Collaborations with Indigenous Peoples
I have been privileged to collaborate with a number of Indigenous communities and organizations on important projects. Below, you can find detailed descriptions of who I worked with, how I collaborated with them on a particular project, and pictures or media related to that specific project.
Center for the Futures of Native Peoples (CFNP)
Created by Darren Lone Fight in response to Dickinson College's relationship with Carlisle Indian Industrial School, the Center for the Futures of Peoples (CFNP) is an academic unit at the college. One of the CFNP's main purposes is to serve Native people visiting Carlisle, particularly those who are repatriating their children from Carlisle Indian Industrial School's cemetery. We also aim to raise awareness about the genocidal legacy of boarding schools in Indigenous communities and the persistence of those same communities. You can find more information about the CFNP on our website: Center for the Futures of Native Peoples​​​​​​
Federal Indian Boarding School Bibliographies
During Fall 2023, I taught a course at Dickinson College called "Indigenous Peoples and Federal Boarding Schools in the United States." In that course, each of my students assembled annotated bibliographies on a specific federal boarding school. These bibliographies are designed to be accessible to Indigenous communities through the CFNP website and we collectively hope they will assist survivors, descendants and their communities.
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You can find these bibliographies here: Federal Boarding School Annotated Bibliographies.
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The CFNP Lending Library
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​I love libraries. Our Lending Library has been a passion of mine in my time here at Dickinson. When the CFNP began operations, interim executive director Darren Lone Fight thought it would be a good idea to have an reference library focused on Native American and Indigenous Studies for students, faculty, and members of the community. We started with about 50 books purchased by or donated to the Center. I spent a lot of time organizing, cataloging, and curating the library, which now includes over 650 texts.
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In addition to our extensive Boarding and Residential School Reference Collection (described below), we now have an International Indigenous Peoples Collection as well as excellent concentrations in the Indigenous Mid-Atlantic, ​​Indigenous histories, sovereignty, decolonization & land back, Indigenous Ways of Knowing, race and indigeneity, Native American fiction, Native American children’s literature, Alaska Native studies, Ojibwe studies, and Indigenous California.
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Boarding and Residential School Reference Collection
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During Spring 2024, I worked on another boarding school project. As we began hosting tribal delegations coming to Carlisle to repatriate their children during September 2023, I discovered a need for accessible resources about boarding and residential schools. Through a generous grant from the Center for Civic Learning and Action (our neighbor at Dickinson College), I researched, purchased, and organized what I call our Boarding and Residential School Reference Collection during Spring 2024. Visitors can now access nearly 160 books on these institutions with no need for a library membership, paywall or any other requirement.​​
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I recently publicized this collection in Tribal College: The Journal of American Indian Higher Education.​​​​​​​​​​​​
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Indigenous Think Tank
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The CFNP held its first ever Indigenous Think Tank in August 2024. The think tank was an opportunity for Dickinson College faculty and staff to meditate on Indigenous ways of knowing and our institution's connection to Carlisle Indian Industrial School. Mandy Cheromiah - executive director of the CFNP - asked me to present. I gave two presentations - "Indigenous Pennsylvania" and "Teaching Indigenous Ways of Knowing as a Non-Native Person in a Non-Native Environment." As part of the second presentation, I talked about being a non-Native person who writes about Indigenous history and teaches at a PWI. I wore a beautiful Seminole gorget that I received for helping out with a Seminole Nation exhibit but don't often wear to avoid confusion about my identity.
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Secretary of the Interior Visit
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As part of Secretary of the Interior's investigation into federal Indian boarding schools in the United States, she visited Dickinson College in October 2024. Her visit included the Center for the Futures of Native Peoples. I had the privilege of showing her our lending library, which by that time had grown to over 600 books. In the months after this visit, the President issued an apology for boarding schools and designated Carlisle Federal Indian Boarding School National Monument.​
Native American Law Student Association
(Penn State Dickinson Law)
In Spring 2024, I represented the CFNP as we created a partnership with the Native American Law Student Association at Penn State Dickinson Law. Dickinson College and PSDL are separate institutions, but we share a common origin and our campuses border one another. Moreover, NALSA and the CFNP have similar objectives. I am really proud of our partnership, which has multiplied opportunities for students and faculty on both campuses.
Thanks to NALSA and PSDL, my students and I were able to listen to and then personally meet Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation Chuck Hoskin Jr! He even took selfies with my students.
Greetham Law (Principal Counsel, Chickasaw Nation)
Greetham Law - the principal legal counsel for the Chickasaw Nation - hired me as an expert consultant to research a complicated historical problem for the nation. Between January 2023 and September 2023, I conducted extensive research on the topic, visiting archives in Oklahoma, Texas, and Washington D.C. and completing over 500 hours of work. In September, I submitted a final 150-page report on the historical problem.
Osage News
In February 2023, I worked together with the Osage News - the newspaper of the Osage Nation - to publish an expose on the American Indian Steamship Company. In the 1920s, this shell corporation attempted to defraud wealthy Osage investors. You can find the article here:
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Seminole Nation Historic Preservation Office
Between September 2022 and March 2023, I conducted background research for and met regularly with the Seminole Nation Tribal Historic Preservation Office as they prepared for a joint exhibit with the Seminole Nation Museum on Mekusukey Academy. Created in 1890 as an ultra modern Indigenous school based in the humanities, US officials seized Mekusukey Academy in 1906 and turned it into a federal boarding school. I worked alongside Ted Underwood (Executive Director), Ben Yahola (Tribal Historic Preservation Officer), and Jake Tiger (Cultural Technician). In March 2023, the Seminole Nation released a short film about the school: "Remembering Mekusukey Academy."​​
The Historic Preservation Office invited Emily and I to attend the March 2023 opening of Mikasuki Hesvketv Emiyetv Seminole Emvhakv Yekcv Onvkoce/Life at Mekusukey - Story of a Sovereign Seminole School at the Seminole Nation Museum in Wewoka, Oklahoma. Ted Underwood gave me a beautiful gorget as thanks for my assistance, which is visible in the pictures above.
Oglala Lakota College Woksape Tipi Library and Archives
During Summer 2019, I assisted Tawa Ducheneaux, then the head archivist at Oglala Lakota College Archives. in acquiring records related to the creation and administration of Badlands Bombing Range. In 1942, the United States seized a large tract on Pine Ridge Reservation, displaced the Oglala residents, and turned the whole area into a bombing range. Records related to this bombing range are located at the National Archives at Kansas City, nearly an eight-hour drive from Oglala Lakota College. To help out, I copied the records and then deposited the copies at Oglala Lakota College's main campus in Kyle, South Dakota. I intended to continue copying records identified by Tawa Ducheneaux (see the letter below) but the COVID-19 pandemic shuttered federal archives for almost two years and made such work almost impossible.
Absentee Shawnee Tribe Cultural Preservation Office
In 2019, I volunteered on a regular basis with the Absentee Shawnee Tribe Cultural Preservation Office in Shawnee, Oklahoma. Andrea Ellis-Harrington (executive director) asked me to conduct historical research for the Office. I also worked with Casey Williams (librarian) to acquire Shawnee books for the AST library.​ By far the most ambitious project I worked on was trying to document how the Shawnee landowners lost title to the lands that now make up Lake Thunderbird, an artificial lake constructed during the 1960s. In 2021, I published a magazine article arguing that the federal government cheated Shawnee people out of the value of their lands. That article is available to all in the Fall 2021 issue of Oklahoma Humanities:
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