A documentary examining the historical and contemporary triumphs and challenges of the American Indian peoples and Indian nations of the Great Lakes will air on the <a href="http://www.wpt.org/wisconsinchannel/">Wisconsin Channel</a> (20.2) at 7 p.m. on Thursday, July 9. The documentary, "<a href="http://qtstreamer.doit.wisc.edu/doit-comm/CLFNhigh.mov">UW Cultural Landscapes: First Nations</a>," is a collaborative effort of the University of Wisconsin-Madison's <a href="http://amindian.wisc.edu/">American Indian Studies Program</a>, American Indian Student Academic Services, Office of Human Resource Development, Office of the Vice Provost for Diversity and Climate, and <a href="http://www.lssaa.wisc.edu/pathways/">Pathways to Excellence</a>. It was created for the 2008 Plan 2008 Diversity Forum. Reruns will be shown at noon on Friday, July 10, and at 6 a.m. on Monday, July 13. Aaron Bird Bear, former American Indian Student Academic Services student services coordinator and member of Mandan, Hidatsa and Dine' Nations, narrates the documentary, which begins by highlighting the 12,000 years of history belonging to the Ho-Chunk ancestral homelands. The Great Lakes American Indian people's history is considerably linked with the history of UW-Madison, which has housed more than 30 ancient archaeological sites on current or former campus property and more effigy mounds than any other university in the world. "I think we can really understand the relationship between American Indians and non-Indians through the evolution of the campus itself through the major phase of American Indian history," Bird Bear says. "We move from what was once displacement and ethnic cleansing to mutual accommodation." The documentary guides viewers to some campus historical markers, landmarks and tributes to the university's Native American ancestry including North and Bascom halls, which are historic land features built on effigy mounds, and the peace pipe incorporated into the crest of the Memorial Union. "There is a very deep desire, historically speaking, within the American popular and cultural consciousness more broadly to pay tribute on some level to the continent's original indigenous populations," Ned Blackhawk, an associate professor of history and American Indian studies and member of Western Shoshone, says in the documentary. "On one hand, one wants to recognize that kind of desire to commemorate the original peoples of the continent, but on the other, one has to be troubled by how simplistic and reified these images have become." UW-Madison currently enrolls more than 300 self-identified American Indian and Alaskan Native peoples. "My first year on campus was probably the most challenging, being born and raised on a reservation, coming here and not seeing anyone I felt like I could connect with," UW-Madison alumna and member of Bad River Band Lake Superior Ojibwe Nicole Soulier says in the documentary. "But I think that once I got involved in community organizations, student organizations, campus organizations, that's when I really started to feel that sense of belonging and investment, that I actually had a place here on campus." For more information on the Indigenous Great Lakes, visit UW-Madison's <a href="http://lakeshorepreserve.wisc.edu/landscape/nativeamericans_1.htm">Lakeshore Nature Preserve Web site</a>. A documentary examining the historical and contemporary triumphs and challenges of the American Indian peoples and Indian nations of the Great Lakes will air on the Wisconsin Channel (20.2) at 7 p.m. on Thursday, July 9. American Indian documentary to examine ancestral origins of campus 16881 2009-07-14T00:00:00-05:00 2009-07-08T10:07:00-05:00

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The culture and experiences of the First Nations community will be the focus of the ninth annual <a href="http://www.diversity.wisc.edu/forums.php">Campus Diversity Forum</a>. The free event will be held from 8 a.m.–3:30 p.m. on Tuesday, <abbr title="September">Sept.</abbr> 23, at Memorial Union. Students, faculty, staff and community members are invited to learn more about American Indian nations in an all-day cultural experience featuring American Indian drum and songs, a <a href="http://www.news.wisc.edu/14317">PBS documentary Way of the Warrior</a>, a <abbr class="initialism" title="University of Wisconsin">UW</abbr>–Madison video on American Indian Cultural Landscapes on campus, a Ho-Chunk dwelling on Bascom Hill, as well as art and food. In addition to the First Nations presentations, the theme of the event, “Beyond Plans and Promises: Active Leadership for the Future,” will give participants an opportunity to review the university’s progress and share new ideas for enhancing diversity at <abbr class="initialism" title="University of