‘Our enemy of our enemy is still our enemy’: Seneca Nation members protest tribal president’s Blakeman fundraiser

On Monday, outgoing Seneca Nation President JC Seneca hosted a fundraiser for Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman at the Seneca Niagara Resort and Casino. About a dozen Seneca Nation members, including former Seneca Nation President Mike Schindler, protested on the sidewalk outside after casino security barred them from the property.

The protest was organized by Mothers of the Seneca Nation, a modern derivative of the historical Clan Mothers, whose role as leaders of the Six Nations, also known as the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, was formalized in the 1848 Seneca constitution. The group was established in 2022 after the Seneca Nation’s then-president Matthew Pagels announced a settlement agreement with New York state over gaming payments in a late-night Facebook post that blindsided tribal citizens.

Leslie Logan, a member of Mothers of the Seneca Nation and a tribal citizen who ran for a Cattaraugus Council seat, said she was outraged by JC Seneca’s actions in his last 30 days in office and was direct about Blakeman: “He’s our enemy of our enemy, is still our enemy.”

Protesters held a number of signs, including one that asked: “Whose side are you on, JC? Are you a Trumper?” Another: “The Seneca People DO NOT support JC’s personal love for Blakeman.”

In a media advisory sent to reporters, Logan criticized JC Seneca’s “rogue support” for Blakeman, a candidate “whose positions and potential actions in office run counter to core Seneca values.”  Logan and other Seneca Nation members are critical of Blakeman’s pledge to lift the state’s fracking ban, his opposition to a data center moratorium and his support for allowing public schools to make use of Native mascots and imagery. 

Their biggest concern is Blakeman’s position on online gambling. “(Blakeman) defends the prediction markets, which Native leaders throughout Indian Country have called an ‘existential threat’ to tribal gaming,” Logan wrote in the advisory. One protestor’s sign put it even more bluntly: “JC, do you know that Blakeman is for Prediction Markets? He’ll be the end of us!” 

In her media advisory criticizing Blakeman, Logan invoked the Two Row Wampum – a wampum belt created in 1613 between the Haudenosaunee and Dutch traders in what is now upstate New York. Logan said the symbolism was quite literal for her: the earrings she wore to Monday’s protest depicted the Two Row Wampum itself.  “The Two Row Wampum signifies that we each stay in our own boat and don’t meddle in the affairs of the other,” she said. “For JC to insert himself in the politicians and campaign of NYS is in violation of the precepts of the Two Row Wampum.”

Logan has pushed back on JC Seneca’s characterization of the group before. He called the Seneca people “the Mob” at a Council session in recent months, Logan said, after she and others defeated one of his resolutions. “We are not ‘The Mob’ as Outgoing president JC has called us,” she wrote in a Facebook post earlier this week. “We are concerned, involved, civic-minded Seneca citizens who believe the Seneca People play the most critical role in our governance.” Since then, Logan said, the label has become something closer to a rallying cry: “The Mothers wear it like a badge of honor.” The group is considering making T-shirts that read: “I’m the Mob.”  

JC Seneca was elected president of the Seneca Nation in 2024 and his two-year term will end on Nov. 3. Since Seneca Nation rules bar consecutive terms, he was unable to run for reelection this year. “What do you have to gain from this? Because in 30 days you won’t be in office,” Logan said. “It’s over for JC.” 

JC Seneca endorsed outgoing treasurer Odie Porter to succeed him as president. But the powerful Seneca Party, the only organized political party within the 8,600-member Seneca Nation, saw Tina Abrams defeat Porter in its caucus, effectively the Nation’s real election. With no opposition possible under Seneca Party rules, Abrams is set to become the first woman to serve as president of the Seneca Nation when she is sworn in following the Nov. 3 general election. 

Braiden McElhaney, a Seneca Nation member and Erie County Democratic Committee representative, did not attend the protest but said in a public statement that while he continues to support President Seneca “when he is defending our sovereignty,” he “wholeheartedly disagree[s] with President JC Seneca engaging in partisan campaigning.”

The Seneca Nation’s opposition to Blakeman shouldn’t necessarily be taken as support for Gov. Kathy Hochul, though.

Logan’s distrust of Blakeman is matched by a longstanding distrust of Hochul. In 2022, during a standoff over gaming revenue payments tied to the Seneca Nation’s compact with the state, Hochul froze the Seneca Nation’s bank accounts. Logan said the move threatened the Nation’s ability to make payroll for 3,600 employees, forcing the Nation’s corporation to pay under pressure. “It was like a ransom note, right? And we paid,” Logan said.

Last year, JC Seneca attempted to repair relations with Hochul by inviting her to Seneca territory to apologize for the state’s operation of the Thomas Indian School, which separated multiple generations of Seneca children from their families. Logan said tribal citizens packed a council meeting to object before the visit, and many stayed away from the apology itself. “People didn’t go because people didn’t support it,” she said.

The Seneca Nation’s compact with the state expired earlier this year, and the Nation and Hochul have not yet reached a new one. JC Seneca said this week that the two sides have an “agreement in principle,” but Logan disputes that. “So he does not have an agreement in principle,” she said, adding that Seneca will be out of office before any deal could be finalized. “Tomorrow it’s 29 (days until his term ends). We’re doing the countdown.”