History
When the National Census was taken in 1790, the city of Buffalo did not exist, yet there is great controversy over when the first Non-Native American person actually began inhabiting the area.
Cornelius Winney is widely accepted to be the first white settler in Buffalo, yet historians dispute in which year that he actually settled there. Some historians feel that he settled there in the late 1780’s during a time in which he also lived with the Senneca Indian Nation, which inhabited the region before it was developed. Other historians believe that there is not enough historical evidence to prove that Winney settled in the area so early in the region’s history. Many historians feel that if Cornelius Winney had been a resident before 1790, his residency would have been recorded in the diary of local trader, Horatio Jones.
Horatio Jones was a trader who lived with the Senneca Indians and traveled the countryside frequently. Many believe that Winney, a white man, living and traveling among the Indians would have been unusual for the time, and therefore, would have been noticed by Jones, possibly the only other White man who would have been traveling in the region.
The first written reference of the legendary Winney was in 1791, when a colonel in the Army came across his house while scouting the area. In different accounts, Winney has been described as both a Dutchman from Hudson County and as an English trader. It is also likely that Winney traveled frequently with Reverend Sam Kirkland, a missionary who visited the Senneca Indian Nation frequently.
In a diary dated in 1792, Robert Chamberlain, another visitor to the Senneca Indian Nation, notes that remembers Mr. Winney because Winney allowed the Indians to roam freely in and out of his house drinking whiskey. This act of supplying alcohol to the “uncivilized” Native Americans made Mr. Chamberlain extremely nervous – so much so that he notes in his diary that he was frequently unable to sleep at night when he was traveling in the region.
The second settler in Buffalo was Joseph Hodges. Hodges, or “Black Joe” as he called himself, was captured by the Senneca Indians during the Revolutionary War. Hodges was later surrendered to the United States Authorities in 1784. He soon returned to the Seneca Indian Nation and married a Native American girl and became a fur trader.
In 1804, the Holland Land Company decided to purchase an area known as Buffalo Village based on the land surveys done surveyor by Joseph Ellicott. Although the land was purchased in 1804, it was thought that the settlement had already begun as far back as 1801. The oldest maps of the village of Buffalo prove that the town did indeed stand where the downtown district in Buffalo stands today.
With the War of 1812, the town of Buffalo grew in size and population, as it became a military resort. On December 13, 1813, the British soldiers and Native American armies overran Buffalo. Everything in the small town was burned down except for two buildings. Residents who did not flee during the war and ensuing turmoil were captured and sent to nearby Montreal, Canada.
In 1819, construction was underway on the Erie Canal, which still stands and connects Lake Erie to a series of waterways and rivers. At that time, it was not yet decided in which direction the canal would run. The direction was a toss up between neighboring towns of Buffalo and Black Rock. The biggest draw back for choosing to run the canal towards Buffalo was that the creek in the town was not big enough to accommodate the vessels that needed to pass through. Buffalo and Black Rock had been rival trade towns for years, and Buffalo desperately did not want to lose the canal.
The state of New York offered the city a $12,000 loan, which the city then combined with donations from local townspeople to bring the canal to the town. The contributions were just enough to begin the work to widen the mouth of the river. The canal was underway.
Yet the canal deal had not been sealed; there was one more hiccup. The other plaguing problem with the new location of the canal was that Buffalo had no harbor. Luck was on the villages’ side though, as a torrential storm was forming right off shore. In only a few weeks from the start of the project, the water and sand that had been picked up by the storm had been forced into the village. With the ideas from Samuel Wilkinson and the muscle from the villagers, the rushing water and tons of earth were re-directed to form the new Buffalo Harbor. Thus, Buffalo won the bid over Black Rock for the canal. Soon after the canal had been fully developed, the Buffalo economy exploded as the region expanded. About a decade later, in 1822, Buffalo was incorporated.
A large part of Buffalo’s history lay in the Underground Railroad system and the subsequent Civil Right’s movements. In 1619 the first slaves were brought into the United States. White Americans considered the African-Americans their property, and did everything in their power to keep this control. The African-Americans were forced to do back breaking physical labor for extreme periods of time everyday. The slaves were treated very poorly by their “owners.” In 1793 and 1850, just before the Civil War, slave laws were passed to prevent the slaves from running away. The laws also gave the slave owners more power in finding and punishing those who ran away. The slaves were attempting to run away to places that slavery was not practiced, such as Buffalo, New York. However a successful escape was very difficult, as the slaves had no transportation other than by foot and no personal possessions or money.
The Underground Railroad first began in 1780 by the Quakers located in northern places such as Buffalo. At this time however, the underground network was very small, and escaping without being caught was still very difficult for slaves. By 1830, the network reached its peak, allowing the slaves to escape much more easily by hiding in peoples’ basements, attics and other nooks or crannies. The people who allowed the runaways to hide in their basements were called “conductors.” The conductors aided the runaways in every way possible, providing them with food, shelter and clothing.
The runaways were headed to the free states such as Ohio, Delaware, Michigan and New York so that they were close to Canada. Once the runaways were in these states they would flee to Canada, where their supposed “owners” no longer had any control over them. For the slaves to be able to escape, they needed to know whether a place was safe to go to or not. However, there was no way for any sort of direct communication.
In not too long, a quilt system was designed to help facilitate that communication. The quilts were hung has picture-stories and represented everything about the underground railroad - from where boats were to cross the water into Canada to helping to direct the runaways which way to go on their travels to avoid being captured. Each hint had a separate quilt designed solely to communicate it.
The Underground Railroad system was a crucial part in helping the runaways get to places, such as Buffalo, so many former slaves either settled in Buffalo or stayed there for long enough to help change the city’s history. It is estimated that over 60,000 people were able to regain their freedom due to the help of the system. Complete freedom came in 1862 when Abraham Lincoln put the Emancipation Proclamation into effect. This freed all of the slaves, and is responsible for the start of African-Americans being treated as equals.
Although the slaves had their freedom, an African American woman had very little.
In 1899, the Phyllis Wheatly Club was founded by Mary Burnett Talbert. It is oldest organization of African-American women in Buffalo. Historians dispute as to whether or not Talbert was the first African American Woman to receive a PHD.
In 1905, Web Dubois founded the Niagara Movement in Buffalo. This organization was the predecessor to the NAACP.
Another prominent African American was William Wells Brown. Brown escaped slavery in 1835 and became a crew member on a steamer ship. He used his position to assist slaves escape to Canada, gaining him a reputation for being the nation’s most known abolitionist. In 1840 he founded Buffalo’s first temperance society. Brown then went on the worldwide lecture circuit to educate the world about the plight of African Americans. Williams Wells Brown was the most noted figure in America as he committed his life to making a better and more equal life for African Americans.
In 1923, St. Lukes Church was built in Buffalo. This church is the first to be built by an all black congregation in the United States.