O&E Series: "Native American Peoples and Lands: Historic Connections to W&L"

Lenfest Outreach & Engagement Series: AN EVENING TALK
Native American Peoples and Lands: Historic Connections to W&L

Kamen Gallery/Lenfest Hall/Lenfest Center
Friday, September 27, 2024 at 5:30 pm
No tickets are required

Native American peoples in the mid-Atlantic region now known as Virginia are inseparable to the history of W&L. These Eastern Siouan and Tutelo speaking peoples and other migratory tribes lived, hunted, traded, and stewarded land in this region for millennia prior to and post European contact and continue to do so today. The cultural practices of these first peoples created the necessary environmental conditions which enticed colonization of this area by early Virginia colony governors.

W&L's origins and early leaders (trustees, alumni, namesake) are connected to Native American peoples and lands through participation in county militias, colonial battles and wars, government roles as Indian agents, and treaty signatories and enforcers, among other capacities. As part of federal treaty provisions in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, federally displaced Native American nations formerly in the southeastern region of North America began enrolling their youth at higher education institutions; here at W&L, among those students, were two former chiefs of the Choctaw Nation. For the Choctaw, "itapela hosh nana yakomichi" (doing things as a group) and a full circle approach with youth returning their education in service to Indian Country were guiding factors in this higher education exploration.

Current and former institutional history student researchers within the University Archives, Celeste Alvarez '26 and Mason Satterfield '24, respectively, along with the Assistant Director of Institutional History, will share their community-based approach to Native American history research within the community. This event will be an opportunity to share knowledge with the community for the first time or build upon understanding of regional Native American peoples and lands and how W&L is intertwined with them.

"Itapela hosh nana yokomichi" or "doing things as a group" has been a notable cultural element of the Choctaw tribe. The benefits that arise from this ideology are a stronger sense of community, mutual support and collaboration, knowledge distribution and collective decision making. This ensures that members have a developed community built on collaborative initiatives, creating a cultural continuity that will last centuries. This ideology impacts W&L greatly as the community is a tight knit collaborative environment that ensures people build strong relationships with one another in a mutually beneficial fashion.~Mason Satterfield '24 (citizen of the Choctaw Nation)

Sponsored in part by the Class of '64 Performing Arts Fund Native American Indigenous Cohort Diversity, Inclusion and Student Engagement Art and Art History Theater, Dance, and Film Studies Latin American/Caribbean Studies