Over 200 years ago, there were Iroquois villages on Seneca Lake's surrounding hillsides. During the American Revolutionary War, their villages, including Kanadaseaga ("Seneca Castle"), were wiped out during the 1779 Sullivan Expedition by Continental troops under order by General George Washington to invade their homeland, destroy their dwellings and crops, and conduct a campaign of Genocide. They destroyed nearly 50 Seneca and Cayuga villages. Today roadside signs trace Sullivan's route along the east side of Seneca Lake where the burning of villages and crops occurred.