Maris Bryant Pierce

Seneca Nation chief, lawyer, teacher

Maris Bryant Pierce

Born	1811 Allegany Indian Reservation
Died	August 9, 1874 Cattaraugus Reservation
Nationality	Seneca Nation, United States
Other names	M. B. Pierce, Swift Runner, Ha-dya-no-doh
Alma mater	Dartmouth College
Occupation(s)	Tribal chief, lawyer, teacher, interpreter, activist

Maris Bryant Pierce (1811–1874; also known as Ha-dya-no-doh, Swift Runner),^[1] was a Seneca Nation chief, lawyer, and teacher. He was a tribal land-rights activist, and a major influence to the Second Treaty of Buffalo Creek of 1838.^[1]^[2]

Early life and education

Maris Bryant Pierce was born in 1811 on the Allegany Indian Reservation in Cattaraugus County, New York.^[3]^[4] He attended the Quaker school Fredonia Academy, and a few boarding schools in New York state, and in Thetford, Vermont.^[5]^[4] As a teenager he converted to Christianity and was a member of the Presbyterian church.^[1]^[5] After his conversion of religion, he still maintained his ancient beliefs about nature.^[6]

Pierce attended Moor's Indian Charity School (which later became Dartmouth College), from 1836 to 1840.^[7]^[3] After graduation in 1840, he settled in the Buffalo Creek Reservation.

Career

While he was enrolled in college, he took on the role of "young chief".^[4] Another Seneca young chief during this time period was Nathaniel Thayer Strong (1810–1872), he served as an interpreter during the Second Treaty of Buffalo Creek and Strong supported the land removal.^[7]

The Second Treaty of Buffalo Creek of 1838 called for the sale of the Seneca land in New York state to the Ogden Land Company, and the removal of the tribe to Indian Territory in Oklahoma. Pierce was appointed as the lawyer for the Senecas located in the Tonawanda Reservation, Allegany Reservation, Cattaraugus Reservation, and Buffalo Creek Reservation.^[4] On August 28, 1838, Pierce gave the noted speech Address on the Present Condition and Prospects of Aboriginal Inhabitants of North America, with Particular Reference to the Seneca Nation, delivered in Buffalo, New York about his anti-land removal stance.^[4]^[8] Fourteen other Seneca chiefs supported Pierce in the opposition of the land removal.^[1]

After the 1840 United States Senate ratification of the Second Treaty of Buffalo Creek, Pierce continued to fight against the removal.^[4] He was an active writer for this cause.^[4]^[9] Pierce was under complex pressure as a mediator between the two cultures, and he engaged in the discussion of "European enlightenment" in order to argue against Seneca land removal.^[4]^[7] The treaty case was not resolved until 1898 (after Pierce's death), the United States government awarded a compensation of $1,998,714.46 to "the New York Indians".^[10]

Later in his career, Pierce served as a language interpreter for the Seneca Nation, and he helped the Seneca Nation adopt an elective government.^[11]

Death and legacy

Pierce died on August 9, 1874, at the Cattaraugus Reservation.^[3] His work is in the archives at the Dartmouth Library and Archive, the Buffalo Historical Society (now the Buffalo History Museum),^[12] and in the Smithsonian Online Virtual Archives.

References

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Johansen, Bruce Elliott; Mann, Barbara Alice (2000). Encyclopedia of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois Confederacy). Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 249. ISBN 978-0-313-30880-2.
^ Langer, Howard (1996). American Indian Quotations. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 50–51. ISBN 978-0-313-29121-0.
^ ^a ^b ^c "Pierce, M. B. (Maris Bryant), 1811-1874". Library of Congress.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h Littlefield, Jr., Daniel F.; Parins, James W. (2011-01-19). Encyclopedia of American Indian Removal [2 volumes]. ABC-CLIO. p. 173. ISBN 978-0-313-36042-8.
^ ^a ^b Posnock, Ross (1996-11-28). Early Native American Writing: New Critical Essays. Cambridge University Press. p. 84. ISBN 978-0-521-55527-2.
^ Hamilton, Geoff; Jones, Brian (2014-01-10). Encyclopedia of the Environment in American Literature. McFarland. p. 248. ISBN 978-1-4766-0053-6.
^ ^a ^b ^c Teuton, Sean Kicummah (2018). Native American Literature: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press. p. 41. ISBN 978-0-19-994452-1.
^ Rifkin, Mark (2014-06-01). Settler Common Sense: Queerness and Everyday Colonialism in the American Renaissance. University of Minnesota Press. pp. 282–283. ISBN 978-1-4529-4207-0.
^ Cox, James Howard; Justice, Daniel Heath (2014). The Oxford Handbook of Indigenous American Literature. Oxford University Press. p. 551. ISBN 978-0-19-991403-6.
^ Hauptman, Laurence M. (2014). In the Shadow of Kinzua: The Seneca Nation of Indians since World War II. Syracuse University Press. p. 192. ISBN 978-0-8156-5238-0.
^ Lawton, Cassie M.; Bial, Raymond (2016-07-15). The People and Culture of the Iroquois. Cavendish Square Publishing, LLC. pp. 106–107. ISBN 978-1-5026-1890-0.
^ Proceedings. Vol. 23–37. Buffalo Historical Society. Buffalo, NY. 1885.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: others (link)

External links

Maris B. Pierce Papers at NYHeritage.org, fully digitized courtesy of the Buffalo History Museum.
Pierce, Maris Bryant, 1811-1874 collection, at the Dartmouth College Library