Research Guide to Indigenous History in the Longfellow Archives

Indigenous people and cultures have shaped every chapter of the history of Longfellow House-Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site. Built on the traditional and ancestral lands of the Massachusett, the Longfellow House has long been a place of Indigenous diplomacy from the era of George Washington’s residency to the visits of Indigenous performers and activists in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. While Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poetry promulgated harmful stereotypes about Indigenous people, Native actors and Indigenous communities reclaimed this work through pageants and performances, using these opportunities to maintain and strengthen their traditions.

This research guide offers detailed lists of the site’s archival and special collection holdings that are connected to Indigenous history, as well as complementary resources from the National Park Service and beyond. These lists are extensive but not necessarily complete. There is always more to be learned about the collections.

To schedule an appointment to view these items in person, please visit the guide to research at Longfellow House-Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site.

Note:

This research guide includes preliminary identifications of objects related to individuals and tribal histories. It is not yet a comprehensive inventory of the collections and has not undergone formal consultation or review by associated tribes or Indigenous scholars.

Organization of This Guide

Longfellow House-Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site has substantial manuscript and photograph collections that reflect American history through the eyes of multiple generations of prominent Northeastern white families, primarily the Longfellows, Appletons, Danas, and Wadsworths. Indigenous culture is represented largely through the reach of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s epic poem The Song of Hiawatha and its varied cultural life; however, the site’s collections reflect Indigenous life across the United States and Canada.

Moving roughly chronologically, this guide begins with short sections on pre-contact archeology and the history of the house during George Washington’s residency in 1775-6. The subsequent sections focus on the two largest groups of objects in the collection. First are items relating to the cultural influence of Hiawatha and especially the Hiawatha pageants, performances of the poem played by Native and non-Native actors. Second are collections referring to the Longfellow family’s involvement with white-led Native philanthropic and educational organizations, including the Massachusetts Indian Association, the Indian Rights Association, and the Hampton Institute in Virginia.

The remainder of the guide is organized around the Native nations who created or are the subject of the items in the collections. There remain some items that have not yet been associated with an Indigenous community—those are organized by object type.

Related resources and articles from other NPS parks and programs, other institutions with closely related collections, and a thematic bibliography of secondary sources are included at the end of the guide.

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Pre-contact Archeology

Archeological digs have been carried out at the Longfellow House -Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site several times over the last fifty years, uncovering signs of Indigenous presence at the site dating from at least the Late Archaic Period. In addition to the artifacts mentioned below, two “hearths” (features that demonstrate purposeful fires) have been found, one from 4500 BP and another from 1690 BP. Research is ongoing to interpret the archeological materials from the site.

• Slate fishtail projectile point
  LONG 24267
  • Archeological analysis associates this item with the end of the “Archaic” period, roughly 3000-2500 BP.
• Copper arrowhead
  LONG 29226
  • This is a Massachusett-made copper arrowhead that dates from between 1600 and 1625. It was likely fashioned from a copper kettle, a common trade good between European and Native people in the early 17th century.
  • For more information on a comparable arrowhead found on Boston Common, see the entry "7. Arrowhead" in Joseph M. Bagley, A History of Boston in 50 Artifacts (University Press of New England, 2016), pp. 28-30.
• Argillite preform projectile point
  LONG 24056
• Chipped stone flake of argillite
  LONG 28116

Washington’s Headquarters

George Washington lived in the Vassall House from July 1775 to March 1776, overseeing the fledgling Continental Army during the Siege of Boston. In his role as a military leader Washington received several visits during this time from Native representatives of the Caughnawaga Mohawk, Oneida, Maliseet, and Passamaquody nations, among others. There were also Indigenous soldiers in the Continental Army, as well as a company of Native men from Stockbridge, Massachusetts.

Although there are very few artifacts or manuscripts in the Longfellow House collections detailing the history of the site during this time, other writing from the period, including letters and official reports, testify to the repeated presence of Native diplomats at the house. For more information, see the chapter on “Diplomacy and Invasion” in J.L. Bell’s Historic Resource Study, George Washington’s Headquarters and Home.

The Song of Hiawatha and Its Legacy

The following sections include materials relating to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem The Song of Hiawatha. First published in 1855, The Song of Hiawatha describes the adventures of a fictional Ojibwe hero, Hiawatha, including his courtship of a Dakota woman, Minnehaha, his invention of written language, and his final disappearance to the west in the face of white settlement. Longfellow appropriated these stories from their Anishinaabe origins without consent or care; he drew largely on Henry Rowe Schoolcraft’s ethnological writings as his source, although he was also influenced by his acquaintance with Ojibwe missionary and writer George Copway (Kah-ge-ga-gah-bowh). While the poem initially appeared to mixed reviews (largely due to its unusual meter, trochaic tetrameter), it sold extremely well. Almost as soon as the poem appeared it began to be adapted into other mediums, including music, paintings, sculptures, and theatrical performances.

The site’s collections include many items that testify to the reach and influence of The Song of Hiawatha in popular culture.

Garden River Pageant and the Longfellow Trip

In August 1900, Alice Mary Longfellow, Anne Allegra Longfellow Thorp, her husband Joseph Thorp Jr., H.W.L. Dana, Richard H. Dana IV, and several friends attended a performance of The Song of Hiawatha put on by members of the Garden River First Nation. Although public readings of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s work had occurred since its original publication, this event began a tradition of more elaborately staged, Native-acted pageants based on The Song of Hiawatha that continued in the US and Canada for the next thirty years.

The site’s collections include photographs, journals, and even poems recounting the events of this trip from the perspective of the Longfellow family. Crucially, the collection also contains Indigenous-made items that were given to the family, including an invitation to the performance and a series of certificates giving members of the family Anishinaabemowin names.

Museum Collection (LONG 6132) / NPS Photo / James P. Jones

• Birchbark invitation signed by George Kabaoosa with portrait of Kabaoosa by Francis West
  LONG 6132
  • This is a large, roughly hewn piece of birchbark inscribed with twenty-four lines in Anishinaabemowin, the language of the Anishinaabe people of the Great Lakes. In the upper right corner is a portrait, underneath which is written “Francis West, 1900” and, below that, “Kaboosa, Objibway”. The frame is made of bark and is ornamented with a twig on the top and the bottom. According to the translation that has been circulated since 1902, the object is an invitation to a performance of Hiawatha that was given in Desbarats, Ontario, in the summer of 1900.
  • It is likely that the invitation was given to the family in March 1900, when a group of Ojibwe men from Garden River, Ontario, including George Kabaoosa, came to Boston to perform at the Sportsman’s Show. The circumstances of the creation of the object are less clear, including when and how it was made. More research is being done on this question.
  • George Kabaoosa was from the Garden River First Nation in Western Ontario and would play a key role in the Hiawatha pageants.
    (For more information about Kabaoosa, see “Correspondence to Alice Longfellow from George Kabaoosa, 1900-1901” and the photograph albums from the trip.)
  • According to a September 29, 1900 article in the Minneapolis Journal, Francis West was a “Boston artist”. It is unclear how he became involved in the Armstrong’s project with Garden River. Research on him and his career is in progress.
  • Transcription of the lines in Anishnaabemowin:
    • Mah-maun-dah-gosgua dooz / Ah sohgoaum naun Kozewah. Ewh / omegume me-go win Kahiuc kah-duh / ne bo mah gus enon ewh me nik / ga-nuh moon kahween dush we / Kah duh ne boo mah gus-senoon / Ke dah-enaud-daum-nuh Kauga / Ke-we-de-ga-mah gaun-ne wang / Kahy Kedah-nis-e-waug che be / waub-aum me y[?]ng che be ah / yah yaig emah ne we gwou we / ge wauna me naung [?]ah ozhe / to yo[?]ng emah Heawath omin is / e-ming oday ke me waung / egwuh ossibuaig che be dah / zu waub-bum me zaung. / Che ah gwe to gah-ba she / zuamg ge-kaha shewaua / kose nah nig emah and duh / nah ke yaung. / Kabaoosa / Wabanoosa / Boston / Onahbaunegises / DESBRATS / ONT.
  • Translation given by Alice Longfellow in her account of the trip to Desbarats in Thomas Wentworth Higginson’s 1902 biography of Longfellow:
    • Ladies: We loved your father. The memory of our people will never die as long as your father’s song lives, and that will live forever.
      Will you and your husbands and Miss Longfellow come and see us and stay in our royal wigwams on an island in Hiawatha’s playground, in the land of the Ojibways? We want you to see us live over again the life of Hiawatha in his own country.
      Kabaoosa
      Wabunosa
      Boston, Onahbaunegises
      The month of crusts on the snow
    • Consultation with Ojibwe language keepers is ongoing to improve this translation.
• Letter from Alice Mary Longfellow to Edith Longfellow Dana, August 10, 1900
  Alice Mary Longfellow Papers, Correspondence, Outgoing, LONG 16173
  • Alice Longfellow discusses travel plans to Desbarats, Ontario, to attend the inaugural Hiawatha Pageant.

Alice Longfellow's certificate gives her the name "Odahnewasenoque."

