Hear now we entreat you, what has since happened, concerning that Land. Filmmaker Alan Snitow stands in front of an audience after a screening of the film Town Destroyer at the Little Roxie Theater in San Francisco Calif., on Friday, Nov. 4, 2022. He was the ingenious and cunning general who overcame the most extensive empire in the world to create a brand-new, "free" nation: the United States of America. Victor Arnautoff was one of the most prolific artists in San Francisco. The voice of the Senecca Nation speaks to you the great Councillor, in whose heart, the wise men of the thirteen fires, have placed their wisdom. Great Tree was shot in the leg during his stay in Philahdelphia (Wallace, Death and Rebirth of the Seneca, description begins Anthony F. C. Wallace. THANK YOU TO OUR COMMUNITY PARTNER JEWISH FILM INSTITUTE, The California Film Institute is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. Before you determine on a measure so unjust, look up to the God who made us, as well as you, we hope he will not permit you to destroy the whole of our nation. Sun. Our nation empowered John Livingston to let out a part of our lands on rent. History of Relations with our Brothers: 1613 to Today, Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window), Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window), Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window), Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window), MAGAZINE OF SMITHSONIANS NATIONAL MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN. There are passionate arguments on both sides, and they are not as simply divided by racial, cultural, or political identification as youd think. Town Destroyer contextualizes this fight within a landscape where similar battles are occurring (like over Confederate monuments), though often for different reasons. On the day on which we finished the treaty at When your army entered the Country of the Six Nations, we called you the Town-destroyer and to this day, when that name is heard, our women look behind them and turn pale, and our children cling close to the neck of their mothers.1Our Councillors and warriors are men, and can not be afraid; but their hearts are grieved with the fears of our women Hear our case, many nations inhabited this Country, but they had no wisdom, and therefore they warred, together. For this Land Phelps agreed to pay us Ten thousand dollars in hand and one thousand dollars a year for ever. oy. The long-running Mission arts venue's charms come through in diverse music, poetry, dramatic readings, and comedy shows. held a Council and they agreed that no event of war could be worse than being driven with our wives & children from the only Country which we had any right to. The founder of the San Francisco Jewish Festival and its director for 13 years, Kaufman teamed up with Alan Snitow, the former news director at KPFA, to make Blacks and Jews in 1997, Secrets of Silicon Valley in 2001, and this year Town Destroyer which premiered at the Mill Valley Film Festival. "Town Destroyer" will have its world premiere at the Mill Valley Film Festival, Oct. 6-16, with the first of three screenings at the CinArts Sequoia Theatre in Mill Valley, Oct. 8, at 8 p.m. 9 ser., 138 vols. Filmmakers Alan Snitow and Deborah Kaufman . When you kindled your thirteen fires seperately, the wise men In his book, George Washington and Native Americans We recollect that you did not promise to punish those who killed our people, and we now ask, Was it intended that your people should kill the Seneccas, and not only remain unpunished by you: but be protected by you against the next of kin?6. 1790. After some days he proposed to run a line at a small distance Eastward of our western boundary which we also refused to agree to. In a letter written by tribal leaders in 1790, Washington is described as an unjust killer and referred to as the "Town Destroyer." Crops such as corn, beans, potatoes, pumpkins, squash, cucumbers, and melons grew in an abundance that astonished the invading soldiers. CODE OF CONDUCT, Workshop: In Our Own Words: Poetry on Film. This line was established after the French and Indian War by King George as a boundary between the colonists and Native lands. To him we gave four miles round Niagara, as a place of Trade. By the standards of the era, the work was indeed pretty progressive in content, mixing a standard, celebratory depiction of early US history with images that clearly indicted treatment of Native Americans, the institution of slavery, and so forth. Washington himself was given or assumed an Indian name, Conoto carious, meaning "Town Destroyer" or "Devourer of Villages," and an Indian messenger who arrived at Fort Harmar in July 1788 was identified as "George Washington, a Delaware." He was not the only Indian to bear Washington's name. preserve, publish, and encourage the use of documentary sources, relating to the history of Philadelphia and Harrisburg, 18521949. Become a member. Sign up for email updates on the latest frieze talks, fairs and events. As the first president of the United States, he