Twatatya’ Takenhas Inc. (TTI) History

Oneida History

The Onyota’a:ka (Oneida) Nation is one of the five founding Member Nations of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, together with the Cayuga Nation, the Mohawk Nation, the Seneca Nation and Onondaga Nation and later the Tuscarora Nation. The Onyota’a:ka Nation, together with the other Member Nations of the Haundenosaunee Confederacy have Aboriginal title over a portion of New York State stretching to Southwestern Ontario between Lake Ontario, Lake Erie and Lake Huron, commonly referred to by the Haudenosaunee Confederacy as the “Beaver Hunting Grounds”, which has never been extinguished. Today there are three groups of Oneidas in North America who were separated by wars and Catholicism. Some believe the Iroquois even stretched into parts of what is known today as Pennsylvania, Michigan and Ohio states of the U.S. Oneida’s of Ontario travelled here and settled near what is now known as London, Ontario in the 1830’s, before Canada, Ontario or London were established. Governments of past and present have continued to degrade and control the way of life that Oneida’s seek; to live on our own without outside influence and work towards the sovereignty we once enjoyed as a people and a nation. The Haudenosaunee still practice their language, ceremony, and govern their nations with these shared values of the Haundenosaunee confederacy today.

Two Row Wampum

“The Two Row Wampum Treaty, also known as Guswenta and as the Tawagonshi Agreement of 1613 or the Tawagonshi Treaty, is a mutual treaty agreement, made in 1613 between representatives of the Five Nations of the (Haudenosaunee) and representatives of the Dutch government in what is now upstate New York.[1] The agreement is considered by the Haudenosaunee to be the basis of all of their subsequent treaties with European and North American governments, and the citizens of those nations, including the Covenant Chain treaty with the British in 1677 and the Treaty of Canandaigua with the United States in 1794.”