Negotiating Schooling and Literacies in the Great Lakes and St Lawrence River Regions, 1600-1900
The early history of schooling in Great Lakes Indigenous communities is poorly understood. Though there are rich studies of specific schools, teachers, and communities, little research has been conducted from a regional perspective, considering schooling within the context of similar developments within the burgeoning settler colonial jurisdictions of Quebec, Ontario, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan.
Our research partnership is between individuals, organizations and institutions who are interested in probing the contentious development of schools and deployment of reading, writing and print within the region. In addition to addressing histories of specific schools, we envision that this partnership will include people interested in how primers, prayer books, dictionaries and other written materials reflect the complex role that language and writing played within these educational settings. We are especially interested in how Indigenous teachers and learners used and adapted these items, and also in how they did not. The partnership will foster a connection between GRASAC’s focus on material and artistic practices and the underlying context of contests over formal schooling and religious education.
We held our first gathering at Huron University College in August 2017, titled “Negotiating Schooling and Literacies in the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River, 1600-1900,” with a goal to build community among people working on the history of education and literacies. We are now working on planning our next gathering and imagining the scope of the project in the future.
Team Members:
Project Leads:
- Alison Norman (Trent University)
- Thomas Peace (Huron University College)
Team Members:
- Alan Corbiere (M’Chigeeng Lakeview School & York University)
- Alyssa Mt. Pleasant (University of Buffalo)
- Brittany Luby (University of Guelph)
- Felicity Jensz (University of Munster)
- Kathyrn Labelle (University of Saskatchewan)
- Keith Jamieson (Six Nations of the Grand River)
- Susan Glover (Laurentian University)
Note: Source for thumbnail image: Detail from the frontispiece of A Primer for the Use of the Mohawk Children… / Waerighwaghsawe Iksaongoenwa…. (London, England: Printed by C. Buckton, 1786). Engraving by James Peachey.