Detail from Samuel de Champlain’s 1632 sketch of a Huron (Wyandot) deer hunt
Welcome to Native American Heritage Month 2014!
I will do a post on any Native American topic that three or more commenters want (counting myself). If there are more than ten such topics, then I will do the ten most wanted.
How many commenters, so far, want which topics (seeded with my own nominations):
Last update: November 11th 2014 at 15:45 GMT.
- 7 The truth about the First Thanksgiving
- 7 Black Indians
- 4 Dead Indian Land
- 4 Sand Creek Massacre
- 3 settler colonialism
- 3 settler colonialism: sovereignty
- 3 settler colonialism: population
- 3 settler colonialism: narrative
- 3 settler colonialism: consciousness
- 3 buffalo/bison and what they mean to Native Americans
- 3 When Indians took over Alcatraz
- 3 Seminoles
- 3 Russell Means
- 3 Racializing Montana
- 3 Pocahontas
- 3 Mankato massacre
- 3 Manhattan: a brief history: 1600s
- 3 Manhattan: a brief history: 1500s
- 3 How the Iroquois shaped US democracy
- 3 Dakota people: a brief history: before 1890
- 3 Dakota people: a brief history: 1940 to 2010
- 3 Dakota people: a brief history: 1890 to 1940
- 3 Creek Indians
- 3 Conquest masquerading as law – Vine Deloria Jr
- 3 Choctaws
- 3 Chickasaws
- 3 Cherokees
- 3 Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show
- 3 Basque-Algonquin pidgin
- 3 Amerindians in different countries compared
- 3 African American slaves and Native Americans
- 3 AIM
- 2 Wounded Knee
- 2 Trail of Tears
- 2 The term “savage”
- 2 The Five Civilized Tribes
- 2 Tecumseh
- 2 Seminole Wars
- 2 Pine Ridge Reservation
- 2 Noble Savage stereotype
- 2 Native Americans
- 2 Leonard Peltier
- 2 Indian treaties
- 2 Indian Names and how they came to be: Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse
- 2 History of the Buffalo Nickel
- 2 Hawaiian Natives
- 2 Guide to Algonquins
- 2 Eskimos/Inuits
- 2 Bartolome de Las Casas
- 1 wampum
- 1 triracial isolates, societies where Black, White and Native Americans mixed
- 1 red ghettos – how the reservation system leads to poverty
- 1 Vine Deloria, Jr
- 1 Valladolid Debates
- 1 Totem poles,
- 1 The Transcontinental Railroad: Impact on Native Americans
- 1 Sacagawea
- 1 Redface (portrayal of Native Americans by whites)
- 1 Piscataway tribe history and their current quest for official recognition
- 1 Pacific Northwest Native Americans
- 1 Pacific Northwest Native Americans
- 1 Native American mascots
- 1 Misty Upham
- 1 Kateri Tekakwitha
- 1 John Joseph Matthews
- 1 Hollywood depiction of Native Americans
- 1 Hannah Freeman
- 1 Frank Hamilton Cushing
- 1 Charles Eastman
- 1 Canadian Metis
- 1 Canadian First Nations
- 1 Cahokia
- 1 Alaskan Natives, past and present
- 1 “We Shall Remain” (2009)
- 1 “Billy Jack” (1971)
- 1 Geronimo
- 1 Black Hawk
- 1 Sequoia
- 1 Squanto
- 1 Jay Silverheels
- 1 peace pipes. And cigar store Indian statues.
- 1 Native American spirituality. The Great Spirit reference
- 1 Cherokees trying to kick out their black “freemen” members
- 1 Sarah Rector
- 1 “Orenda” by Joseph Boyden
- 1 Native American Heritage Month: Origins
I will link in posts as I do them.
Please put your nominations or seconds in the comments below.
Thanks!
Abagond 
I’m really interested in these topics. Here are my nominations.
Black Indians
Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show
Conquest masquerading as law – Vine Deloria Jr
Dead Indian Land
How the Iroquois shaped US democracy
Native Americans
Pocahontas
Racializing Montana
Russell Means
Sand Creek Massacre
settler colonialism
settler colonialism: consciousness
settler colonialism: narrative
settler colonialism: population
settler colonialism: sovereignty
The Truth About the First Thanksgiving
The term “savage”
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i vote for the first thanksgiving and both Manhattans. just a suggestionn, it would be nice if you did something on present day conditions for native peoples. Like maybe compare the Cherokee Nation to the Sioux and Lakota.
