10 Facts About Deskaheh

Levi General, commonly known as Deskaheh, was a Haudenosaunee hereditary chief and appointed speaker noted for his persistent efforts to get recognition for his people.

Deskaheh is most famous for bringing Iroquois concerns before the League of Nations in the 1920s.

Deskaheh worked as a lumberjack in the Allegheny Mountains in western New York and Pennsylvania.

Deskaheh travelled to London in August, 1921 with attorney George P Decker, who was hired by the Six Nations as counsel.

Deskaheh appeared at the Hippodrome "in full regalia" and distributed a pamphlet entitled "Petition and Case of the Six Nations of the Grand River".

Winston Churchill, British undersecretary for the colonies at the time, stated the petition should be returned to the Canadian government, so Decker and Deskaheh returned to the United States.

Deskaheh travelled to Rochester, New York and began strategizing with Decker to ask the League of Nations to place sanctions on Canada.

Meanwhile, Deskaheh remained in Switzerland for eighteen months, lecturing before large audiences in Geneva, Bern, Lausanne, Lucerne, Winterthur, and Zurich.

Deskaheh lived his last six months in Rochester, delivering speeches including his most famous one on March 10,1925 via the local Rochester radio station.

Deskaheh was staying at the home of Chief Clinton Rickard on the Tuscarora Reservation during the final months of pneumonia that followed a bad cold he had contracted in Europe.