Two sons, a daughter, two step-sons, and a step-daughter
Parent(s)
Parents, David and Flora Tallchief Heron
Known for
Leading opposition to Kinzua Dam; and organizing resettlement efforts; cultural, community, and political work
George D. Heron (February 22, 1919 – May 26, 2011) was president of the Seneca Nation of Indians (Seneca Nation of New York) from 1958 to 1960 and again from 1962 to 1964. In addition to his cultural and community work, he is known as a leader of the Seneca opposition to Kinzua Dam, and for his work organizing the tribal resettlement.
Heron was known as a tribal historian, Seneca language linguist, and teacher. He worked extensively with William N. Fenton, an ethnologist who studied and wrote about the Seneca and Iroquois Confederacy. A political progressive, Heron was a member of the New Deal Party, one of the political factions in the nation before the current Seneca Party achieved one-party rule in the 1990s.
Mr. Heron enlisted in the United States Navy in November of 1941 and served until his discharge in 1945. He achieved the rank of pharmacist mate first class during the war and was assigned to the United States Navy Amphibious Forces in campaigns in Africa, Europe, the Middle East and the Pacific.[2]
During Heron's tenure as President of the Seneca Nation of New York, from 1958 to 1960 and again from 1962 to 1964, tribal members strongly opposed relocation of residents for construction of Kinzua Dam, a federal project proposed for flood control and hydropower generation.[3]
During the early 1960s, Heron had been instrumental in trying to persuade the U.S. government to use the Morgan Plan alternative which would have placed the Kinzua flood control dam in a different location. He made several trips to Washington D.C. and was assured assistance by President John F. Kennedy, but to no avail. Seven hundred members of the Seneca Nation were forced to sacrifice their ancestral homes and 10,000 acres of good-bottom farm land to make way for the Kinzua Dam project. A way of life was permanently destroyed.[4]
Heron led the tribe's relocation efforts,[5] and oversaw construction of two residential communities: Jimersontown and Steamburg. The tribe used compensation received following the "Kinzua Dam condemnation of Coldspring and a third of the reservation."[4]
To us it is more than a contract, more than a symbol;
to us the 1794 Treaty is a way of life.[6]
George Heron
He also served as treasurer and councillor for the tribe.[3][7]
Women, who had been denied the right to vote in Seneca elections, were granted suffrage during Heron's second term. Heron supported expanding suffrage as he felt the then-majority view of the Seneca men (who rejected multiple referendums to allow the women to vote) was too conservative and ignorant, which Heron believed harmed the tribe's efforts to negotiate with the outside world.[8]
^Brown, Edgar A. Jeanette Miller (ed.). "1794 Canandaigua Treaty". Ganondagan. Archived from the original on August 30, 2011. Retrieved December 5, 2012.
The Kinzua Dam controversy by Williams, Vicky, M.A., SUNY Buffalo, 2007, 58 pages. "Contains information from a 2006 original interview with George Heron."