Museum Collection (LONG 7563) / NPS Photo / James Jones

• Birchbark certificates with adoptive names for Alice Mary Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Dana, and Anne and Joseph Thorp
  LONG 7563, LONG 7564, and LONG 27610
  • During their trip to Desbarats, four members of the Longfellow family were presented with birchbark certificates giving them “adoptive names.” These certificates are small piece of birchbark inscribed with writing in Anishinaabemowin and framed with what is believed to be sweetgrass. Attached to each certificate is a leather medallion with a bird on it.
  • According to conservator Oa Sjoblom, these are all examples of winter-harvested bark, known to be darker and less flexible than bark collected in the summer. Alice’s (LONG 7563) and the Thorps’ (LONG 27610) certificates have the writing on the exterior, while Harry’s (LONG 7564) is on the inside. This accounts for why the birchbark of Harry’s certificate is more brittle and reddish. Sjoblom’s identification is based on conversations with Pottawatomi/Ottawa/Ojibwe artist and culture keeper Kelly Church. For more, see Oa Sjoblom and Marieka Kaye, “Materiality and Conservation of Simon Pokagon’s Birch Bark Books” in As Sacred to Us: Simon Pokagon’s Birch Bark Stories in Their Contexts, ed. Blaire Morseau (Michigan State University Press, 2023), pp. 123-127.
  • See “Notes from Anne Allegra Longfellow Thorp” below for an apparent transcription from one part of the ceremony.
  • A short article about the certificates is available at the Longfellow House-Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site website.
  • Transcriptions from each of the three certificates:
    • For Alice Longfellow: “Me-omah de-bah je mind owh / Alice Mary Longfellow kagat ke-odah / emah Ojibwa-we win-ning che Ojibwa-wid me-nik / Ka-be-mah-de zid Kahya Ke me nind Ezhe-ne Hah-zood. / Odahnewasenoque / che ezhe we nind che ah-ne-ah-yah-ne Ke-be-mah de-zing / Ke-me-ne-good. Newh. Oge-ehe-dawn / Dahg-wahgahna Kabaoosa. / mah OjibuUh Keeg / Qe-che-men Ke-ziss” (LONG 7563)
    • For Anne & Joseph Thorp: “Me-omah de bah je mind owh / Annie Longfellow Thorp + J.G. Thorp kagat ke-odah / emah Ojibwa-we win-ning che Ojibwa-wid me-nik Ka-be-mah / zid Kahya Ke me nind Ezhe-ne-Kah-zood. / Ogahgushquadayaquay + / Dahg-wahg-aunna / che ezhe we nind che ah-ne-ah-yah-ne Ke-be-mah de- ing. Ke-me-ne-good / Enewh. Oge-ehe-dawn. / Dahg-wahgahna. Kabaoosa. X / Emah Ojibwa UhKeeg / ge-che-men-Ke-ziss” (LONG 27610)
    • For H.W.L. Dana: “Me-omah de bah Je mind owh / Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Dana kagat ke-odah / be nind emah Ojibwa-we win-ning che Ojibwa-wid / me-nik Ka-be-mah-de zid Kah ya Ke me nind Ezhe-ne -Kah-zood. / Sah ga chewaosa / che ezhe we nind che ah-ne-ah-yah-ne Ke-be-mah de-zing: / Ke-me-ne-good. / Enewh. Oge-che-dah-quan / Ba-she-ge-zhig-ga-dua. X / ge-che men [??] / Emah Ojibwa UhKeeng” (LONG 7564)
      • While the other two are signed “Dahg-wahgahna Kabaoosa”, this one refers to a “Ba-she-ge-zhig-ga-dua”.
    • Consultation with Ojibwe language keepers is ongoing to create translations for these items.
• Document relating to adopted names
  H.W. Longfellow Family Papers, Joseph Gilbert Thorp, Personal Materials, LONG 27930
  • A sheet of paper with the names of the Longfellow family members who went to Desbarats and the Anishinaabemowin names that they were given. Names are listed for Anne Allegra Longfellow Thorp, Joseph G. Thorp Jr., Alice Mary Longfellow, H.W.L. Dana, Richard Dana [IV], and Theodore Eastman.
  • Research is ongoing into Theodore Eastman. A photo of him appears in Joseph Thorp’s Hiawatha reenactment album (3007/002.001-029).
  • This was originally found inside the front cover of Album 3007/002.001-027, one of the collections of photographs from the trip.
  • This document is available on the Longfellow House-Washington Headquarters’ Digital Archive on NPGallery.
• Document relating to adopted names
  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Dana Papers, Series VIII. Research; Section D. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; Sub-section 2. Poems and Prose: Hiawatha, LONG 17314
  • A small sheet of paper with three words written in Anishinaabemowin and translations into English.
  • These are the “adopted names” for Richard H. Dana IV, Alice Mary Longfellow, and Anne Allegra Longfellow Thorp.
• Birchbark scroll with photograph inscribed to “Osahgushkodawaqua” (Anne Allegra Longfellow Thorp)
  LONG 36616
  • A piece of birchbark with three twigs attached by green thread framing a photo of several men on a boat. There are two pine cones: one is attached to the one of the sticks and the other has fallen off.
  • It is unclear who took the photo or what it represents, although it resembles images attributed to Joseph G. Thorp Jr. (see album 3007/002.001-028).
  • The name Osahgushkodawaqua (similar but not exactly the same as Anne Allegra Longfellow Thorp’s name on the certificate, LONG 27610) is written on the birchbark.
  • According to conservator Oa Sjoblom, this is summer-harvested birchbark, with writing on the exterior. It is a thinner preparation of the bark. Sjoblom’s observations are based on conversations with Pottawatomi/Ottawa/Ojibwe artist and culture keeper Kelly Church.
• Painting on birchbark by Francis West: “Shore scene, Land of Hiawatha.”
  LONG 36615
  • Birch-bark painting showing a tree next to a body of water with a shore in the distance using shades of brown and white.
  • According to a September 29, 1900 article in the Minneapolis Journal, Francis West was a “Boston artist”. It is unclear how he became involved in the Armstrong’s project with Garden River. Research on him and his career is in progress.
• Joseph G. Thorp Jr. photograph albums of the Desbarats Hiawatha Pageant, 1900
  Longfellow Family Photograph Collection (3007.002/001-027, 3007.002/001-028, 3007.002/001-029)
  • There are three albums of photographs taken at the Desbarats Hiawatha pageant by Joseph G. Thorp Jr., the husband of Anne Allegra Longfellow Thorp. There are generally two photographs on each page of these albums, and the figures are named in an unidentified hand. For the most part, the photographs appear casual and unprofessional.
  • Albums 3007.002/001-027 and 3007.002/001-028: No overarching organization, although it begins with some images seemingly taken from a train on their way to Desbarats. There are photos of landscapes, the actors and their homes, the stage, and the rehearsal process. The two albums are largely identical, with only minor discrepancies in a handful of captions. Album 28 is available on the Longfellow House-Washington Headquarters’ Digital Archive on NPGallery.
  • Album 3007.002/001-029: “Before the Play” featuring snapshots of the actors getting ready and “The Play” featuring snapshots from the pageant itself. Album 29 is available on the Longfellow House-Washington Headquarters’ Digital Archive on NPGallery.
  • People mentioned in the albums: Tom Obtosuay, Mrs. Obtosuay, Edward Obtosuay (child), Maria Obtosuay, William Kabaoosa (also an “Old William”), George Kabaoosa, Albert Clark (also a Mr. Clark), Sagajewayensee, Miss Sagajeay[illeg], Dot Kabaoosa, Tom Kabaoosa (child), Francis West (also a Mr. West), Wahbemama, Langdon Warner, Ted Eastman, Miss Barroughs, Father Frost.
• Photograph Album of the Desbarats Hiawatha Pageant, 1900
  Alice M. Longfellow Papers, Photographs (1007.002/001-004)
  • This album contains 43 photographs from the Longfellow’s trip to Desbarats. The images are carefully mounted on grey backgrounds, with no captions or identifying information.
  • While Joseph Thorp Jr. may also be the photographer of most of the images in this album, the photographs are markedly different. They are somewhat more formal than those in the Thorp albums, with more landscapes and more images of what looks like a performance or rehearsal. It is unclear when and by whom this was put together, although it did remain with Alice Longfellow’s papers.
  • There is one repeated photograph from the Thorp albums in the Longfellow Family Photograph Collection: Image 28 is the same as 3007.002/001-027#008, where it is identified as Tom Kabaoosa and R.H.D. (Richard Henry Dana IV).
  • This album is available on the Longfellow House-Washington Headquarters’ Digital Archive on NPGallery.
• Photograph, Wahbemama with Medal
  Alice M. Longfellow Papers, Photographs (1007.002/002.003-#034)
  • A photograph of a Native man with a large medal.
  • There is a copy of this image in a Joseph G. Thorp Jr. photograph album of the Desbarats Hiawatha Pageant (see item 3007/002.001-028#029, on album page 15).
• Notes from Anne Allegra Longfellow Thorp on the Garden River Hiawatha Pageant
  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Papers, Anne Allegra Longfellow Thorp, Collected Material, LONG 27930
  • Several loose sheets about the Garden River Hiawatha Pageant in Anne Allegra Longfellow Thorp’s hand. These include:
  • Written on 115 Brattle St. letterhead (the home of Anne Allegra and Joseph Thorp), a paragraph seemingly in the voice of George Kabaoosa giving Anne Allegra an Indigenous name, “Odenewasenogue.”
  • A sheet with two quotes from the first canto of Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha: "And the smoke rose slowly, slowly, / As a signal to the nations.” -- "Down the rivers, o’er the prairies / Come the warriors of the nations” (Note: The first two lines are the reverse of how they appear in the poem.)
  • A series of short journal entries about the journey to Ontario that give Anne Allegra Longfellow Thorp’s perspective on what occurred.
• Untitled Essay on the Indian Play of the Song of Hiawatha, about 1900
  Alice Mary Longfellow Papers, Series V. Manuscripts, B. Journals, Articles, and Drafts, LONG 16173
  • A short, personal reflection by Alice Longfellow on the trip she took with her family to Desbarats, Ontario to attend the Hiawatha pageant.
  • An edited and expanded version of this essay would go on to appear in the appendix of Thomas Wentworth Higginson’s 1902 biography, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, as “A Visit’s to Hiawatha’s People”.
• Untitled Poem on the Indian Play of the Song of Hiawatha, about 1900
  Alice Mary Longfellow Papers, Series V. Manuscripts, B. Journals, Articles, and Drafts, LONG 16173
  • A 43-page poem in Alice’ hand adapting The Song of Hiawatha’s infamous trochaic tetrameters to describe her family’s visit to Desbarats, Ontario to see the first Hiawatha pageant. In addition to the play itself, she focuses on the different spaces she travelled through, offering detailed descriptions of her experience.
• Untitled Poem on the Hiawatha Pageant, undated
  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Dana Papers, Series VIII. Research; Section D. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; Sub-section 2. Poems and Prose: Hiawatha, LONG 17314
  • A poem in an unidentified hand (possibly H.W.L. Dana’s) that places the Desbarats, Ontario Hiawatha performance within a wider historical frame, beginning with Shingwaukonse, an important Ojibwe leader at Garden River and the great grandfather of George Kabaoosa, who collaborated with L.O. Armstrong on developing the pageant, and ending with praise of the community’s persistence into the future.
• Correspondence to Alice Mary Longfellow from George Kabaoosa, 1900-1901
  Alice Mary Longfellow Papers, Series II. Correspondence, A. Incoming Correspondence, LONG 16173
  • Three letters written from Garden River on 10 November 1900, 10 January 1901, and 17 June 1901.
  • These three letters testify to the connection between Alice and the Ojibwe community in Garden River after the Longfellow family’s trip to Desbarats. Throughout the letters, Kabaoosa is thankful for Alice Longfellow’s attention and recalls her visit fondly, but he also does not shy away from describing the illness and struggles of his community. The second letter, from January 1901, is mostly thanks for Christmas presents that Alice sent to the families she had met from Garden River. Interestingly, at least some of the presents seem to be photographs of the performance (Joseph Thorp also seems to have been sending copies of his photographs to the community.) Kabaoosa also mentions that a group of men from Garden River will be going to New York City to perform at the Sportsman’s Show.
  • These letters are available on the Longfellow House-Washington Headquarters’ Digital Archive on NPGallery.
• Letter from L.O. Armstrong to Alice Mary Longfellow, 11 September 1900
  Alice Mary Longfellow Papers, Series II. Correspondence, A. Incoming Correspondence, LONG 16173
  • Written on the back of a map from the Canadian Pacific Railway, which displays train lines across the Great Lakes, this letter from L.O. Armstrong, “Colonization Agent” of the Canadian Pacific Railway Company, to Alice Longfellow thanks her profusely for attending the performance in Desbarats, Ontario. He reassures her that the publicity around the event will be handled delicately.
  • He explains his plans for to continue putting on productions of the pageant and his desire to “copyright the play in Indian”.
  • He requests a quotation from Henry Longfellow’s work to be “put over one of the windows in the Longfellow Lodge”.
• Letter from William Frisbee to Alice Mary Longfellow, 14 September 1900
  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Dana Papers, Series VIII. Research; Section D. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; Sub-section 2. Poems and Prose: Hiawatha, LONG 17314
  • Frisbee, the City Editor of the Minneapolis Journal, writes to Alice Longfellow about his plans to publish a magazine article about the Hiawatha Pageant at Desbarats.
• Letter from L.O. Armstrong to Anne Allegra Longfellow Thorp, 22 September 1900
  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Papers, Anne Allegra Longfellow Thorp, Correspondence, Incoming, LONG 27930
  • Addressed to Ravensthorp, North East Harbor, Greening Island, Maine (the Thorps’ summer home), the letter gives a return address for the Passenger Traffic Department of the Canadian Pacific Railway.
  • Armstrong thanks Anne Allegra Thorp for attending the Hiawatha performance in Desbarats, and also for sending a quotation which will be displayed “on the most conspicuous of the tablets-which will be near the door on the south side of the lodge.” It appears that Anne Allegra Thorp responded to Armstrong’s request to Alice Longfellow for a quote for “Longfellow Lodge”.
  • He tells her that he is devoted to these productions and is working with Francis West and George Kabaoosa to write out the play.
• Letter from William Frisbee to Richard H. Dana III, 10 December 1913
  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Dana Papers, Series VIII. Research; Section D. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; Sub-section 2. Poems and Prose: Hiawatha, LONG 17314
  • Frisbee, editor of the Minneapolis Daily News, asks Richard H. Dana III if Mrs. Dana [Edith Longfellow] knew if the waterfall mentioned in “Haiwatha” was any other than the Minnehaha Falls at Minneapolis.
  • Perhaps more significantly, he claims that “It was my privilege several years ago to meet “The Dana Boys”, Mrs. [Anne Allegra Longfellow] Thorpe [sic] and Miss Alice Longfellow at Desbarats, Ontario where we were all guests at the same house for the Ojibway presentation of Hiawatha.”
• Letter to Albert Clark, undated
  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Dana Papers, Series VIII. Research; Section D. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; Sub-section 2. Poems and Prose: Hiawatha, LONG 17314
  • An undated letter in an unidentified hand (possibly H.W.L. Dana’s) written to Albert Clark, a member of the Garden River Ojibwe community who put on the Hiawatha pageant at Desbarats (there are photographs of him in the Thorp albums). The letter recalls the trip to Desbarats with fondness, asking about Albert’s family, including his mother: “I shall never forget her kindness in giving me such a fine name.”
  • The letter is unfinished and unsigned. It is unclear if this is a draft of a letter that was sent later, or if the letter was never sent. There are notes about Albert Clark on the back.

