May Workshop

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.

The seminar focused on museums, collectors, and the representation of the artifacts. We had presentations by curators of the Fruitlands museum and had a tour of the Indian exhibit. As always the readings before the session were terrific. I especially was intrigued by the article on Comanche the "sole survivor" of Custer's Last Stand. We had some very interesting and thought provoking discussions on the ethics of collecting and what these collectors were trying to present and represent about Indian culture past and present. And as always the theme of the disappearance of the Indians and what it means to a sense of the American Identity was woven through much of the discussions.


2. 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?

The seminar did not so much raise questions as reinforce the themes of identity, representation and disappearance. Some of our discussions related examples of Indian experience to themes of Imperialism and racial superiority that was prevalent in the late 19th and early 20th centuries during the world's fairs that were so popular at the time. Also how the preconceived ideas of the various collectors reinforced some of these ideas.

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

As always there is a wealth of anecdotal references that can be added to existing lessons on a variety of subjects. Specifically I want to try to create a lesson or activity on the treatment of Comanche as the "sole survivor" of the contest between whites and Indians to again show how history is written by and reinforces the claims of the winners.

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?

The readings continue to reinforce the theme that while popular literature and sentiment depicted the Indians as having vanished, the public record and legal proceedings of the day continue to mention the vanished, usually in derogatory terms. Further the attitudes of the collectors concerning who is an Indian shows how the misrepresentation contradicts the reality of the evidence.