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Seconded:
Black Indians
Dead Indian Land
Seminole Wars
The Truth About the First Thanksgiving
Other nominations:
Charles Eastman
Wounded Knee
The 5 civilized tribes (and a post on any or all of them, eg, the Choctaw)
Anything about Alaskan natives (Aleuts, Inuit, or their past or current conditions)
Comparison with other countries in the Americas (eg, how aboriginal populations have fared)
@Anne
Agree with this 10000000%. Abagond has mentioned many times about how the Native American narrative is always rooted in the distant past.
I would like to see some posts about the present and future.
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Basque-Algonquin pidgin would be an interesting topic to explore. I know a little about it, but not much.
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I second the Black/First Nations!
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Aim, the ‘Noble Savage’ stereotype!
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History of the buffalo nickel, African American slaves and Native Americans. Seminoles in Florida. Eskimos/Inuits. Pocahontas.
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Sacagawea, Tecumseh, Totem poles, The real truth of the first Thanksgiving between pilgrims and Americans.Pacific Northwest Native Americans,Trail of Tears. Indian Names and how they came to be: Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse etc.
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The buffalo/bison and what they mean to Native Americans.
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The first Thanksgiving between Pilgrims and Native Americans.
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Quite frankly, these all sound great but it would be really interesting to see a post on #1) The actual “Thanksgiving”, #2) Black “Indians”, #3) Conquest masquerading as law, #4) Dead Indian Land and #5) African-American slaves and Native Americans.
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My favorites, in order with my favorite favorites at top
* Wounded Knee
* Trail of Tears
* Sand Creek Massacre
* Mankato massacre
* settler colonialism
* settler colonialism: sovereignty
* settler colonialism: population
* settler colonialism: narrative
* settler colonialism: consciousness
* How the Iroquois shaped US democracy
* The Truth About the First Thanksgiving
* Russell Means
* Leonard Peltier
* AIM
* When Indians took over Alcatraz
* buffalo/bison and what they mean to Native Americans
* The term “savage”
* Noble Savage stereotype
* Amerindians in different countries compared
* Cherokees
* Chickasaws
* Choctaws
* Creek Indians
* Dakota people: a brief history: before 1890
* Dakota people: a brief history: 1940 to 2010
* Dakota people: a brief history: 1890 to 1940
* Eskimos/Inuits
* Hawaiian Natives
* Pacific Northwest Native Americans
* Seminoles
* History of the Buffalo Nickel
* Black Indians
* African American slaves and Native Americans
* Pine Ridge Reservation
* Indian Names and how they came to be: Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse
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Abagond, did you already explain the photo in this post?
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[…] I will do a post on any Native American topic that three or more commenters want (counting myself). If there are more than ten such topics, then I will do the ten most wanted.How many commenters, so far, want which topics (seeded with my own nominations):- Click through to see – […]
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@ Glenn
It is from Samuel de Champlain’s 1632 sketch of a Huron (Wyandot) deer hunt.
The whole picture looks like this:
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_Iroquois#mediaviewer/File:Huron_deer_hunt_V_Champlain.jpg)
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Black Indians of course
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Hello Everyone,
Abagond has already done a post on the Trail of Tears.
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2010/05/20/the-cherokee-trail-of-tears/
Did you want a different take on that?
I would like to add to my list of nominations.
Seconded:
– Treaties between Native American nations and the US government
– North American Bison and Native Americans
– Tecumseh
Additional nominations:
– Piscataway tribe (natives to the region surrounding the Chesapeake Bay and the Potomac River) history and their current quest for official recognition
– triracial isolates (communities of people with mixed white, black and native American ancestry, but keep socially distinct from both whites and blacks – common in the mid-Atlantic, Southeast and Appalachia – modern day Piscataway tribe members are mostly descendant from Tri-racials). Includes modern day Wesorts and Lumbee. Can be linked to “Black Indians” and “Melungeons”.
