{{Short description|Seneca Indian village}} {{Use mdy dates|date=January 2025}} '''Canawaugus''' (or Conawagus, or Ca-noh-wa-gas, or Conewaugus) ({{IPAc-en|'|k|æ|n|ə|w|O:|g|ə|s}}) was a Seneca Indian village.<ref name=Blacksnake>{{cite book|last1=Governor Blacksnake|title=Chainbreaker: The Revolutionary War Memoirs of Governor Blacksnake as Told to Benjamin Williams|date=July 1, 2005|publisher=U of Nebraska Press|page=46|isbn=9780803264502|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=F9uSGbnFpAAC&pg=PP1|accessdate=May 26, 2015}}</ref>{{rp|p.46}} The village was located on the west side of the Genesee River, "about a mile above the ford",<ref name=Doty>{{cite book|last1=Doty|first1=Edward L.|title=A History of Livingston County, New York|date=1876|publisher=Livingston County|url=https://archive.org/details/ahistorylivings00dugagoog|accessdate=May 26, 2015}}</ref>{{rp|p.59}} on the eastern edge of the Town of Caledonia. It was nearly opposite of the Avon sulphur springs. The name (translated as "Cattaraugus" in other Iroquoian languages) means "stinking waters" because of the sulphur.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Czamota|first1=Lorna|title=Native American & Pioneer Sites of Upstate New York|date=2014|publisher=The History Press|isbn=9781626192904|page=140|url=https://www.amazon.com/gp/search?index=books&linkCode=qs&keywords=9781626192904}}</ref>
Canawaugus was one of the most populous of the Seneca villages, with a population approaching 1000 people.<ref name=Norton>{{cite book|last1=Norton|first1=A. Tiffany|title=History of Sullivan's Campaign Against the Iroquois|date=1879|publisher=A.T. Norton|url=https://archive.org/details/historysullivan02tiffgoog|accessdate=May 26, 2015}}</ref>{{rp|p.166}}
The Seneca religious leader Handsome Lake was born here about 1735. Governor Blacksnake moved here shortly after his birth.<ref name=Blacksnake />{{rp|p.46}} Cornplanter was born here around 1750.
It is unclear whether or not the village was destroyed in the Sullivan Expedition of 1779.<ref name=Norton />{{rp|p.166}} Canawaugus was one of the 11 reservations retained by the Seneca tribe in the Treaty of Big Tree in 1797. It sold the reservation to the Ogden Land Company in 1826.<ref name=canawaugus-repurchase/> The Seneca Nation of Indians claims that the 1826 sale was never legal because it would have required a treaty be ratified by the United States Senate, and that the Canawaugus reservation was never disestablished.<ref name=canawaugus-repurchase/> The Ogden Land Company would later purchase the Senecas' remaining lands in the Second Treaty of Buffalo Creek in 1838, before returning the Allegany, Cattaraugus and Oil Spring reservations in the Third Treaty of Buffalo Creek in 1842.
In December 2022, the Seneca Nation of Indians purchased a {{convert|1.8|acre|ha|adj=on}} plot that had been on the Canawaugus reservation and claimed sovereignty over it as a continuation of the original Canawaugus reservation.<ref name=canawaugus-repurchase>{{Cite web |last=Quigley |first=Kellen |date=December 31, 2022 |title=Seneca Nation purchases ancestral Genesee Valley land |url=https://www.salamancapress.com/news/seneca-nation-purchases-ancestral-genesee-valley-land/article_7fcb785a-885b-11ed-9c26-87556795cadf.html |access-date=2022-12-31 |website=The Salamanca Press |language=en}}</ref>
==References== {{reflist}}
Category:Haudenosaunee populated places Category:Livingston County, New York Category:Native American history of New York (state) Category:Former Native American populated places in New York (state)