The St. Lawrence Lowlands and Great Lakes-Riverine areas was a diverse and vast region of the Native Northeast. Two of the confederacies, the Iroquois and Wendat, had a lot in common, from language and agricultural practices to foodways, gender roles, and homes, and they also engaged in trade with one another. But, all was not peaceful and there were increasing hostilities. […]
While war was endemic in the Northeast during the 17th century, the views from Montaup and other regions suggest that it wasn’t inevitable. The actions taken by the Native people, such as Massasoit and Metacom, show us that the story of war is not the only story in need of telling. […]
John Smith and a small group of English settlers came to establish Jamestown in 1607. And the leader of the region, Powhatan, established a system of gift exchange in which he provided the English with corn in return for trade goods such as copper and metal tools. But these gifts actually served as emblems of a deeper relationship predicated on expectations of reciprocity and mutuality. […]
As with everyday objects, the lives of the Natives tell stories of a search for common ground, mutual incorporation and transformation at the time of contact with the Europeans. […]
The events that culminated in the Pueblo Revolt or war for independence in 1680 represent an attempt by Indigenous people to restore order. […]
Rather than honoring Indigenous expectations of kinship, alliance, and reciprocity, Hernando de Soto and his men killed, enslaved, raped, and stole. Thousands of Native peoples of the Southeast died at the end of Spanish blades, in the jaws of wolfhounds, and from the wasting effects of starvation and disease. […]
The Spanish, who had already devastated the Taíno in the Caribbean, the Mexica in Mesoamerica, and the Inca in Peru, invaded the southeastern world during the fourth decade of the 16th century. […]
The historical narrative about Native Americans confined them to their past. Typical narratives by historians from the past labelled the Natives as victims bound to disappear in history. The new narratives and studies are challenging these and finding ways of recovery of the native community. […]
Tribal nations have been given the status of sovereign nations through various treaties signed between them and the federal government. To this day, the US continues to recognize the political status of these tribal nations. […]
We would do well to keep in mind that much of what we imagine as new might have been thought of as next by Indigenous contemporaries. After all, Native communities were already practiced in the arts of dealing with people unlike themselves, the exchange of material and nonmaterial things across vast trade networks, and the making of innovations to their ways of life. […]
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