Late American Indian activist shines in 'Dawnland,' 'Georgina'
“All of the Conestoga remains were not “returned to their original resting places” in 1979.
The Central Park staff retained the finger bones from an Indian child’s hand and displayed them for the public along with other artifacts uncovered during the excavation.
Georgina Sappier, a Lancaster resident and originally a Passamaquoddy from Maine, said no one should be treated like that. Sappier led an effort that resulted in the ceremonial reburial of the child's hand bones and other bone fragments at the site in 1987.”
“Along Golf Road in Lancaster County Central Park, near the covered bridge to the Kiwanis Park section, a boulder stands atop a high point between the Conestoga River and Mill Creek.
Bolted to the boulder is a bronze plaque, explaining County Park construction workers accidentally uncovered an Indian cemetery in the spring of 1979.
The workers paused while archaeologists excavated the site. They found 12 Conestoga-Susquehannock graves filled with bodies and artifacts dating to the early 18th century. According to the last sentence on the plaque, the remains were “returned to their original resting places.”
Continue reading at LancasterOnline.
Award-winning 'Dawnland' screens May 10
“The culminating event of the Waldo Reads Together program is a showing of the documentary "Dawnland" Wednesday, May 10, at 6 p.m. at Belfast Free Library, 106 High St. There will also be a post-viewing discussion led by WRT facilitators. This program is free and open to the public.”
“The culminating event of the Waldo Reads Together program is a showing of the documentary "Dawnland" Wednesday, May 10, at 6 p.m. at Belfast Free Library, 106 High St. There will also be a post-viewing discussion led by WRT facilitators. This program is free and open to the public.
For most of the 20th century, government agents systematically forced Native American children from their homes and placed them with white families. As recently as the 1970s, one in four Native children nationwide were living in non-Native foster care, adoptive homes or boarding schools. Many children experienced devastating emotional and physical harm by adults who tried to erase their cultural identity.”
Read more at The Republican Journal.
Film ‘Dawnland’ recounts ‘history that isn’t usually taught’
“When someone hears the phrase “truth and reconciliation commission,” South Africa usually comes to mind. But the Emmy-winning 2018 film “Dawnland,” which will be shown for the public next Thursday, March 30, at 6:30 p.m. in the Bromfield School’s Cronin Auditorium, brings the idea much closer to home.”
“When someone hears the phrase “truth and reconciliation commission,” South Africa usually comes to mind. But the Emmy-winning 2018 film “Dawnland,” which will be shown for the public next Thursday, March 30, at 6:30 p.m. in the Bromfield School’s Cronin Auditorium, brings the idea much closer to home.
“Dawnland” tells the story of the first truth and reconciliation commission to be established in the United States. Set up by Maine in 2012, its mission was to gather information on the state welfare agency’s practice of removing Native American children from their parents and placing them in foster care or adoption with white families—a practice that continues to this day. The federal government began to encourage adoption and foster care for Native American children in 1958, as a replacement for the earlier policy of sending the children to boarding schools.”
Continue reading at The Harvard Press.
Teaching Indigenous Peoples' Day with the Documentary Dawnland
“About a year ago, a mesh orange fence showed up in a section of a park my family frequents. A tree near the mesh fencing was adorned with stuffed animals at its base; signs offered the explanation. The mesh fence was there to demarcate sacred land. This end of the park was a burial site of children who once attended an expansive Indian school in this part of Albuquerque. The school sprawled across acres. A street crossing through the area still reflects this past: Indian School Road.”
“About a year ago, a mesh orange fence showed up in a section of a park my family frequents. A tree near the mesh fencing was adorned with stuffed animals at its base; signs offered the explanation. The mesh fence was there to demarcate sacred land. This end of the park was a burial site of children who once attended an expansive Indian school in this part of Albuquerque. The school sprawled across acres. A street crossing through the area still reflects this past: Indian School Road.
