Resources for learning about Indigenous Peoples’ Day

“We recognize the people who stood here and protected this land and protected the Earth before us.” Shannon O’Loughlin, Executive Director, Association on American Indian Affairs (AAIA)

Oct 11, 2021

In today’s post, we share resources, readings, and programs to learn more about indigenous communities past, present, and future. Scroll down for excerpts from an essay by Christoph Strobel on Uncovering Indigenous Worlds and Histories on a Bend of a New England River before the 1650s.

Links to Massachusetts Indigenous Community Resources

Merrimack Valley and parts of Southern New England. Click on the image above for a closer look at this map. Click on “Native Land” above to explore the world-wide map.

Salem Historical Society’s Massachusetts Indigenous Community resource page.

Andover resources

Shattuck Farm site in Andover — The Shattuck Farm site encompassed seven distinct Native American sites at what is now 125 River Road. Before it became part of the Andover Industrial Park, an archaeological dig was commissioned. Click here for where to find An Archaeological Survey and the Documentary History of the Shattuck Farm, Andover, Massachusetts.
Peabody Institute of Archaeology at Phillips Academy, Andover. You can browse their collection here.

Suggested readings

Upcoming program through Memorial Hall Library, November 4, 2021 7:00pm

Beyond the Mayflower & 1620: Native Americans of New England
Professor Christoph Strobel, University of Massachusetts, Lowell, will share case studies, historic sketches, and biographies from throughout New England to explore the story of Native Americans in the region. While this talk will not ignore the horrendous impact that colonization, dispossession, and racism had on the lives of indigenous peoples in New England, the emphasis will be on Native American resistance, adaptation, and survival under often harsh and unfavorable circumstances. Click here to register through Chelmsford Library.

Below are excerpts on the deep history of pre-contact Native American life from Christoph Strobel’s essay Uncovering Indigenous Worlds and Histories on a Bend of a New England River before the 1650s, American Studies Journal1. You can read the whole essay here. (Numbers refer to paragraphs in the essay.)

(6) “...at the time of contact with Europeans, indigenous peoples had long cleared wide swaths of land for agriculture as well as village and town sites, and farming (work performed by women) played a central role in the region’s indigenous peoples’ subsistence. Due to the absence of domesticated animals, a central feature in European farming, indigenous peoples in the Eastern Woodlands had to rely on the hunt as their main source to procure meat. But this did not result in a “roaming of the forests” by “hunters,” as the early white settler colonial narratives suggested. Indigenous peoples developed sophisticated methods to manage their forests and to make the woods more productive for the hunt. By burning away the underbrush and undergrowth of the forests, for instance, Native Americans opened up the New England woods. Due to such methods of forest management, the sylvan landscape became more appealing to deer and other animals as they could more easily find plants to graze on. Moreover, hunters could also pursue their prey more effectively as the undergrowth did not impede their view and arrows. Thus, just as Europeans worked their pasture lands to feed their domestic animals, Native Americans manipulated their environment to maximize and optimize their access to meat through “forest efficiency.”
(12) “...there is rich evidence of a presence of indigenous communities throughout the long pre-colonial past of the region and confirms the existence of at least 80 to 90 Native American community sites. Many of these places were found right in the same locals as towns and cities like Lowell, Manchester, Lawrence, and Haverhill. Other sites were found in areas that have the region’s most productive farm fields. Such evidence indicates that Native Americans knew the best settlement places and the most productive agricultural lands.”
(16) “Oral history, archaeological evidence, and 16th and 17th century European colonial records suggest that rivers played a crucial role in the lives of Native Americans. The indigenous Northeast was a network of multitudes of waterways and the Merrimack was only one among many rivers. Native Americans used rivers as a mean of transportation for trade and diplomacy, activities that likely reinforced cultural ties and relations. Political alliance systems also tended to form around river valleys. Furthermore, using complex systems of portage and pathways, Native Americans often moved beyond their own river valleys and participated in complex long distance exchange networks. Rivers also played an important role in Native American subsistence, and the Merrimack and Concord Rivers in the greater Lowell area were abundant in fish. Sites on the Merrimack River like Amoskeag Falls (today Manchester, NH) were rich seasonal fishing grounds for salmon, alewives, and shad; a history of food procurement, limited archeological evidence suggests, that reaches 8,000 years back. Sparse evidence also suggests that the Pawtucket Falls (today in Lowell, MA) were a popular fishing location in the spawning season when several fish species moved upriver to procreate, and the falls served as a natural barrier that the fish needed to cross. The abundance of fish in the spring at the falls attracted a large number of Native Americans. Oral traditions and colonial records suggest that these convergences of indigenous peoples were also accompanied by diplomatic and political exchanges. Fishing, like hunting, was a task performed by Native American men.”
(18) “While there is much we do not know given the limited evidence, we understand that by 1500, indigenous peoples in the region had developed sophisticated societies, systems of social organization, and cultural networks. They had adopted and developed advanced systems of agriculture. They practiced methods of forest management as a strategy to increase the size of animal populations and to make the procurement of meat more efficient. Moreover, Native Americans used the resources of the region’s rivers and the ocean. While not directly of continental reach, indigenous peoples in New England nonetheless participated in complex and fluid long distance exchange networks.”
(34) “Native Americans in the greater Lowell area were swept up in the changes of the 17th century in southern New England, which dramatically altered their worlds and histories. These developments, which were affected in part by regional, continental, and global influences, became even more dramatic in the 1650s with the establishment of the New English towns of Chelmsford and Billerica. Native American and New English interactions hit a crisis point in the 1670s with the outbreak of King Philip’s War.”
“In the aftermath of that conflict, the presence of sovereign Native Americans towns and villages in the greater Lowell came to an end, but the indigenous presence has not ceased in the region and continues to this day.”
From Richard T. Vann, on Historiography, “Modern historians aim to reconstruct a record of human activities and to achieve a more profound understanding of them.”2 To gain a more profound understanding, Strobel reminds us that historians and archaeologists constantly seek new materials and information, and question, test, interpret, and reinterpret the historical resources and records available to us.
Thank you for being on this journey with the Andover Center for History and Culture.
~Elaine

Resources for learning about Indigenous Peoples’ Day

“We recognize the people who stood here and protected this land and protected the Earth before us.” Shannon O’Loughlin, Executive Director, Association on American Indian Affairs (AAIA)

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