Native Americans to Speak at SUNY New Paltz

NEW PALTZ — Three Native American speakers will discuss various topics during a series of daytime presentations held in March at the State University of New York at New Paltz. Topics will range from Native American education, the Iroquois in the American Revolution, Iroquois fishing and hunting methods, to Native American–African American Historical Connections in Southeastern United States. The discussions, all open to the general public, have been organized by New Paltz professor Laurence Hauptman, a member of the history department. They are supported by The College at New Paltz Foundation.

Elizabeth Obomsawin, who will be speaking on Monday, March 2, is an Oneida Indian community historian from the Oneida Indian Reservation in central New York. She was head of the Oneida Indian oral history project that interviewed the community’s elders throughout New York state and is an authority on the Iroquois Indians in the American Revolution and on Oneida Indian history. Her family founded the modern Iroquoian land claims movement.

Obomsawin is the author of a soon-to-be-published article (University of Wisconsin Press) on the historical connections between Oneidas in New York, Ontario and Wisconsin, and she has written a screenplay on Marquis de Lafayette and the Oneida Indians.

Obomsawin will be discussing Native American education, from 9:00- 10:00 a.m. in the Dean’s Conference Room in the Old Main Building(OMB). From 10:30-11:20 a.m., her subject will be “The Iroquois in the American Revolution.” That talk will take place in OMB 220. She will discuss “Selected Topics in Oneida Indian History,” when she meets with Hauptman’s 12:30 – 1:45 p.m. class in Humanities 218.

Michael Tarbell, a Mohawk and the Museum Educator at the Iroquois Indian Museum at Howes Caves, will speak during two class sessions on March 9. Tarbell is an expert on Iroquoian fishing and hunting methods and military technologies. He will address these topics at 11:30 to 12:20 p.m. and again at 12:30 – 1:45 p.m. The 11:30 discussion will take place in Lecture Center 113 (Joseph Diamond’s New York State Archaeology class) and the 12:30 lecture will be in Humanities 218 (Hauptman’s course on Indians of the U.S.).

On March 16, Heriberto Dixon (Tutelo), a professor of management at the Milano School of Management at the New School for Social Research, will speak to classes in Latin American studies, black history, and history. The 10:30 a.m. lecture on “Miscegenation in Latin America and the Caribbean” will be held in Humanities 15 (Zelbert Moore’s class on Latin American Studies). The 11:30 a.m. lecture on “Native American-African American Historical Connections in the Southeastern United States” (Moore’s Black History course), will be held in Humanities 15, and the 12:30 p.m. talk on “Native American–African American Historical Connections in the Southeastern United States,” will take place in Humanities 218 (Hauptman’s course in Indians of the U.S.).

Dixon has written articles and delivered scholarly papers on the history of race relations and miscegenation in the southeastern United States and the Caribbean.