Starla Thompson dancing in a jingle dress at the shore of Lake Michigan, from the land acknowledgment video that opens Chicago Blackhawks home games.
What is the legacy of early contacts between the First Nations and colonial settlers in the region that became Chicago?
The small settlement that would become Chicago was an important point of contact between the First Nations and colonial settlers. This research team will investigate how the groups influenced each other from first contact in the seventeenth century to the present. The research will contribute to a series of academic and public events and culminate with the publication of an edited volume.
This project takes Chicago as a pivotal point of contact between Natives and settlers and their literal and figurative descendants. Broadly, the guiding question for the research is how each influenced the other: the influence of the First Nations on the small settlement that became Chicago and the influence of the great city of Chicago on the image and status of the First Nations. The research will cover the interactions of the First Nations and Europeans at the points of first contact in the seventeenth to nineteenth century; the status and organization of Indigenous communities in Chicago today; the representation of Native Americans in the written history, imagery, culture, and public life of Chicago; and the impact Chicago and Chicagoans have had on the public status of Indigenous peoples. The research will culminate in a conference at the Neubauer Collegium and the production of an edited volume. The research will also feed into a public component of exhibitions and public presentations to make the First Nations visible in Chicago. The public activities will be the subject of a second proposal.
Charles L. Hutchinson Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science
University of Chicago
Curator, Writer, Cultural Consultant
Indigenous Curator and Scholar
Independent
