Archaeology is rooted in racism and colonialism, say scientists. Here's how we rewrite 'everyone's h

[Judi Lynn]

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Uncovering the lost history of Black resistance in Niagara Falls rewrites 'everyone’s history'

Nicole Mortillaro · CBC Docs · Posted: Feb 02, 2023 2:00 PM CST | Last Updated: February 6

https://i.cbc.ca/1.6735053.1675367671!/fileImage/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/16x9_780/saur-saladinallah.jpg

Saladin Allah sits in the kitchen space of what was once the Cataract House hotel, where the free Black wait staff operated in secret to ferry enslaved people to safety. (Attraction)

Niagara Falls has long been a tourist destination, with its rushing rapids and breathtaking waterfalls. For centuries people have been drawn to the natural spectacle of water cascading to the river below. But of the millions of tourists that pass through the area each year, it's likely few are aware of its importance to Black history.

It's a cloudy day in Niagara Falls, N.Y. Bare trees signal the arrival of fall, and people walk along the winding paths as chillier temperatures roll in. Saladin Allah, director of community engagement at the Niagara Falls Underground Railroad Heritage Center, sits on a park bench beside Anthony Morgan, host of Secret Agents of the Underground Railroad, a documentary from The Nature of Things.

"This is a beautiful location," Morgan says in the documentary.

"Yeah, well, to the average person, it's just a park, right?" Allah says. "To us, it's hallowed ground."

The pair are sitting where the historic Cataract House, a hotel built in 1825, once stood in all its opulent elegance, hosting the likes of Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt and even the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII) and King George V.

More:
https://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/the-nature-of-things/archaeology-is-rooted-in-racism-and-colonialism-say-scientists-here-s-how-we-rewrite-everyone-s-history-1.6734989

[2naSalit]

1. This is true.

It was started, primarily, by wealthy Europeans who traveled about collecting and stealing articles from indigenous peoples wherever they went, including body parts. These items ended up in grandiose dens of these wealthy who referred to their collections as "curiosity cabinets" otherwise known as trophies. Of course, not really taking a studied interest in the subjects and actual meaning of the items they brought home,they made shit up to suit the stories they fancied.

Eventually actual educated persons began to apply the scientific process of inquiry, about a hundred years ago, regarding the "others" thus birthing modern day Anthropology as we now know it.

I started my studies in Anthropology thinking that archeology was what I wanted to do. After a while, having many Native Americans as classmates, I came to see that it was not the noble direction I wanted to take. I chose to study cultures and languages instead, far more interesting and honest. I remember sitting at a dinner table with a family on the rez an elder asked what I was studying and if I was one of those "diggers". I was not surprised and I got where he going with the question... then he related this little tale about archeologists he'd encountered;

He said, " Once they come around here, looking for our relatives. They asked me where some of them were buried. I said to them, 'Tell me where your grandmother is buried so I can go dig her up.' They go around and dig up our people and make up stories about them when they don't know. They don't listen to us."

Instantly I felt good that I had chosen the direction of study that I had.

[wnylib]

2. You probably know, then, that this is why

NAGPRA (Native American Graves and Repatriation Act) was passed. It is for the protection of Native remains and artifacts from being disrespected and appropriated by archaeologists and hobbyists. In the past, "scientists" had raided Native graves in order to analyze and measure skeletal remains to "prove" the racial inferiority of Native people.

Most of today's archaeologists who work in the US are more sensitive and cooperative with Native populations. Dr. James Adovasio, who excavated the Meadowcroft Rockshelter in PA (near Pittsburgh) and found dates of use back to 14,000 years ago and farther, became the director of the Mercyhurst Archaeological Institute at Erie, PA. During the summer, his students got field practice at various sites in Northwestern PA that were once occupied by the Seneca Nation. He contacted them about the studies being done by his students and the Seneca were cooperative and interested because of his willingness to work with them.

Native cultures vary in their willingness to allow and cooperate with archeological projects. The Seneca even endorse DNA studies in tracing ancestry. Several tribal members that I have talked with have had their own DNA tests done. There has been a lot of intermixing between Senecas and European Americans over the centuries. Seneca tribal membership is clear cut - matrilineal descent only. Many tribal members who have some European ancestors want to know more about them. There is a Seneca genealogical society on tribal land and they are open to non tribal members who are tracing Seneca ancestry in their families.

But the Seneca Nation has its own cultural museum and has been seeking the return of Seneca items like pipes and wampum belts from universities, non Seneca museums and other organizatiins.

