Preserved on the Mighty Waters: The Indian Mariners Project

History
enthusiasts learn how hundreds of Native men in the northeast region adjusted
to their rapidly changing world after land loss and the American Revolution.
One important and largely unseen shift involved the participation of Indian men
in various forms of maritime labor, from shipbuilding to whaling. Senior
researcher, Dr. Jason Mancini discusses his recent findings about these men –
their “roots” and “routes,” the global social networks they formed, and their
traveling histories based on the objects they collected and stories they told.
His lecture includes whaleship routes mapped on Google Earth as well as details
from his research trip to the Hawaii State Archives where he located two Pequot
and five Shinnecock whalemen in Honolulu in the 1860s. Guests hear about his
magnificent travels to New Zealand to meet with Maori descendants of a New
England Indian whaleman and to Alaska to observe a whale hunt by the Inupait
community of Point Lay. In the Auditorium. Free with Museum admissions, free to
Museum members.