Post 1: Introduction

Hi, I’m Autumn. I’m a freshman from Rochester in upstate New York who is planning on majoring in either history or music (or maybe both). Most of my interests and hobbies are tied to music or history: I play several instruments, the main ones being the viola and bass guitar, and I spend a lot of time researching weird historical events and similar stuff. Outside of those, I like to play a lot of computer games with my friends (or by myself), and I have a fondness for paranormal lore.

I spent a lot of my childhood near the western Finger Lakes in New York, meaning I’ve spent a lot of time near places with French versions of Native American names (such as Canandaigua, Ganondagan, and Skenoh, all Seneca names). Despite this, I learned almost nothing about the local indigenous tribes in school, and only know of the Seneca and Haudenosaunee from my own research. I took this class hoping to learn more about not just the cultures of the indigenous people themselves, but also why their histories are seldom taught alongside their European equivalents.

As far as the very limited education I received on Native Americans goes, all I was really taught about in school were the roles of Indigenous people in the development of the United States, and only then as an occasional side note. I know basically nothing about what was going on in North America before the 15th century, other than what I’ve found from my own research separate from my history classes.