[2naSalit]

3. Fortunately...

Last edited Fri Feb 17, 2023, 12:51 PM - Edit history (1)

Things have been progressing in the direction of interaction with the descendants in recent years. I live between several large reservations and have had numerous professional interactions with the governments of some on various occasions with tight ties to some individuals in five different Tribes. Celebrate some ceremonies with them though I have not learned much of their languages, not enough to engage in dialogue but enough to sing some of their songs with them. It's an interesting interaction, many approach me asking which Tribe am I from? I tell them I don't know, I was raised by white people. I am sort of a chameleon in appearance, few can figure out what I am though some make crazy assumptions.

Anyway, I do know quite a bit about NAGPRA, have participated in a recovery, once - it's a serious business for the Tribes and you have to be invited to some of the repatriations. In prep for my graduate program I had to take at least one law course so I went with Federal Indian Law, which is fascinating for a lot of reasons, and the history of NAGPRA and other Acts were addressed. It's served me well.

In the western states, though Wisconsin fits in this category, there seems to be a constant battle over sovereignty of Indians, their land and their rights on and off the rez, constant. People aren't taught history or government properly so they have no clue beyond the tropes we hear as children... too many adults operate on that ignorance.

I could go on. The happenings regarding archeology and genealogy in the midwest is a little further ahead of things out here. Too many rednecks are still trying to eradicate the original people of this continent... and their history. The great American genocide continues, hardly hampered by law or decency.

[wnylib]

4. Although I have Seneca ancestry from my grandmother

and my grandfather had some Native ancestry from an unnamed Algonquin tribe, my Native ancestry is not obvious to most people in my physical appearance. My mother's parents were German immigrants. I grew up in a city (Erie, PA) with no Native contact other than my grandfather and my father's siblings, whose Native ancestry was very obvious in their appearance. (My grandmother passed away when I was just 18 months old.)

After my husband and I moved to western NY, where there are 3 Seneca territories, I started visiting the Seneca lands to learn more about them. They recognized that I had mixed ancestry before I mentioned it to anyone. My grandmother descended from a man who, along with his extended family, were well known leaders in the Seneca Nation. I have some features of that family which, despite my lighter skin tone, they recognized.

The Iroquois nations fared better than most Native nations in the East because of the strength of the Iroquois Confederacy. The Confederacy sent delegates to negotiate with the French and the English colonists (and played them against each other to get good trade deals). Their cultures and governing system were well known to Europeans in North America. There were Iroquois delegates to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia who were consulted on how to balance the powers of the separate states with each other and with the central government. The Euro-Americans tweaked the Iroquois suggestions to fit their own culture. The bundled arrows on the US Great Seal and the eagle as national bird were borrowed symbols from the Iroquois.

I am using the word Iroquois because it's the name most people know, but they call themselves Haudenosaunee (people of the longhouse). They suffered greatly from the American Revolution because the tribes of the Confederacy split in their loyalties to the British and Americans. They lost clan leaderships, crops, homes, and land. Several British supporters were exiled by the US to Canada. The Cayuga lost their land and live now with the Seneca. The rest of the Confederacy tribes had their lands greatly reduced. But unlike most western and southeastern tribes, they are still on lands that they always had, although much smaller. So they prefer to refer to them as territories instead of reservations.

There is a city, Salamanca, established originally by white Europeans, on one of the Seneca territories. It's where the tribal offices, library, cultural museum, and casino are located. It's also where the Senecas host a pow wow every summer in July. Pow wows were not part of traditional Seneca culture, but they host them now in order to preserve and share traditional dances, food, history, and culture with tribes across the nation. They are open to the general public. I've attended a few pow wows, but would never try to participate. I don't think I'd be permitted to. I don't know the dances or songs. Many of them are sacred.

There is so much more that explains Seneca comfort with anthropology and archaeology. It goes back to a prominent anthropologist who became good friends with a Seneca leader in the mid 1800s and helped collect and preserve items before all the old ways and traditions were completely gone. The grand nephew of the Seneca man who worked with the anthropologist became an a anthropologist and archaeologist himself. He did a great deal of work on publishing Seneca legends, preserving records and items, preserving the language, and writing down the oral constitution of the Iroquois Confederacy. His mother was white so he was not a tribal member until the Seneca adopted him into a clan because of his work on their behalf. (He was a distant cousin of my grandmother).

[2naSalit]

5. That's cool!

And fascinating. Sounds a bit like my heritage. My mom's paternal GF was married to an Chippewa woman but I have no documentation of that. Her side of the family all came here in the 1700s from Germany and France otherwise. Mom's side of the family, by the time I came around, were her siblings and their kids. Nobody talked about that side of the family. I never encountered Indians until I moved out west, though I had taken an interest in their issues in school during the Alcatraz stand off.

There's a rich history to be told regarding the cultures that were here before the settlers arrived, and how they have survived despite us since.