Land of the Great Rivers – From Paxsayek to Noyack: From Reciprocity to Extraction to Recognition
This multidisciplinary panel will present the narrative of land and people across the extraordinarily rich waterways stretching from Lenapehoking in New Jersey to the eastern shores of Menungeteksuk, home to many nations, including Mohegan, Nihantic, Pequot, Montauket, Shinnecock, and their neighbors. Native systems of reciprocity among people and land were replaced by extreme exploitation under global colonialism. From the long and rich unwritten past of Turtle Island, through colonization and enslavement, through co-resistance and co-survival of Indigenous, African, and Afro-Indigenous communities, into exploitation and removal under assimilation and industrialization, the legacy of Our Mother and the People survives, informing our present and educating our future.
Panelists:
James Amemasor, PhD is the Research Specialist at the New Jersey Historical Society. He is also a Political Science lecturer at Rutgers University-Newark. James previously served as education officer at Cape Coast Castle slave-dungeons (a UNESCO World Heritage site in Ghana), a key site to understanding the Trans-Atlantic trade in Africans. His research interests include the discovery and documentation of unknown and overlooked archival materials referencing experiences of New Jerseyans of African descent, dating back to the 1600s.
Nohham Cachat-Schilling (Kanien’keha:ka/Nashaue, two-spirit), is Medicine Elder for Bridge in the Sky Medicine Circle, Advisor for Oso:ah Foundation, Chair of Massachusetts Ethical Archaeology Society, and author (Our Hidden Landscapes, 2023, Indigenous Cultural and Environmental Heritage, in production 2025).
Kerry Hardy is a historical ecologist, and has served since 2017 as the lead researcher, analyst, and cartographer for the Public History Project. His work draws from many disciplines--ecology, linguistics, archaeology, indigenous histories, natural resources, and colonial trade, technics, and politics. He is the author of Notes On A Lost Flute: A Field Guide to the Wabanaki, and is currently at work on a forthcoming book, Gaynefull Pilladge: A Public History.
Jack (John Kuo Wei) Tchen is a historian, curator, organizer, and "dumpster diver." He is currently the Clement A. Price Professor of Public History and Humanities and Director of the Price Institute, Rutgers-Newark.
Teresa Vega, with almost two decades dedicated to family history and genealogy, merged traditional and genetic genealogy research in 2010. Her efforts traced maternal mixed-race lines to Colonial New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Virginia. She found direct ancestral ties to early First Africans, Afro-Dutch, and Malagasy arrivals, as well as the Munsee (Ramapough) Lenape.