Hiawatha Performances

While public readings of Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha began almost as soon as the poem was published in 1855, more elaborate stagings and performances of the epic by both white and Native actors became popular in the late 1800s and early 1900s. This section includes scripts and souvenirs program for these events held in the Longfellow House-Washington’s Headquarters’ collections.

• Illustrated libretto: Hiawatha or Nanabozho: An Ojibway Indian Play, 1900
  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Dana Papers, Series VIII. Research; Section D. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; Sub-section 2. Poems and Prose: Hiawatha, LONG 17314
  • A collection of scenes from the Hiawatha pageant performed at Desbarats, Ontario in August 1900. It is described on the title page as “descriptive notes and excerpts to be used as a Libretto.” There are lines from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem as well as lines in Anishinaabemowin (the language spoken by the Anishinaabe people of the Great Lakes).
  • There are also photographs showing actors who performed in the pageant and the region where the pageant took place.
  • The verso is in English, while the recto is in Anishinaabemowin. It is not completely clear if this is a translation or if there were English and Ojibwe parts of the performance.
• Illustrated libretto: Hiawatha or Nanabozho: An Ojibway Indian Play, 1901
  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Dana Papers, Series VIII. Research; Section D. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; Sub-section 2. Poems and Prose: Hiawatha, LONG 17314
  • This is very similar to the earlier libretto, except that it is framed more explicitly with advertisements for the Canadian Pacific Railroad and concludes with a note on “How to Reach Desbarats”. It also has a different cover.
• Libretto: Hiawatha: Book of the Words
  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Papers, Anne Allegra Longfellow Thorp, Collected Material, LONG 27930
  • This booklet describes a staging of Hiawatha, with an emphasis on singing. Prose passages describe the scenes, and lyrics are marked with who is singing them (“Bass soloist”, “Contralto soloist”, “Chorus”). The cast is included on the first page including the Indigenous actors and the white singers.
  • The “Ojibway Indian Play” is attributed to L.O. Armstrong and the “Music” is credited to Frederick R Burton.
  • There are no photographs except one on the front cover showing a man in a headdress and a woman in a canoe.
  • There is no date listed, but reference is made in the introduction to the fifty-show run in summer 1902 and the hope for more the following summer, suggesting a date of late 1902 or early 1903.
  • The last page lists Burton’s sheet music for sale (see below).

