2024 NCAIS Graduate Student Conference

Newberry Library, Chicago, Illinois

A paper I proposed titled: ”Of A Somewhat Onerous and Exceptional Character” Guest, Visitor, and Ally in Historical and Modern Treaty Discourses was accepted to present at the 2024 Newberry Consortium in American Indian Studies (NCAIS) Graduate Student Conference. A program can be found here. The paper sought to connect several addresses delivered to Lord Dufferin during his 1877 visit to Manitoba to an examination of the historiography of the numbered treaties and argues that modern land acknowledgement practices are not novel but have existed in various forms over the span of Canadian history.

I was again struck to see the overlaps in research happening within the field of Indigenous Studies that carries commonality across the 49th parallel. Hear a presentation, for example, about the collecting of oral histories from students at the Fort Peck Indian Boarding School in Montana carried many echoes about several prominent survivor accounts from Canadian Residential Schools that have become notable in recent years.

As part of the conference weekend, the Newberry Staff pulls a selection of documents from the collection to be viewed by graduate students. The de Fer map (pictured below) is a fascinating representation of European efforts to map North America. The map had a fascinating history, along the lines of a publication date of 1718, after it was assembled from accounts of Jesuit missionaries. I found this to be an incredibly fascinating piece when thinking about contemporary events in the region that became Canada, such as the founding of Quebec City (1608), Hudson’s voyages (1607-1611), the Great Peace of Montreal (1701) and La Verendrye’s expeditions (1730s-1740s). I found it doubly compelling that the de Fer map predates works by both David Thompson and Samuel Hearne. The de Fer map is available at the Newberry Collection here, and there is a high quality digital scan here.

We also saw other documents from the Newberry’s collection, including late 18th century discussions of Treaty with the American government, and examples of Indigenous art (there is something significant about the type of paper this art was created on. Do you remember what it is? Please let me know!).

ALWAYS MAKE SURE YOUR COMPUTER WILL PLAY NICELY WITH THE HOUSE SYSTEM, AND HAVE A BACKUP PLAN FOR WHEN IT DOESN’T.