Tags: Native Americans

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New research connects peach reach to indigenous communities

Long before there was a Peach State, indigenous communities saw the promise of peaches – originally introduced to North America by Spanish explorers. A new study published in Nature Communications shows that Indigenous political and social networks and land use practices played key roles in the peach’s adoption and dispersal across the continent: The researchers analyzed historical documents that mentioned peaches, such as the travel writings of…

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Kudos, November 2022

Congratulations to students, staff, and faculty in our community for their many extraordinary and distinguishing feats of intellect, athleticism, and artistry. A sampling from November: On Friday, Oct. 28, three University of Georgia students clinched a victory in the Capital One College Bowl, a multi-week trivia competition hosted by Peyton Manning and Cooper Manning. Broadcast nationally on NBC, seniors Aidan Leahy (Double Dawg student from…

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UGA PowWow 2022

Native American students made history on November 11, 2022, hosting the first-ever PowWow on UGA grounds since the school's charter in 1785. The Native American Student Association (NASA) is the smallest and youngest student organization at UGA, yet their event played host to an audience of more than 100 people. The PowWow was originally scheduled to be held on Reed Field and had to be moved to Tate Theater due to rain,…

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UGA’s Guggenheim fellows - the history trio

What does it take to become a Guggenheim fellow? A big idea. Boldness coupled with humility. A keen awareness of just how much time the project will require. And an unwavering curiosity about what it means to be a citizen of our world. Since 2019, the Department of History in UGA’s Franklin College of Arts and Sciences has seen three faculty members awarded fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.…

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Archaeologists collaborate with Tribal Nations to hone research methods

University of Georgia researchers recently co-authored an article with members of the Muscogee and Huron-Wendat Nations (HWN) to shine a light on the importance of meaningful collaboration between archaeologists and descendant communities and nations as a necessary component of archaeological practice in the 2020s and beyond. Jennifer Birch, associate professor and undergraduate coordinator in the UGA Franklin College of Arts and…

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The origins of democracy in the Americas

New research from the UGA Laboratory of Archaeology, together with its partners in the Muscogee Nation, indicates that inhabitants of the Americas may have been practicing democratic-style collective governance at least a millennium before European contact. According to a new paper published in the journal American Antiquity, artifacts from the Cold Springs site in central Georgia indicate the presence of a “council house” on the site…

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Howe awarded for lifetime achievement by Society for the Study of Southern Literature

University of Georgia professor LeAnne Howe was awarded the Richard Beale Davis Award for Distinguished Lifetime Service to Southern Letters by the Society for the Study of Southern Literature for her work as a scholar and writer. Howe received the award at the 2022 SSSL conference in Atlanta on June 26. The Richard Beale Davis Award for Distinguished Lifetime Service to Southern Letters is awarded every other year at the biennial…

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New study shows resilience of early coastal communities in Georgia

Archaeologists have hypothesized that more than 4,500 years ago, communities on barrier islands along the southeastern coastlines of the North America were abruptly abandoned due to a sudden shift in climate. But new research from the University of Georgia Laboratory of Archaeology indicates that environmental change was happening both during the settlement of these island villages and—over centuries longer than previously…

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UGA’s Saunt awarded 2022 Guggenheim Fellowship

Claudio Saunt, Regents’ Professor and Russell Professor of American History in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, has been awarded a 2022 Fellowship by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Saunt is one of 180 artists, writers, scholars, and scientists honored across 51 fields. Guggenheim Fellowships are intended for individuals who have already demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or…

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Searching for Sequoyah

The Native American leader and scholar of the Cherokee Nation, Sequoyah (ᏍᏏᏉᏯ Ssiquoya) completed his independent creation of the Cherokee syllabary in 1821, making reading and writing in Cherokee possible. His achievement was one of the few times in recorded history that a member of a pre-literate people created an original, effective writing system, and his…

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Saunt awarded Ridenhour Book Prize

Claudio Saunt, Richard B. Russell Professor in American History and Co-Director of the Center for Virtual History, has been awarded the 18th annual Ridenhour Book Prize for his widely celebrated work, Unworthy Republic: The dispossession of Native Americans and the road to Indian Territory: The Ridenhour Prizes seek to recognize and encourage those who persevere in acts of truth-telling that protect the public interest, promote social…

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Native American Studies Institute gift to boost tribal student body presence at UGA

The University of Georgia Franklin College of Arts and Sciences Institute for Native American Studies has received a gift to recruit and support scholarships for Native American students at the university. The gift by UGA alumnus Chris Goeckel is designed to bring graduate students from across the United States to study at UGA and to promote the importance of the Native American Studies curriculum for the campus community. The UGA Institute…

