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Many generations of Native American people have lived here, along the Kwinitekw (Connecticut River), utilizing local resources and engaging in reciprocal relations with their Native neighbors. During the early 1600s, Native leaders in Agawam (present-day Springfield) and Nonotuck (present-day Northampton) initially welcomed English colonists to establish small trading settlements here. Yet, they also attempted to preserve, in written deeds, rights to hunt, fish, gather, and plant here in perpetuity. But, within a few decades, colonial conflict and warfare fractured these relations. Native communities were forced to disperse, folding into other communities in diaspora. Still, some Native families maintained a presence here by traveling familiar waterways, marketing baskets and brooms, and dispensing traditional Native medicines. This talk offers new insights into Indigenous perspectives by critically analyzing colonial documents, revisiting local landscapes, and dismantling the romantic stereotypes that pushed Native people into the vanished past.

Presented by Dr. Margaret M. Bruchac (Abenaki), Associate Professor of Anthropology, Coordinator of Native American and Indigenous Studies, and Associate Faculty in the Penn Cultural Heritage Center, University of Pennsylvania

Photo courtesy of Margaret Bruchac