The Iroquois or Haudenosaunee are a historically powerful northeast Native American confederacy in North America. Storytelling is an important component of Haudenosaunee culture. Oral traditions and legends have been passed from generation to generation, teaching communities how to live, act, and care for one another, as well as how to manage during the unpredictable seasons. [Read more…] about Haudenosaunee Folklore & Indigenous Tales in Utica
Iroquois
Sullivan-Clinton Campaign Symposium in Fort Plain
The Fort Plain Museum will host a symposium on the Sullivan-Clinton Campaign against Native Americans in 1779 on Saturday, November 2nd. Pre-registration is recommended, but walk-ins are welcome. [Read more…] about Sullivan-Clinton Campaign Symposium in Fort Plain
Adirondack Iroquoian and Algonquian History Published
Melissa Otis’ new book Rural Indigenousness, A History of Iroquoian and Algonquian Peoples of the Adirondacks (Syracuse University Press, 2019) takes a fresh look at the rich history of Algonquian and Iroquoian people, offering a study of the relationship between Native Americans and the Adirondacks.
The Adirondacks have been an Indigenous homeland for millennia, and the presence of Native people in the region was obvious but not well documented by Europeans, who did not venture into the interior between the seventeenth and early nineteenth centuries. Yet, by the late nineteenth century, historians had scarcely any record of their long-lasting and vibrant existence in the area. [Read more…] about Adirondack Iroquoian and Algonquian History Published
The Indian World of George Washington Lecture in NYC
Fraunces Tavern Museum in Manhattan, will present a lecture by Colin G. Calloway, author of The Indian World of George Washington (Oxford Univ. Press, 2018) about Native American land, power, people that shaped George Washington’s life at key moments, and also shaped the early history of the nation.
Calloway is John Kimball Jr. 1943 Professor of History and Native American Studies at Dartmouth College. His previous books include A Scratch of the Pen and The Victory with No Name. [Read more…] about The Indian World of George Washington Lecture in NYC
The Haudenosaunee and The Erie Canal Jan 26th
The Oneida County History Center will host a lecture by Syracuse University Professor Philip P. Arnold on the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) and the Erie Canal , set for Saturday, January 26th at 1 pm.
For millennia waterways have been profoundly important in indigenous Haudenosaunee territories. Arnold will discuss the important role waterways play in the cosmology of the Haudenosaunee people of New York State, and the Erie Canal’s profound environmental effects and traumatic consequences on the Haudenosaunee relationships to their lands. [Read more…] about The Haudenosaunee and The Erie Canal Jan 26th
Brothertown Indians Program in Rome, NY
The Rome Historical Society is set to host Janet Dangler, Town of Marshall Historian, who will present a program about the Brothertown Indians, a Christian group of Native Americas who settled in the Deansboro area in the 1770s, on Thursday, October 18th at 7 pm.
The Brothertown Indians were formed by several “Christian Tribes” from New England who banded together in an effort to preserve their common culture and identity. [Read more…] about Brothertown Indians Program in Rome, NY
New Seneca-Iroquois National Museum Opening
The Seneca Nation of Indians (Onon:dowa’ga:’) will open its new Seneca-Iroquois National Museum in Salamanca, NY on August 4, 2018 at 11 am.
The new 33,000 square-foot $18 million museum and cultural center will celebrate Seneca and Native history and also have a focus on the future.
What follows is an announcement that was sent to the press.
[Read more…] about New Seneca-Iroquois National Museum Opening
Kayaderosseras Patent Settlement: A Short History
This year marks the 250th anniversary of the final settlement of a dispute between land owners and the Iroquois Confederacy over the rights to one of the largest land grants in colonial New York, the Kayaderosseras
Patent. Important in it own right, this dispute and its eventual resolution sheds light on the politics of land acquisitions from Native Americans in the colonial period. [Read more…] about Kayaderosseras Patent Settlement: A Short History
Eleazer Williams: Professional Indian
Michael Leroy Oberg’s new book Professional Indian: The American Odyseey of Eleazer Williams (2015, Univ. of Pennsylvania Press) follows Eleazer Williams on his odyssey across the early American republic and through the shifting spheres of the Iroquois in an era of dispossession.
Oberg describes Williams as a “professional Indian,” who cultivated many political interests and personas in order to survive during a time of shrinking options for native peoples.
He was not alone: as Oberg shows, many Indians became missionaries and settlers and played a vital role in westward expansion. Through the larger-than-life biography of Eleazer Williams, Professional Indian uncovers how Indians fought for place and agency in a world that was rapidly trying to erase them. [Read more…] about Eleazer Williams: Professional Indian
Indian Basketry of the Northeastern Woodlands
With hundreds of vivid and detailed color photographs and an easy narrative style enlivened by historical vignettes, Sarah Peabody Turnbaugh and William A. Turnbaugh bring overdue appreciation to a centuries-old Native American basketmaking tradition in the Northeast in Indian Basketry of the Northeastern Woodlands (Schiffer Publishing, 2014).
The authors explore the full range of vintage Indian woodsplint and sweetgrass basketry in the Northeastern U.S. and Canada, from practical “work” baskets made for domestic use to whimsical “fancy” wares that appealed to Victorian tourists. [Read more…] about Indian Basketry of the Northeastern Woodlands