President Trump’s unilateral decision to direct U.S. federal agencies to refer to Lake Ontario as “Lake America” is an affront to the Indigenous peoples of the region, specifically the Haudenosaunee, of which the Cayuga are a part of along with the Mohawk, Seneca, Oneida, Onondaga, and Tuscarora.

This name change insult can be traced back to several treaties broken by the U.S. Federal Government against the Haudenosaunee. Seneca Nation President J. Conrad Seneca called it a “blatant disrespect to Indigenous culture and history.” President Seneca has connected the order to the United States’ commitments under the Treaty of Canandaigua 1794. Article III describes Seneca territory using Lake Ontario as a boundary and acknowledges the identified lands as the property of the Seneca Nation. Although the treaty does not specifically govern the lake’s name, President Seneca has........

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