– Native American mascots
– Hollywood depiction of Native Americans
– Redface (portrayal of Native Americans by whites)
– Review of any major film / movie / TV program with a Native American theme (eg, Billy Jack (1971)) & We Shall Remain (2009))
– Canadian First Nations
– Canadian Metis
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Red Ghettos (The Indian Reservation System and why it has resulted in crippling poverty almost universally for Native Americans)
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Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show
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When Indians took over Alcatraz
Racializing Montana
Mankato massacre
Manhattan: a brief history: 1600s
Manhattan: a brief history: 1500s
Eskimos/Inuits
Dakota people: a brief history: before 1890
Dakota people: a brief history: 1940 to 2010
Dakota people: a brief history: 1890 to 1940
Creek Indians
Choctaws
Chickasaws
Cherokees
OR The Five Civilized Tribes
Basque-Algonquin pidgin
Amerindians in different countries compared
AIM
Hawaiian Natives
Guide to Algonquins
Bartolome de Las Casas
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Just reading this:
(http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/interview/tcrr-interview/)
We mentioned about the impact of bison and US treaties with the Native American, and this article mentions that. This article also mentions the Transcontinental Railroad.
So I would like to add
“The Transcontinental Railroad: Impact on Native Americans”
I think we can have a whole series about the Transcontinental Railroad, but not just its impact on Native Americans.
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I just updated the list. Some wonderful suggestions! It just goes to show that 15 minds are better than one!
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I read that Will Rodgers was Native American. I also had a question about gambling casinos on territorial Native reservations.
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Looking forward to the posts (and comments) on this theme. I don’t know enough to nominate a subject for inclusion, but the stuff already nominated looks varied and interesting. 🙂
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@ Buddhuu
Long time no see. 🙂
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You forgot about Geronimo, Black Hawk, and Sequoia, and Squanto. Squanto has a part in the First Thanksgiving narrative i think. And the actor Jay Silverheels as the character Tonto in the old Lone Ranger television series.
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The confusion about the term Indian vs Native American.
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@MB
Abagond had a post on that topic:
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2012/09/05/indian/
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Peace pipes and tobacco. And cigar store Indian statues.
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Native American spirituality. The Great Spirit reference.
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@sharinalr:
Hiya. 🙂
I’ve been around but I guess we’ve just not coincided for a while. I hope you’re well.
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Abagond,
i realized that Hispanic month would be a bust because all everyone wants to do is focus on the racism and “self-hate” of Afro Hispanics
no one is truly interested in trying to understand the people called “Hispanics” in America and how they see themselves or their various cultures.
So, with that being said, I would like to see you do a post on
Native American racism against black people — it exists and has played a part in history past and present.
As much as I advocate for them, in the USA, the Native Americans have also participated in racism and are currently trying to disenfranchised black people
the Cherokees are trying to kick out their black “freemen” members (many who carry Native American blood) because they don’t wish to share the Casino profits
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/the-cherokees-one-nation-divisible-judge-will-decide-if-black-members-can-be-expelled/2014/05/06/8690e56c-d55e-11e3-aae8-c2d44bd79778_story.html
The scene inside the D.C. federal courtroom on Monday was as striking as the case being heard. Those seated on one side of the gallery appeared to be white; on the other side sat people who were black. All were members of the Cherokee Nation.
Except some members of the Cherokee Nation want to revoke the citizenship of the black members and prohibit their participation in the political and economic life of the tribe — all based on race and bloodline.
“This is mostly about white people trying to be Indian because of the money at stake,” said Sam Ford, a descendant of a Cherokee freedman and also a reporter for WJLA (Channel 7). “Like Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn has said: The average person calling themselves Cherokee have a Cherokee blood quantum of 1/512. Add up all the Cherokee blood and you get about a cup’s worth.”
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@Linda: I wanted to learn more about Hispanics during Hispanic month. If you go and see all my suggestions. I was disappointed it didn’t get enough topics posted. I hope the Native American thread has a better outcome. Latin/Hispanic culture is interesting to me. But i understand what you meant about everyone hung up on the racism of Afro-Hispanics.
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@Linda: I read about the Cherokee Nation wanting to expell the black members. That was shocking and sad. SMH.
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@Mary, I think it’s outrageous! but it’s not unexpected because it’s all about money.
