Antiracism Resources: Changing Interpretations - Using Treaty Documents to Understand Evolving Perspectives on New York’s Indigenous Communities

This year's DHPSNY Antiracism Programming takes inspiration from two key resources: the AASLH Making History at 250 Field Guide and the New York State 250th Field Guide. Our guiding question: How do we make our collecting organizations interdisciplinary and representative of the realities of our many New York histories?

In September, DHPSNY presented Building an Inclusive 250th: Changing Interpretations, an interactive dialogue exploring how collections and historical documents can challenge and evolve our understanding of identity and community. Designed for staff and volunteers at libraries, archives, museums, and historical sites across New York, the program examined what it means to offer relevant content, exhibits, and programs as we prepare for the 2026 Semiquincentennial.

Facilitators Aria Camaione-Lind and Dr. Michael Leroy Oberg encouraged participants to step into what we can learn about our communities when we read our documents and material culture from non-Eurocentric perspectives. Telling stories that contradict or complicate white-dominant and Eurocentric narratives and understandings of our histories can be points of tension within our organizations and also our wider communities. To help address this, the program aimed to support participants in becoming more comfortable with reading material culture and archival documents from multiple perspectives.

Dr. Oberg's presentation focused on reading documents "against the grain," using New York’s treaties with Indigenous communities as a key example of understanding documents from multiple perspectives to better understand our communities’ histories and to grapple with how documents have been read differently at different times in the past and present. Specifically, he shared the background and overview of New York State treaties with Indigenous communities and where we can find them (primarily local deed offices and where your County records are kept!), the agreement and disagreement between New York State law and Indigenous perspectives, coercive real estate transactions that were sometimes openly fraudulent (1788, Canandaigua), and how Revolutionary War soldiers from Connecticut and Massachusetts ended up living — and being buried — in what should have been lands set aside for Indigenous use per the many treaties regulating where white/European settlement could occur. 

Dr. Oberg further encouraged participants to view the re-examination of these treaties as a way to better understand community development through the lens of Indigenous dispossession, calling this process an urgent Socratic dialogue. By adopting this revised perspective, staff and volunteers can gain a clearer understanding of the American Revolution as being rooted in anti-Black and anti-Indigenous racism—a revolution that did not benefit everyone in what is now the United States. (Read Dr. Oberg’s recent blog post about this here.) He also urged participants to ask alternative questions about their collections to uncover new insights.

How will your team identify which objects in your collections or archives to reconsider? What kinds of alternative questions will you ask about these objects? You can reach us by email at info@DHPSNY.org, or connect with us on the DHPSNY Facebook page or DHPSNY Community Facebook Group.

Click here to access the recorded portion of the session.
Click here to download the slideshow.
 

Resources for Further Study:

AASLH LGBTQ+ Inclusive Interpretation Resource Kit
Antiracism from the Indigenous Perspective: Practical Applications
Blackhawk, Ned. The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History. 2023.
Embrace Race. (2023). Resources
Ganondagan State Historic Site
National Coalition Building Institute - International
National Park Service. The Clinton Sullivan Campaign in 1779
New York State Archives. Statement on Harmful Language in New York State Archives Description Resources
New York State Archives. Tribal Nations of New York
New York State Office of Cultural Education. DEI Toolkit
Oberg, Michael Leroy and Peter Jakob Olsen-Harbich. Native America: A History, 3^rd edition. 2022.
Repeating History, Episode 2 - Dr. Michael Leroy Oberg on Haudenosaunee History, WCNY
Rothstein, R. The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America. 2017.
Sleeper-Smith, Susan (ed.) et al, Why You Can’t Teach United States History without American Indians. 2015.
Smith, A. Lynn. Memory Wars: Settlers and Natives Remember Washington’s Sullivan Expedition of 1779. 2023.
Understanding Antiracism as Collecting Organizations (2022).

This post is part of a blog series on sharing information, promoting resources, encouraging discussion, and amplifying the voices of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) doing antiracism work in archives, museums, history sites, and library special collections. DHPSNY is committed to supporting the diverse network of collecting institutions that safeguard and ensure access to historical records and library research materials across New York State. To learn more, visit our first blog post in the series.