Wisconsin">UW</abbr>–Madison. The event will also introduce three new campus leaders who expect to play a role in diversity and climate issues. Damon Williams, the new vice provost for diversity and climate, will take part in the discussions with a lunch address and a breakout session on “inclusive excellence.” The day will end with remarks by <a href="http://www.chancellor.wisc.edu/">Chancellor Carolyn “Biddy” Martin</a> and Steve Stern, the new <a href="http://www.provost.wisc.edu/facstaff.html">vice provost for faculty and staff</a>. In addition, keynote speaker Eduardo Bonilla-Silva will talk about “Racism, Discrimination, Colorblindness, and the Diversity Puzzle at Historically White Colleges and Universities.” Bonilla-Silva is a sociology professor at Duke University and a <abbr class="initialism" title="University of Wisconsin">UW</abbr>–Madison alumnus. He recently wrote “White Logic, White Methods: Racism and Social Science.” Registration is required to receive a free lunch. Register at <a href="http://www.diversity.wisc.edu/forums.php">http://www.diversity.wisc.edu/forums.php</a>. For additional information and accommodations, contact Paula Gates at 265-5228 or <a href="mailto:gates@bascom.wisc.edu">gates@bascom.wisc.edu</a>. The culture and experiences of the First Nations community will be the focus of the ninth annual Campus Diversity Forum. Upcoming diversity forum to focus on First Nations, Plan 2008 15574 2008-09-10T00:00:00-05:00

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<abbr title="University of Wisconsin" class="initialism">UW</abbr>–Madison historian Ned Blackhawk would argue that there has never been a more fertile time to be a researcher of Native American history, with a surge in scholarly interest and a deep well of subjects “literally waiting to be written.” Blackhawk is inspiring a new generation of historians to seize this opportunity through his unique research seminar, “Writing Tribal Histories.” The 500-level course, typically a mix of undergraduate and graduate, Native and non-Native students, introduces students to an explosion of new literature and new perspectives on Native communities, then challenges them to research and write their own history of a community or nation. <div id="story_image_524" class="inline-content photo span"> <img src="http://www.news.wisc.edu/story_images/0000/0524/Blackhawk_class_hs08_1712.jpg" alt="Photo of Blackhawk and students" /> History and American Indian studies professor Ned Blackhawk holds a discussion on Native American-related documents and images from the Wisconsin Historical Society’s collection. The student discussion was part of Blackhawk’s Writing Tribal Histories research seminar. Photo: <a href="mailto:photos@news.wisc.edu">Bryce Richter</a> </div> That research most often starts at the <a href="http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/">Wisconsin Historical Society</a> (<abbr title="Wisconsin Historical Society">WHS</abbr>), widely recognized for being one of the nation’s richest repositories of publications, periodicals and primary source materials on the American West. Blackhawk, a professor of <a href="http://history.wisc.edu/">history</a> and <a href="http://www.wisc.edu/amindian/">American Indian Studies</a>, says the class has been productive and, in some cases, transformative for students. He notes that several students have gone on to pursue sustained projects based on the seeds of original material they uncovered during the course. <div id="story_quote_“You’d" class="inline-content pull-quote right"> “You’d never teach organic chemistry without a lab. Teaching history and requiring students to get involved with primary sources is the exact equivalent.” Rick Pifer, director of reference and public services for the Wisconsin Historical Society </div> “Wisconsin Indian communities are not as understood as they could be or should be,” says Blackhawk, author of the award-winning 2006 book “<a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/BLAVIO.html">Violence Over The Land</a>” about the clash of cultures in the early American West. “Much of this history is not lost or destroyed, but simply under-investigated. A few of the most promising projects to come out of this course are from students who have literally stumbled upon subjects that few people have ever broached.” Omar Poler, a 2006 graduate of the course, had no doubts about his research focus. A member of Wisconsin’s Mole Lake tribe, Poler wanted to better understand the most painful chapter of his tribe’s history: an 80-year span beginning in the 1850s, when the Mole Lake band became “landless Indians,” unrecognized by the federal government and pushed nearly out of existence. “This class gave me an opportunity to understand a part of my tribal history that I didn’t