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I am disappointed Hispanic Month turned out to be a bust.
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as for Hispanic month, I knew it would
and I had already made myself a promise that I would limit my participation if I saw the posts heading in the direction that I just knew they would take
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@Mary Burrell
“I am disappointed Hispanic Month turned out to be a bust.”—I was hoping for much more on the subject. I did not comment as much, but I was hoping to learn a great deal.
@ Linda
I really was looking for more contribution from you in regards to Hispanic month. I figured you would be the best to learn from. I hope you will atleast share some of that knowledge in open thread.
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As someone who has contributed a few posts in the past, I can tell you that, even if you know something about the topic, it still takes a long time to do research on the topic, find pictures and links, and organize the post.
If someone knows something about the topic and can find information easily, why don’t you submit a post?
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Sharina, no worries, I can still drop tidbits during Native American month
because as we all should know by now, many “Hispanics” are Native Americans with European or/and African blood
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Abagond,
another interesting post: Sarah Rector , a Creek freedman
“Sarah Rector: Kansas City’s First Black Millionairess”
http://www.clutchmagonline.com/2014/01/reading-searching-sarah-rector-richest-black-girl-america/
“Little Sarah Rector, became one of the richest little girls in America in 1914. Rector had been born among the Creek Indians, as a descendant of slaves.
Back in 1887, the government awarded the Creek minors children 160 acres of land, which passed to Rector after her parents’ deaths. Though her land was thought to be useless, oil was discovered in its depths in 1913, when she was just 10 years old.
Her wealth caused immediate alarm and all efforts were made to put the child Sarah under “guardianship” of whites whose lives became comfortable immediately. Meanwhile Sarah still lived in humble surroundings.
As white businessmen took control of her estate, efforts were also made to put her under control of officials at Tuskegee Institute.
In 1913, there was an effort to have her declared white, so that because of her millions she could ride in a first class car on the trains.”
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I know this isn’t one of the topics but since it is Native American heritage month, I gotta recommend this book. I wonder what Abagond and there on the blog would think of it.
It’s called The Orenda by Joseph Boyden. It’s about three characters:
Bird who is a warrior in the Huron tribe determined to avenge the death of his family, no matter the cost.
Snow Falls the Iroquois girl whose family Bird kills and he kidnaps her. She is adopted as his daughter but Snow Fall resents him.
Christophe a Jesuit priest who leaves France to convert the Native Americans
or as he likes to call “sauvages.” He does his best to hold on to his faith despite the fact that he could be captured and tortured by the Iroquois any day and even the Huron began to see him as the cause of smallpox spreading among them.
It was a heartbreaking book. A fresh book not for the weak hearted. There is blood, brutality, rape and so on throughout the book that all three witness and react to. All three of them are flawed and couldn’t be more different. But they are united by their humanity, their courage in the face of despair, death and so on. I loved this book so much. I hope you guys check it out.
I think if we could all just put aside all our prejudices hate lusts etc and see that underneath that we are just people trying to survive do what we feel is right stuff like racism, wars etc wouldn’t happen so often.
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As you could imagine I hated Christophe- just judgmental about everything the Huron did. But he was really sincere about baptizing them so they could go to heaven so I kind of admired him for that, even if he died in the process. So I admired him for that. However he was also helping the French to colonize the place to the detriment of the Huron.
Bird was awesome. He really loved his family so i understood why he was so
focused on revenge. But he only caused more tensions between the Huron and Iroquois in doing so.
Snow Falls was really interesting. She hate Bird for killing her family but eventually saw him as her father. Her inner conflict was compelling- she was neither Huron but no longer Iroquois either. Her relationship with Christophe seemed complex- It was pretty rocky from the start due to miscommunication in the BIGGEST way. I would say it was like a father daughter relationship- both Bird and Christophe wanted to adopt her into their family or faith.
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Unfortunately, the ‘Fur Trade’ didn’t make anything better for the Huron and other natives.