established America's nation-to-nation relationship with its Indigenous people. We know that you are strong and we have heard that you are wise; and we wait to hear your answer to what we have said that we may know that you are just. This is an analysis of a controversy that was all over the local and national news not so long ago even if it seems very long ago, as it was just-pre-COVID. Yet to this day, the Iroquois (more properly, the Haudenosaunee) call Washington Conotocaurius, or "Town Destroyer." His army razed their well-constructed, permanent villages and laid waste to huge quantities of their food. George Washington: Father of His Country? And at this moment his wife and children are lying on the Ground in want of food. That they do not remember him with fondness is understandable. Bay Guardian Archives Conotocaurius (Town Destroyer, Seneca: Handaganyas) was a nickname given to George Washington by Iroquois peoples in 1753. George Washington's favorite native fruit is ripe in the HFH orchard >> the pawpaw. He told us he was sent by Congress to do this for us and we fear he has deceived us on the writing he obtained from us: For since the time of our giving that power, a man of the name of Phelps has come among us, and claimed our whole Country northward of the line of Pensylvania under purchase from that Livingston to whom he said he had paid twenty thousand dollars for it.4 He said also he had bought likewise from the Council of the thirteen fires, and paid them twenty thousand dollars more for the same. The name in its original language (s) has been given variously as Conotocarius, Conotocaurious, Caunotaucarius, Conotocarious, Hanodaganears, and Hanadahguyus. His great-grandson lived up to the name of Town Destroyer in his treatment of Indigenous nations both during and after the Revolutionary War (177583). In Wolf Nation, my 2019 exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, I marked the 240th anniversary of Washingtons ruthless invasion with an augmented reality version of this work. Others, like the Mohawk, fought with their longstanding allies, the British. Summary: George Washington (1732-1799), nicknamed the "American Cincinnatus", was the 1st American President and served in office from 1789-1797. He was likewise unsuccessful in obtaining a settlement from the U.S. government on his own. We hearkened to them and were deceived until your army approached our towns. Presented by the California Film Institute (CAFILM), the 45th Mill Valley Film Festival (MVFF45) runs October 6-16, 2022. Commissioned in the late 1960s to create a mural at George Washington High School titled Multi-Ethnic Heritage, Crumpler honors Blacks and Indians. If you want to leave all these Earthly woes behind, there is warm, fuzzy and interplanetary comfort to be found inGood Night Oppy. When George Washington High Schooldesigned by architect Timothy Pfleuger, who also created the Castro and Paramount Theaters, among other landmarksopened in 1936, its hallways sported 13 impressive murals titledThe Life of Washington. It is an ideology that has been so thoroughly internalized that it has never prompted a national reckoning. Our Chiefs had felt your power & were unable to contend against you and they therefore gave up that Country. It involved members of both the Susquehannah and the Piscataway, an Algonquian tribe that lived across the Potomac River from Mount Vernon. Both Washington and Jefferson enslaved and waged war against Indigenous nations to dispossess them of their homelands. It will be essential to ruin their crops now in the ground and prevent their planting more., I would recommend, that some post in the center of the Indian Country, should be occupied with all expedition, with a sufficient quantity of provisions whence parties should be detached to lay waste all the settlements around, with instructions to do it in the most effectual manner, that the country may not be merely overrun, but destroyed.. In the fall of 1753, as French forces moved into the Ohio Valley to build a series of forts, George Washington offered his services to the Governor of Virginia as an envoy to carry a message to the French commander Jacques Le Gardeur. Like the statue of Christopher Columbus targeted in Boston last month, it was beheaded and the crown finials of its surrounding fence sawn off. That did not happen, and in fact the murals fate (should they be removed? Your commissioners when they drew the line which seperated the land then given up to you, from that which you agreed should remain to be ours did, most solemly promise, that we should be secured in the peaceable possession of the lands which we inhabited, East, & North, of that line. He had risen quickly through the militia ranks by butchering Indian communities and burning their homes. (Its twin sister robot, named Spirit, conked out pretty quickly by contrast.). Conotocaurius ( Town Destroyer) was a nickname given to George Washington by Iroquois peoples in 1753. The Death and Rebirth of the Seneca. that assembled at them told us you were all brothers, the children of one great Father who regarded also the red people as his children. It has also been translated as "Town Taker", "Burner of Towns", "Devourer of Villages", or "he destroys the town". What is role of the artist in reflecting America to itself? Ottawa, 1891. description ends 15354). 