Visited the Mass. Historical Society on Boylston Street this evening for the first time for an intriguing lecture, "The Time of Anarchy: the Susquehannock Scattering and the Crisis of English Colonialism, 1675-1685."
The Susquehannock tribe, in what would be the Potomac valley in the Washington DC area today, were a major force in their times (refered to as the "Titans of the mid-Atlantic" in the paper). They fell afoul of the English colonists and after five of their sachems were done to death, they "scattered" - the term that the author used - as smaller bands - in different part of the country, mostly along the east coast.
The presenter, Matthew Kruer of UChicago, seemed to have invested tremendous research effort in excavating information about the Susquehannocks and the disturbance they caused in colonial rule by their scattering. There was a lot of archival research that went into this project and the paper was thick with historical references to various governors, skirmishes, battles and political configurations.
It was interesting to see the "landscape" against which the paper was set, foregrounding the Susquehannocks - and yet there were other tribes such as the Haudenosaunee (Five Nations Iroquois), the Chesapeake Algonquians - and Doegs somewhere in the background. What a web of relationships, and truly how teeming was this land with the various tribes...and, sad to note, of the mighty Susquehannocks no direct descendants remain...of their strength, according to the paper, and I paraphrase [to adhere to terms of the paper circulated], Susquehannocks were a superpower of the mid-Atlantic... Their region, Gandastogue, had a population of 5-6 thousand; they were part of great trade routes used by Europeans...and yet their influence was based on alliance, involving trade and kinship, among other things.
The seminar room was nearly full, with several academics from area institutions like BU, UMass Lowell, Wellesley College, BrownU etc. There were also some "lay people" like me, who expressed a "general interest in history" as the reason for their presence.
The responses to the paper were fairly probing, in the main having to do with the sources used to construct what was ostensibly an effort towards a non-Eurocentric narrative but utilizing...European sources, since as the author/presenter confessed, there were no Susquehannock sources...another critical point rasied was the identity of the Susquehannocks, as there was no real way to delineate who the Susquehannocks were - the colonial records have no real names, there existing no other official records, so one had to rely solely on the colonists for their identification of the Susquehannocks.
The "Time of Anarchy" in the title also caused a lot of confusion among the readers and I am not sure a consensus was reached on its appropriateness.
All in all a good paper but somehow more documentary, in the end, than one which "surfaced" a people's narrative with the people prominently in it. Kudos to MHS for such high quality lectures open to the public - and also providing refreshments later!
The Susquehannock tribe, in what would be the Potomac valley in the Washington DC area today, were a major force in their times (refered to as the "Titans of the mid-Atlantic" in the paper). They fell afoul of the English colonists and after five of their sachems were done to death, they "scattered" - the term that the author used - as smaller bands - in different part of the country, mostly along the east coast.
The presenter, Matthew Kruer of UChicago, seemed to have invested tremendous research effort in excavating information about the Susquehannocks and the disturbance they caused in colonial rule by their scattering. There was a lot of archival research that went into this project and the paper was thick with historical references to various governors, skirmishes, battles and political configurations.
It was interesting to see the "landscape" against which the paper was set, foregrounding the Susquehannocks - and yet there were other tribes such as the Haudenosaunee (Five Nations Iroquois), the Chesapeake Algonquians - and Doegs somewhere in the background. What a web of relationships, and truly how teeming was this land with the various tribes...and, sad to note, of the mighty Susquehannocks no direct descendants remain...of their strength, according to the paper, and I paraphrase [to adhere to terms of the paper circulated], Susquehannocks were a superpower of the mid-Atlantic... Their region, Gandastogue, had a population of 5-6 thousand; they were part of great trade routes used by Europeans...and yet their influence was based on alliance, involving trade and kinship, among other things.
The seminar room was nearly full, with several academics from area institutions like BU, UMass Lowell, Wellesley College, BrownU etc. There were also some "lay people" like me, who expressed a "general interest in history" as the reason for their presence.
The responses to the paper were fairly probing, in the main having to do with the sources used to construct what was ostensibly an effort towards a non-Eurocentric narrative but utilizing...European sources, since as the author/presenter confessed, there were no Susquehannock sources...another critical point rasied was the identity of the Susquehannocks, as there was no real way to delineate who the Susquehannocks were - the colonial records have no real names, there existing no other official records, so one had to rely solely on the colonists for their identification of the Susquehannocks.
The "Time of Anarchy" in the title also caused a lot of confusion among the readers and I am not sure a consensus was reached on its appropriateness.
All in all a good paper but somehow more documentary, in the end, than one which "surfaced" a people's narrative with the people prominently in it. Kudos to MHS for such high quality lectures open to the public - and also providing refreshments later!
No comments:
Post a Comment