Art of Survival

In 1797, the famous Seneca orator Red Jacket boasted that the Senecas had no desire to become ignoble basket-makers like the landless Oneidas (Wallace 1972:181).

The State of New York already had taken more than 95% of the Oneidas’ national territory. Their land base gone, Oneidas quickly became marginalized and impoverished strangers in their own land.

With the old ways of living dramatically disrupted, Oneidas developed new ways to subsist. They turned to making woodsplint baskets because non-native people would buy them.

Red Jacket knew how loss of land turned Indians (including his own Seneca) into basket-makers. Born of economic necessity, the baskets featured in this display bear witness to a hardy people forced to adapt in order to survive.