know at all, this really difficult period where we were being pushed off our land,” Poler says. “The land was being lost, and the resources that people survived on were being lost.” After the 1854 federal Indian treaties, Poler says, Mole Lake Indians were promised a reservation on land near present-day Crandon, but that promise didn’t come to fruition. Poler says historical documents revealed the federal government’s policy of trying to consolidate Native Americans into fewer and fewer tribes, a practice that hurt the Mole Lake cause. But Poler discovered additional materials suggesting there were economic forces at work as well. The reservation’s proposed location was right in the middle of a major federal military road that would soon link the massive copper mining operations in the Upper Peninsula with the nearest supply town of Green Bay. “I believe that the military road affected the development of this reservation,” he says. Being an unrecognized tribe for 80 years was devastating to Mole Lake Indians, who literally had no legal rights to hunt, fish, trap or farm. They were being pushed from one abandoned logging camp to the next, fighting through starvation and disease outbreaks such as tuberculosis. For Poler, this research took on deeply personal overtones. In some of the scores of correspondence on microfilm between tribal members and the Bureau of Indian Affairs, he came across handwritten letters from his grandfather three generations removed, Henry Poler. One letter recounts near-starvation conditions and makes requests for bags of flour and other basic supplies to endure the winter. <div id="story_image_525" class="inline-content photo left" style="width: 200px"> <img src="http://www.news.wisc.edu/story_images/0000/0525/Blackhawk_class_hs08_1667.jpg" alt="Photo of Omar Poler" /> Omar Poler, a graduate of Ned Blackhawk’s course “Writing Tribal Histories,” searches through microfilm files in the Wisconsin Historical Society. Poler, a member of Wisconsin’s Mole Lake tribe, is conducting research on an 80-year period of the Native American tribe’s history, beginning in the late 1850s, when they were unrecognized by the federal government and without land to live on. Photo: <a href="mailto:photos@news.wisc.edu">Bryce Richter</a> </div> Despite being continually ignored or rejected by federal bureaucrats, Poler says he was impressed by the relentless fight for recognition by Mole Lake tribal leaders — a fight that finally culminated in recognition, in 1937, under the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934. “I think at some point, they never expected anything would come from the <abbr title="United States" class="initialism">U.S.</abbr> government, yet they continued to work on behalf of their community to allow them to have a better life and some control over their future,” he says. Poler says an “activist culture” took root during the landless period and is something he sees reflected in modern conflicts, such as the successful fight for treaty hunting and fishing rights in the 1990s and the recent turning back of the Exxon mine proposal near Crandon. Poler’s project is one of more than 60 to come from Blackhawk’s class since its first offering in 2005. This spring, another 20 students began the research phase of the class in March with a tour through WHS’s special collections area, and all reported having their research topics chosen. Daniel Cornelius, a third-year law student, is doing research on land resources and how tribes in particular can become healthier and economically stronger by embracing traditional food practices. That is a major trend on the Oneida reservation, of which Cornelius is a member, and he intends to use the course to reconstruct the traditional Oneida diet prior to European settlement. Kathryn Gerndt, a first-year graduate student in conservation biology, is doing research in her home department on conservation efforts surrounding the endangered pine marten in Wisconsin. But she is using this class to bring a “cultural dimension” to her work, since the pine marten is a clan animal of the Ojibwe people and has great importance to native culture. She says the tribes have done more work in pine marten conservation than have state and federal agencies. The odds are pretty good of both students finding at least some archival support at WHS. Rick Pifer, director of reference and public services for the society, says WHS was essentially chartered in 1846 with the goal of becoming “the library of the West.” WHS’s first director, Lyman Draper, put a priority on collecting things right at the point in time they were happening, when you have the chance to get the richest materials. Early in the 20th century, WHS became a major repository of government documents, a great many of which were