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George Washington, also known as Enthroned Washington, is a large marble sculpture by Horatio Greenough commissioned by the United States Congress on July 14, 1832 for the centennial of U.S. President George Washington's birth on February 22, 1732. He's the first and a reluctant first, at that . They called us brothers and invited us to his protection. are back withTown Destroyer, which premiered at the Mill Valley Festival last month. Does this promise bind you? New York, 1970. description ends 174). Beyond Canal Street: Gentrification in Chinatown, Rediscovering Moki and Don Cherrys Utopian Visions. 'Town Destroyer' Versus the Iroquois Indians Forty Indian villagesand a powerful indigenous nationwere razed on the orders of George Washington By Johannah Cornblatt | June 27, 2008, at. The story focuses on a dispute over historic murals depicting the life of George Washington: slaveowner, general, land speculator, President, and a man Seneca leaders called "Town Destroyer" after he ordered their villages destroyed during the Revolutionary War. It was surrendered to you as the price of peace and we ought to have peace, and possession, of the little Land which you then left us. He suggests that Arnautoffs work ought to be preserved, not destroyed and used as a vehicle to teach students about both the past and the present. What happens when it no longer reflects current societal views? The current dispute over monuments in the US is not new. 'Town Destroyer' contra los indios iroqueses Cuarenta aldeas indgenas, y una poderosa nacin indgena, fueron arrasadas por orden de George Washington Para 1779, George Washington ya se haba ganado el famoso apodo de "Padre de su pas". 1.By GWs account the name Towntaker (variously rendered as Town-destroyer) was bestowed upon him by the Seneca chief Half-King in 1753, when he met that chief on his way to Fort Le Boeuf. The British agent George Beckwith reported to Lord Dorchester from New York on the course of Streets mission, noting that The application of Mr. Street in behalf of the Indians of the Five Nations by means of Mr. Wadsworth has drawn a declaration from the President, expressive of his intentions to pay every attention to the Indians in general, and Mr. Street is assured by General Knox, that his business will be taken into immediate consideration. Beckwith subsequently reported, however, that Mr. Perhaps only in a city that loves its murals, some by Diego Rivera, and hates its murals, could murals painted in the 1930s under a New Deal art program, divide citizens from one another and stir up deeply seated passions. LS (signed with mark), DLC: Thomas Jefferson Papers; After all, the issues go back to 1779 when George Washington ordered the destruction of the Iroquois villages. After Phelps departure the Seneca made another speech to GW accusing Phelps of fraud and of defaulting on the terms of the 1788 agreement (see Seneca Chiefs to GW, 10 Jan. 1791). It dates back to as early as 1776, inspired by his roles in the Revolutionary War and Constitutional Convention. When a circus tent gets erected in his Oakland neighborhood, it causes him to muse on the legacy of the freak show, and how his own status as a differently-abled person echoes both the conspicuousness and invisibility of those whose physicality makes them societal outliers. When we saw we were deceived and heard the invitation which you gave us to draw near to the fire you had kindled and talk with you concerning peace we made haste towards it. On display since San Francisco's George Washington High School opened in 1936, it offers a view of the Founding Father both celebratory and critical, referencing his involvements in slavery and Native American genocide. It opens with audio from a closed-door meeting Trump, Steve Bannon and others held with leaders of the religious right forty days before the 2016 election. Street the great trader at Niagara was then with us having come at the request of Phelps, and as he always professed to be our great friend we consulted him on this subject; He also told us, that our Lands had been ceded by the King and that we must give them up.5. It opens in area theaters Fri/4, then begins streaming on Amazon Prime Nov. 23. On 1 April 1788 that state sold the preemptive rights to these six million acres to Nathaniel Gorham and Oliver Phelps. And it is not the Six nations only, that reproach those Chiefs, with having given up that Country; the Chipaways and all the nations who lived on those lands westward, call to us & ask us brothers of But if Alan Snitow and Deborah Kaufman have their way, George Washington will also be remembered as the town destroyer. Thats the title of a new documentary that they have written, directed and produced about the controversial murals in San Francisco at George Washington