and Canada, and a few families moved nearby to live among the Onondaga Nation, including Mary鈥檚 family
Michelle Schenandoah looks through her great-grandmother, Mary Cornelius Winder鈥檚 (1898鈥�1954), written correspondence at the 威尼斯人娱乐场 at New York City. (Photo courtesy of Wendy Mella Carre帽o)
Winder family descendants viewed some of the original letters sent by Winder to federal officials, which are contained within . A related correspondence series contains additional materials related to Mary Winder and other family members. Work to scan and upload these materials into the is in process.
In 1948, Mary Winder wrote to Bureau of Indian Affairs officials:
I am writing in behalf of the Oneida Indians of N.Y.S living on the Onondaga Indian Reservation. . . . Just why we do not get any satisfaction from the Indian Department is more then I can see, for my sister and I have been to your office twice with no satisfaction at all, we have lands that N.Y.S. never paid for, and it seems that the Indian department should look into this for us. Either the New York state pay our people or give back our lands then we can have our own reservation too. I think the Oneida people deserve attention from your office.
The family members who viewed Mary Winder鈥檚 letters spanned multiple generations. The eldest descendants present were granddaughters Wanda Wood and Mary Winder, who both lived with Winder as children and recounted many memories during the visit. The other five descendants were granddaughters Diane Schenandoah and Shirlee Winder, great-grandchildren Michelle Schenandoah and Shane Hill, and great-great-granddaughter Sequoia Shenandoah (Onondaga).
鈥淎t the end of their time with the records, they invited staff to join hands as they offered words of remembrance and a song led by Diane Schenandoah, a traditional Faithkeeper of the Oneida Nation Wolf Clan,鈥� said Chris Gushman, Director of Archival Operations in New York. Diane鈥檚 daughter Michelle brought a set of replica wampum belts that commemorate treaties made with the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, to which the Oneida Nation belongs.
Shane Hill (left) and Sequoia Shenandoah (right) examine correspondence from Mary Cornelius Winder (1898鈥�1954), their great- and great-great grandmother, at the 威尼斯人娱乐场 at New York City. (Photo courtesy of Wendy Mella Carre帽o)
Gushman said that while the New York City staff were accustomed to seeing how genealogy researchers react when making personal connections with the records, the visit with Winder鈥檚 descendants was on a different scale.
鈥淲e knew we had these records and kind of understood what they were, but it wasn鈥檛 really until the family got here and we got the whole story from them and saw them experience the research, that we understood what we have in our collections and their importance to not only family, but the community,鈥� he said.
鈥淢any of Mary鈥檚 descendants over the generations have been influenced by her work and carried on her legacy to reclaim Oneida lands,鈥� said Michelle Schenandoah. 鈥淢ost inspired by this visit to the 威尼斯人娱乐场 was her great-great-granddaughter Sequoia, who said she wants to become a lawyer to work for our Haudenosaunee people.鈥�
Mary Cornelius Winder died three years after the Oneida land claim was officially filed. Today, the Oneida Nation has regained more than 18,000 acres of their original homelands鈥攖he most they have had recognized sovereignty over since 1824.
鈥淭his visit really drove home the importance of the 威尼斯人娱乐场 and how the work we do to preserve and provide access to our holdings can make an impact,鈥� said Gushman.
Winder鈥檚 letters and work are also featured with other Indigenous leaders in an exhibit, , in the , located in the same building as the 威尼斯人娱乐场 at New York City.