Our Community:
This gallery is a living tribute to the history and resilience of our people. These images serve as a bridge across generations—a visual record of our history, our families, and the 175+ year fight for recognition and the return of our treaty-guaranteed land.
Thomas Orville Coates and his wife. Thomas was a descendant of the 1845 land claimants through his mother Catherine "Kitty" Powless. Kitty Powless was a descendant of 1845 Conestoga land claimant Peter Powless.
Winona Jamison, who was recorded as Indian on the York County census, and who fought for the 1941 Susquehannock Indian Reservation Bill. She later married into the Nanticoke tribe, where she served as a teacher at the Nanticoke Indian school.
York Mayor Michael Helfrich and Tribal Chairwoman Andrea Ligon on the Susquehanna River.
Chief Wyniaco (William Russell Clark) was of recorded as being of both Nanticoke and Conestoga ancestry. In 1924, Conestoga tribal member Winona Jamison married one of his Nanticoke relatives, Oscar Wright.
Members of the Benson family, who remained in Pennsylvania, and were recorded as Native people on the census.
Winona Jamison, photographed by famous anthropologist Frank G Speck, who identified her as one of the few remaining Conestogas.
Catherine "Kitty" Coates, maiden name Powless, was a descendant of 1845 land claimant Peter Powless.
Thomas Orville Coates was a descendant of the 1845 Conestoga land claimants, and also of Oneida and Tuscarora descent, through the Coates, Powless, and Rickard families.
Andrea Ligon, Benson family descendant and current tribal Chairwoman.
Tribal Chairwoman Andrea Ligon and her son Robert.
Moses Doxtater, son of legendary lead land claimant and military veteran Peter Doxtater. His daughter Lucretia is the matrilinear ancestor of every Doxtater descendant enrolled among the Conestoga-Susquehannock people.
A young Andrea Ligon on the job as one of Philadelphia's first Native American female police officers.
Winona Jamison, ~1938
Decatur Wilkinson, patriarch of the Wilkinson core family. This family was marked Indian on the census across 4 generations, and intermarried with the Coleman core family, who were marked Indian on the census across 3 generations. These families make up the core of Conestoga who survived in Chester county, Pennsylvania.
Anna Elizabeth Benson, a member of the Benson core family and daughter of boarding school survivor Catharine Benson
Margeret Evelyn Wilkinson. Marine Corps veteran and descendant of the Wilkinson core family.
Lucretia Jane Doxtater, granddaughter of 1845 land claimant Peter Doxtater, with her Husband John Menner. This intermarriage formed the foundation of the kinship between the Conestoga-Susquehannock and the Brotherton Indians.
Elizabeth Helen Higgins, who told her children about our missing treaty land, was a descendant of the 1845 land claimants, and lived among the Oneida and the Brotherton Indians in Wisconsin after the removal of many Oneida from New York.
Turtle Clan Mother Tiffany Johnson presents Mayor Michael Helfrich with a beaded medallion to celebrate our recognition from the city of York.
Current young people in the tribe have living memory of their elders, and traditional teachings.
Percy Rose Menner, daughter of Lucretia Doxtater, granddaughter of 1845 land claimant Peter Doxtater.
A Benson family portrait. Members of this family are of Conestoga and White Earth Ojibwe ancestry, through the Benson and Warren families respectively.
Elizabeth Cornelius, an Oneida woman and wife of Moses Doxtater, who was the son of lead land claimant Peter Doxtater.
Margeret Evelyn Wilkinson, a descendant of the core Wilkinson family, completes her Marine corps. Rifle training during World War II.
John Skenandoah was a legendary Oneida chief who was adopted from our tribe. He was instrumental in the Revolutionary war, and some of his descendants are enrolled among the Conestoga-Susquehannock Tribe today, proving beyond any shadow of a doubt that there still exist people today who can trace their ancestry to the Conestoga pre-massacre.
Shortly after this picture was taken, the child, Catharine Benson, would be taken to the Holy Providence school for Indians and Colored People. Her surviving descendants have living memory of this institution and the damage it caused in disrupting her tribal heritage.
Tribal Chairwoman Andrea Ligon and Tribal Historian Michael Mantooth attend a ceremony recognizing the Conestoga-Susquehannock tribe.