High School. Allegedly both George Washington and his Great Grandfather, John Washington shared an unusual nickname. Just an hour long, Snitow and Kaufmans documentary offers a fascinating overview of a case that encapsulates many of the bitterest divisions of our era. We saw that we were wrong: we wished for peace. . by watchingGood Night Oppy, and this movies spoonful-of-sugar emotional appeal was really tailored for them. But the conflict revealed particularly ugly ideological divides, as amply shown inTown Destroyer. Roxie Theater: Town Destroyer November 4, 2022 @ 6:45 pm - 8:45 pm Alan Michelson, Handaga:yas (Town Destroyer), 2019, video, bonded stone Houdon replica bust, antique surveyor's tripod, artificial turf, sound, 190 183 cm. (The Iroquois dubbed him "Town Destroyer.") But some present-day students, parents, and observers found those depictions . These questions and many more were the subject of hot debate when Victor Arnautoffs thirteen-panel mural The Life of Washington became an object of local controversy, then a media firestorm. He insisted in killing as . The saw marks are still visible on the fence scars as enduring as those that the American Revolution and its aftermath left on the Native nations of Turtle Island (North America). After fighting with the Haudenosaunee in the French and Indian War, the colonists called upon the Haudenosaunee to a meeting at Ft. Pitt in 1775 to ask in their aide in the upcoming revolution against the British. What was George Washington's favorite fruit? We will not conceal from you, that the great God, and not man has preserved the Corn planter from his own nation: for they ask continually, where is the Land which our children and their children after them are to lie down on? https://www.usnews.com/news/national/articles/2008/06/27/town-destroyer-versus-the-iroquois-indians, Massacre & Retribution: The 1779-80 Sullivan Expedition, How a Native American Prophecy Over George Washington Affected the Country. Longtime Bay Area documentarians Alan Snitow and Deborah Kaufman interview historians, artists, activists, and GWHS students to probe a fascinating microcosm of todays culture wars. On 29 Oct. 1790 these chiefs appeared before the supreme executive council of Pennsylvania, seeking redress for a number of wrongs allegedly committed against the Seneca. copy, MHi: Timothy Pickering Papers; Upon this threat our Chiefs Nicole Flatterys Nothing Special Tackles Authorship inside Warhols Factory, Frieze Editors Picks: Jafar Panahis No Bears. I Didnt Seeis more philosophical than biographical, a meditation on an apart-ness the filmmaker grapples with on numerous levels (including I wonder if I feel more than other people). The title by which Washington was known to Native nations, Handaga:yas or Town Destroyer, was one he inherited from his great-grandfather, John Washington, a slave-owning planter and colonel in the Virginia militia who, during Bacon's Rebellion of 1676, had the chiefs of several tribes killed. But no doubt more than a few young people will get turned on to robotics, space exploration, et al. and therefore weak as our nation was, they determined to take the chance of war rather than submit to such unjust demands, which seemed to have no bounds. While there he met with Alexander McGillivray in August in an effort to enlist the Creek leader in a common effort to obtain a settlement with the United States but was rebuffed. They became our fathers, and took care of us. Is the blame all ours? On the next day we let them know, that we were unwilling to sell all the Lands within their State, and proposed to let them have a part of it which we pointed to them in their map. Wed. Nov. 9thBenefit forCalifornia Institute for Community, Arts & Nature Q & A with filmmakers + speakers TBA. Hundreds of Iroquois died of exposure to winter weather. But your anger against us must by this time be cooled, and altho our Strength has not encreased nor your power become less we ask you to consider calmly were the terms dictated to us reasonable and just? Charlottesville, Va., 199297. Street presented a document listing the grievances of the Five Nations to Jeremiah Wadsworth, with the request that Wadsworth put it into GWs hands (Street to Wadsworth, 5 Aug. 1790, NNGL: Knox Papers). 6.In addition to other alleged unpunished murders, this is undoubtedly a reference to the recent acquittal of Samuel Doyle by a Pennsylvania court for his reported role in the murder of a Seneca man (see Timothy Pickering to GW, 4 Dec. 1790, n.6). You told us say they, that the line drawn from Pensylvania, to lake Ontario, would mark it for ever on the East, and the line running from Beaver Creek, to Pensylvania, would mark it on the west; and we see that it is not so. We told you we would open our hearts to you. Art can make viewers uncomfortable. Conotocaurious (Town Destroyer) was a nickname given to George Washington by Iroquois Native Americans in 1753. ), Timothy Pickering to GW, 4 Dec. 1790, n.6, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-07-02-0005, From Washington to Seneca Chiefs [29 December 1790], All