History, Natural History & the Arts
Delaware may be the second smallest state in the United States, but it has a BIG, rich history that can tell us much about the history of early America.
In this episode of Ben Franklin’s World, David Young, the Executive Director of the Delaware Historical Society, joins us to explore the early American history of Delaware from its Native American inhabitants through its emergence as the first state in the United States. [Read more…] about An Early History of Delaware
Laurence M. Hauptman’s new book Coming Full Circle: The Seneca Nation of Indians 1848-1934, (University of Oklahoma Press, 2019) traces Seneca history through the New Deal, beginning with events leading to the Seneca Revolution in 1848.
Based on the author’s nearly fifty years of archival research, interviews, and applied work, Coming Full Circle shows that Seneca leaders in these years learned valuable lessons and adapted to change, thereby preparing the nation to meet the challenges it would face in the post–World War II era, including major land loss and threats of termination. [Read more…] about Coming Full Circle: The Seneca Nation of Indians 1848-1934
What does early America look like if we view it through Native American eyes?
Jenny Hale Pulsipher, author of Swindler Sachem: The American Indian Who Sold His Birthright, Dropped Out of Harvard, and Conned the King of England (Yale University Press, 2018) and Associate Professor of History at Brigham Young University, is a scholar who enjoys investigating the many answers to this question. In this episode of Ben Franklin’s World: A Podcast About Early American History, she introduces us to a Nipmuc Indian named John Wompas and how he experienced a critical time in early American history, the period between the 1650s and 1680s. [Read more…] about A 17th-Century Native American Life
Siena College has announced “The Chains of Alliance: Euro-Indian Cooperation and Conflict from Contact to the Revolution,” a lecture with Dr. John W. Hall, PhD, has been set for Wednesday, April 3rd from 6 to 7 pm, at the Key Auditorium, 202 Roger Bacon Hall, Siena College, Loudonville. [Read more…] about Euro-Indian Interactions Before the Revolution at Siena College
The New York State Museum has announced the addition of 14 new artworks to its contemporary Native American art collection. In accordance with the mission of the collection, each artist is a citizen of an Indigenous nation whose ancestral lands are located in what is now New York State.
Launched in 1986, and now numbering more than 160 artworks, the contemporary Native American art collection showcases a breadth of Native artistic skills and craftsmanship. [Read more…] about NYS Museum Adds Contemporary Native American Art
The 22nd International James Fenimore Cooper/Susuan Fenimore Cooper Conference has been set for September 25-28, 2019, at SUNY Oneonta.
This years conference will examine Cooper within this tension between native purity and immigrant amalgamation.
Organizers have announced they are seeking papers that address the role of Cooper and his contemporaries in forging an American identity out of the cultural mixture of overlapping empires and immigration. [Read more…] about 22nd International Fenimore Cooper Conference Call for Papers
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
During the 17th and 18th centuries, the Ohio River Valley proved to be a rich Agrarian region. Many different Native American peoples prospered from its land both in terms of the land’s ability to produce a wide variety of crops and its support of a wide variety of small fur-bearing animals for the fur trade.
In this episode of Ben Franklin’s World: A Podcast About Early American History Susan Sleeper-Smith, a Professor of History at Michigan State University and author of Indigenous Prosperity and American Conquest: Indian Women and the Ohio River Valley, 1690-1792 (The Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, 2018), helps us explore this unique region and the important roles it played in the early American past. [Read more…] about Native American History: The Ohio River Valley and Great Lakes Region
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
Did you know that one of the earliest practices of slavery by English colonists originated in New England?
In fact, Massachusetts issued the very first slave code in English America in 1641. Why did New Englanders turn to slavery and become the first in English America to codify its practice? [Read more…] about New England Indians, Colonists, and Origins of American Slavery