“Here we wish to lay our bones in peace”: Haudenosaunee People in the Burned-over District of Upstate New York

Abstract:Beginning with Whitney Cross, The Burned-over District: The Social and Intellectual History of Enthusiastic Religion in Western New York, 1800–1850 (Cornell University Press, 1950), scholars of the burned-over district in upstate New York have focused primarily on religious and reform movements that affected people of European descent. This essay argues that religious movements among Haudenosaunee people—including the influence of the Seneca prophet Handsome Lake and the parallel efforts of both Indigenous and white Christian missionaries—were also a powerful part of burned-over district phenomena. By including these as part of the burned-over district, we can better understand the importance of the burned-over district on both Indigenous and settler communities.