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Saunt wins 2021 ROBERT F. KENNEDY BOOK AWARD

Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights announced the winners of its 2021 RFK Book and Journalism Awards on Thursday, June 3 during a virtual ceremony.  This year's RFK Book Award winner is "Unworthy Republic: The Dispossession of Native Americans and the Road to Indian Territory," by Claudio Saunt,  Richard B. Russell Professor in American History.  Winners of the 2021 RFK Journalism Awards were…

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COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2021 BANCROFT PRIZES

"Unworthy Republic, The Dispossession of Native Americans and the Road to Indian Territory" by Claudio Saunt, Distinguished Research Professor and Richard B. Russell Professor in American History, is one of two acclaimed works that will be awarded the 2021 Bancroft Prizes in American History and Diplomacy by Columbia University Libraries: The Bancroft Prize, which includes an award of $10,000 to each author, is administered…

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Saunt named finalist for National Book Award

***Update***  Saunt named a finalist on Oct. 6. Final announcement 11/18 Claudio Saunt’s book, Unworthy Republic: The Dispossession of Native Americans and the Road to Indian Territory, has been named to the 2020 longlist for the National Book Award for Nonfiction. “It’s a great honor to be one of the 10 authors selected for the National Book Award longlist. The category is nonfiction, not just history, and it is really…

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UGA Professor coedits first comprehensive Native Nations Poetry Anthology

UGA Eidson Chair of American Literature LeAnne Howe (Choctaw) has coedited WHEN THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD WAS SUBDUED, OUR SONGS CAME THROUGH: A Norton Anthology of Native Nations Poetry, the first comprehensive collection of Native poetry. The collection, which gathers work from the seventeenth century to the present, representing more than 160 poets from 91 indigenous nations, is available from W. W. Norton & Company August 25…

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Ancient oyster shells provide historical insights

An interdisciplinary team of scientists studying thousands of oyster shells along the Georgia coast, some as old as 4,500 years, has published new insights into how Native Americans sustained oyster harvests for thousands of years, observations that may lead to better management practices of oyster reefs today. Their study, led by University of Georgia archaeologist Victor Thompson, was published July 10 in the journal Science…

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Noted and Quoted, March 2020

New books, along with perspective and insights on COVID-19, brought the work of Franklin faculty into a variety of media during March. A sample of the coverage and noted expertise: ‘Unworthy Republic’ Takes an Unflinching Look at Indian Removal in the 1830s - new book by Richard B. Russell Professor in American History Claudio Saunt reviewed in the New York Times The Stories That Skewed American Popular Memory of the Civil War,…

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Cherokee Removal, the Trail of Tears, and populism

UGA and the Franklin College welcome former Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation Chad Smith to deliver a Signature Lecture Thursday, October 10, 2019 at 4 p.m. in room 286 Miller Learning Center. In his lecture, "Cherokee Removal and the Trail of Tears: The Unlearned Lessons of Populism Today," Chad Smith looks at the rise of a hard-edged populism with Andrew Jackson, leading to Cherokee Removal…

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AIR lecture features Muscogee Creek Sarah Deer, Sept. 19

Sarah Deer, 2014 MacArthur Fellow, Chief Justice for the Prairie Island Indian Community Court of Appeals, and Women, Gender & Sexuality Studies professor at the University of Kansas, is the featured speaker for the fifth annual American Indian Returnings (AIR) lecture September 19, 4:30 p.m. in the M. Smith Griffith Auditorium at the Georgia Museum of Art. Th event is supported by the Eidson Foundation Fund, the…

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New study upends timeline of Iroquoian history

New research by an international team based at UGA raises questions about the timing and nature of early interactions between Indigenous Peoples and Europeans in North America: The European side of first contact with indigenous people and settlement in northeast North America is well known from European sources. Until now it's been assumed that the finds of dated European artifacts provide a timeline for the indigenous peoples and…

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Howe featured in "New Poetry by Indigenous Women"

Eidson Distinguished Professor of American Literature in the department of English LeAnne Howe is a featured writer in Literary Hub's series "New Poetry by Indigenous Women," curated by Natalie Diaz. According to the editor: "This feature of indigenous women is meant to ... offer myriad ways of “poetic” and linguistic experience—a journey through or across memory, or imagination, across pain or joy or the impossibility of each, across our…

UGA North campus with trees
A Welcoming Environment

The speed with which the Confederate flag has fallen below the line of acceptability in a single week is inspiring. That symbol is not just being talked about - it is being taken down. As a part of this swirl of events in motion, predicated on the murderous rampage in Charleston one week ago, how will the conversation to make our campuses more inviting, welcoming and diverse - especially here in the South - continue to progress? Other…
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