information on the schedule and keep up with the latest history news. >> this year, c-span is touring cities across the country, exploring american history. a recent visit to syracuse, new york. you're watching american history tv, all weekend on c-span3. chief tadodaho sidney hill: what an exciting thing going on. to me would start of the game we are playing here that has a whole history in itself it is a part of our history. part of our entertainment. it was played on the other side.

it was played for enjoyment and for medicine to help people. >> we call this the women's shuffle dance. and the women are very important. honor our women in the stands. ♪ [singing] chief sidney hill: with all the things that happened, with the loss of land, and the forced removal of our people and the diseases and the wars, we have been diminished as a people. our lands and our culture and our languages and our ways have been attacked, not only physically, but through policies. so, for us to be hosting other countries today is quite an accomplishment, to say the least.

my position is one of traditional leadership and as you know, women choose the leaders. women are the clan mothers and they give out names and how we follow the mothers. what ever your mother is, that is your nation, that is your clan. they have a big responsibility, of course, women, to bring up the children. in that way, we give that duty to the women to choose the leaders, the men leaders, because they are the ones who know how these young men grew up and what kind of qualities they have. so, we leave it up to them to choose the leader of their clan.

so, the origin of our history and how it all came about, we were warring against each other , and it wasn't safe for people to receive the message from the creator. a certain man was chosen to bring that message to us saying that this was not how he intended our people to be acting against each other. so we brought this message of peace to our people. as he was spreading the word, it developed and they brought all the nations together, the geographically coming from the east and to the west, the mohawks and the seneca, one of the first agreements was they would not fight each other anymore.

this union would develop a message of peace and they would not fight each other. the symbolic meaning of planting that treaty of peace and we will peace. treaty of peace on top of that pine tree will be the eagle. if there are any dangers coming, the eagle will scream and warn us. down to the trees and down to the roots, there will be the four roots that anyone can follow. you can come under the protection of our nation. that was established, and then he said, as the five nations, as we come together, now, we must bury our weapons.

we must put all our weapons of four against each other. the swift, underground current will take those weapons. we will not war against each other. that was one of the initial concessions, that they would not fight each other. when they set up the government het of it, the structure, said since they are here, they are part of the elder brothers. the elder brothers would be the mohawk and the seneca. the older brothers. if you look at the language, onieda language is an offshoot of the mohawks.

so, they were kind of an offshoot of those nations and they call them younger brothers, but they will have an equal voice. so, the structure was you have , the onondaga sitting here and over here would be the mohawk and the seneca. and here are the younger brothers, the oneida and cayuga. and later, when they joined the confederacy, they were along with the younger brothers. -- you have the structure of we had a lot of influence in how the u.s. government was formed and if you look at it, the onondaga, the fire keepers, would suggest the agenda and over here would be the mohawks.

they would go back and forth, the younger and older brothers. they would debate, back and forth. they went through all the issues. they went back and forth. back and forth. say, now we send it over to the fire keepers. it all started when we decided in the courts. that is a whole other issue in itself. we made these treaties, and now the u.s. is going to protect your lands. but the states did not seem to recognize that and we lost our land. ♪

chief sidney hill: we are still here, we still have a language, we have a culture and our ways and we are still a people and still a nation. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> find out where the city tour is going next online at c-span.org/citiestour. you are watching american history tv, all weekend, every weekend, on c-span 3. >> this week on lectures in talksy, robert paulett about caribbean sugar and ideas of race and slavery in the 1600s.

he focuses on the island of barbados, and argues that the rise of race-based slavery was created for profit. inhabitants had to rely on other colonies for necessities like food and wood. his classes one hour and 10 minutes. prof. paulett: everyone got a free packet of sugar for stepping in the door. you don't seem particularly grateful. [applause] prof. paulett: so, we're thinking about how we are affected by the past. don't, theyople i are not my close personal friends, i like you all very much, but to do that, to hand out a quarter cup's worth of sugar, this was the middle ages in europe. it was extravagant. sugar, in the