The First People to See the Falls

The First People to See the Falls. . , The first people to see Niagara Falls were probably nomadic hunters and gatherers who left behind evidence of their short-term camps and work areas in the form of tools and weapons. The Neutrals, known for their peaceful nature, followed, building villages on both sides of the Niagara River., In the mid-17th century, the Senecas conquered the Neutrals. The Senecas were members of the Haudenosaunee (The People of the Longhouse), or Iroquois Confederation of Nations. By the beginning of the 18th century, the Iroquois were the most powerful Native Americans in the Great Lakes region., The first Europeans to visit the area were French traders and missionaries in the 16th and 17th centuries. In 1678, Father Louis Hennepin, a Recollet monk of the Franciscan order, visited the falls. When Hennepin returned to France, he described his experience and commissioned a painting of the falls and their surroundings., The Iroquois Tree of Peace by Dren Lyons. Courtesy Onondaga Savings Bank., [map] The Iroquois Confederation, ca. 1600. , Iroquois pictographs: Corn, Deer, Sing, Heron, Sadness, Wiseman, Bear, Bark sled, Happiness. Father Hennepin at Niagara Falls, a mural by Thomas Hart Benton, painted in 1861 is shown above. Courtesy of the New York Power Authority., Father Louis Hennepin's expression of wonder at seeing the falls on December 6, 1678. "Betwixt the Ontario and Erie, there is a vast prodigious Cadence of Water which falls down after a surprising and astonishing manner, insomuch that the Universe does not afford its Parallel. "Tis true, Italy and Suedeland boast of some such Things; but we may well say they are but sorry Patterns, when compared to this of which we now speak. At the foot of the horrible Precipice we meet with the River Niagara, which is not above half a quarter of a League broad, but is wonderfully deep in some places. It is so rapid above this Descent, that it violently hurries down the Wild Beasts while endeavoring to pass it, to feed on the other side; they not being able to withstand the force of its Current, which inevitably casts them down headlong above Six hundred foot.", Niagara Falls, from Hennepin's New Discovery, first English edition, 1699.