On December 6, 1811, New York City’s mayor, DeWitt Clinton, stood before the New-York Historical Society (N-YHS) and voiced a prediction: “Before the passing away of the present generation, not a single Iroquois will be seen in this state.” I stumbled on Clinton’s speech while assisting with content research for a history exhibition at N-YHS. The exhibit, Acts of Faith: Religion and the American West, opens by examining how Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) communities drew upon diverse spiritual resources to resist US expansion in the early nineteenth century, a time when settlers tore through their homelands building the Erie Canal. Clinton was one of the canal’s strongest proponents. It felt strange reading his words from the same place where our team was crafting an exhibit narrative to counter his claim.
Acts of Faith invites viewers to explore the relationship between religion and US westward expansion beyond the Protestant-centric belief in Manifest Destiny. This critical reframing challenges white settlers’ assumption that Haudenosaunee and other Indigenous peoples would inevitably vanish, either through assimilation or forced removal. The exhibit highlights how both settler and Native groups tapped into a multiplicity of religious traditions to defend their futures and (re)imagine their communities alongside emerging ideas about the “American West.” Stories of conflict, struggle, and resistance illustrate how religion and race shaped citizenship and belonging; the promise of religious liberty was tested as increasing diversity within US borders sparked violent campaigns for religious and cultural homogeneity.
As visitors move through the exhibit’s opening story, they encounter works by several Haudenosaunee artists, including a colorful skirt made in 1849 by Caroline Gahano Parker Mt. Pleasant (Tonawanda Seneca) and a 1936 painting of the Seneca prophet Handsome Lake by Ernest Smith (Tonawanda Seneca). An installation just outside the gallery features a beaded dress that Akwesasne Mohawk artist Niio Perkins designed in 2022. These examples of Haudenosaunee art prove, even at a glance, that the “Vanishing Indian” myth propagated by Clinton in 1811 (and echoed by many others) was simply false.
Naming and refuting colonial narratives of erasure is undoubtedly crucial work, especially considering N-YHS’s and similar institutions’ entanglements in these colonial histories. But Native-authored materials are not just antidotes to settler myths. What I find most exciting about public humanities work in early American studies, particularly where it intersects with Native American and Indigenous studies, is a deeper engagement with the accounts Native writers and artists give of their own communities’ histories: they have their own stories to tell.
Once the old myths are busted, how do we make room for new stories?
In developing Acts of Faith, grappling with this question took the form of dialogue between the curatorial team and Native scholars, artists, and tribal experts. One such conversation prompted the inclusion of Sanford Plummer’s (Seneca) painting Founders of the League (ca. 1930s), a powerful representation of traditional Haudenosaunee homelands that superimposes the Longhouse (the Confederacy’s central symbol) onto a map of what is now New York State. Plummer orients his visual depiction around Haudenosaunee geographies, chronologies, and relationships rather than US borders, notions of “progress,” or narratives of disappearance. Found near the start of the exhibit, the painting asks visitors to think critically about where they are standing, both geographically and institutionally. It primes them to consider the consequences of how we remember and retell early American histories tied to the very places where we live, work, and learn.
Public humanities work offers a collaboration-based model for the kinds of relationship building that are necessary if early American studies is to engage fully and responsibly with the stories that matter to contemporary Native communities. By aiming beyond myth-busting to also prioritize relationship building, early Americanists—whether working within or outside museum spaces—can better attune themselves to the ways that narrating the past continues to impact Native communities in the present.
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To find out where Acts of Faith is traveling next, you can check the tour schedule here.
Follow this link for a free Acts of Faith curriculum guide for teachers.
Bradley Dubos (he/him) is an Assistant Professor of English and Provost’s Fellow in Native American Literature and Culture at The Ohio State University. Previously, he worked on the curatorial team for the traveling history exhibition Acts of Faith: Religion and the American West at the New-York Historical Society. His current book project studies how Black and Indigenous poets reshaped America’s religious landscapes during the revivals of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Links to Other Facing the Archive from the Present Posts:
The Ethics of Narrating the Past – Sherri V. Cummings
Cultivating Curiosity: Phillis Wheatley in Newport – Michael Monescalchi