According to Native American history, when the French explorer Samuel de Champlain stayed with the Huron in 1615, he saw women grinding corn (maize) to trade with the neighboring Algonquians for furs and other forest products. De Champlain and other French traders also wanted furs, but not in the small quantities typical of intertribal trade. In return the French offered guns, knives, kettles, cloth, liquor and other goods. Some of these items seriously affected native culture, exaggerating the importance of hunting and wiping out traditional manufacture. Alcohol devastated tribal life. By 1635, the beaver was virtually extinct in Huron territory, but the Huron were able to obtain furs from the Nipissings and Ottawas. The Iroquois were also fur traders and competed with the Huron after their own resources ran out. In 1649, the Iroquois attacked the Huron and took control of the fur trade.
In the 1840s, the beaver hat went out of style in Europe and the demand for fur plummeted. By this time, however, there were few fur-bearing animals left in northeastern forests.
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@Curious:Thanks for sharing. Sounds Interesting.
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@ Linda, Mary, etc:
What should I have done differently during Hispanic Heritage Month, or, going forward, do differently with Native Heritage Month? What are your suggestions at that level?
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@ George
I agree. Cahokia is an awesome topic.
@ Linda
I have heard of Sarah Rector. Excellent suggestion.
@ Curious
Sounds like an interesting book. Thanks for the recommendation.
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@Abagond: It wasn’t anything that you did or didn’t do. I was put off by all that back and forth with that Biff troll it seems the thread was somehow derailed to me. I expected all the topics to be used for that month and it seems. I am not blaming you Abagond.
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@Abagond: Just seems like it was cut short and i thought there would be more.
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One more suggestion (similar to a suggestion for the Hispanic American Heritage Month):
Native American Heritage Month: Origins (ie, history and background)
@MB
I kinda also felt it fell short – was antcipating a lot of topics and discussion, but not much of either.
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I think another problem is that each month has been starting quite late. Here we are @11 Nov and not one single post about Native Americans yet.
We run out of time before many posts go up.
The “Welcome to Native American Heritage Month” was really a call for nominations, which should have been about 2-3 weeks earlier, mid-Oct at latest.
Suggest that we start nominations for Black History month in early January, and ask people to submit any draft guest posts in January. It is already getting late to do that for Native American Heritage Month.
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I am going to second
“Sand Creek Massacre”
as it was one of the Native American massacres in conjunction with the Transcontinental Railroad.
I also recall how the movie “How the West was Won” (1962) depicted the “skirmishes” with the Native Americans, in particular the Cheyenne and Arapaho, the very tribes attacked during the Sand Creek Massacre – a great example of how Hollywood rewrote the scipt.
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@ Jefe
Excellent choice. The 150th anniversary of the Sand Creek Massacre is coming up on November 29th.
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I have another nomination (that will not be done for the time being, I know, but I just wanted to throw it out there).
We are interested in knowing about the encounters and relationships between Native Americans and blacks. I also would like to know more about the relationships between Native Americans and Asians.
I can think of several aspects to this:
– they first encountered each other during the Manila Galleon period. I wonder was exchanged between them between during that time.
– Many Mexicans have both Asian (Chinese or Filipino) and Native American ancestry — how extensive is that in the USA?
– Some of the Filipinos that jumped the Spanish ships in the Gulf of Mexico formed families with Native American women in Louisiana
– Asians and Native Americans met face to face again in significant numbers during the Transcontinental Railroad era and later again during the “Wild West” and Driving out period
– the US often applied similar policies to Asians as to Native Americans, whom they sometimes classified together
– Many Canadian First Nations people are part Chinese – some Chinese men told Native wives during the 19th Centuy and both sides recognize the exchange between the two during that time
– some of the Chinese that settled in the Deep South took Native American wives (eg, Choctaw) as they were prevented from bringing wives over and from marrying whites.
– Sometimes Asians played Native Americans in Hollywood movies, esp. Filipinos.
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OK, Sand Creek Massacre ticked off.
Any more posts for Native American Heritage Month now that we are in December?
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@ Jefe
I got a late start and promised to do at least ten posts. I hope to do these:
Black Indians
Dead Indian Land
settler colonialism
settler colonialism: sovereignty
settler colonialism: population
settler colonialism: narrative
settler colonialism: consciousness
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That is great.
I just hope that some of the posts might relate to the present day or the recent past. So much of the narrative about Native Americans is stuck in time, in the 19th century or earlier. At minimum, at least one paragraph might discuss how the subject is treated today.
