Posts Tagged ‘Native Americans’

Thursday, October 13, 2022

Calling on the Park Service to do more for Indigenous people

National park service logo

As an advocate for our public lands, mainly managed by the US Park Service, I wholeheartedly agree with David Treuer in giving Indigenous peoples enhanced rights and management of their lands (“Return the National Parks to the Tribesthe Atlantic, May 2021). However, I was disappointed to see the lack of coverage of this in the Adirondack Almanack, and hope to create heightened awareness, especially following Indigenous People’s Day this week, and given the significance National Parks have in many residents’ lives in the Adirondack area. Native people should be given much more responsibility, management, and profit from National Parks, and as such, I call on the National Parks Service to put this control into the hands of Indigenous peoples, and you, as readers, to contact NPS and push them to do so.

» Continue Reading.


Wednesday, March 16, 2022

Digging into Native Americans’ history in the Adirondacks

native american pottery shards

A young boy on my tour last year asked a simple question, “were there Indians here?” With nowhere else to go, I repeated the worn-out line that Native American people used the Adirondacks as hunting grounds. It was an unsatisfying response, for both of us. As Sagamore’s historian, I knew as much as that kid about 98% of the area’s human timeline.

I quickly found a small but growing body of research on Native American history in central and northern New York State. I also learned that these topics, this knowledge, is not new. From my perspective, I could dig into books and articles about the academic pursuit of knowledge. But, Native Americans have been telling their own stories from the beginning. To properly answer that boy’s question, Sagamore needs to welcome the perspectives of the people about whom we’re speaking.

The Eurocentric university-based perspective and the Native American oral history perspective are often presented in concert, each welcoming the other. I reached out to John Fadden at the Six Nations Iroquois Cultural Center in Onchiota, New York. John’s father Ray Fadden and his family, who lived in the Mohawk community of Akwesasne, opened the center in 1954 so that the general public “may acquire the knowledge needed to better understand the history, culture, contemporary realities, and the potential future of Native Nations.” The center remains northern New York’s leading source for discovering a variety of perspectives on Indigenous people.

» Continue Reading.


Tuesday, March 15, 2022

U.S. District Court Affirms Akwesasne’s 1796 Treaty Boundary

akwesasne sign

AKWESASNE TERRITORY – The Saint Regis Mohawk Tribal Council is pleased to report that the decades-long dispute over the reservation boundary has been decided upon by the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York. In a summary judgment ruling issued by U.S. District Judge Lawrence Kahn on Enniskó:wa/March 14, 2022, the court ruled that New York State’s purchase of reservation lands in the 1800s violated the federal Non-Intercourse Act.

» Continue Reading.


Wednesday, January 29, 2020

Upper Saranac Shoreline Protected Along Canoe Route

newly conserved land on Upper Saranac Lake courtesy Adirondack Land Trust The Adirondack Land Trust purchased five acres of forest along the shore of Upper Saranac Lake to ensure that a mile-long stretch of shoreline between Indian Carry and Indian Point remains forever wild.

The tract features 570 feet of rugged lakeshore edged by boulders and northern white cedars. The Adirondack Land Trust is expected to work with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to transfer the land to the state to close a gap in the Saranac Lakes Wild Forest, which is protected under the “forever wild” clause of New York’s constitution as part of the Adirondack Forest Preserve. » Continue Reading.


Saturday, December 7, 2019

Tisquantum And Plymouth Colony’s Survival

Depiction of the Thanksgiving storyPawtuxet Wampanoag Tisquantum‘s story begins during the summer of 1605, when British sailors, under the command of Captain George Weymouth, commissioned by a colonial entrepreneur Sir Ferdinando Gorges, kidnapped him, along with four other Native American boys, and brought them to England.

In his diary, Capt. Weymouth wrote, “we used little delay, but suddenly laid hands upon them … For they were strong and so naked as our best hold was by their long hair on their heads.” » Continue Reading.


Saturday, December 7, 2019

Poetry: Tisquantum

Tisquantum

This country
Was born on a welcoming,
An outstretched hand,
A feeding and a fellowship.
It is a noble heritage
That transcends color and belief.
I come in peace. I rescue you.
I am your brother.
The daunting land and forest creatures
Watched and listened
And all feasted together.
This country
Was born on a welcoming.

Read More Poems From The Adirondack Almanack HERE.


Wednesday, August 21, 2019

Rare Native American Militaria On Exhibit at Fort Ti

Fort Ticonderoga courtesy Carl Heilman IIRare Native American artifacts are on display at Fort Ticonderoga in the exhibition “The Art of Resistance: Selections from the Robert N. Nittolo Collection” for a limited time only through October 2019.

These items have never been put on view before, and are from the Robert Nittolo collection, considered among the most significant private collections of 18th century militaria. » Continue Reading.


Thursday, August 15, 2019

Six Nations Indian Museum Campfire Stories

Don’t expect a typical museum experience at Onchiota’s Six Nations Indian Museum. Though there are glass-enclosed cases filled with old things, this is a museum that evolves with the living history of the Haudenosaunee, thanks to the Fadden family.