• Frederick R. Burton sheet music from the “Indian Play Hiawatha,” 1902
  • Some of the songs that Burton developed for the Hiawatha pageants were sold as individual pieces of sheet music. They were issued by different publishers, but they also have a standard look, with elaborate fonts and an image of a Native man and a woman in a boat rowing towards the viewer.
  • H.W.L. Dana collected them in the 1930s and 1940s.
  • All the pieces in the collection were printed in 1902. Titles include:
    • “Songs of the Ojibways. Two Songs Old Shoe & Parting (with Indian and English words)”
      Several copies: LONG 22889, LONG 23184, LONG 23815, LONG 27620, part of LONG 27626
    • “Songs of the Ojibways. My Bark Canoe”
      LONG 22890
    • “Songs of the Ojibways. Hiawatha’s Death Song (with Indian and English words)”
      LONG 22891
    • “Songs of the Ojibways. The Lake Sheen”
      LONG 22892
    • “Songs of the Ojibways. A Song of Absence and Longing”
      LONG 22893 and LONG 23186
• “Hiawatha’s Boyhood” by Ralf Coleman, 1940
  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Dana Papers, Series VIII. Research; Section D. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; Sub-section 2. Poems and Prose: Hiawatha, LONG 17314
  • A script, about 25 pages, for an adaptation of The Song of Hiawatha focusing on the titular hero’s childhood, put on by the Boston Players at Boston’s Recital Hall in the Conservatory Building.
  • Coleman was a well-known Black actor and director in Boston during the 1920s and 1930s.
  • Coleman sent the playscript to H.W.L. Dana for his approval, and the two exchanged several letters, with Coleman giving him tickets for a performance on 17 May 1940. This event appears in H.W.L. Dana’s journal, suggesting that he attended the performance.
• “Scenes From Hiawatha” performed at the Hampton Institute
  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Dana Papers, Series VIII. Research; Section D. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; Sub-section 2. Poems and Prose: Hiawatha, LONG 17314
  • A “shortened” version of the Hiawatha script used by Indigenous students at Hampton Institute since the late 1870s.
  • Sent by Cora Folsom, a longtime teacher at Hampton, to H.W.L. Dana in response to his request. In the letter that she included along with the script, she gives more details about the performances, including how they were staged and her opinion on the acting skills of the students.
  • Photograph from "Scenes from Hiawatha": Tucked onto the final page of the Hampton “Scenes from Hiawatha” script is a blue tinted photograph of a Native man and woman dressed in elaborate regalia. The final scene in the script is “The Wedding Feast,” making it likely that these figures represent Hiawatha and his bride Minnehaha.
  • Photograph of Pocahontas Stained Glass window, St. John’s Church, Hampton, VA: Included with the Hampton “Scenes from Hiawatha” script is a photograph of the Pocahontas stained glass window at St. John’s Church in Hampton, Virginia. Folsom explains in her letter that it was through the original Hiawatha production in the late 1870s that the necessary funds were raised to purchase the window.
• Program, “Indian Citizenship Day: 1887-1919”, Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, 8 February 1919
  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Dana Papers, Series VIII. Research; Section D. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; Sub-section 2. Poems and Prose: Hiawatha, LONG 17314
  • A one-page program for the 1919 Indian Citizenship Day celebrations at the Hampton Institute, showing that “Scenes from Hiawatha” was a major part of the event.
• Letter from the Sault Daily Star to the managing editor of the Boston Transcript, 10 June 1932
  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Dana Papers, Series VIII. Research; Section D. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; Sub-section 2. Poems and Prose: Hiawatha, LONG 17314
  • A letter on the letterhead of J.W. Curran, editor and general manager of the Sault Daily Star, to the managing editor of the Boston Transcript, asking if any of the descendants of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow are still alive, as “the Ojibway Indians of the nearby reserve” are performing “The Song of Hiawatha” and would like to invite them. There is no known record of a response by any member of the Longfellow family.
• Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Dana Research Files
  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Dana Papers, Series VIII. Research; Section D. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; Sub-section 2. Poems and Prose: Hiawatha, LONG 17314
  • In addition to the items singled out in this list, H.W.L. Dana collected many news articles on the pageants and plays based on The Song of Hiawatha, which can be found in his extensive research files.
  • Dana's research files on Song of Hiawatha comprise about 0.9 linear feet; the sub-section on Hiawatha dramas comprises four legal-size folders and separated photographs and oversize broadsides.

Influence of Hiawatha

This section includes additional material showing the cultural reach of The Song of Hiawatha and the many different types of media that it inspired.

• Manuscript poem: “Sonnet to “The Song of Hiawatha”
  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Dana Papers, Series VIII. Research; Section D. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; Sub-section 2. Poems and Prose: Hiawatha, LONG 17314
  • A manuscript poem, in an unknown hand. very elaborately copied, with some complex letters.
  • Attributed to “One of the Barclays”
  • The poem describes the sweetness of The Song of Hiawatha, imagining the music pouring out over the graves of Native people.
• Painting: “Departure of Hiawatha” by Albert Bierstadt, about 1868
  LONG 4138
  • In this small-scale oil on paper painting, the American landscape painter Albert Bierstadt captured the ending scene from Henry Longfellow's epic poem, "The Song of Hiawatha." The figure of Hiawatha in a canoe almost disappears into the reflection of the sunset on the lake. The artist presented this painting to the poet at a dinner in his honor at the Langham Hotel, London, 9 July 1868.
  • A digital image of this painting is available online.
• “Minne-ha-ha” Falls stereographs, about 1860s
  Longfellow Family Photograph Collection (Subseries 3007.1/2.3), LONG 27886
  • Stereograph images of Minnehaha Falls in Minneapolis, Minnesota. When viewed through the right equipment, these photographs merge into a 3D image.
  • They are attributed to multiple photographers or photography studios, including Whitney’s Gallery in St. Paul, Minnesota and J. Ward & Son in Boston.
  • These stereographs are available on the Longfellow House-Washington’s Headquarters Digital Archive on NPGallery.
• Minnehaha Falls and Hiawatha Statue Postcards, about 1920s
  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Dana Papers, Series VIII. Research; Section D. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; Sub-section 2. Poems and Prose: Hiawatha, LONG 17314
  • Two postcards depicting Minnehaha Falls and the Hiawatha Statue in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
  • One postcard was sent to H.W.L. Dana from someone named Harry, postmarked 1923.
  • These postcards are available on the Longfellow House-Washington’s Headquarters Digital Archive on NPGallery.
• Minnehaha Falls Photographs, about 1940s
  Longfellow Family Photograph Collection (Subseries 3007.1/2.3), LONG 27886
  • Photographs of Minnehaha Falls in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
  • Some of these images are attributed to William H. Kelly of the Minneapolis Star Journal and Tribune
  • These photographs are available on the Longfellow House-Washington’s Headquarters Digital Archive on NPGallery.
• Minnehaha Falls Clippings Folder
  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Dana Papers, Series VIII. Research; Section D. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; Sub-section 2. Poems and Prose: Hiawatha, LONG 17314
  • This folder contains newspaper articles and promotional material related to Minnehaha Falls in Minneapolis, Minnesota (Longfellow got the name for the heroine of The Song of Hiawatha from the waterfall.) Perhaps the most striking items are a brochure about the Longfellow Gardens at Minnehaha Falls—a zoo then in development—and a promotional booklet on the Minneapolis parks system.
• “Watha Man” Couplet
  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Dana Papers, Series VIII. Research; Section D. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; Sub-section 2. Poems and Prose: Hiawatha, LONG 17314
  • A couplet cut out of an unidentified magazine: “Should any one offer to recite “Hiawatha” / The correct reply is simply, “Oh whya botha?”
• Program: “Musical Drama Presentation of Scenes from the Song of Hiawatha” at The Tuileries, Boston, 15 December 1903
  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Papers, Anne Allegra Longfellow Thorp, LONG 27930
  • A program for a concert featuring several of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s most popular works, which were adapted from The Song of Hiawatha.
  • Henry Longfellow’s daughters Alice Mary Longfellow, Anne Allegra Longfellow Thorp, and Edith Longfellow Dana are all listed as being “patronesses” of the organization putting on this performance.
  • Coleridge-Taylor was a very successful Afro-British composer at the turn of the 20th century.
• Program: “Hiawatha” by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor at Royal Albert Hall, 11-23 June 1934
  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Dana Papers, Series VIII. Research; Section D. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; Sub-section 2. Poems and Prose: Hiawatha, LONG 17314
  • A program (called a “souvenir” on the front) for a performance of “Hiawatha” by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, including a synopsis and the lyrics.
  • Associated in the folder with a note from Cora Folsom, a longtime administrator at the Hampton Institute, passing it along.

Education for Indigenous Students

Alice Mary Longfellow was highly supportive of education for underrepresented groups. A very early member of the Society for the Collegiate Instruction of Women, which later became Radcliffe College, she also corresponded with and financially supported many Black students at the Hampton Institute and the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute. In addition, Alice Longfellow made donations to other historically Black colleges and universities such as Atlanta University (now Clark Atlanta University) and Berea College as well as high schools like the Palmer Memorial Institute and the Penn Normal Industrial and Agricultural School. For more information, please see the Research Guide to Black History in the Longfellow Archives.

This section focuses on her support for Indigenous students at Hampton. Between 1874 and 1925, Alice Longfellow paid for the tuition of thirteen Native American students at the school, some of whom continued to write to her long after they graduated.

