Women’s Encampment for a Future of Peace and Justice (WEFPJ) (Web)

Oral herstories, photographs, videos, songs and articles since 1983 available in the Online Archive.

Commonly known as the Seneca Women’s Peace Camp – or Seneca -, WEFPJ was an all-women’s community of protest and challenge to violence and militarism housed on 52 acres bordering the Seneca Army Depot in upstate New York from 1983 to 2006.

The encampment was modeled after the Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp (Web) in England (1981-2000) where hundreds of British sisters were creating nonviolent protest in the face of the scheduled deployment of U.S. Cruise missiles. Though the U.S. military steadfastly refused to either “confirm or deny” the presence of nuclear weapons at the Seneca Depot, the base was uniformly regarded as a storage site and departure point for both the Cruise and Pershing II weapons bound for Europe.

In the summer of 1983, 12,000 women from around the world participated in nonviolence trainings, direct actions and civil disobedience at Seneca resulting in 950 arrests. In 1994 the encampment transitioned into Women’s PeaceLand, an intentional community whose purpose was to promote and implement the principles of peace, nonviolence and anti-oppression. Due to limited resources and waning outside interest, the peace camp farm and land was reclaimed by Seneca County for back taxes in March 2006. The Seneca Army Depot was approved for base realignment and closure in 1995 and closed in 2000. By 2008, however, a portion of the base was reopened to serve as a training ground for soldiers from Ft. Drum.