We demand that the NYS Board of Regents, Western New York Maritime Charter School Board, Buffalo Planning Board, and the City of Buffalo Common Council deny WNY Maritime Charter School’s request for expansion on Seneca burial grounds.  We ask the Maritime Charter Board to stop their plans for expansion on sacred Seneca burial grounds.

A proposed expansion of the Western NY Maritime Charter School in Buffalo is just a few hundred feet from Seneca Indian Park, once a Seneca burial ground and where Red Jacket and Mary Jemison were buried.  Just one block from Indian Church Road is where in 2009 the Buffalo Sewer Authority excavated and unearthed remains of the deceased, desecrating the grounds. 

"Buffalo Creek and Buffum Street are sacred lands and very rich in history and I think that a lot of suggestions of putting a school on a place that's sacred territory, I think there are better places for Maritime schools," Carl Jamieson has said. We are asking the Maritime Charter school to stop their plans for expansion onto what NYS's Historic Preservation Office has described as a site having "high cultural, historic and archeological sensitivity.”

Buffalo sits on what is traditionally Native land from time remembered, most recently it was the home of the Seneca of the Buffalo Creek Reservation.

We demand:

1.            No archaeological survey – leave remains in the ground!

2.            No excavation and no building on Buffum!

3.            No charter school expansion on Buffum – there are thousands of vacant lots and hundreds of large vacant buildings elsewhere in Buffalo to build on—leave Seneca sacred grounds alone!

For additional information, please see: Voices must be Heard: https://withallduerespectblog.com/2016/10/04/voices-of-neighbors-must-be-heard-prior-to-selling-former-buffum-st-school/   A Burning Fire: http://www.dailypublic.com/articles/11182018/greenwatch-sunday-burning-fire Stop the Destruction: https://photolangelle.org/2018/10/5948/