• Scholarship Student Correspondence, 1874-1925
  Alice Mary Longfellow Papers, Correspondence, Scholarship Student Correspondence, LONG 16173 (1007.001/002.003)
  • These letters are available on the Longfellow House-Washington Headquarters’ Digital Archive on NPGallery.
  • The Longfellow House collections include many letters from students at the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute. Hampton required that the students receiving scholarships write letters of thanks to the person funding their education. The letters detail the students’ lives at home, school, and work during the summer. Oftentimes, the letters were accompanied with letters from school administrators as well, which told Alice Longfellow a little bit more about the backgrounds of the students she was supporting. Certain students--Annie Dawson, Walter Battice and Thomas Alford--corresponded with Alice Longfellow after their graduation from the Institute, continuing to give updates on their activities.
  • The following are the names of Native students and alumni of Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute who wrote to Alice Longfellow:
  • • Thomas Wildcat Alford and his son Pierrepont Alford, Shawnee
    • Walter Battice, Sac & Fox
    • Frank Bazhaw, Pottawatomie
    • Phillip Councillor and Henry Tatiyopa, Dakota
    • Annie R. Dawson, Arikara (later Anna Dawson Wilde)
    • Juan P. Kieto or Kisto, Pima
    • James R. Murie, Pawnee
    • Charley Washington, Otoc
    • Phoebe Baird, Oneida
    • Moses Culbertson, Sioux
    • Isaac Greene, Tuscarora
• Papers relating to Alice Mary Longfellow’s donations to Indigenous education
  Alice Mary Longfellow (1850-1928) Papers, 1855-1965 (bulk dates 1873-1928), LONG 16173 (1007.002/001.004 & 1007.002/004.002)
  • These documents include charity files, memo books, and checkbooks with entries related to Alice Longfellow’s donations to many educational institutions. Her support of Indigenous education was particularly through donations to the Hampton Institute.
• Alice Longfellow correspondence to Alford family and collected photographs, 1880-1908
  Alice Mary Longfellow Papers, Correspondence, Scholarship Student Correspondence, LONG 16173 (1007.001/002.003)
  • Thomas “Wildcat” Alford and his son Pierrepont, members of the Absentee Shawnee Tribe, both attended Hampton Institute. In addition to the letters that they sent Alice Longfellow, we also have many of the letters that she sent them. In these letters she inquires how they are doing and encourages them to work hard. For Thomas in particular, it is clear that she maintained a correspondence with him even after he had graduated from Hampton and begun to work as a teacher himself.
  • These letters appear to have been sent in 1967 by Alford descendants to Thomas de Valcourt, Harry Dana’s secretary and later Longfellow House librarian and curator.
  • In addition to the letters, the Alford family sent several other items:
  • • Many of the envelopes Alice Longfellow used to send the letters.
    • A photograph of Thomas Alford identified on the back as being from when he taught at a Shawnee school.
    • A photograph taken from a book or magazine of “An Absentee-Shawnee Delegation to Washington” where Thomas Wildcat Alford is described as the central figure.
    • A scholarship form for Pierrepont Alford signed by Alice Longfellow. It states that she will be paying his $70 scholarship and that he should be careful in how he addresses her and to not ask her for favors. There is also a small slip of paper, in a child’s handwriting, associated with the form: “This is the signature of Miss Longfellow the poet’s granddaughter who is paying my scholarship. I send it to you to keep because I will lose it.”

Alice Mary Longfellow Papers (LONG 16173)

• Cabinet photograph of Sta-Shu (Annie D. Wilde)
  Longfellow Family Photograph Collection (3007.002/002.005-#033)
  • A small cabinet card with an image of a Native woman on the front. A message is inscribed on the back: "With profound gratitude,/ from,/ Sta-shu (corn woman),/ Annie D. Wilde."
  • Annie D. Wilde was an Akiraka student at Hampton who corresponded with Alice Mary Longfellow under her maiden name, Anne R. Dawson.
• Cabinet photograph of Paul Nache
  Longfellow Family Photograph Collection (3007.002/002.003-#056)
  • A small cabinet card with an image of a Native boy wearing an elaborate headdress and necklace. A message, in Anne Allegra Longfellow Thorp’s handwriting, is written on the back: “Paul Nache son of Apache Chief – Hampton Graduate”
  • The photograph is identified as being done by Christopher E. Cheyne, who took many photos at Hampton Institute and in Hampton, Virginia, more broadly.
• Newspaper clipping: “Miss Alice Longfellow Warmly Greets Visiting Indian Teachers and Students,” July 1903
  Alice Mary Longfellow Papers, Collected Materials, Clippings, LONG 16173
  • This newspaper article describes the reception that Alice Longfellow held for Native students and teachers attending the National Education Association’s annual conference.
  • More research is needed to identify the source newspaper for this clipping.

Massachusetts Indian Association and Indian Rights Association

Part of Alice Longfellow’s interest in the education of Indigenous students came from her involvement with Native rights groups.

Inspired by Helen Hunt Jackson’s popular writings and Ponca chief Standing Bear’s lecture tour of the Eastern Seaboard in 1879, these organizations advocated on behalf of Indigenous people. These white-led groups are often seen today as promoting many of the most deleterious federal policies towards Indigenous communities. They believed that assimilation was the primary path for Native survival and influenced the passing of the Dawes Act in 1887 that attempted to divide tribal lands into private allotments.

Alice Longfellow was involved with the Massachusetts Indian Association (an all-women’s group) from its founding in 1883, serving as president from 1901-1906. She was also affiliated with the Cambridge Branch of the larger organization, founded in 1886. Her uncle Samuel Longfellow was the first president of the Cambridge Branch of the Indian Rights Association (the all-male counterpart) in the 1880s.

• Papers relating to Alice Longfellow's donations to Indigenous rights organizations, 1919-1928
  Alice Mary Longfellow Papers, Personal Materials, Charities, LONG 16173 (1007.002/001.004)
  Alice Mary Longfellow Papers, Financial Materials, Checkbooks, LONG 16173 (1007.002/004.002)
  • These documents include charity files, memo books, and checkbooks with entries related to the following institutions:
    • Massachusetts Indian Association (Cambridge)
    • Indian Rights Association (Philadelphia)
• Constitution of the Cambridge Branch of the Massachusetts Indian Association and a List of its Officers and Members, 1886
  Alice Mary Longfellow Papers, Personal Materials, Charities, LONG 16173 (1007.002/001.004)
  • A three-page constitution that outlines the goals and procedures of the Cambridge Branch of the Massachusetts Indian Association.
  • It is followed by a list of officers and members, many of whom were part of the Longfellow daughters’ social set, including the Vaughns, the Wymans, and Mrs. Ole Bull [Sara Chapman Thorp].
  • Included here are two receipts from her dues and contributions to the Massachusetts Indian Association, from 1926 and 1927.
    • The receipt from December 1927 refers to Alice as the "Honorary President" (1 dollar).
    • The receipt from 2 July 1926 is for 5 dollars, 1 for annual dues and 4 as a contribution.
• Two Issues of The Indian’s Friend for October 1900 and February 1902
  H.W.L. Dana Papers, VIII. Research, D. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, LONG 17314 (1002/8.4)
  • The Indian’s Friend was the magazine of the Women’s National Indian Association (WNAI), a Native American rights organization led by white women.
  • The October 1900 issue contains excerpts allegedly from a letter from William Kabaoosa describing the Longfellow visit to Desbarats, Ontario, to view the first performance of The Song of Hiawatha by members of the Garden River First Nation.
  • The February 1902 issue contains the text of Alice Longfellow’s address to the WNAI conference in Boston.

Missionary-Related Items

After the publication of The Song of Hiawatha, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow became publicly associated with Indigenous people (as can be seen in the material culture collections that come later in this guide). Missionaries solicited the family in the second half of the nineteenth century both out of respect for Henry Longfellow’s renown as a poet and to acquire financial support their projects.

• Carte-de-visite: Portrait of Adrien Rouquette
  Longfellow Family Photograph Collection (3007.001/002.002-#024)
  • This is a photograph of Adrien Rouquette, a Louisiana-born Creole poet and Catholic missionary to the Choctaw. Among the Choctaw, he was called Chahta-Ima. It is inscribed: “Chahta-Ima, to the Author of Hiawatha”
  • On the back it is labeled as the work of Daliet in New Orleans.
  • This photograph is available on the Longfellow House-Washington Headquarters National Historic Site Digital Archive on NPGallery.
  • Many of Roquette’s books were owned by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and remain in the collection, including a presentation copy of Trois Ages, suite et fin de l'Antoniade (LONG 3713) made out to Henry Longfellow from Roquette. Indigenous people were an intermittent theme in all his work, but they are most prominent in Les Savanes Poesies Américaines. Paris, 1841. (LONG 3795) and La Nouvelle Atala…Legende Indienne (LONG 3686).
• Correspondence to Alice Longfellow from Mary Clementine Collins, 8 November 1886 and 8 January 1892
  Alice Mary Longfellow Papers, Correspondence, Scholarship Student Correspondence, LONG 16173 (1007.001/002.003)
  • Two letters to Alice from Mary Clementine Collins, a missionary to the Dakota and a white advocate for Native American rights. In both letters she recalls having been a guest at the Longfellow House and emphasizes the need for peaceful relationships with Indigenous people. In the 1892 letter she thanks Alice Longfellow for sending her a copy of Henry W. Longfellow’s poems and references Gen. Samuel Armstrong, saying she hoped the Hampton Institute, the school he founded for Black and Indigenous children, would be endowed by wealthy donors.
  • These letters are available on the Longfellow House-Washington Headquarters’ Digital Archive on NPGallery.

Henry W. Longfellow's Poetry

Longfellow treated Indigenous subjects throughout his career. There are multiple published copies of each poem in the collections.

The site also has research files related to several of these poems, which were assembled by H.W.L. Dana after Henry Longfellow passed away. The research files are in the H.W.L. Dana (1881-1950) Papers, 1744-1972 (bulk dates 1850-1950), LONG 17314 (1002/008.004.002).

