CNA 2022-25 vFINAL 09202022 MASTER COPY - Flipbook - Page 15
2. History and Topography
The original human inhabitants of Pro Action9s service area were members of the Iroquois
Confederacy, chiefly the Seneca Nation.5 Dutch and French hunters, aided by the Seneca, came to
harvest beaver. The Seneca took the side of the English in the Revolutionary War, and some were
driven from their settlements by the colonial army. Soon after the end of the war, White
European settlement began in earnest, displacing the indigenous peoples. Today, Native
Americans comprise .2% of the two counties9 population.
Wealthier White families brought enslaved people of African origin with them. A 1799 state law
emancipated children of enslaved mothers, and an 1823 law ended all slavery in New York.6
Today, Blacks/African Americans make up 1.3 % of the population of the two counties.
Steuben County was formed along the Pennsylvania border in 1796 from parts of other larger
counties. In its earliest years the county was demographically and geographically linked to the
Susquehanna River basin in Pennsylvania, leading to the port of Baltimore. Not until the Erie
Canal was built, and then the railroads, did commerce in Steuben County