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Aww. I’m disappointed you didn’t do that many articles on NA history last month.
These all sound interesting. Count me as a vote for all of them.
As an American I don’t know a lot about many other national histories. YOU know. I would like to hear how Alaska became Russia’s and Canada’s conquest of what is now Western Canada.
Also something about contributions NAs have made to the modern world and some famous living NAs. I once read something a Native American woman, Mayan I think, said people think of NAs an museum exhibits and not people.
Definitely the Trail of Tears. Apple Pie America vs. Teflon Theory of History lol
Any little known brutalities. Peace pipes, origins and any gross disparities between perceptions and realities past or modern.
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Ooh and the Louisiana Purchase territory.
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And Oklahoma. Sorry for the multiple comments.
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Contribution? to Whom is that? the West or western culture?
sounds like a bit Euro-centric way of looking at things.
The biggest contribution is … the land.
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I’m sorry. I guess “contemporary” is a better word? I just mean the world of today versus hundreds of years ago. The world we’re living in right now.
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Also I’m sure there’s probably things that have been taken from Native culture and invented by NAs and are now used around the entire world, like the Arabic numbers and Asian gunpowder and movable type, so that’s why I’m not just seeing it as to Western or white culture.
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Oh! Here’s a few: foods. Vanilla, cocoa, corn, the tomato, the carrot, potatoes. Negatively, tobacco. All of which have made SOME people rich -cough-..
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You mean things like maize, tobacco and tomatoes?
Or things like Constitutional democracy?
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If you’ve got some history you’d like to share, go ahead.
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^ What upsets me more was that it was erased from our history textbooks.
that is why I don’t like to dwell only on contributions to “modern society”. It sounds as if they are already extinct.
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I guess some of these Native American topics will be pushed until November 2015.
Any chance that we can have a call for topics for Black History month in early January, instead of waiting until early February? Even now is not too late for receiving drafts of guest posts.
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I think Native Americans and Police brutality (or alternatively, Native Americans and the US Justice system) would be a good topic for a post.
It can cover contemporary circumstances and we can compare it to whites and Blacks (and Asians and Latinos) as well.
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I am currently having a discussion with a tribal leader of the Piscataway Indians who is interested in spreading information about their history and culture both in the USA and abroad, as well as a board member and consultant to the Piscataway Indian museum. I might put together a guest post on this tribe – the indigenous people of the area where I grew up.
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@ jefe
That would be awesome!
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Wow! That would be great jefe!
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Just got off the phone with her.
Turns out she knows my brother personally and our conversation took a very wild left turn.
Anyhow, she has vowed to send me info about the tribe, its history, its political status, and when I go back to Maryland she will give me a tour of the Piscataway Indian museum. In the late 1970s the State of Maryland set up a program to teach Piscataway Indians about their history and culture, and she attended that. However, funding for that was terminated about 2002, so it is the responsibility of each of the bands to do that. Only thing is that they have split up into different factions, so they are not as well coordinated as they could be.
She told me a story of what happened to the road passing her neighborhood during the desegregation era in the 1970s. Turns out that white people blocked the school buses from picking up the children in her neighborhood. The triracial people in her neighborhood had been bussed to the black school before and the white people didn’t want them to attend the white school which was actually closer. Her High school district was the one adjacent to mine. I have memories of that era, so it is nice to piece together different stories.
She is involved in bringing a play to New York City about the Trail of Tears. And will be on stage. Maybe if people in New York want to see it, they can check it out.
The reason why I know about this tribe in the first place is
– Even as a a teenager, I always wondered about the origin of the native peoples where I grew up – NOTHING was taught about them.
– a couple dozen people in my high school switched their racial identity to Native American when I was attending. I wanted to know more about the story
It turns out that the main ancestral homelands of the Piscataway are exactly in the area I went to high school and grew up. There were these isolated communities of tri-racial people spread across Southern PG county and into Charles and I always wanted to know their story. Now I will find out more.
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Will take a trip to New York and DC/MD/VA this month.
While in MD, I will go to the Piscataway Indian Cultural museum in Charles county and to the model Piscataway village at Accokeek park in southern PG county (along the Potomac River).