• “The Battle of Lovell’s Pond,” 1820
  • Longfellow’s first published work, the poem describes the defeat of Abenaki warriors at the Battle of Pequawket in 1725.
• “Burial of the Minnisink,” 1825
  • Describes the funeral of an Indigenous chief.
• “The Indian Hunter,” 1825
  • Describes the suicide of a Native hunter in the face of “the distant and measured stroke, / That the woodman hewed down the giant oak”
• “Jeckoyva,” 1825
  • Recounts a legend of the White Hills in New Hampshire.
  • See “Playscript and photographs relating to “The Drama of Chocorua” for a later retelling of this story (H.W.L. Dana Papers, listed under Abenaki-Related Collections).
• “Lover’s Rock,” 1825
  • Describes a Native woman who takes her own life in response to a “false-hearted” lover.
• “To the Driving Cloud,” 1845
  • Reflection on the pathos of a supposed Omaha leader, Driving Cloud, in an Eastern city, far from his homelands. There are no reports of an Omaha leader named Driving Cloud, but papers in 1844 reported on a speech by an Ojibwe man of that name addressed to Queen Victoria.
• “The Song of Hiawatha,” 1855
  • Adapted from Ojibwe stories Longfellow encountered through the work of Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, this epic poem traces the adventures of Hiawatha and his doomed love affair with Minnehaha.
  • Research Files: The Song of Hiawatha (1855): Dana's research files on Song of Hiawatha comprise about 0.9 linear feet; some of the items from these boxes are described individually throughout this guide.
• “The Courtship of Miles Standish,” 1858
  • A poetic tale of seventeenth-century Plymouth Colony, it features a battle between Standish and group of Native warriors.
  • Research files – The Courtship of Miles Standish (1858)
• “The Baron of St. Castine,” 1871
  • In the “Student’s Second Tale” from the second edition of Tales of a Wayside Inn, the titular Baron travels “across the western seas” to marry an “Indian Queen”.
• “Eliot’s Oak,” 1878
  • A sonnet reflecting on John Eliot, the Puritan missionary known for translating the Bible into the Massachusett language.
• “The Revenge of Rain-in-the-Face,” 1878
  • An account of the Battle of Little Bighorn and the supposed killing of Thomas Custer by Lakota leader Rain-in-the-Face.

Tribal Organization

The remainder of the guide has been organized alphabetically by tribal affiliation. These include items created and written by Native people as well as settler representations of Indigenous life.

Abenaki-Related Collections

• Letter to Henry W. Longfellow from his brother Alexander W. Longfellow in which he mentions his Abenaki language research, 14 December 1870
  H.W. Longfellow Family Papers, Henry W. Longfellow, Correspondence, Incoming, LONG 27930
  • In this short letter, Alexander Longfellow expresses his interest in learning more about the origins of Maine place names. He desires to read Jesuit missionary Sebastien Rale’s dictionary, “A dictionary of the Abnaki language in North America by Father Sebastian Rasles,” first published in the 1833 edition of the Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is also critical, in this and a subsequent letter of January 31, 1872, of writer Nathaniel Park Willis’ translations of Indigenous place names.
• Playscript and photographs relating to “The Drama of Chocorua,” undated
  H.W.L. Dana Papers, Series VI. Manuscripts, sub-series D. Plays, “Chocorua, n.d.” and separated photographs, LONG 17314
  • The playscript is undated, as are the photographs.
  • The legend of Chocorua had long been a tradition among white settlers in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, notably in an engraving by Thomas Cole (Chocorua’s Curse), a short story by Lydia Maria Child (“Chocorua’s Curse”), and a very early poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (“Jeckoyva” in 1825).

Cherokee-Related Collections

• Letter from Fanny Appleton to her father Nathan Appleton about John Ridge and Elias Boudinot, 1 March 1832
  Frances Elizabeth Appleton Longfellow Papers, Correspondence, LONG 20257
  • 14-year-old Fanny Appleton writes to her father, then a congressman from Massachusetts, about seeing Cherokee leaders John Ridge and Elias Boudinot speak before a Boston congregation. Ridge, who was married to Fanny’s mother’s cousin, Harriet Gold, had also dined with the family in Boston.
  • The letter was delivered by Ridge, who was traveling to Washington to advocate on behalf of the Cherokee: “The bearer of this letter is a young Cherokee chief, who, together with Mr. Bodnot [sic] (Mothers cousin) has been sent as deputies by their nation to plead their rights…”
  • This letter with a transcription is available on the Longfellow House-Washington Headquarters National Historic Site Digital Archive on NPGallery.

Choctaw-Related Collections

• Article in Choctaw Language – St. Louis (?) Newspaper, 1878
  H.W. Longfellow Family Papers, Henry W. Longfellow, Collected Material, LONG 27930
  • A newspaper column written in the Choctaw language. First printed in March 1878, it is titled “Chahta Anumpa” (“Choctaw Language”), which was the name of a column that ran in the McAlester Star-Vindicator, a paper published in the Choctaw Nation. This article, however, has ads from St. Louis on the back, so perhaps this was reprinted in a Missouri newspaper. More work is needed to identify its source.
  • This was sent to Longfellow and he wrote on the outside of the envelope that held it “Choctaw”. On the actual clipping itself is a note to “Beck” from “Morgan” offering it as a piece in the Choctaw language. Who these people are is unknown, and more research is needed to discover the provenance of this piece.

Cree-Related Collections

• Pair of moccasins
  LONG 13668
  • These moccasins have flowers embroidered with silk thread on the tongues. Leather extends halfway to calf and is tied with leather laces.
  • This style dates to the second half of the nineteenth century (about 1850-1900).

Dakota, Lakota, and Nakota-Related Collections

• Miniature, off-white moccasins
  LONG 7320-7321
  • Very small moccasins with an orange, blue, and yellow diamond-shaped motif on the toe.
  • There is a parfleche sole and an off-white handsewn cotton lining.
  • An accompanying letter from Mary Clementine Collins says that these were made by a Dakota woman named White Dog.
    H.W. Longfellow Family Papers, Henry W. Longfellow, Incoming Correspondence, LONG 27930
• Pipestone pipe head in the shape of a hatchet
  LONG 7221
  • A large red pipe made of pipestone in the shape of a hatchet. There is no stem.
  • This pipe was previously associated with an 1858 letter to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow from Galusha Grow, likely because they were found together by NPS staff. However, Grow suggests that the pipe was used and in a simple style, while the carefully carved hatchet has no signs of use. Adriana Greci Green has also tentatively associated this item with the end of the 19^th century, likely too late to be affiliated with Grow’s letter. (H.W. Longfellow Family Papers, Henry W. Longfellow, Correspondence, Incoming, LONG 27930)
  • Recent research associates this object more strongly with a pipe referenced by Henry Longfellow in an 1877 letter to William H. Venable. In the letter, Longfellow refers to having received an “Indian Pipe from the Red Pipestone Quarry” as well as “the little fragment from one of the “Three Maidens” from Venable. The “Three Maidens” fragment remains in the site’s collections (LONG 7219), so it is possible the pipe does as well.
• Carte-de-visite: ‘Sioux Pap--se 1871’
  Charles Appleton Longfellow Papers, Photographs (1008.002/002.002-#157)
  • A photo of an infant in a cradleboard propped up in a chair.
  • The photograph is credited to Eaton Photographer, 234 Farnam St, Formerly of 15^th (in Omaha, Nebraska). According to the British Museum, this could be Edrick L Eaton, a photographer in Omaha in the 1860s.
  • “Sioux Pap--se 1871” is written on the back, in what is likely Charles Appleton Longfellow’s handwriting.
• Cabinet photograph, portrait of Chief Rain-in-Face
  LONG 7303
  • Inscribed on the reverse: “Rain-in-Face” / Surrendered to / Brvt [Brevet] Maj. Genr. Miles / Colonel 5th Infantry / At Fort Keough Mt. / October 1880
  • This cabinet card is a well-known portrait of Lakota Chief Rain-in-the Face, a leader most famous today for his participation in the Battle of Little Bighorn in 1876, where he and other Lakota fighters defeated Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer’s 7th Cavalry Regiment.
  • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow published a poem about him, “The Revenge of Rain-in-the-Face”, which popularized a legend that during the Battle of Little Bighorn he ripped out the heart of Thomas Custer, Gen. Custer’s brother.
• Letter from Galusha Grow to Henry W. Longfellow, 25 October 1858
  H.W. Longfellow Family Papers, Henry W. Longfellow, Correspondence, Incoming, LONG 27930
  • Grow, a longtime member of the House of Representatives from Pennsylvania, writes to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow to fulfill his “promise made at Nahant last summer” to send “an Indian pipe made from ‘the Great Red Pipe stone Quarry.” He says that he got this one “of a chief of one of the Dacotah bands…He was using it just as it is.”
  • This letter was formerly associated with the pipestone pipe head in the shape of a hatchet (LONG 7221), but recent research links this letter, albeit tentatively, with a different pipe mentioned in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s correspondence:
    • A 30 November 1858 letter from Longfellow to German poet Ferdinand Freiligrath was meant to be delivered by Professor Frances James Child, accompanied by a “long-promised Pipe from the Red Stone Quarry.” Longfellow suggests that this is not a tourist item but “a Pipe, bought from the very hands and lips of an old chief in Minnesota, and given to me by the person who bought it”. (Letter published in Hilen, ed., Letters of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, IV, p. 104, letter 1698)
    • In a 14 December 1858 letter, Longfellow follows up with Freiligrath about the pipe, asking if Child had arrived with it. After examining Freiligrath’s and Child’s correspondence with Longfellow at Houghton Library in July 2025, however, it remains unclear whether this handoff actually occurred and what Freiligrath did with the pipe. (Letter published in Hilen, ed., Letters of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, IV, p. 108, letter 1705)

Diné-Related Collections

• Cabinet photograph, portrait of Tom Domolino
  LONG 7304
  • Photograph of a Native sitter with long hair, earrings in both ears, and crosses around his neck. The sitter is Tom Tomolino, a Diné man who attended Carlisle Indian Industrial School from 1882 to 1886.
  • Marked “Choate,” the photograph is by John Choate, well-known for his images of students at Carlisle.
  • “Miss Longfellow” is written on the back—this likely refers to Alice Mary Longfellow.
  • This photograph formed one half of a famous diptych used to show the transformative effects of Carlisle Indian Industrial School on its students. For more information, see Hayes Peter Mauro, "John Choate, Boarding School Portraits of Tom Torlino."
  • A copy of the portrait is available online in the Carlisle Indian School Digital Resource Center.

