USM Professor’s Book Examines Iroquois’ Impact on American and New York History, Culture, Politics
Tue, 05/09/2023 - 03:24pm | By: David Tisdale
A new book by a faculty member in The University of Southern Mississippi (USM) School
of Humanities challenges popular notions about the history of Indigenous people in
the U.S. in looking at how one group in New York state resisted, through their cultural
and political influence, colonial intent to erase their culture and history.
Dr. John Winters’ The Amazing Iroquois” and the Invention of the Empire State (Oxford University Press, 2023) examines the strong connections between the Haudenosaunee native peoples- more commonly
known as the Iroquois - and New York’s modern, democratic culture.
From the Iroquois confederacy serving as a model for the U.S. Constitution, connections
between the matrilineal Iroquois and the women’s suffrage movement, to the living
legacy of the famous "Sky Walkers" - the steelworkers who built the Empire State Building
and the George Washington Bridge - the Iroquois established an image of being essential
in the shaping a unique and forward-looking history and image of the state.
“Because the periodization extends from the American Revolution to the Cold War, this
book encourages readers to break away from that ill-conceived, yet stubborn belief,
that the only era in which eastern indigenous peoples had any impact on American history
was before Indian Removal in the 1830s,” Dr. Winters said.
The Amazing Iroquois does not “simply foreground indigenous historical figures or their resistance to settler
colonialism” Dr. Winters further noted, “but also shows how the members of this Seneca
family were historical agents who shaped aspects of white colonial culture in their
own peoples’ image and on their own terms.”
Dr. Winters’ book project began as a history of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) empire
in the 18th century, but his initial research led him to conclude that what he originally sought
to examine had already been accomplished in Francis Jennings’ classic work The Ambiguous Iroquois Empire.
However, his work proved not for naught. Upon further review, he found exits on his
research path to places in the Iroquois story worthy of his exploration.
“I repeatedly encountered Seneca researchers from the past who had asked similar questions of Haudenosaunee history: Arthur Parker, Harriet Converse (a Seneca adoptee), and Ely Parker,” Dr. Winters explained. “Curiosity drove me to pursue their stories, and without knowing it at first, they became the basis for this book. In pursuing their histories, I then realized that their story extends even further into the American founding era through the family's patriarch, Red Jacket, who was perhaps even more important to this story than the generations that followed.
“Once these pieces fell in place, I realized I had stumbled onto a story that was nothing like the indigenous histories I was used to reading: a 150-year story of a Seneca family who influenced New Yorkers through everything from diplomacy to pioneering museum exhibitions and who intentionally left a legacy that defied the myth of the ‘vanishing Indian,’" he said. “I was hooked.”
Dr. Winters is a public historian who joined the USM faculty in 2022 and is director of the University’s Graduate Certificate in Public History program; his areas of expertise include Public History, Native American History, American History, Memory Studies, and Museum Studies. An ITPS Research Associate in New York History at the Institute for Thomas Paine Studies at Iona College, he has also worked in historic homes, museums, and other institutions. Learn more about Dr. Winters’ work at USM's website.