Iroquois prosperous settlements in the 19th century, supporting themselves via farming and the sale of sleds, snowshoes, boats, and baskets. In 1884, about 100 Canadian Iroquois were hired by the British government to serve as river pilots and boatmen for the relief expedition for the besieged General Charles Gordon in Khartoum in the Sudan, taking the force commanded by Field Marshal Wolsely up the Nile from Cairo to Khartoum. On their way back to Canada, the Canadian Iroquois river pilots and boatmen stopped in London, where they were personally thanked by Queen Victoria for their services to Queen and Country. In
Geneseo (village), New York Geneseo (village), New York Geneseo is a village in and the county seat of Livingston County in the Finger Lakes region of New York, United States, outside of Rochester. The population was 7,579 at the 2000 census. The English name "Geneseo" is an anglicization of the Iroquois name for the earlier Iroquois town there, "Gen-nis-he-yo" (which means "beautiful valley"). The village of Geneseo is entirely contained within the western part of the town of Geneseo at the junction of State Routes 39 and 63 with U.S. Route 20A. A portion of the village — the Geneseo Historic District — was