Hopi-Related Collections

• Basket tray
  LONG 18422
  • A large, flat basket, decorated on the top and bottom with red, green, and white geometric patterns in natural dyes. The natural dyes on the bottom are brightly colored; the pattern on the top has faded but is discernable.
  • Produced for the tourist market.

Huron-Wendat-Related Collections

• Pair of yellow moccasins
  LONG 13582
  • These women’s yellow moccasins are leather pleated and gathered at the toe. They have three rows of white, pink, and blue silk stitching on the top of the foot and pink flowers with green leaves at the toe. Quarter-inch brown satin trim at the top of the ankle, and a leather tie and buckle at the front closure.
  • Buckle and cuffs are in an eighteenth-century style.
  • One of the leather straps is a different color, suggesting that it was a replacement.
  • These strongly resemble LONG 13667.
  Pair of yellow moccasins
  LONG 13667
  • These women’s yellow moccasins have flowers embroidered in silk at the toes. The leg opening is edged in satin ribbon and there are metal buckles at the sides.
  • These strongly resemble LONG 13582.

Ojibwe-Related Collections

• “Indian Names of the Months in the Ojibwa Dialect,” January 3, 1856
  H.W. Longfellow Family Papers, Henry W. Longfellow, Literary Career, LONG 27930
  • A manuscript page with the names of the month translated in an Anishinaabemowin dialect. Henry Wordsworth Longfellow writes the English, but a different hand has written the words in Anishinaabemowin. A “Mr. James Turner” is credited as the writer.
    • On page 1: January: Ma Mi do gi si souse / Little spirit
    • February: Ma Me bi mi gi sis / Sucker (Sucken?) - moon
    • March Oma bu mi gi sis / snow-coast (??) moon
    • April Be bo kue da Ki me Gi sis / Breaking of snow-shoes
    • May Sah gib a ga gi sis / Moon of
    • June Ma bi go mi gi sis / ___ of Flowers
    • July Mim I gi sis / buckle-berry moon
    • August Ma mo mi mi ye gi sis / Rice-making __
    • September O te bo ga gi sis / Fading Leaves
    • October Di ma kui gi sis / Falling Leaves
    • On the reverse: November Hu shko di mo gi sis / Freezing up ___
    • December Ki ji ma mi do gi sis / Sweet Spirit
• Newspaper Clipping: “Kah-ge-ga-gah-bowh, the Ojibbeway [sic] Chief, Sketched During the Temperance Meeting in Drury-Lane Theater”
  LONG 26655
  • An illustration (attributed to H. Anelay) of George Copway, also known as Kah-ge-ga-gah-bowh, performing in elaborate regalia at the Drury-Lane Theater in London. Copway was an Ojibwe Methodist missionary who briefly became well-known for his 1847 autobiography, The Life, History and Travels of Kah-ge-ga-gah-Bowh. He met Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in 1849.
  • It is unclear where this illustration was first published, but print on the back suggests it comes from the Illustrated London News.
  • It is not currently known how this entered the collection.
• Burton, Frederick R. American Primitive Music with Special Attention to the Songs of the Ojibways. (New York: Moffat, Yard and Company, 1909)
  LONG 15900
  • An account of “American Indian music” from 1909, focusing on the music of the Ojibwe.
  • Burton was a composer and musicologist who worked with Ojibwe performers in 1902 to develop songs that could be used as part of the Hiawatha pageants. In the second half of the book, he tells stories about the development of these songs and provides sheet music of 20 of them. Before his work with the Ojibwe, he had already written a cantata of his own entitled “Hiawatha.”
• Indian tobacco pipe head in form of a horse head
  LONG 7237
  • A pipe made from red pipestone, in the form of a horse head. There is no corresponding stem.
  • There is a letter attached to this one, from Francis H. Brown (a doctor who would go on to become one of the founders of Boston’s Children’s Hospital). He says that this is an example from the “Great Red Pipe Stone Quarry”: “I can vouch for the genuineness of the specimen.”
  • Initial identification as Ojibwe in origin comes from Adriana Greci Green in 2025.
• See also the sections “Garden River Pageant and the Longfellow Trip” and “Hiawatha Performances” in this guide for additional Anishinaabemowin language items and Ojibwe-related items.

Omaha-Related Collections

• Letter from Susette “Bright Eyes” La Flesche to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 14 January 1881
  H.W. Longfellow Family Papers, Henry W. Longfellow, Incoming Correspondence, LONG 27930
  • A letter from Susette “Bright Eyes” La Flesche, an Omaha activist and writer who toured the east coast between 1879 and 1881 with Standing Bear, a Ponca chief who won a court case in 1879 affirming that Native Americans were legally considered persons and had the right of habeas corpus.
  • La Flesche’s letter accompanied a pair of moccasins made by her mother. It is currently unclear whether any of the pairs of moccasins in the house are the ones mentioned by La Flesche; more research is needed.

Pawnee-Related Collections

• Carte de visite: Young woman carrying child, 1871
  Charles Appleton Longfellow Papers, Photographs (1008.002/002.002-#158)
  • The photo is credited to Jackson Brothers of Omaha, Nebraska.
  • "Pawnee Sq---/ 1871" is written on the back, in what is likely Charles Appleton Longfellow’s handwriting.

Items Relating to Multiple Indigenous Nations

• Map of North America showing Native American reservations, 1901
  H.W.L. Dana Papers, oversize map from “Poems and Prose – Song of Hiawatha (1855) – Indian materials, 1878-1942,” VIII. Research, D. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, LONG 17314
  • A 1901 map from the Bureau of Indian Affairs that shows the Indian reservations at that time, along with the Bureau’s five administrative regions.
  • Indigenous boarding schools, day schools, and missionary schools are also marked.
  • It’s unclear how this came into H.W.L. Dana’s possession.
• Scrapbook
  LONG 5412
  • This scrapbook consists of large illustrations cut out of magazines pasted into a blank book. Most of the images are from Graham’s Magazine, a popular periodical in the 1840s and 1850s, but some are from Godey’s Lady’s Book and other publications. The images are primarily of clothing, baskets of fruits and vegetables, and “exotic” locations. The scrapbook was likely compiled by Fanny Appleton Longfellow.
    • Print: "The Western Captive," 1845
      LONG 21006
      • This depicts a scene from the Elizabeth Oakes Smith novel The Western Captive.
      • An image of a copy of this print is available online in the New York Public Library Digital Collections.
    • Print: “A Skin Lodge of an Assiniboin Chief,” 1847
      LONG 21000
      • An illustration by Karl Bodmer (Swiss, 1809-1893) of several tipis and people.
      • An image of a copy of this print is available online in the New York Public Library Digital Collections.
    • Print: “Indians Hunting the Bison”
      LONG 21001
      • An illustration by Karl Bodmer (Swiss, 1809-1893) of a bison hunt.
• Letter from Wilhelmina Whitecrow to Alice Mary Longfellow, 21 May 1924; signed also Dōwănin (Sioux name) and Undăvitze (Shoshone name)
  Alice Mary Longfellow Papers, Correspondence, Incoming, LONG 16173 (1007.001/002.003)
  • A letter written from the Sunnyrest Sanatorium in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Sunnyrest was one of many sanatoriums in Colorado Springs to support those suffering from tuberculosis.
  • The author thanks Alice “for writing your name on the picture of Craigie house” and describes daily life at the sanatorium.
  • It is unclear what the relationship was between Wilhelmina Whitecrow and Alice Longfellow, or if there was a relationship at all. She is not mentioned in any of Alice Longfellow’s correspondence. More research is needed to try and identify Whitecrow.

Unaffiliated Indigenous Material Culture

The following objects are currently not identified with any Indigenous nation or community. More research is being done to more accurately describe these items. They are now organized by object type.

