The Tonawanda Band of Seneca Indians is a federally recognized tribe in the State of New York. They have maintained the traditional form of government led by hereditary Seneca chiefs (sachems) and clan mothers. The Seneca are one of the original five nations (later six) of the Haudenosaunee or Iroquois Confederacy. Their people speak the Seneca language, an Iroquoian language. In 1857, the Tonawanda Band signed a treaty with the United States and was recognized as a tribe independent of the Seneca Nation of New York. The treaty allowed them to buy back lands from the Ogden Land Company, which had been sold out without their permission in the Treaties of Buffalo Creek.