History, Natural History & the Arts
More than 1,520 funerary objects and cultural artifacts were returned to the Oneida Indian Nation from the collections of Colgate University’s Longyear Museum of Anthropology on November 9th.
The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act requires federally funded institutions to return remains and cultural items. [Read more…] about 1,500 Artifacts Returned To Oneida Indian Nation By Museum
Fort Bull and the Oneida Carrying Place were important parts of the military and Indigenous landscape that shaped the development of the Upper Mohawk Valley region.
The Oneida Carrying Place, a four-mile overland route that connected the Mohawk River and Wood Creek, was vital to British military campaign strategies beginning with the French and Indian War. The Carry also saw significant action during St. Leger’s American Revolution Campaign (1777), which included the Siege of Fort Stanwix/Schuyler and the Battle of Oriskany. [Read more…] about Fort Bull – Oneida Carrying Place Archaeology Funded
A significant turning point in the American Revolution, the Battle of Oriskany was fought on August 6th, 1777, and is considered one of the bloodiest battles of the war.
During the battle Continental forces led by General Nicholas Herkimer defeated the British army under Barrimore Matthew “Barry” St. Leger in the heart of New York’s Mohawk Valley. It was a hard-won victory, but Herkimer’s troops and their Oneida allies prevented the British from splitting the colonies in two. [Read more…] about Battle of Oriskany Commemoration On Saturday
For many people, “American” history begins with European exploration of the continent. From there, the narrative invariably centers on the colonial perspective and, after 1776, the perspective of the United States.
Consequently, the general public is generally uninformed about the history of Indigenous People that both predates New Netherland and the Pilgrims and persists to the present. And this article is by no means capable of addressing this broad historical issue. So let’s turn from this historical macrocosm to the microcosm of one city, Schenectady. [Read more…] about Schenectady’s Relationship to Native America
In early May, 1775 the Revolutionary War was underway on largely local scale. The attack on the British forces leaving Lexington and Concord had happened less than a month earlier, and 4,500 British troops had landed in Boston.
The lightly defended Fort Ticonderoga was taken on the morning of May 10, 1775, in a surprise attack by the Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys, with the help of Benedict Arnold. The fort had been held by the British for 16 years, since it was taken from the French in 1759. [Read more…] about Revolutionary Albany: Supplying Ticonderoga, Dealing With Loyalists & Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Relations
During the American Revolution, British loyalists frequently raided the farms and homes of their former friends and neighbors in what is now Herkimer County, NY, with the support of their Native allies.
Among the communities raided were Andrustown (July 18, 1778), Rheimensnyders Bush (April 3, 1780, also known as Yellow Church), Shells Bush (August 6, 1781) and Little Falls (June 1782). The Loyalists knew the landscape well, for many of them had lived there for a generation or two. Many were relatives and friends of the recently deceased Sir William Johnson who had been Commissioner of Indian Affairs for North America.
One of these raids resulted in what has become known as the Battle of West Canada Creek, which occurred in September 1781. [Read more…] about Herkimer County Loyalist Raids & The Battle of West Canada Creek
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
An Oneida Indian in Foreign Waters: The Life of Chief Chapman Scanandoah 1870–1953 (Syracuse University Press, 2016) by Laurence M. Hauptman is a biography of Chief Chapman Scanandoah, a decorated Navy veteran who served in the Spanish-American War, a skilled mechanic, and a prizewinning agronomist who helped develop the Iroquois Village at the New York State Fair.
He was also a historian, linguist, philosopher, and early leader of the Oneida land claims movement. However, his fame among the Oneida people and among many of his contemporaries today rests with his career as an inventor. [Read more…] about New Book: An Oneida Indian in Foreign Waters
James Kirby Martin, a history professor at the University of Houston, traces his interest in the Mohawk Valley to his birthplace in northern Ohio.
Joseph Brant of the Mohawk Nation was born in what is now Ohio in 1743 and Martin was fascinated by Brant’s life. The younger brother of Sir William Johnson’s longtime consort Molly Brant, Joseph Brant and Sir William’s son John led devastating raids in the Mohawk Valley during the American Revolution.
Sir William, Britain’s Indian agent in our region, died in 1774 before the war. However, his good relations with the Iroquois Confederacy kept most of them on the side of the British during the Revolution. [Read more…] about The Oneida Nation Supported American Rebels
In 1634, the Dutch West India Company was anxious to know why the fur trade from New Netherland had been declining, so the company sent three employees far into Iroquois country to investigate.
Harmen Meyndertsz van den Bogaert led the expedition from Fort Orange (present-day Albany). His journal includes the earliest known description of the interior of what is today New York State and its seventeenth-century native inhabitants and it is now issued in a revised edition as A Journey into Mohawk and Oneida Country, 1634-1635: The Journal of Harmen Meyndertsz van den Bogaert (Syracuse Univ. Press, 2013; Translated and Edited by Charles T. Gehring and William A. Starna). [Read more…] about A Journey into Mohawk and Oneida Country, 1634-1635