New York Almanack

History, Natural History & the Arts

Native American

Science & Suckers: The Cohoes Mastodon & The Cardiff Giant

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Cohoes Mastodon exhibit at the New York State Museum, Albany New York (photo courtesy Kenneth C. Zirkel)In 1866, NY State Geologist James Hall received a message from T.G. Younglove, an official at Harmony Mills in Cohoes, New York, informing Hall that while conducting some excavations to expand the mill they uncovered a “great pothole” at the foot of Cohoes Falls where the Mohawk River begins to empty into the Hudson.

The “great pothole” contained a large jawbone “of some unknown beast,” much larger than that of an elephant. [Read more…] about Science & Suckers: The Cohoes Mastodon & The Cardiff Giant

New Novel From Ray Phillips Tells Story of Native Twins

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laughing_rain_and_awakens_corn_03 (2) coverBook purchases made through this link support New York Almanack’s mission to report new publications relevant to New York State.

Ray E. Phillips’s new novel Laughing Rain and Awakens Corn: Look-the-Same Girls in the Land of the Cloud-Splitter (Self-Published, 2021) looks at how life in early America is experienced by twin girls, Laughing Rain and Awakens Corn from a Mohawk clan in an Adirondack village. [Read more…] about New Novel From Ray Phillips Tells Story of Native Twins

State Parks Plans To Expand Native Legacy At Johnson Hall

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Mohawk at Johnson Hall State Historic SiteLong-term plans for the Johnson Hall State Historic Site call for enhancements to more fully describe the historic role that the Mohawk and other Native peoples played in colonial-era New York. [Read more…] about State Parks Plans To Expand Native Legacy At Johnson Hall

Winter in the Early American Northeast

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ben_franklins_worldHow did the people of early America experience and feel about winter?

In this episode of Ben Franklin’s World: A Podcast About Early American History, Thomas Wickman, an Associate Professor of History and American Studies at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut and author of Snowshoe Country: An Environmental and Cultural Winter in the Early American Northeast (Cambridge University Press, 2018), joins us to investigate how Native Americans and early Americans experienced and felt about winter during the 17th and early 18th centuries.

[Read more…] about Winter in the Early American Northeast

Haudenosaunee Events at Ganondagan on Memorial Spaces

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rethinking the landscape haudenosaunee womenThe Iroquois, or Haudenosaunee, (“People of the Longhouse”), are a northeast Native American confederacy in North America. They were known during the colonial years to the French as the Iroquois League, and later as the Iroquois Confederacy, and to other European immigrants as the Five Nations, comprising the Mohawk, Onondaga, Oneida, Cayuga, and Seneca. After 1722, they accepted the Tuscarora people from the Southeast into their confederacy, and became known as the Six Nations.

The International Coalition of Sites of Conscience is set to host two events on Haudenosaunee culture and women and how they relate to museum and memorial sites, on December 12th and 13th, at the Seneca Art & Culture Center in Victor. [Read more…] about Haudenosaunee Events at Ganondagan on Memorial Spaces

Coming Full Circle: The Seneca Nation of Indians 1848-1934

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coming full circleLaurence 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

A 17th-Century Native American Life

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ben_franklins_worldWhat 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