Toward a Balanced Public History in the Ohio Country: Collaborative Interpretation of the Histories of the Shawnee Nations at Great Council State Park

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Collaborative and Community Archaeology" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

In 2020, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) started planning for the state’s 76th state park focused on the late-eighteenth-century Shawnee town of Chillicothe on the Little Miami River. ODNR was committed to working collaboratively with the three Shawnee Nations to design the park and its interpretive content. Over the last two years, a team of ODNR staff and contractors collaborated with citizens of the three Shawnee Nations (all of which are federally recognized tribes) designing the site and building layout, and crafting the interpretive content featured in the new interpretive center. Great Council State Park presents an accurate narrative of the context and consequences of the Shawnee history flowing through this point in time and space. We crafted a narrative that reflects Shawnee perspectives, past and present, on the Shawnee ties to this site and the Ohio Country. The exhibit is part of a broader reassertion of sovereignty by the Shawnee Nations over their culture, history, and homelands. We hope this example of collaboration between American Indian Nations and public agencies can serve as a model of appropriate and effective interpretation of history with and by those whose ancestors are the subject of study.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Collaborative and Community Archaeology   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 36279.0