The city is involved in an extensive process to determine what will be done on this land; how the city will commemorate the lives lost there, but the more complicated reality for our community and for many others across North America is how to navigate an ugly past in which Native American and First Nations children were forcibly removed from their families to be raised in boarding schools or in white families. In both cases, being forcefully separated from their families, heritage, language, and traditions.”
Continue reading at Video Librarian.
Imagine Studios to present 'Dawnland' on March 30
A screening of Dawnland with a panel Q&A is being hosted on 3/30/2022 by The First Religious Society, Unitarian Universalist Church, Congregation Ahavas Achim, Unity on the River, Theater in the Open, and Imagine Studios as part of the Newburyport Indigenous Peoples’ Day Initiative.
“Did you know that for decades, child welfare authorities were removing Native American children from their homes to “save them from being Indian?” It didn’t happen long ago and far away, but in the state of Maine in the late 20th century. Find out more about it when Imagine Studios presents a free screening of Upstander Project’s documentary “Dawnland” streamed online on Wednesday, March 30, from 7 to 9 p.m.
“This is an opportunity for people to see the film,” said Kristine Malpica, executive director of Imagine Studios. “It’s about the legacy of what happened to the native peoples of Maine. The screening is one piece of a larger collaborative Indigenous Peoples’ Day Initiative to bring cultural awareness through education, arts and music events.’”
Continue reading at Wicked Local.
266 years ago, New England colonists were legally allowed to kill Penobscot people
“Things like this live in the collective consciousness of the community,” Adam Mazo said. “We deserve to know the full truth of our history.”
“Difficult conversations are exactly that — difficult. But, more often than not, they are vital to have, so that all parties involved can learn, atone, heal and grow.
That’s one of the reasons why Maulian Dana, Dawn Neptune Adams and Tim Shay, all members of the Penobscot Nation, decided to collaborate with the filmmakers at the Upstander Project on a short film, “Bounty,” that details one of countless painful chapters in the history of Indigenous people in North America.
“Bounty,” available to watch for free online at bountyfilm.org, shows Dana, Adams and Shay reading aloud to their children the Phips Proclamation of 1755, one of the dozens of government-issued bounty proclamations that directed colonial settlers to hunt, scalp and kill Indigenous people for money.”
Continue reading at Bangor Daily News.
The View From Here: Native history is American history
“In “Bounty,” Dawn Neptune Adams, another co-director, tells about the scientific research that suggests that traumatic events can change DNA, leaving traits that are passed from one generation to the next. The terror of being hunted like an animal could be part of their descendants’ consciousness, whether they know the story or not.”
“When you walk on the Freedom Trail in Boston, the line between the present and the past can get hazy.
Stand on the corner where British soldiers fired on an angry mob, or sit in a pew at the Old North Church, you realize that the Boston Massacre and the midnight ride of Paul Revere are not just stories in books, but also messy events involving real people whose choices still affect our lives today.
One stop on the tour is the Old State House, which the guides will tell you is the oldest public building in Boston and was once the seat of power for the king’s vast New England holdings.”
Continue reading at Central Maine and The Portland Press Herald.
Indigenous film+ online 2021
“Unique in the US, Maine’s Peace and Reconciliation aims to heal the results of damaging policies of foster care of Indian children. Independent Lens”
“MORE ONLINE for NATIVE AMERICAN HERITAGE MONTH
Why not take time to watch Native American film productions and to talk about what you watched with family and friends. This month some major features and numerous outstanding short films—genres include documentary, fiction, and experimental media— mostly streaming for free. Go to the online film festivals or link to PBS, Vision Maker Media, or the National Portrait Gallery. These are varied works, but they frame issues, and accomplishments, and histories in unique ways that reveal the special outlooks and contemporary presence of Native Americans and Alaska Natives and other Indigenous peoples in Canada, Australia, New Zealand/Aotearoa, South Africa, Mexico, Peru and Sapmi in Arctic Europe.”
Continue reading at Indian Country Today.