NATIVE NATICK IN A VIOLENT CENTURY, 1650-1750
SEPTEMBER 14, 7PM VIA ZOOM

Professor Emeritus Daniel R. Mandell will trace Natick’s development from its establishment as a Christian Indian town in 1651 to its domination by Anglo settlers a century later.  Initially, the community, led by John Eliot’s early converts, featured Indigenous and English traits, including a subsistence economy, patriarchal families, and a Biblical leadership structure. In 1675, King Philip’s War shattered this world; most were forced to Deer Island where many died.  Afterward, the surviving Christian Indians resettled Natick and resumed many traditions.  But by the 1720s their numbers were shrinking and elderly, and increasingly sold land to white settlers to pay debts. By midcentury, the Natick Indians were a scorned minority in the town they had created.

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Firsting and lasting: writing indians out of existence in New England
OCTOBER 19, 6PM VIA ZOOM

In this talk, Professor Jean M. O’Brien narrates the argument she makes in her book, Firsting and Lasting, that local histories written in the nineteenth century became a primary means by which Euro-Americans asserted their own modernity while denying it to Indian peoples. Erasing then memorializing Indian peoples also served a more pragmatic colonial goal: refuting Indian claims to land and rights. Drawing on more than six hundred local histories from Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island as well as censuses, monuments, and accounts of historical pageants and commemorations, O’Brien explores how these narratives inculcated the myth of Indian extinction, a myth that has stubbornly remained in the American consciousness.

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Indigenous Natick Today
December 14, 7PM VIA ZOOM

Pamela Ellis, Tribal Historian and Genealogist, Natick Nipmuc Council, will share her perspectives on how how local history, ongoing colonization, and harmful myths have informed the lived experiences of many Natick Nipmuc citizens.

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This series is supported by a grant from the Bridge Street Fund of Mass Humanities.