Republican members of the New York State Senate’s Subcommittee on State-Native American Relations are joining calls from other state and federal officials in support of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy’s inclusion in the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
The confederacy is made up of six nations — Oneida, Onondaga, Mohawk, Tuscarora, Seneca and Cayuga.
Lacrosse will take to the Olympic field for the first time since the 1908 games. The sport is a traditional and spiritual game for the Haudenosaunee that stretches back centuries.
"It’s only fitting Native American tribes are properly represented as an independent, sovereign nation as the sport returns to the Olympics for the first time in more than 100 years," said State Senator Rob Ortt, who co-authored the letter to the International Olympic Committee. "I fully support the Haudenosaunee Confederacy in representing Native American tribes on the world stage during the 2028 Olympic Games."
As the international lacrosse community has worked for years to get the sport back onto the world's biggest stage, players and officials for the Haudenosaunee have been advocating for their inclusion as well.
“Lacrosse is interwoven, and so it has great spiritual significance to our people and to the Creator,” LeRoy “Jock” Hill, a founder and board member of the Haudenosaunee Nationals lacrosse team, told BTPM NPR in 2018.
The Nationals have competed internationally in lacrosse since the 1980s, but passport and geopolitical issues have caused some high profile travel incidents.
Since the International Olympic Committee does not currently recognize the Haudenosaunee as its own nation, the IOC has yet to officially rule on their inclusion into the 2028 Olympic Games.
“We view ourselves as a nation, we’ve conducted ourselves as a nation,” said Hill. “We have international treaties and relationships with Canada and the United States. We’ve never abandoned that, and nor do we intend to.”
