Tom Porter discusses how colonization and the Revolutionary War reshaped Mohawk and Haudenosaunee leadership, identity, and survival, including the complicated legacy of Joseph Brant. The conversation works through decolonization on the ground: restoring trust, practicing restraint, retrieving original instructions without shaming people, and making room for condolence and real apologies.

This episode explores how Haudenosaunee ceremonies survived generations of fear, shame, and punishment, and why sharing these teachings openly matters now. The conversation connects creation stories, matrilineal leadership, the Thanksgiving Address, and the Freedom School to a clear environmental call: renew a living relationship with Mother Earth before we lose what keeps future generations alive.

We, the Haudenosaunee, do not celebrate the Erie Canal despite all efforts to remove us and dispossess us. We remain. We are still here.

In seventh grade social studies, we had learned about the original inhabitants, the Haudenosaunee or the people of the Longhouse. But the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cougas, Senecas, and Tuscarora had disappeared from our history books after the American Revolution.

Haudenosaunee Influence on the Women’s Rights Movement