They just celebrated the 375th anniversary of the first conversion of the Piscataway to Catholicism in 1640 3 days ago. There is a site in St. Mary’s County in extreme southern Maryland where they commemorate this, as well as several archaeological digs where they uncovered artifacts. One is at an offshore island in the southern part of the Potomac river.
I will also meet with, maybe interview some of the tribal members.
This is exciting for me. For my entire life I wanted to know about the native peoples who inhabited the area where I grew up. I heard about them, but did not really learn that much.
I will also see the play “Trail of Tears” in New York City.
(http://www.eagleprojectarts.org/)
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@ Jefe
Wonderful! I will, of course, post any guest posts you want to do on any of it.
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I found I will have too much information to do a single post on the Natives of the US National Capital region. The location of their main settlement is believed to be around the mouth of the Piscataway Creek where it empties into the Potomac in PG county, MD. It is located directly across the river from Mount Vernon – GW’s mansion is clearly visible from the location of this former settlement. I will split up into several posts. If a single topic below is not enough for a post, I can combine with one of the others.
Piscataway Indians: Pre-European contact (until 1608)
Piscataway Indians: European colonial period (1608-1776)
Piscataway Indians: Identity Suppression during Slavery and Jim Crow (1770s – 1960s)
Piscataway Indians: 20th century Revival (1920s-2012) (Governor Martin O’Malley signed the bill to give state recognition to The Piscataway Indians in 2012)
Piscataway Indians: Contemporary Issues (ie, post state recognition)
Trying to get hold of the book, “Indians of Southern Maryland” –
by Rebecca Seib (published January 14, 2015 )
The Piscataway Indians are related to the nearby Algonquian tribes (ie, Lenape/Delaware (Delaware River and lower Hudson River valleys), Nanticoke (Eastern Maryland) and Powhatan (Tidewater Virginia) and each had several sub-tribes themselves.
I met the tribal leader of the Cedarville Band of the Piscataway-Conoy tribe a few days ago and found out that I went to the same high school at the same time – she was my high school schoolmate! It was exactly when I was in high school that several dozen of my schoolmates publicly switched their identity to Native American after being forced to identify as “colored” throughout the Jim Crow period. We discussed about what was taught to us in school about the Native Peoples living where we went to High School (answer: ZILCH).
Still did not get a chance to visit and study all of the resources about the Native Americans of southern Maryland when I was here. Think I need a few weeks for that. I might visit Conoy Island in the Potomac River tomorrow – the last known settlement of this tribe that persisted until the late 1700s.
In addition, considering posts on the following:
– Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian (Washington, DC and New York) – visited both places this trip to the USA
– Native Americans – State recognition v. Federal recognition (ie, meaning, application and benefits of these 2 levels of recognition)
– “Trail of Tears” (play) – I read the play script, but I am not sure if I will have time to see the live performance in New York City before I leave. Depends what time I get back to NYC.
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@ Jefe
Awesome!
“Piscataway” keeps making me think of the town in northern New Jersey.
Same here, the Delaware in my case. I doubt very much that that is an accident. It would raise too many of the “wrong” questions in impressionable minds.
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This was how “wrong” questions started popping into my head as a teenager.
But in the case of the tribal leader I was talking to, she IS of Piscataway descent. What it must feel to have your history omitted from the history books! (Actually, I know about that too.)
The Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) has a small exhibit about the local indigenous people in Washington, DC and Southern MD(ie, the Piscataway), but the one in NY has NOTHING on the Lenape Delaware.
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@Abagond,
Some of the Piscataway of Southern Maryland were forced to leave and some settled in New Jersey, where they either merged with the Lenape or assimilated into the general population. I wonder if there is any connection to Piscataway, NJ.
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While looking up stuff about the interaction between blacks and Native Americans, I ran into a graduate thesis online.
“They Looked Askance”:American Indians and Chinese in the Nineteenth Century U.S. West
by Jordan Hua
http://history.rutgers.edu/honors-papers-2012/402-they-looked-askance-american-indians-and-chinese-in-the-nineteenth-century-u-s-west/file
I have known for decades that many black Americans are part Chinese. I learned previously that First Nations people in British Columbia which this student also mentioned.
Now I found some information in one place on the historical interaction between Americans Indians and Chinese in the West and Midwest. Maybe I should draft something on this too.
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