Warning: this post contains distressing details. Recent news coming from Canada, particularly from the grounds of Kamloops Indian Residential School, Marieval Indian Residential School, St. Eugene’s Mission School and just recently the Kuper Island Residential School, has illuminated a sobering truth: for many Indigenous children, school was a place of suffering, trauma, and death. U.S….
Author: camshriver
Cam is a historian of early America specializing on Miami Tribe and Great Lakes ethnohistories and empires in North America.
Four Versions of a Little Turtle Speech at Greenville, 1795
Four Versions of a Little Turtle Speech at Greenville, 1795 *and a conversation about them The following four primary sources all reveal aspects of a critical message delivered by the Myaamia leader Mihšihkinaahkwa ‘Little Turtle’ during the summer of 1795 at negotiations in Greenville in the Ohio territory. For the context, see our previous two…
The Treaty of Greenville (1795) – Part II
aweentioni weešihtooyankwimyaamiaki neehi eeweemakinciki mihši-maalhsakiWe Make PeaceThe Myaamia and Our American Relatives (Part II) The 1795 Treaty of Greenville both established a peace and negotiated a transfer of lands. In Part 1, George narrated the beginning of the treaty negotiations in the early summer of 1795. When we left off, Mihšihkinaahkwa ‘Little Turtle’ and the…
Ciinkwia Minohsaya ‘Painted Thunderbird Robe’ Series
We have partnered with a team of scholars to bring you a new series of interpretations of this Ciinkwia Minohsaya ‘Painted Thunderbird Robe.’ In this short discussion, our team explores a series of key questions as they seek to contextualize this beautiful work of art in time and place, as well as within the culture…
Thoughts on COVID Neehseehpineenki ‘COVID-19’ and Past Epidemics
Epidemic contagion is a cornerstone of how we think about the period of Native American encounters with European and African newcomers, roughly 1500-1850. As we live through a global pandemic, we are once again faced with life-changing, or life-taking, circumstances. The request for the new word neehseehpineenki ‘COVID-19’ begs the question: How important was disease…
The Lost Treaty of Fort Meigs; or, Why Didn’t the Myaamia Sell Their Rights to Land in Northwest Ohio?
By Isaac Stephani and Cam Shriver Note: This blog post stems from original research conducted by undergraduate student Isaac Stephani in Dr. Cam Shriver’s Intro to the Miami Tribe class at Miami University in spring 2019. In late September of 1817, the Treaty of Fort Meigs, also known as the Treaty of Maumee Rapids, was signed….
