The Most Valuable Lands

Abstract

The oil-producing regions of western Pennsylvania and New York are legendary as the birthplace of the modern petroleum industry; as with any narrative of American origins, it is important to scrutinize the role of racism and colonialism in establishing narratives that render Indigenous people as ghosts, guides, or givers who facilitate white access to resources while fading into a mythical past. Such narratives certainly proliferated in the nineteenth- and twentieth-century popular press, where petroleum was initially known by its regional moniker, “Seneca Oil,” and dreams of “Indian spirits” were said to lead prospectors to successful holes. The reality was that the Seneca people waged active legal and political battles to secure their rights to land, resources, and sacred sites in Pennsylvania and New York throughout the height of the oil boom. Their historical relationship with oil as a healing natural substance led leaders to preserve the Oil Spring Territory between 1797 and 1801; a century later, Seneca leaders engaged in ever-more complex negotiations with white-owned oil companies, and wound up in an existential fight against the Americans attempting to liquidate their treaty-protected territories.