Category: Native American History

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Land Grants or Land Grabs?

You may have seen a statement similar to this one on a university website:

NC State University . . . respectfully acknowledges that the lands within and surrounding present-day Raleigh are the traditional homelands and gathering places of many Indigenous peoples, including eight federally and state-recognized tribes. . . .

Such statements are not purely the result of gracious sentiments. NC State’s acknowledgment and many others were added after a troubling study appeared. It was “Land-Grab Universities,” published in 2020 by High Country News, an environmentally oriented nonprofit  newspaper in the West. [1]

I learned about this report from Stephen M. Gavazzi, a professor of human development and family science at Ohio State University and a strong proponent of land-grant universities. In 2020,  Dr. Gavazzi had just finished co-editing a book about the land-grants’ “virtuous mission of meeting community challenges and solving society’s problems.”[2]

But then he read the High Country News exposé. Continue reading “Land Grants or Land Grabs?”

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What Should We Do about “Mad” Anthony’s Forest?

Wayne National forest named after "Mad" Anthony Wayne

The U.S. Forest Service has proposed renaming Wayne National Forest, a 240,000-acre forest in southeast Ohio. It has selected the name Buckeye National Forest. (Ohio is the Buckeye State.)

The forest honors Anthony Wayne, an important general in the American Revolution. But “Mad” Anthony (whose label was given for disputed reasons)  also was a key figure in the Northwest Indian War, ousting Native Americans from much of Ohio. Understandably, American Indian tribes are encouraging the name change.

I have been opposed to the removal of statues for the sake of “woke” ideology. I’m also doubtful about renaming southern forts, even though they were named for mediocre Confederate generals in order to perpetuate Jim Crow (see this post). And I think renaming college buildings is mostly silly. Which North Carolina State college student wonders about the namesake of Daniels Hall—now labeled 111 Lampe Drive?

But let’s think about the Anthony Wayne National Forest. Continue reading “What Should We Do about “Mad” Anthony’s Forest?”

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A Clash of (Agri)cultures

Chief Massasoit

Some years ago, in preparation for a conference, I read Harvard College’s 1650 charter. I learned that the school’s goal was “the education of the English and Indian youth of this country in knowledge and godliness.”

So Harvard was chartered to serve Indian as well as English youth? That surprised  me. My knowledge of Massachusetts Indians had stopped in elementary school, with Squanto aiding the Pilgrims.[1]  So I wondered, what was the relationship between Massachusetts settlers and Native Americans?

I am learning the answer, as I audit a course on U.S. agricultural history.[2]  Agriculture is an important part of the story of that relationship, which fell apart in a disastrous war in 1675. “No problem vexed relations between settlers and Indians more frequently in the years before the war than the control of livestock,” wrote Virginia DeJohn Anderson in a pioneering article on the causes of the conflict known as King Philip’s War.[3] Continue reading “A Clash of (Agri)cultures”