This December brings to a close another successful semester of the Yale Indian Papers Project’s Native Internship Program. This year’s interns, Eric Maynard (Mohegan) and Danielle Hill (Mashpee), assisted the Project with document transcription, metadata development, record creation, and various…
Category: Collections
A Family of Healers
In a letter to Thomas Prince of Boston dated in September of 1730, the Rev. William Russell, pastor of Middletown’s First Church, wrote that among the neighboring Wangunk there was a family of healers noted for their skill in curing…
Compelled to Make Retaliation for ye Expence of Nursing
In 1763 a transient Native woman gave birth to a son in Colchester, Connecticut. Soon after, the child was left unaccounted for. The historical record is silent on the circumstances. The mother may have moved on without her child, as…
“We did not land on Plymouth Rock. Plymouth Rock landed on us.”
Frank James, whose Wampanoag name is Wamsutta, organized the United American Indians of New England in 1970 after a speech he had written for the celebration of the 350th anniversary of the Pilgrim arrival was considered inappropriate and too inflamatory by…
This Week in New England Native Documentary History
1690 was a bad year for Nathaniel Niles. Three times he was taken captive by French Indians and twice had his property plundered, all within a span of sixteen months. By the fall of 1691, as King William’s War continued,…
A House in Dispute
War, employment at sea, and westward emigration had a significant impact on the demographics of many late eighteenth to early nineteenth century reservation communities in New England. With the population of adult males much reduced, Indian women were often left…
This Week in New England Native Documentary History
On September 9, 1772, Abigail Meason, an itinerant Indian woman from Farmington, Connecticut, appeared in Northampton, Massachusetts at the doorstep of Nathaniel Day and his wife Experience with a growing temperature. The Days recognized the symptoms as “slow fever” or…