November 13, 2023
Story by Angelle van Kleef
Photographs by C. Richard Campbell
Jay Bailey is known as the voyageur. For more than 30 years he has been involved in many re-enactment canoe trips.
In 2013. the 400-year anniversary of the Two Row Wampum was commemorated. The Two Row Wampum is a beaded belt with three white rows alternating two purple rows. The three white rows are the river of life, meaning good words, good minds, and good actions. The two purple rows are the indigenous people and the allies paddling down the “river of life” on parallel paths, as friends close enough to help each other out, but not so close as to disrupt each other’s path.
The Two Row Wampum Treaty of 1613 is a mutual treaty agreement between representatives of the Five Nations of the Haudenosaunee and representatives of the Dutch government in what is now upstate New York. The commemoration started with a 14-day canoe trip from upstream Hudson River to Manhattan. Here the official commemoration took place.
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