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I read about historical topics as a hobby. The Sept. 23,1927, Northome Record newspaper featured a "Black Gold " story about the Seneca/Iroquois Indians of New York state, whose ancestral lands included a natural flowage of crude oil. Quotes: "It is so oily that all our savages use it to anoint and grease their heads and bodies." "The Indians had been accustomed to scoop oil from the (naturally occurring) puddles to mix the paint with which they adorned themselves..." "When the treaty of Big Tree was signed in 1797, giving most of Western New York to the white man, the Senecas insisted (and later prevailed in Court) that the spring should be reserved in a tract of land of one square mile."
From page 73 of “Titan: The life of John D Rockefeller Sr.: "Already in the eighteenth century, the Seneca and Cornplanter Indians devised manifold uses for it (crude oil which flowed from the ground in western Pennsylvania, not far from Cleveland, Ohio), employing it for soothing skin liniment, medicine and even war paint."
The destructive, criminal antics of the supposedly "anti Line 3/anti petroleum crowd" are disgusting. The media refers to them as "activists." I call these often violent people who routinely disregard rules of property and ownership what they are: thugs. They are enjoying all of the benefits of our petroleum/fossil-fueled society and now, according to the March 19, 2022, issue of the Herald, are hoping for a fuzzy-thinking judiciary to support their criminal efforts.
What a contrast that the Eastern Indian tribes revered and utilized oil for hundreds of years, while the locals and their supporters claim a different story.
