As the semester comes crashing to a close, I did manage to get my book orders in on time for next semester. For my survey course in Native American History, I will be assigning: Prucha, Documents of United States Indian Policy, 3rd Edition Hoxie, Talking Back to Civilization Treuer, Rez Life Oberg, Native America, 2nd ed. Calloway, Our Hearts Fell to the Ground, 2nd edition and Silverman, Red Brethren. For my course in American Colonial History, students will read:…
In August of 1917, the following news story appeared in the Syracuse Post-Standard. Under the headline, “Indians to Declare War Upon Germany,” and a smaller title indicating that “Gohl Says He Has Been Chosen to Draft Paper Because Stranded Onondagas Were Insulted” we learn something of an adopted Onondaga, a group of imprisoned circus performers, and inexplicably angry Germans and Austrians. “Edward M. Gohl, adopted Onondaga Indian and adviser of the tribe, announced tonight he had been delegated by the Onondagas…
Last Friday, the 9th of March, 2018, was Teachers’ Day at Geneseo, an event my colleagues in the History Department have held for the past several years. We invite teachers from public schools to come to campus. They attend a workshop in American history and another in World History. In the past, we have had a keynote address held at lunchtime, but this year, my colleagues decided to do something different: a roundtable discussion on ways to involve high school…
If you study the Iroquois, you have come across the work of the pioneering anthropologist Lewis Henry Morgan. He published in the middle of the nineteenth century The League of the Ho-dé-no-sau-nee or Iroquois. It is an important book. Though many of Morgan’s findings have been rejected, there is no doubting the significance of the work. His ties to the Parker family at Tonawanda gained him extraordinary access at a period when many Americans still anticipated that the Iroquois, like other…
There is a guy named Bob Lonsberry who has hosted a local right-wing radio show here in Rochester for many years. I have mentioned him before on this blog in response to his tweets some months back about Columbus Day. Lonsberry, who about a decade and a half ago was suspended from his job for referring to the city’s African-American mayor as “a monkey,” and who whole-heartedly endorsed the Clown Prince of Mar-A-Lago’s characterization of those parts of the world…
The semester begins for me tomorrow morning, and I will be teaching, among other things, my course in American Indian Law and Public Policy. The course is cross-listed in both the departments of history and American studies, and is the one required course in the college’s tiny Native American studies minor. I apologize in advance for the crazy formatting–I am still learning this whole WordPress thing, but I hope this is enough to give you the gist of what I…