connected to the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The library’s Native American collections expanded substantially again in the 1970s as the result of the work of periodical librarian James Danky, who put together the most complete archive of Native American newspapers and newsletters in the nation, totaling more than 1,100 titles. The collective result, Pifer says, is not only a national resource for historians, but a gold mine for faculty such as Blachawk who want to challenge their students through original research. “You’d never teach organic chemistry without a lab. Teaching history and requiring students to get involved with primary sources is the exact equivalent,” Pifer says. “It’s one of the beauties of classes like this — it’s the laboratory experience of actually mucking around in all this stuff and having to draw your own conclusions and explain it to someone else.” Blackhawk says current students and researchers of American history can take advantage of a recent renaissance in the study of native history, which has gained critical depth in the last two decades. He says mainstream Native American history had long suffered from “facile, simplistic” portrayals of Indians and a sense they were “peoples without history.” “The encounter between the hemispheres was so dramatic, so turbulent and so unprecedented from both sides,” Blackhawk says, that a more thoughtful and complicated perspective of native history has only recently emerged. Another reason for the resurgence in native history is that reservations across the country are experiencing greater political power and economic independence than ever before. In his 2005 essay “Look How Far We’ve Come,” Blackhawk wrote: “The past two decades have witnessed such staggering political and economic reversals that a new epoch in American Indian history is upon us, fueled partly by the rise of Indian gaming, as well as a generation of Indian educational, community and political activism.” Blackhawk adds: “Indians and ‘the West’ remain among our nation’s most popular and powerful images. Following the past decade of achievement, American Indian historians stand poised to further weave Native peoples into the fabric of our nation’s changing past.” UW–Madison historian Ned Blackhawk would argue that there has never been a more fertile time to be a researcher of Native American history, with a surge in scholarly interest and a deep well of subjects “literally waiting to be written.” Blackhawk is inspiring a new generation of historians to seize this opportunity through his unique research seminar, “Writing Tribal Histories.” Writing tribal histories: Class mines archival treasures 14958 2008-03-26T00:00:00-05:00

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An upcoming presentation will examine the parallel developments of the state and university with consideration of the complex outcomes for the American Indian peoples and Indian nations of the Great Lakes. “Continuing Conversations: Four Lakes Cultural Landscape” will be held from 12:30-2 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 14, in Memorial Union (check Today in the Union for room location). Presenters include Aaron Bird Bear, student services coordinator for American Indian student academic services, and Daniel Einstein, program manager of the Lakeshore Nature Preserve for Facilities Planning and Management. The presentation will showcase sites of existing and former indigenous landmarks created between 800 B.C. and 1200 A.D. The presentation will also provide an overview of American Indian history and legislation, leading to a greater awareness of modern indigenous nations and peoples. Continuously inhabited since ice sheets receded 12,000 years ago, DeJope (“Four Lakes” in the Ho-Chunk language) has been Ho-Chunk homeland for 2,000 years. The shores of Lake Mendota are now home to UW-Madison. The campus and the city of Madison exist in what was once the epicenter of the effigy mound building cultures of the upper Midwest. Of the approximately 20,000 mounds created prior to European arrival, close to 4,000 remain, with 45 archaeological site indices on current or former campus property. The mounds are now interpreted as “'cosmological maps’ that model ancient belief systems and social relations.” UW-Madison currently enrolls more than 300 self-identified American Indian and Alaskan Native peoples representing more than 50 American Indian and Alaskan Native Nations, including Ho-Chunk students. <a href="http://www.ohrd.wisc.edu/reg/catalog_course.aspx?groupcoursekey=16525">Free registration</a> is encouraged. An upcoming presentation will examine the parallel developments of the state and university with consideration of the complex outcomes for the American Indian peoples and Indian nations of the Great Lakes. Program examines ‘Four Lakes’ cultural landscape 14712 2008-02-15T00:00:00-06:00 2008-02-07T00:00:00-06:00

