Paul Lamont

Lake of Betrayal: The Story of Kinzua Dam

Paul Lamont

Gary Farmer

Kinzua Dam on the Allegheny River in Pennsylvania was a flashpoint in history for the Seneca Nation of Indians. Completed in 1965, the dam was to mitigate flooding in Pittsburgh, 198 miles downriver, but the 27-mile reservoir that formed above it inundated vast tracts of the Seneca Indians' ancestral lands, forcing their removal in breach of one of the United States' oldest treaties. Set against a backdrop of a federal Indian termination policy, pork-barrel politics, and undisclosed plans for private hydropower, Lake of Betrayal reveals an untold story from American history-a one-sided battle pitting a small Native American nation against some of the strongest political, social, and commercial forces in the country. Although the Seneca suffered irreplaceable cultural losses, the Kinzua crisis became a turning point to build a stronger Seneca Nation.