DIR Return Create A Forum - Home
---------------------------------------------------------
Erie Canal Neighbors Association
HTML https://ecna.createaforum.com
---------------------------------------------------------
*****************************************************
DIR Return to: General ECNA Discussion & Information
*****************************************************
#Post#: 2745--------------------------------------------------
A Real American's Opinion of 200 years with the Erie Canal
DIR By: Doug K
Date: March 18, 2026, 7:56 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
I wasn't sure where this fit in our Erie Canal Neighborhood
Forum, but from the minute I read this local Syracuse opinion
piece I was convinced it needed as much press as possible... so
it goes into our general ECNA Forum Board.
It's worth a read, and then for good measure, read it again, and
then sit & think for a moment that maybe its time to restore New
York ecology to what it should be... fair for all.
First, my title says real American, by that I mean those who
were here when America was first established by that name,
America. That much older than the United States of America,
being named in 1509 according to the Library of Congress.
While the colonies may have established it, “America” was given
a name long before. America is named after Amerigo Vespucci, the
Italian explorer who set forth the then revolutionary concept
that the lands that Christopher Columbus sailed to in 1492 were
part of a separate continent. A map created in 1507 by Martin
Waldseemüller was the first to depict this new continent with
the name “America,” a Latinized version of “Amerigo.”
HTML https://blogs.loc.gov/loc/2016/07/how-did-america-get-its-name/
So after that America was ruled by the Dutch after Henry Hudson
traveled up the Hudson River and setup a fur trading outpost
with the original Americans, who had been here for many, many
years. It was called New Netherlands and had a sketchy
history.often accused of mistreatment of the locals they were
trading with.
Here's a map from the Dutch Period, you can zoom to see the
names of the First Americans that were in NY State some 200
years before the Erie Canal was even a "wet dream".
[attachimg=1]
HTML https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Netherland
So now having established that the viewpoint in this local
opinion piece is from a "real American" descendant from a long
history of her American family take a read and think about "the
other side of the coin" so to speak. The Erie Canal has never
existed to put nature & ecology first, it was built for two
reasons: "power & profit"
HTML https://www.syracuse.com/opinion/2025/10/what-are-we-celebrating-with-the-erie-canal-a-gash-in-mother-earth-guest-opinion-by-betty-hill-adam-dj-brett.html
Maybe the most thought provoking truth on Betty's piece was
this:
When terraforming a landscape, the settler colonists did not
even consider the impacts on the landscape, the animals or the
humans. The damming, polluting and drying up of natural
waterways, and the notion that you can simply cut your own path
across the state, speaks to the arrogance and hubris of the
“Empire State.”
Looking at the ecocide caused and still being caused by the Erie
Canal and Onondaga Lake, we ask ourselves: What does the Erie
Canal symbolize?
Genocide and Ecocide.
So while some New Yorkers & Americans are celebrating 200 years
along the Erie Canal, please consider that others, those we
understand to be the "first" Americans, are still haunted by a
200 year old broken treaty, the very first treaty made between
an early Nation of Thirteen States and the indigenous tribes of
New York State.
*****************************************************
Page 1 of 1