The central part of New York State, the homeland of the Oneida Haudenosaunee people, helped shape American history. This book tells the story of the land and the people who made their homes there from its earliest habitation to the present day. It examines this region's impact on the making of America, from its strategic importance in the Revolution and Early Republic to its symbolic significance now to a nation grappling with challenges rooted deep in its history. The book shows that in central New York—perhaps more than in any other region in the United States—the past has never remained neatly in the past. Land of the Oneidas is the first book in eighty years that tells the history of this region as it changed from century to century and into our own time.

Reconstructs the history of a Native American tribe over eight turbulent decades of domination and dislocation

Combining compelling narrative and grand historical sweep, Forgotten Allies offers a vivid account of the Oneida Indians, forgotten heroes of the American Revolution who risked their homeland, their culture, and their lives to join in a war that gave birth to a new nation at the expense of their own. Revealing for the first time the full sacrifice of the Oneidas in securing independence, Forgotten Allies offers poignant insights about Oneida culture and how it changed and adjusted in the wake of nearly two centuries of contact with European-American colonists. It depicts the resolve of an Indian nation that fought alongside the revolutionaries as their valuable allies, only to be erased from America's collective historical memory. Beautifully written, Forgotten Allies recaptures these lost memories and makes certain that the Oneidas' incredible story is finally told in its entirety, thereby deepening and enriching our understanding of the American experience.

Includes two versions of the Oneida creation story in the Oneida language with parallel English translation, Oneida to English lexicons, and two early versions of the creation story in English.

This unique collaboration by academic historians, Oneida elders, and Episcopal clergy tells the fascinating story of how the oldest Protestant mission and house of worship in the upper Midwest took root in the Oneida community. Personal bonds that developed between the Episcopal clergy and the Wisconsin Oneidas proved more important than theology in allowing the community to accept the Christian message brought by outsiders. Episcopal bishops and missionaries in Wisconsin were at times defenders of the Oneidas against outside whites attempting to get at their lands and resources. At other times, these clergy initiated projects that the Oneidas saw as beneficial—a school, a hospital, or a lace-making program for Oneida women that provided a source of income and national recognition for their artistry. The clergy incorporated the Episcopal faith into an Iroquoian cultural and religious framework—the Condolence Council ritual—that had a longstanding history among the Six Nations. In turn, the Oneidas modified the very form of the Episcopal faith by using their own language in the Gloria in Excelsis and the Te Deum as well as by employing Oneida in their singing of Christian hymns. Christianity continues to have real meaning for many American Indians. The Wisconsin Oneidas and the Episcopal Church testifies to the power and legacy of that relationship.

Part of the Iroquois Confederacy, the Oneida Indians once controlled large areas of what is now upstate New York. Over the years they have lost their vast holdings to the state of New York, despite their protests concerning what they felt to be unjust seizures and sales of tribal lands. The Oneida Land Claims offers a forceful account of the long and ardent fight by George Shattuck, a partner in the law firm representing the Oneida Indian Nation from 1965 to 1977, to get the Oneidas their day in court. He describes his specific, legal strategy in winning a landmark judgment from the U.S. Supreme Court in 1974 that the Oneidas still owned land taken illegally by New York State in 1795. Because negotiations are still taking place, the Oneidas have yet to receive compensation; but Shattuck's legal battle has helped to create a new body of American Indian law that has affected subsequent Native American land claims cases throughout the eastern United States.

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of William Cooper's Town comes a dramatic and illuminating portrait of white and Native American relations in the aftermath of the American Revolution. The Divided Ground tells the story of two friends, a Mohawk Indian and the son of a colonial clergyman, whose relationship helped redefine North America. As one served American expansion by promoting Indian dispossession and religious conversion, and the other struggled to defend and strengthen Indian territories, the two friends became bitter enemies. Their battle over control of the Indian borderland, that divided ground between the British Empire and the nascent United States, would come to define nationhood in North America. Taylor tells a fascinating story of the far-reaching effects of the American Revolution and the struggle of American Indians to preserve a land of their own.