New Electronic Research Tool Available

The Libraries & Archives have added a new full-text digital resource to their collection of research tools. The American Indian Experience is a collection of electronic books and journals exploring the histories and contemporary cultures of the indigenous peoples of the United States. Designed, developed, and indexed under the guidance of Loriene Roy, the first Native American President of the American Library Association, and a team of American Indian librarians and scholars, The American Indian Experience offers access to an online library, featuring more than 150 volumes of scholarship and reference content, hundreds of primary documents, and thousands of images. Material in the database may be found by way of keyword searching or via Library of Congress subject headings. This resource is available on site through the public access computer workstations in both the Research and Children's Libraries.

Archival Collection Features Material From 'Pequot Lives' Exhibit

The recently closed exhibit Pequot Lives in the Lost Century (May 16th – Sept. 12, 2009) focused on the lives of Mashantucket Pequot people during the roughly 100 year period leading to the Tribe’s rebirth in 1983. The exhibit drew upon several years worth of research performed here at the Mashantucket Pequot Museum & Research Center. Harley Erickson, a member of the Research staff, has compiled 27 notebooks of Pequot Lives research materials that include:

• Newspaper clippings and obituaries from 18th century through the present day
  Office of Indian Affairs records


• Data on Pequot communities in Providence, New York and Los Angeles
  Historic maps and aerial photos


• Images, articles leaflets, etc. representing tribal gatherings


• Notes, photos, articles, etc. pertaining to Pequots in the armed services


• and much more …

A finding aid for the collection is available in the Archives & Special Collections reading room. Some materials in this collection are restricted to Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Members.

Question and answer: Narrowing your topic

Question: I am a senior history student at ______ University. My last research paper is due this semester and I would like to do it on the Native Americans after Manifest Destiny. I was wondering if you could guide me to some information on this topic. Thank you.

Answer: Thanks for contacting us with your question. The topic you propose is a little too broad, but I can give you some suggestions to narrow it down. If by “manifest destiny” you mean 19th century U.S. expansion, then it seems you want to explore Native American history 20th century and beyond? Some suggestions: narrow it to a specific tribe or geographic area (such as Pacific Northwest, Great Plains, etc.). You could also, or in addition, focus on specific sub-topics such as

-Indian urbanization
-Indian activism and resistance movements
-Sovereignty
-Land tenure
-Native American’s involvement in the US military
-U.S. government’s American Indian policy

Try exploring our collection through the online catalog: http://www.mpmrc.com/
Do some keyword searching there and see what you come up with. Our collection has over 50,000 titles on Native American history and culture, so it is a good representation of what has been published. We do not lend or participate in interlibrary loan, but you should be able to get most of what we have through your university’s library system.

Feel free to ask if you need further assistance.

Sincerely,


Joseph Frawley
Reference / Info Tech Librarian
Mashantucket Pequot Museum & Research Center

Images from the Green Corn Powwow at Pequot Museum

Tarzan Brown Reading Circle

Our thanks go out to Paulla Dove Jennings and all who participated in our most recent Reading Circle where we discussed the biography of Narragansett marathoner Ellison "Tarzan" Brown. Ms. Jennings' personal insights into the Tarzan Brown story balanced out what was agreed to be a well documented but slightly impersonal account of the athlete. In the course of the discussion, it became clear that the research in Michael Ward's biography would make a great springboard for another author to build upon, perhaps focusing more on Brown's personal, family, and cultural background. Thanks again for making this event a success.

New Archival Collection: Foxwoods Creative Arts

Archives & Special Collections has recently received a large collection of video and image materials of Tribal events documenting the period from 1993 - 2007. The collection, created by former MPTN Creative Arts department, is comprised of approximately 2,350 video tapes and 1.6 terabytes of digital materials that are considered important in documenting the history of MPTN.

Highlights of the collection include:

• Meet The Tribe - a series of brief interviews with Mashantucket Pequot Tribal members created for WIN-TV, the Foxwoods television network
• Schemitzun footage from 1993 to 2007
• Groundbreaking and construction footage of Foxwoods Resort Casino and the Mashantucket Pequot Museum
• Language materials such as Pequot language classes and footage of the Revitalizing Algonquian Languages Conferences
• The Lake of Isles Archaeology Project

A finding aid with a complete listing of the tapes in the collection is available in the Archives & Special Collections reading room. Certain materials may be restricted.

Phone: 860-396-7020
Email: archive [at] mptn-nsn.gov

Tribal Council at the groundbreaking for MGM Grand on November 15, 2005
from Creative Arts Collection

Frequently Confused Tribal Designations

Image: distribution of Algonquian languages,
Source: Wikipedia commons
Algonquian (Algonkian) Vs. Algonquin (Algonkin)

The term Algonquian (pronounced al-GON-kee-in) refers to a language family- that is a group of related languages- spoken from Northeastern North America to the Rocky Mountains. Peoples speaking one of these Algonquian languages are sometimes referred to as Algonquian Indians, which is a broader term than their specific tribal name, such as Mi’kmaq, Ojibwa, Wampanoag, etc. This broader term, Algonquian Indians, is often subdivided geographically, as in Eastern Algonquian and Central Algonquian, each of which includes many different tribes. The Pequot, for example, are considered an Eastern Algonquian tribe.

