An exploration of the Cultural Heritage of New England
Veiled in the forests of the Contoocook River in Boscawen stands a 35-foot statue of Hannah Dustin, a settler who killed ten Abenaki people and handed their scalps to the Massachusetts General Assembly in 1697. The statue depicts Dustin wearing a "gown that’s falling off her shoulders. In her right hand, she has a tomahawk,... Continue Reading →
Have you ever wondered what kind of foods were consumed by Native Americans? While many people believe that Native Americans were exclusively hunter-gatherers, by the time of European contact many groups practiced agriculture. The most commonly grown food items were beans, corn, and squash, which were called the Three Sisters. These staple crops were supplemented... Continue Reading →
The image above is one of the most famous representations of the “First Thanksgiving” celebrated by the Pilgrims and Native Americans in 1621. Painted in 1932 by J.L.G. Ferris it reinforces and solidifies a colonized perspective of the past rife with inaccuracies and stereotypes. Much of what students are taught in school about the... Continue Reading →
Thanksgiving is coming soon. The story of "The First Thanksgiving" is taught in virtually every grade from preschool through high school. Why? What is it about this story that makes it so prevalent? How accurate is the story that is taught? These were the questions that drove an in-class exercise in UNH’s Fall 2017 ANTH... Continue Reading →
Much of the “history” of the Indigenous peoples of North America, especially primary source accounts, were written by European settlers. These settlers brought with them their own biases and preconceived ideas about social structures, hierarchies, and governance. They interpreted events through their own eyes, and not through the eyes of the people they were studying... Continue Reading →
In 1492 Christopher Columbus sailed across the Atlantic and landed in the Caribbean becoming one of the first Europeans to set foot in the Americas. This land would soon be called the “New World” by explorers and colonists, but for the indigenous peoples who had been living there for thousands of years this land was... Continue Reading →