correspondence between Washington and Seneca Chiefs, National Historical Publications and Few people are more revered in the U.S. American lexicon than George Washington. Early American Land Companies: Their Influence on Corporate Development. The immediate objects are the total destruction and devastation of their settlements, and the capture of as many prisoners of every age and sex as possible. that the King had ceded the lands to the thirteen fires, The Papers of George Washington, Confederation Series, David Humphreys Life of General Washington,, David Humphreys Life of General Washington with George Washingtons Remarks., Early American Land Companies: Their Influence on Corporate Development, Report on Canadian Archives . But before we speak to you of this, we To this day, "Town Destroyer" is still used as an Iroquois name for the president of the United States. Washington referred to himself as "Conotocaurious" in a letter he wrote to Andrew Montour dated October 10, 1755, in which he tried to manipulate the Oneida to resettle on the Potomac: In 1779 during the American Revolutionary War, the Sullivan Expedition, under Washington's orders,[6] destroyed over 40 Iroquois villages in New York, partially in response to Iroquois participation in attacks on the Wyoming Valley in July 1778 and Cherry Valley in November 1778. Black muralist Dewey Crumpler came of age in the era of Black Power. Years later when George Washington was elected President of the newly formed United States, Seneca Chief Corn Planter addressed President Washington in 1790. On July 9, 1776, General George Washington amassed his soldiers in New York City. (Being an Appendix to Report of the Minister of Agriculture. Privacy Policy Washington received his commission on October 31, 1753 and set out immediately. Ironically, his choice of words more aptly applies to the American campaigns against Indigenous nations, which erased our histories, demonized our heroes, scorned our values and acculturated our children in boarding schools. Signed at Philadelphia the first day of December. To some, the brouhaha confirmed a stereotype of SF as the kingdom of liberal snowflakes who experience a meltdown at anything potentially troubling. White supremacy, grounded in the Doctrine of Discovery the absurd claim by European Christians and their American descendants that they were more entitled to our lands than we were was the rationale for dispossession. nD. The name in its original language(s) has been given variously as Conotocarius, Conotocaurious, Caunotaucarius, Conotocarious, Hanodaganears, and Hanadahguyus. Screen Grabs: 'Town Destroyer' dives into the George Washington Supes fail by one vote to approve Sanctuary City resolution that challenges ICE, Biden, Herb Greenes 60s Haight-Ashbury shots immortalize era, Grace Slicks bird, The tragic toxic legacy of the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard, Screen Grabs: Of Cocaine Bears and Jesus freaks, Screen Grabs: WinterFest brings Ukrainian kids, artificial shtetls, orthodox drama, Screen Grabs: Noise Pop Film Fest brings space bubbles, rap spoofs, toxic New Wave fans, Budget Chair Chan prepares for serious challenges to mayors budget priorities, Best of the Bay 2022 Editors Pick: Red Poppy Art House. The issues reached a tipping point not long ago when the members of the San Francisco Board of Education listened to impassioned testimony and voted to cover up the murals. ", This lesser-known title also had its origins in 1779, when General Washington ordered what at the time was the largest-ever campaign against the Indians in North America. No such document has been found, but the presence of the cover letter to Wadsworth in the Knox Papers suggests that Wadsworth gave the document to GW, who referred it to Knox. They told us they must have the whole: That it was already ceded to them by the great King at the time of making peace with you, and was their own. The documentary also provides a platform for experts about the representations and misrepresentations of Indians in American culture, including commercial advertisements and the names of military helicopters like Apache and Comanche to Barbie Dolls with feathers and beads. It has also been translated as 'Town Taker', 'Burner of Towns', 'Devourer of Villages', or 'he destroys the town'. Courtesy:JASON SZENES/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock. He lives in New York. However, most ofBattlegroundsfocus is not on the headline-makers, but on those in the trenchesin particular, anti-abortion activists whove been working towards this moment for years, even decades. We debated with him six days during all which time he persisted in refusing to pay us our just demand; and he ins[is]ted that we should receive the five hundred dollars, and Street from Niagara, also insisted on our receiving the money as it was offered to us. In Snitows and Kaufmans documentary some George Washington students and their parents argue that the images on the walls are a relic of the past and not history, that they instill a sense of trauma and shame and ought to be eradicated.