1. A brief summary of the seminar. Include any highlights for you – new information, a particularly useful exercise, a favorite moment. Be sure to identify the main historical themes and the core documents presented in the seminar.

We began with Tom’s reading followed by his PowerPoint presentation. The passages chosen highlighted the prevalent beliefs of the time with respect to the disappearing native Americans. Some of the more interesting aspects of this presentation had to do with the fact that many of the respective authors were surrounded by Native Americans as they wrote. The idea of inevitability was common. Strikingly there was a substantial sense of the wrongness of what was happening, accompanied by an apparent reluctance to even suggest ways to avoid the inevitable.

The PowerPoint presentation, focusing on paintings of Niagara Falls, as well as a few other subjects was interesting. It clearly depicted the changing face of the Native Americans through the time period chosen, with respect to the views expressed by the various artists. These views were presented as a reasonable resource for the examination of commonly held views of the general population, which I expect is a fair presentation. I enjoyed this presentation far more than the preceding readings Tom presented, but that’s probably due to my predilection for visual stimulus.

In the afternoon we enjoyed the hospitality of the AHS at Antiquarian Hall. The presentation and analysis of the McKenny books was fantastic. I thoroughly enjoyed viewing the spectacular images we were able to view. I also enjoyed the subsequent analysis of the smaller pictures/post-cards etc. and the discussion of the Native American legends associated therewith.

What questions did the seminar raise for you and how will you follow-up on those questions? Will you need to do further research – and if so, how will you approach that research and what sources are available to you?

I am curious about the Quaker missionaries that Tom mentioned. It sounded as though they were one of the only groups that were supportive of the Native Americans and actually attempted to work with them to save them from what everyone else seemed to think was their inevitable decimation. I expect I’ll just ask Tom about it at our next meeting. I’m also very curious about disease and the decimation of Native American populations. I have very little knowledge of the particulars, other than that a substantial majority of the Native American population was killed by disease. I would like to know how their populations reacted, as well as how the European colonists responded. What efforts, if any, were made to attempt to stop the spread of disease. I’m also very curious as to why people of European decent were not subject to diseases that had evolved in isolation (from Europe), for thousands of years. I have already begun to research this last matter with some of the teachers here at AKFCS, without any success.

3. How would you use this material in the classroom?

I think that the students I have now would likely be stimulated by questions centering around the conundrum of why historians are writing about the disappearance of Native Americans, despite the fact that they are in their midst at the time. Also, I think the graphic materials presented in Tom’s PowerPoint could be useful in the same way he presented them to us.

4. How does the material presented in the seminar deepen your understanding of the relationship between representation and reality in the history of New England natives?

I think the work we did with the Native American legends is directly applicable to this question. Learning about how some of the ‘legends’ are actually made up by people of European decent looking to ‘cash-in’ on the potential tourist attraction value of these ‘legends’. Also, the materials relative to the disappearing Native Americans produced by historians surrounded by Native Americans, bears on this question.