Native American Cultural Landscapes and Community Collaborations

Part of: Society for Historical Archaeology 2018

Native American historic and cultural preservation initiatives have experienced a dramatic increase in recent years, especially within the context of Tribal Historic Preservation Office (THPO) programs. In 2016 the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa THPO embarked upon a broad community based collaboration that is aimed at understanding the cultural landscape within their ancient homeland in northern Michigan known as Waganakising. This landscape includes a nineteenth century Methodist Mission Church and associated farmsteads, which are a focus of our current phase of the study. Collaborators include Native American and non-native historians, archaeologists, youth, architects, landowners, church members, and educators. The LTBB THPO invites you to share your landscape approach activities, especially those involving community collaborations, in an effort to understand and encourage the growth of this form of research design and interpretation.

Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-8 of 8)

  • Documents (8)

Documents
  • The Circle of Trees: a Component of the Greensky Hill Methodist Mission Church Landscape (2018)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Misty M. Jackson.

    In 2016 the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians’ (LTBB) THPO initiated archaeological investigations at the circle of trees, a traditional cultural property north of the Greensky Hill Methodist Mission Church near Charlevoix, Michigan. The research is part of a larger study of the surrounding cultural landscape including the church and 19th century Odawa farmsteads. Peter Greensky, the Chippewa Methodist minister who along with his Anishinabe followers founded the mission, is recorded as...

  • Community-Based Explorations of "Schooling" at the Grand Ronde Reservation (2018)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Eve H Dewan. Sara L Gonzalez. Briece R Edwards.

    In 1856, members of twenty-seven Bands and Tribes were removed to what today is known as the Grand Ronde Reservation in northwestern Oregon. Like other Indigenous adolescents, children at Grand Ronde were sent to schools driven by assimilationist policies as part of a broader project of Euro-American colonialism. However, unlike many others, they attended school on the reservation, closer to their homes. From the mid-nineteenth through the mid-twentieth century, five different schools are...

  • Converging Concepts of Landscape: Space and Place in 19th-century Northwest Lower Michigan (2018)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Kat E Slocum.

    The same landscape in the same moment can be experienced differently by people as they project culture and history onto the landscape. Using two juxtaposed perspectives of landscape in the same geographic location and time, this research compares and contrasts Cartographers and Native Americans in Northwest Lower Michigan following intensification of mapping after 1837. Using historic documents, vivifacts (living artifacts), and maps, this analysis presents the conflicting landscape concepts of...

  • The Cultural Interaction Between Reverend Peter Dougherty And The Ottawa And Chippewa Indians Of Old Mission Peninsula: 1839-1852. (2018)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Kerri Finlayson.

    The Peter Dougherty Society archaeological project is a collaboration between the Peter Dougherty Society and North Central Michigan College, both located in northern lower Michigan. The focus of this collaboration has been on the restoration of the mission house and archaeological excavations of the privy and barn. In 1839, Reverend Peter Dougherty was sent to the Grand Traverse Region to establish a church and school for the Ottawa and Chippewa Indians. The archaeological site consists of what...

  • Identifying and Interpreting Nineteenth Century Agricultural and Natural Resources Sites within the Cultural Landscape of the Waganakising Odawa of Northern Lower Michigan (2018)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Wesley Andrews.

    This paper endeavors to identify the characteristic of Native American farmsteads and agricultural practices during the nineteenth century in the northwest part of the lower peninsula of Michigan.  This period was witness to influences from Europeans upon the pre-contact Odawa agricultural system.  There are many such sites that still exist and have been studied by the Tribal Historic Preservation Program of the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians.  Archaeological, archival, and oral...

  • Nails of Old Mission (2018)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Abby J Mier. Kerri Finlayson.

    Nail analysis is a tool to identify the function and changes of structures in late nineteenth century frontier buildings. Using techniques involving visual inspection and comparative analysis, one can identify the approximate age of the nails as well as practical uses for their type and size. The purpose of this paper is to show how nail analysis aids in our interpretation of the chronology and function of buildings at the Peter Dougherty site (1842-1852) on Old Mission Peninsula, Traverse City,...

  • Remembering through Landscape: Decolonizing the narrative of a Federal Indian Boarding School (2018)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Sarah Surface-Evans.

    Since 2011, I have conducted community-based archaeology at the former Mount Pleasant Indian Industrial Boarding School in collaboration with the Saginaw Chippewa Tribe of Michigan and City of Mount Pleasant. Elsewhere I have presented theoretical analyses federal Indian boarding schools as total institutions that utilized landscape design in assimilationist goals.  In this paper, however, I will discuss the role of landscape as a component of analysis in community-based participatory research....

  • What can pipe stem assemblages tell us about the relationship between natives and missionaries on Old Mission peninsula? (2018)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Yvon G. Bergner-Gonzalez. Kerri Finlayson.

    Archaeological analysis of mid-19th century pipe stem assemblages aids in interpretation of the chronology of an archaeological site as well as providing insight about the local economy and past life styles.  Various Henderson and Glasgow pipe fragments have been excavated from the privy at the Peter Dougherty site, a mid-19th century house where Reverend Peter Dougherty and his family resided from 1842-1852 with the Chippewa and Ottawa Indians of Old Mission Peninsula, located in northern lower...