ISR Insights Speaker Series:
"Native Americans of the Upper Great Lakes: Sociological and Historical Perspectives on Land and Schooling Among the Anishinaabek"
Thursday, April 7, noon ET via Zoom

Presenters:
-Arland Thornton, Department of Sociology, Institute for Social Research, and Native American Studies, the University of Michigan
-Eric Hemenway, Anishanaabe/Odawa. Director of Archives and Records, Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians, Harbor Springs, Michigan.
-Linda Young-DeMarco, Survey Research Center, Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan
-Alphonse Pitawanakwat, Odawa member of Wiikemkoong First Nation Unceded Territory, Ontario, Canada. Lecturer in American Culture and Native American Studies at the University of Michigan.
-Lindsey Willow Smith, Citizen of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, University of Michigan Class of 2022, History and Museum Studies B.A.

Abstract:
In this presentation a team of researchers from the University of Michigan and the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians Archive and Records Department discuss the land and schooling of the Anishinaabek—the Three Fires of the Odawa, Ojibwe, and Potawatomi. Of particular focus is the spread of Euro-American schooling among the Anishinaabek from the early 1800s through 1950. We trace the establishment of schools in the early 1800s and the growth of literacy and school attainment from the 1850s through 1940. In addition to considering schooling levels and trends of the Anishinaabek at the national level, we examine state differences, and focus on one particular group, the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians, who today live in Waganakising—the Land of the Crooked Tree—located in the northwest portion of the lower peninsula of Michigan.