The term for the language family was derived from the name of a specific tribal people, the Algonquin. According to Encyclopedia of Native American Tribes, 3rd Ed. (Carl Waldman, Editor. New York: Facts on File, 2006), the Algonquin currently consist of nine bands with reserve lands in Quebec and Ontario, with the Abitibi as a subtribe.

Both are sometimes spelled with a ‘k’, instead of ‘qu’.


Mahican (Mohican) Vs. Mohegan

The tribal names Mahican (Mohican) and Mohegan are similarly confused. Each is a distinct tribe, though their histories share a relatively close geographic area.

The Mahican historically lived in what is now New York (northern Hudson Valley), and also in the areas of southern Vermont, western Massachusetts, and northwestern Connecticut. In the 18th Century, various Mahican bands relocated or merged with other Algonquian tribes. The Stockbridge-Munsee tribe of Wisconsin is the result of the merger of the Munsee band of Lenni Lenape and Stockbridge band of Mahican. They now use the spelling Mohican, with an ‘o’.

The Mohegan is a Connecticut tribe, culturally and historically related to the Pequot. Their present day reservation is in Uncasville, Connecticut where they operate Mohegan Sun Casino.

The fictional Mohican people, featured in James Fenimore Cooper’s 1826 novel The Last of the Mohicans, is a creation of the author, which draws on elements of both the tribes mentioned above.

Note: There is also a group calling themselves “Western Mohegan Tribe and Nation”, located in Greenfield Park, New York. Though they use the name Mohegan, they claim historical connection to the New York/Vermont Mahicans mentioned above. They were exposed as fraudulent in 2004 ( See New York Times article, June 3, 2004: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/03/nyregion/man-with-flair-for-reinventing-himself-goes-a-step-too-far.html )


Eastern Pequot Vs. Western Pequot

The history of the Pequot Tribe and their ultimate division into Eastern and Western factions has been well documented (see especially Campisi, Jack. “The Emergence of the Mashantucket Pequot Tribe”. In The Pequots of Southern New England: The Rise and Fall of an American Indian Nation, Hauptman and Wherry, eds. University of Oklahoma Press, 1990.) To summarize, after the Pequot War, the resulting Treaty of Hartford forbade the Pequot to remain as a tribe and divided its members among the tribes allied with the English, primarily the Mohegan and Narragansett. Over time, the Pequots violated the treaty and regrouped, then becoming generally divided into two bands, the Eastern Pequot near the Paucatuck River in Stonington, Connecticut, and the Western, or Mashantucket Pequot located themselves originally near the Thames River in New London, Conn.

The following passage, from The Pequots in Southern New England: The Fall and Rise of an American Indian Nation, edited by Laurence M. Hauptman and James D. Wherry, provides more detail:

"At the close of the Pequot War, the tribe faced annihilation, a majority of the tribe having been killed and the remainder enslaved. In disposing of the few survivors, the colonies sent some Pequots to the Narranganxetts, the Mohegans, and the Eastern Niantics. In addition, a few were sold into slavery and shipped to Bermuda, or given to local English settlers to work on their farms.

These arrangements did not last, partly because the English quickly realized that they had unwittingly strengthened their potential foes, and partly because the enslaved tribal members were unwilling to accept their condition. By the 1650s the two groups of Pequots under the control of the Narrangansett sachem Miantonomo and Uncas, sachem of the Mohegans, had achieved independence from their captors. Having freed themselves, the Pequots again presented a problem to the English: what was the colony of Connecticut going to do with them? Its answer was to establish four Indian towns supervised by two Pequot "governors". Under this arrangement Robin Cassacinamon, who headed the Western or Mashantucket Pequots, as they later were called, controlled Nameag and Nawpauge, while Caushawashett, also known as Wequash Cook and Harmon Garrett, leader of the Eastern Pequots controlled Pauguatuck and Weepauge."

Today the Mashantucket Pequot are a federally recognized tribe whose reservation is in Mashantucket (Ledyard) Conn. The Eastern (Paucatuck) Pequot are based in North Stonington, Conn.

Note: The Eastern Pequots split in early 1980s into two factions: Eastern Pequots and Paucatuck Eastern Pequots. The BIA recognized the groups as one in the same in a 2002 decision, but revoked federal recognition (along with the Schaghticoke) in 2005 following pressure from local interest groups. They now are united as one under the name Eastern Pequot Tribal Nation. See “Schaghticoke and Eastern Pequot Decisions Reversed” Indian Country Today, October 19, 2005.

Sources consulted

Hauptman, Laurence M. and James D. Wherry, eds. The Pequots in Southern New England: The Fall and Rise of an American Indian Nation. Norman: Univ. of Oklahoma Press, 1990.

Guilette, Mary E. American Indians in Connecticut, Past to Present. Connecticut Indian Affairs Council, 1979

Swann, Brain, ed. Algonquian Spirit : Contemporary Translations of the Algonquian Literatures of North America. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, c2005.

Waldman, Carl, ed. Encyclopedia of Native American Tribes. New York: Facts on File, 2006.

Trigger, Bruce G., ed. Handbook of North American Indians. Vol. 15, Northeast. Washington : Smithsonian Institution, 1978.