Founded in 1954 by Ray Fadden then passed to his son John, the tradition continues through the family of third-generation artist David Fadden. The Faddens continue to pursue Ray’s dream of providing people with an ongoing account of the Haudenosaunee (People of the Long House). » Continue Reading.


Tuesday, March 26, 2019

Abenaki Language Weekend at Ndakinna

Jesse Bruchac giving Abenaki lessonsThe Ndakinna Education Center at Greenfield Center (in Saratoga County, just outside the Adirondack Park) has announced a Abenaki Language Weekend set for April 5-7th, 2019.

Jesse Bruchac and Elie Joubert will teach all levels and ages the basics of the Abenaki language, some conversational Abenaki, language learning games, songs, dances and other creative interactive indoor and outdoor activities. » Continue Reading.


Wednesday, March 20, 2019

A New History of Adirondack Native People

rural indigenousnessMelissa Otis’s book Rural Indigenousness: A History of Iroquoian and Algonquian Peoples of the Adirondacks (Syracuse University Press, 2018) takes a look at indigenous and settler interactions in the Adirondacks.

The Adirondacks have been a homeland for Indigenous people for millennia. 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. » Continue Reading.


Sunday, November 4, 2018

Indigenous Art Exhibition Opens At Wild Center

David Kanietakeron Fadden We Are All Related, a group art exhibit featuring the works of Mohawk artisans from the Akwesasne community, opened at The Wild Center on Saturday, October 20 and runs through the end of September 2019.

More than thirty artists from Akwesasne, in a variety of mediums, are featured. The exhibit was curated by David Kanietakeron Fadden, Jaclyn Hall, Sue Ellen Herne and Victoria Ransom. Artwork, which includes paintings, pottery, sculpture, beadwork, basketry and traditional clothing, is arranged by generational family to show the influence and reinforce the importance of the relationship among individual families, and the community.

» Continue Reading.


Saturday, November 18, 2017

Trailblazer: David Kanietakeron Fadden

Storytelling — stories about Native American history as told by the people who lived it and not the abridged school textbook version — is part of Dave Kanietakeron Fadden’s makeup, his DNA. He is Mohawk.

Read more about how the Six Nations Indian Museum began

More about Dave

Though he’d never in his life addressed a group, Fadden went ahead and listed “storyteller” on his resume when applying for a position as an educator for the Iroquois Indian Museum in Howes Cave, NY, in 1993. He got the job, and his first talk was to a busload of sixty third-graders. » Continue Reading.


Monday, October 9, 2017

Mohawk Iron Workers ‘Skydancer’ Film Screening Planned

skydancerTAUNY, Traditional Arts in Upstate New York, has invited the public to a presentation of Skydancer, a film about the Mohawk iron-workers who regularly commute from Akwesasne to New York City to work on the “high steel,” building the skyscrapers of Manhattan.

This 2011 film by Academy Award-nominated director Katja Esson follows iron-workers Jerry McDonald Thundercloud and Sky Fox as they shuttle between the hard drinking Brooklyn lodging houses they call home during the week and their family lives, a grueling drive six hours north back home to Akwesasne, NY, on the weekends. Through archival documents and interviews, it also explores the broader history of the Mohawk skywalkers, presenting the nuanced and visually stunning stories of these renowned men who, over six generations, have been traveling to New York City to work on some of the biggest construction jobs in the world. » Continue Reading.


Monday, August 14, 2017

Ancient Jefferson Co Pottery Reveals 16th Century Iroquoia

northern iroquoia groups A study published in the journal Science Advances demonstrates how decorations on ancient pottery can be used to discover new evidence for how groups interacted across large regions. The research, conducted by John P. Hart, Director of Research and Collections at the New York State Museum; Jennifer Birch, Assistant Professor at the University of Georgia; and Christian Gates St-Pierre, Assistant Professor at the University of Montreal, sheds new light on the importance of a little-understood Iroquoian population in upstate New York and its impact on relations between two emerging Native American political powers in the 16th century.

Iroquoians in northeastern North America are best known for the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) and Wendat (Huron) confederacies in upstate New York and southern Ontario. There are extensive early historic records of both groups. Descendants of these confederacies and their respective nations that remain in these areas today have rich oral traditions that speak to their histories before and after European contact. Archaeology fills out these records through the excavation and analyses of ancestral communities. » Continue Reading.


Thursday, July 27, 2017

Mohawk Ironworkers Documentary Preview in Au Sable Forks

mohawk ironworkersThe Tahawus Center in association with the Hollywood Theater, will present episodes from the new Mohawk Ironworkers documentary on Monday, August 7, 7 pm at the Hollywood Theater, 14232 Rt 9N, in Au Sable Forks.

This film celebrates the determination of the Mohawk ironworkers of Kahnawake, Akwesasne and Six Nations. Mohawk Ironworkers was produced by Paul M. Rickard, George Hargrave, and Au Sable Fork’s Margaret Horn, who interviewed many of the characters as researcher and associate producer. The series features a team of Indigenous directors including Jeff Dorn, Margaret Horn, Courtney Montour, Paul M. Rickard, and Michelle Smith.

During this event, four episodes will be introduced by Horn, one of the directors, and one whose family has been involved in the trade for several generations. » Continue Reading.



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