I recently read this book, written by Melissa Otis and published in 2018. Titled Rural Indigenousness: A History of Iroquoian and Algonquian Peoples of the Adirondacks, it takes a deep dive into the evidence that many Indigenous people, mainly Haudenosaunee, or Iroquois, and Abenaki folks, stayed in the Adirondack mountains and areas bordering them through many decades and centuries after "supposedly" they had been driven out. They adapted and persisted in living a life tied to the rhythms of the natural world, deployed creative strategies to survive in a harsh climate and in an environment of ethnic tension, maybe even rising to the level of "whitewashing." Often people had to pass as white to survive in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. I grew up going to the Adirondacks every summer, and we would pass by "trading posts" which sold real leather moccasins, balsam pillows, and other products connected to the Native North American cultures indigenous to this area between Lake Ontario and Lake Champlain, south of the St. Lawrence River. Little did I realize that most of these "trading posts" were actually run by indigenous people who were very selective as to when and how, and to whom, they revealed their ethnicity. Census records showed them shifting back and forth between being identified as "white" and as "Indian" - not out of dishonesty but out of the need for survival. They taught newcomers to the mountains the ways of surviving in this rugged wilderness - how to make and use snowshoes for transportation, how to make baskets from natural materials, how to peel bark on a large scale for use in tanning hides, how to survive by fishing, hunting, gathering, and also by serving as guides for wealthy tourists who wanted an experience of roughing it for weeks at a time in the woods. They were the folks who identified iron deposits that could later be mined, they were the scouts who helped surveyors and railroad developers decide where to lay tracks based on the topography that they knew intimately. They worked as midwives, imparting knowledge and care for birthing babies in the absence of doctors, they worked in lumber camps and mills, both with the lumber directly and as cooks, waitresses and launderers for the camps. They trapped beaver and other wildlife for their furs, as had been the main engine of the economy in this region from the earliest (1630s) French and Dutch settlement to the north and south of the mountains respectively. They piloted rafts and boats on the waterways, shared water routes through the mountains, told stories and fortunes, made and left pots, collected spruce gum for the chewing gum industry and more. In some ways they were very marginalized, but depending on perspective, they were the true Adirondackers, as Otis lays out for us. The Adirondack guide boat was probably designed by some of these people, as was the Adirondack pack basket, based on an Abenaki design. They maintained ties with their reserve/ reservation communities, but also often intermarried with non-Native people, sharing their cultures with others. Many Adirondack "mountain men" and "hermits" (who were the subject of folklore that even I remember) learned about how to live here from Mohawk, Abenaki, and other Indigenous people. Otis spells out for us how false is the narrative of the "vanishing Indian," since they did persist in this region, and have developed cultural centers to help us learn. You can visit the Shako:wi Cultural Center, the Iroquois Museum, the Six Nations Iroquois Cultural Center, and Fort de la Présentation, among other places that will give you a window into the cultural heritage of this part of northeastern New York State. Native people have always been here, gave names to the places here, and are ready to teach us, something possibly new about the history of this very beautiful and rugged land. Otis gives a window into this learning opportunity.
Note: Melissa Otis writes in her introduction about the problems of names and labels for this topic, these peoples, indicating how complex the history is. I have simplified naming here for the sake of readability, and defer to her explanation of how complicated names are. I recommend reading her book, especially if you have been to this beautiful place!
