Compact Histories of 48 First Nations

February 15, 2007 12:12 PM

First Nations Histories is a site with compact histories of 48 first nations, from the Abenaki to the Winnebago, written by Lee Sultzman. They are primarily focused on nations in the Northeast, Midwest, with a smattering in the Plains and the Southeast. It also hosts two articles that aren't part of the project, Manifest Destiny and Western Canada and The Coree are Not Extinct.
posted by Kattullus (10 comments total)

I don't have much to say yet except that a lot of links on the first page go to (the tragically SFW) dickshovel.com.
posted by wemayfreeze at 12:22 PM on February 15, 2007

Also: good links. Thanks!
posted by wemayfreeze at 2:03 PM on February 15, 2007

This is good, thanks Kattullus.
posted by zarah at 2:57 PM on February 15, 2007

Second that. Thanks Kattullus.
posted by MetalDog at 3:01 PM on February 15, 2007

Great stuff. This is an odd and somehow saddening note:

All visitors here should also note that the author of the Histories, Lee Sultzman, has not communciated with me for years. Accordingly, I can only assume that the Histories you see at this site are the only Histories you will ever see at this site. Bottom line? Expect no more.

Thanks for the post!
posted by languagehat at 4:02 PM on February 15, 2007

Really interesting post. thanks.
posted by serazin at 4:19 PM on February 15, 2007

I put Lee Sultzman's name in the post in the hope that either someone who knows him stumbles onto it and alerts him to the fact that there's still interest in the project or he googles himself and finds this.

In related news: "The Mashpee Wampanoag tribe finally received federal government recognition as a sovereign American Indian nation Thursday after 32 years of legal wrangling." In the interest of full disclosure, one of the people I work with in my real life identity as a seeing eye human is the sachem of the Chappaquiddick Wampanoag (a different entity from the Mashpee within the larger Wampanoag nation). Here's the compact history of the Wampanoag.

Oh, and the dickshovel.com domain name is explained here (somewhat).
posted by Kattullus at 5:27 PM on February 15, 2007

More on the Wampanoag and their language (including more than you ever wanted to know about how to pronounce the name) here [self-link].
posted by languagehat at 5:40 PM on February 15, 2007

The sachem I work with, she says WAMPanog. I wonder when the four syllable pronunciation arose. I suspect it happened when British people saw the word without ever having heard it spoken. The links in your blogpost are very interesting, I'll have to remember to show them to her tomorrow.
posted by Kattullus at 6:23 PM on February 15, 2007

Of course there's a heritage minute relating to the Manifest Destiny and Western Canada link here.
posted by Space Coyote at 9:14 PM on February 15, 2007