A pioneering study of the critical role that violence played in shaping the United States has won <a href="http://www.wisc.edu/amindian/Faculty/Homepages/NedBlackhawk/homepage.html">Ned Blackhawk</a>, associate professor of history and American Indian studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the <a href="http://www.oah.org/">Organization of American Historians</a>' (OAH) Frederick Jackson Turner Award. The book, "<a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/BLAVIO.html">Violence Over the Land: Indians and Empires in the Early American West</a>" (Harvard University Press, 2006), looks at the effects of violence on Native peoples and the hand that those communities took in creating the country, especially its western regions. In pre-reservation days, roughly until the end of the 19th century, Great Basin Indians like Blackhawk's family increasingly found themselves enmeshed in the politics and ensuing carnage of European expansion. It was commerce, driven in part by slave power, that forged the Spanish colonies, he says. "Consequently, for many Indians, violence became a necessary survival strategy," he says. Not surprisingly, then, violent encounters were pretty much part and parcel of everyday life in the Old West. For the scholar, it also provides "the clearest and, at times, only window" into how Europeans altered the landscape. Indeed, violent encounters themselves frequently changed both topography and boundaries. By way of example, he cites the oldest permanent colony in North America, New Mexico, which often found itself besieged by equestrian Indians. Representatives of empire-making countries - Spain, France, England, Russia and eventually the United States - rolled over Native populations of the American West in a bitter contest for the control of property and natural resources of the region, justifying colonial greed and aggression on racial and cultural grounds. Blackhawk notes that the collapse in the 1840s of the fur trade, whereby Native peoples had traded with whites, and the ensuing gold and silver rushes in the 19th century lurched Indian communities into the capitalist economies, rendering Native peoples beholden to the European settlers for goods such as food and weapons. For Blackhawk the study was personal: "In the book's introduction and epilogue I relate how my own family's history is tied to the American Great Basin region. Indian history is no mere curiosity or sideshow in the drama of the American past. The two remain interwoven. North America was already inhabited when the Europeans arrived," he says. In the last analysis, Blackhawk says that the shaping of what is now New Mexico, Utah, Idaho, Colorado, Nevada and eastern California is much more complicated than previously thought. "I think it's extremely important to recognize the depth of our multicultural past. The oldest continuously occupied communities in our nation are Pueblo Indian villages in New Mexico. The earliest explorers on the American continent spoke Spanish, not English. The oldest colonies in North America were also Spanish. The nature of our national past is tied to many Indian as well as imperial powers. Our current debates about nationalism must recognize the numerous communities that have considered America their home," he says. Blackhawk has started another book on American history. "Very few books adequately synthesize our nation's Indian past, and I'd like to try to offer an interpretative overview of this area, my primary field of specialization," he says. "I will focus particularly on the fascinating relationships in being both Indian and American. I believe that conjoining those two powerful adjectives - 'Indian' and 'American' - will yield lasting analytical insights." Tentatively titled "America's Indigenous Nations," a draft of the book will be ready in the next few years. The Turner Award is named for the University of Wisconsin professor <a href="http://www.library.wisc.edu/etext/wireader/WER0750.html">Frederick Jackson Turner</a>. His highly influential "frontier thesis" stated, "The existence of an area of free land, its continuous recession, and the advance of American settlement westward explain American development." The award carries a $1,000 prize. A pioneering study of the critical role that violence played in shaping the United States has won Ned Blackhawk, associate professor of history and American Indian studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the Organization of American Historian's (OAH) Frederick Jackson Turner Award. Historian’s book wins prestigious award 13691 2007-04-18T00:00:00-05:00

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