Indigenous Studies Commons^™

Subsistence In The Shrinking Forest: Native And Euro-American Practice In 19th-Century Connecticut, William A. Farley

Graduate Masters Theses

Southeastern Connecticut in the 19th century represented a setting in which Native Americans living on reservations were residing in close proximity to Euro-American communities. The Mashantucket Pequot, an indigenous group who in the 19th century resided on a state-overseen reservation, and their Euro-American neighbors both utilized local and regional resources in order to achieve their subsistence goals. This thesis seeks to explore the differences and similarities of the subsistence practices employed by these two groups. It further seeks to examine the centrality of forest landscapes to both Mashantucket and Euro-American subsistence, and to interpret the importance of the reservation to …

Fourth Annual Meeting Of The Native American And Indigenous Studies Association (Conference Program), Institute For New England Native American Studies, University Of Massachusetts Boston

Institute for New England Native American Studies Publications

The Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA) is the premier organization for scholars in Native and Indigenous Studies, representing numerous indigenous peoples and their non-indigenous allies. The Institute for New England Native American Studies (INENAS) played a key role in planning 2012 conference, with Director Cedric Woods serving as co-chair of Executive Host Committee.

Native Tribal Scholars; Strengthening Families-Grandparents Raising Grandchildren; Native American And Indigenous Studies Annual Conference 2012, Cedric Woods, Institute For New England Native American Studies, University Of Massachusetts Boston

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

Native Tribal Scholars is a pre-collegiate initiative developed and run as a collaboration between the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, the North American Indian Center of Boston, and UMass Boston (Institute for New England Native American Studies and Academic Support Services). Native youth in grades 8-12 consistently lag behind their non-Native peers on many key academic indicators contributing to fewer Native high school students adequately prepared for college. The goal of this initiative is to provide academic support to Native American youth in these age groups. This is a Massachusetts based summer residential program that focuses on teaching science, math and writing …

Eastern Pequot Archaeological Field School, Steven Silliman

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

This project assists with locating historical cultural sites on Eastern Pequot reservation established in A.D 1683, and providing historical preservation and archaeological services at low to no cost to this Native American community. This project also trains undergraduate and graduate students from UMass Boston and other institutions and tribal community interns in archaeological techniques, heritage preservation, Native American history, colonial studies and collaborative research methods. It aims to improve archaeological fieldwork and interpretations as part of a deeply collaborative relationship, and also study Eastern Pequot house sites, using artifacts, animal bones , plant remains, architecture, landscape historical documents and oral …

The Debate Over Indian Removal In The 1830s, George William Goss

Graduate Masters Theses

The US in the 1830s debated the relationship between the US and Indian Communities of North America. The principles calling for equal rights and political democracy were in contradiction with the principles calling for the US to follow colonial principles of the European empires that had begun to invade North America in the late 1400s. The colonies that had revolted against British rule in the late 1700s continued their expansion of settlements and political incorporation. The proposal of Indian Removal was a straightforward expression of that expansionism. There was a national campaign developed in support of the Indian resistance, particularly …

A Macrobotanical Analysis Of Native American Maize Agriculture At The Smith's Point Site, Kelly A. Ferguson

Graduate Masters Theses

The Smith's Point site was a seasonally inhabited Native American encampment in Yarmouth, Massachusetts occupied from the Middle Woodland through the early Colonial periods. Excavations at the site in the early 1990s yielded the remains of a multi-component site including both an agricultural field and an adjacent living area. The macrobotanical remains from the agricultural and living area features were examined for this thesis project in order to investigate subsistence practices at the site. The findings show that Native Americans actively shaped these ecological niches for purposes such as maintaining and improving their subsistence base. These landscape management activities included …

A Different Path Forward: The Institute For New England Native American Studies At Umass, J. Cedric Woods

Institute for New England Native American Studies Publications

In New England, interactions between Native peoples and some public institutions have taken divergent paths over the past three decades. State legislatures and the many academic institutions that call the region home have developed different approaches to working with Native peoples.

Phase I Archaeological Intensive Survey Of Hassanamesitt Woods Property, Grafton, Massachusetts, Jack Gary, Stephen Mrozowski, David B. Landon

Andrew Fiske Memorial Center for Archaeological Research Publications

The Center for Cultural and Environmental History conducted a Phase I archaeological intensive survey of the Hassanamesitt Woods property in Grafton, Massachusetts from October 2004 through January 2005. Documentary evidence has suggested that the property may contain remains of the church for the Praying Indian village of Hassanamisco, established by John Eliot in 1660. Historical deed research has also placed several Nipmuc families on the property in the early 18th century, suggesting the area was resettled by the original inhabitants of Hassanimisco in the aftermath of King Philip's War. Throughout the course of the 18th and 19th centuries the property …

Grandparent Care In The American Indian/ Alaska Native Population, Jan Mutchler, Seungah Lee, Lindsey A. Baker

Gerontology Institute Publications

The purpose of this report is to provide information on American Indian/Alaska Native (hereafter, Native American) grandparent caregivers in the United States. Many grandparents are responsible for grandchildren who live with them in the same household. The 1996 Welfare Reform Act mandates that statistics be collected on grandparents who serve as caregivers to a grandchild. In response to this requirement, questions were developed for the 2000 Census of Population asking each adult about care for grandchildren living in the same household. We use the census information to identify grandparents who are caring for grandchildren in two different types of households: …

The Archaeology Of Thompson Island, Barbara E. Luedtke

Anthropology Faculty Publication Series

This report summarizes the results of a 1993 survey by UMass Boston, and of previous archaeological fieldwork on Thompson Island, Boston, MA, including background research, documentary research, walkover reconnaissance, and subsurface testing with shovel test pits and 1 meter square excavation units. Despite the fact that many parts of the island have not yet been surveyed, twenty prehistoric sites are now known, an unusually high density for the Boston Harbor Islands. Components range in age from Late Archaic through Late Woodland, with Middle Woodland especially well represented. Several large habitation sites with shell middens are known, in addition to numerous …

Genocide And The Indians Of California, 1769-1873, Margaret A. Field

Graduate Masters Theses

This study is an effort to determine whether the phenomenon of genocide, as defined in the UN Convention on Genocide of 1948, played a distinguishable role in the sharp decline of the California Indian population during the period 1769 to 1873. Through examination of such resources as memoirs, newspaper accounts of the time, anthropological and demographic studies, government documents, and works on genocide theory, it considers key issues of intent and action on the part of the Spanish, Mexicans, and Americans who arrived in California during the period.

The evidence indicates that genocide of indigenous peoples occurred in California in …

Tri-Racial Enculturation: Red, White, And Black In The South, Rhett S. Jones

Trotter Review

In an essay published in The Western Journal of Black Studies (1977) I pointed out that while for many years the study of relations between blacks and Native Americans had been neglected by historians and other scholars, recent studies had acknowledged that red folk and black often influenced one another. What I did not point out was that, for the United States. studies of tri-racial contact were almost nonexistent. Things were quite different in studies of Latin America where the realities of social and sexual contact among all three races were reflected not only in works by historians but in …