Enslavement existed in the southwestern New York starting when white settlers first arrived. James Prendergast, founder of the city of Jamestown, was an enslaver, and so was his brother. U.S. Census shows at least two people enslaved in Olean in 1810.
There were also many people, Black and white, who worked to help end slavery. The Cattaraugus County Anti-Slavery Society was organized in Ellicottville in 1836. One freedom-seeker, Sarah Johnson, remained in Olean and helped form a small but strong Black community.
The Senecas, or Onöndowa’ga:’, were in southwestern New York for hundreds of years before Europeans began to settle there. They belonged to the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, one of the earliest democratic governments in the world. They resisted white settlers and the American government’s efforts to take their land, including an order from President George Washington to “destroy” their villages.
The Seneca and the rest of the Haudenosaunee lost most of their land through a series of unfair treaties, despite the efforts of Seneca leaders such as Red Jacket, Cornplanter and Ely Parker. In the 1960s more than 10,000 acres of their land around Cattaraugus was permanently flooded when the government built the Kinzua Dam. Seneca people continue to live, work and practice their culture in Salamanca and elsewhere in southwestern New York.
Enslavement existed in the southwestern New York starting when white settlers first arrived. James Prendergast, founder of the city of Jamestown, was an enslaver, and so was his brother. U.S. Census shows at least two people enslaved in Olean in 1810.
There were also many people, Black and white, who worked to help end slavery. The Cattaraugus County Anti-Slavery Society was organized in Ellicottville in 1836. One freedom-seeker, Sarah Johnson, remained in Olean and helped form a small but strong Black community.