• Photograph: Young Native woman
  H.W.L. Dana Papers, XI. Separated Photographs, from “Poems and Prose – Song of Hiawatha (1855) – Indian materials, 1878-1942” VIII. Research, D. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, LONG 17314
  • A photograph of a Native woman. No information is currently available about who this is or who took the photograph.
• Photograph: Native man and two children
  LONG 7305
  • An albumen photograph of a man with his leg propped up on a stool, a small child sitting on the stool, and a child or woman with long hair, a jaunty cap, and white shirt tucked in behind him. The subjects are not identified.
  • Stamped on the back, probably a photographer's mark: “JNO. W. Morrow” [Johnathan W. Morrow?]
• Pair of off-white deerskin moccasins
  LONG 7317-1718
  • These moccasins are bound along the top edges with red and green cloth tape and decorated with multi-colored beads in stylized floral design all over the shoe. They have soft, parfleche soles and off-white handsewn cotton lining.
  • Described in the catalog as being of potentially Dakota origin, but that has not yet been confirmed.
• Pair of moccasins, probably 1880s
  LONG 13666
  • These moccasins have multi-colored beaded designs on the tops. The openings and tongues are trimmed with velvet, and the velvet areas are edged with maroon cotton ribbon. They are lined in a coarse-weave cloth.
  • They are in a classic Niagara Fall style, likely sold as tourist souvenirs.
• Small fragment of reddish argillaceous rock
  LONG 7219
  • A small piece of reddish stone with yellow and white lichen on its surface, 4.9 x 4.4 cm.
  • Accompanied by a note in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s hand: “Fragment of a boulder near the Red Pipestone Quarry Minnesota. The Three Mountains are called the Three Maidens. See Mr. Venables’s letter.”
  • Mr. Venable’s letter is unrecovered, but Longfellow’s response of 11 October 1877 thanks William Henry Venable, an author and educator at the Chickering Institute in Cincinnati, both for the stone and a pipestone pipe. (Letter published in Hilen, ed., Letters of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, VI, p. 307, letter 4110). See LONG 7221 for more information.
  • The Three Maidens are three large boulders near the Pipestone quarry in present-day Minnesota which are understood by many people to be guardians of the quarries.
  • When catalogued in 1982, the rocks were found in a small round cardboard box; the lid and base of the box are extant (LONG 7218).
• Large stone projectile point
  LONG 7252
  Letter from William Drummer Northend to Henry W. Longfellow, 23 April 1878
  H.W. Longfellow Family Papers, Henry W. Longfellow, Correspondence, Incoming, LONG 27930
  • A stone arrowhead, measuring 8.9 x 2.2 cm.
  • Accompanied by a letter from William Drummer Northend. Northend says that the item was found on Longfellow ancestral land in Newbury, MA by Horace Longfellow (b. 1846) when he had been farming. Northend goes on in his letter to describe “Will,” a Native man in the seventeenth century who contested the title of Henry Sewall (father of famous jurist Samuel Sewall) to 160 acres of land in the area. Northend identifies the location of the Longfellow homestead as the head of the Parker River, adding “P.S. The Indian name of Parker River was Quasacuncon.”
  • Northend was a Bowdoin College graduate and Salem lawyer who had initiated contact with Henry W. Longfellow through a letter dated 4 April 1874 “on the subject of their common ancestor Henry Sewall.” They corresponded for several years, sending each other small gifts.
  • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow responded to the projectile point and letter on 24 April 1878: “My dear sir, / I am very much obliged to you for the Indian arrow-head found on the old Longfellow farm. / If one could only get at its real history, its date, its maker’s name! We plough the fields and find these dragon’s teeth, and that is all we know about it! / Accept my thanks for your valuable gift. I prize it highly, and shall carefully preserve it. / Yours very truly, H.W.L.” (Letter published in Hilen, ed., Letters of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, VI, p. 353, letter 4198)

Books and Printed Material in Indigenous Languages

A full accounting of the books about Indigenous people or written by Native people in the Longfellow family book collection has not yet been undertaken. However, there are several books written in Indigenous languages that were mentioned on the 1912 inventory of the house’s contents, as well as one pamphlet written in Gilbertese found in the manuscript collections. Not all of the books from the inventory list remain in the collections, and more research is being done to try and identify which books remain in the museum collection and what may have happened to the other ones.

• Inventory of Books, 1912
  Longfellow House Trust Records, I. Administrative Records, B. Inventories, LONG 16174
  • Books in Indigenous languages listed in the 1912 inventory which are not in the museum collection:
    • The New Testament. Translated into the Choctaw Language. New York, 1848. (“Books in Mr. Charles Longfellow’s Room, Second Floor,” p. 434)
    • Ojibue Nugumoumun [Ojibwe hymns?] Boston, 1844. (“Books in Mr. Charles Longfellow’s Room, Second Floor,” p. 445)
    • Der Katechismus and Das Gesangbuch, (In the Mi’kmaq Language of New Brunswick), 1866, 2 volumes. (“Books in Mr. Charles Longfellow’s Room, Second Floor,” p. 447) – A copy of this work digitized from the University of Alberta is available online.
    • Literature of the American Aboriginal Languages (“Books in Mr. Charles Longfellow’s Room, Second Floor,” handwritten entry added after 1912 on p. 439)
• Anene aiabai kristian ni karaoiroa iehova ... [Hymnal in Gilbertese]
  H.W.L. Dana Papers, VIII. Research, D. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “Poems and Prose – Song of Hiawatha (1855) – Indian materials, 1878-1942,” LONG 17314
• “Lord’s Prayer in Micmac and Milicete” Languages, Annotated
  H.W. Longfellow Family Papers, Henry W. Longfellow, Collected Material, LONG 27930
  • Four printed cards with the Lord’s Prayer translated into Indigenous languages. Two of the cards are in Mi’kmaq and two are in Maliseet.
  • One of the Mi’kmaq translations is printed on thin, glossy, black paper with gilt type.
  • These were sent to Henry W. Longfellow by Moses H. Perley in 1858; Longfellow has written “Lord’s Prayer in Micmac and Milicete” across the envelope in which they were sent.
  • Perley was a lawyer, writer, and government official in New Brunswick, who served as Commissioner of Indian Affairs from 1841 to 1848.

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Scholarship at the National Park Service

This section lists articles and resources that interpret or support understanding of the Indigenous collections and history at Longfellow House-Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site.

For information about stories and heritage of American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians connected to other NPS parks and programs, see the American Indian Heritage subject site.

Longfellow House-Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site

• “The Song of Hiawatha” (1855)
• Ojibwe Birchbark Certificate, Object of the Month, November 2021
• Miniature Moccasins, Object of the Month, November 2014
• Red Pipestone Pipe, Object of the Month, November 2013
• Chapter 16, "Diplomacy and Invasion," in J.L. Bell, George Washington's Headquarters and Home, Cambridge, Massachusetts. National Park Service, 2012.
• “The Song of Hiawatha,” Longfellow House Bulletin, Vol. 5, No. 1, June 2001

Apostle Islands National Lakeshore

• “Ojibwe Culture”
• “Home of the Ojibwe”

Isle Royale National Park

• “Anishinaabe Heritage”

Grand Portage National Monument

• “Anishinaabe Culture and Language”

Pipestone National Monument

• History & Culture
• The Three Maidens

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External Resources

Related Collections in Other Repositories

• Cambridge Branch of the Massachusetts Indian Association Records, 1886-1923, History Cambridge.
  • Alice Longfellow was an active member of the Massachusetts Indian Association.
• Cambridge Indian Rights Association and Massachusetts Indian Association Records, 1885-1916, Cambridge Room, Cambridge Public Library.
  • Rev. Samuel Longfellow was the first president of the Cambridge branch of the Indian Rights Association.
• Smiley Family Papers, HC.MC-1113. Haverford College Quaker & Special Collections.
  • This collection includes two letters from Alice Longfellow as president Massachusetts Indian Association, regarding the Lake Mohonk Indian Conferences. 1905 September 6-October 9.

Secondary Sources

Henry Longfellow and Influences on The Song of Hiawatha

• Hilen, Andrew, ed. The Letters of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. 6 vols. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1966-1982.
• Konkle, Maureen. What Jane Knew: Anishinaabe Stories and American Imperialism, 1815-1845. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2024.
• Rasmussen, Birgit Brander. Queequeg’s Coffin: Indigenous Literacies and Early American Literature. Durham: Duke University Press, 2012.

Washington Period

• Calloway, Colin G. The American Revolution in Indian Country: Crisis and Diversity in Native American Communities. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
• ---. The Indian World of George Washington: The First President, the First Americans, and the Birth of the Nation. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018.
• Hutchins, Francis G. Tribes and the American Constitution. Brookline, MA: Amarta Press, 2000.
• Quintal Jr., George. Patriots of Color: “A Particular Beauty and Merit”: African Americans and Native Americans at Battle Road and Bunker Hill. Boston: National Park Service, 2002.
• Taylor, Alan. The Divided Ground: Indians, Settlers, and the Northern Borderland of the American Revolution. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006.

Hiawatha Pageants

• Bold, Christine. “Vaudeville Indians” on the Global Circuits, 1880s to 1930s. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2022.
• Brydon, Sherry. “Hiawatha Meets the Gitchee Gumee Indians: The Visualization of Indians in Turn of the Century Hiawatha Pageant Plays” Unpublished MA Theses, Carleton University, 1993.
• Chute, Janet. The Legacy of Shingwaukonse: A Century of Native Leadership. University of Toronto Press, 1998.
• Deloria, Philip J. Playing Indian. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998.
• Evans, Katy Young. “The People’s Pageant: The Stage as Native Space in Anishinaabe Dramatic Interpretations of ‘Hiawatha,’” MELUS 41.02 (Summer 2016): 125-127.
• Flint, Kate. “Is the Native an American?: National Identity and the British Reception of Hiawatha” in The Traffic in Poems: Nineteenth-Century Poetry and Transatlantic Exchange, ed. Meredith McGill. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2008, pp. 63-80.
• Gaul, Theresa Strouth. “Discordant Notes: Longfellow’s Song of Hiawatha, Community, Race, and Performance Politics.” The Journal of American Culture 27.4 (December 2004): 406-414.
• Glassberg, David. American Historical Pageantry: The Uses of Tradition in the Early Twentieth Century. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2021.
• Maddox, Lucy. “Politics, Performance, and Indian Identity.” American Studies International 40.2 (June 2002): 7-36.
• McNally, Michael David. “The Indian Passion Play: Contesting the Real Indian in Song of Hiawatha Pageants, 1901-1965.” American Quarterly 58.1 (March 2006): 105-136.
• Nelles, H.V. The Art of Nation-Building: Pageantry and Spectacle at Quebec’s Tercentenary. Toronto ; Buffalo N.Y.: University of Toronto Press, 1999.
• Nyong’o, Tavia. “Hiawatha’s Black Atlantic Itineraries” in The Traffic in Poems: Nineteenth-Century Poetry and Transatlantic Exchange, ed. Meredith McGill. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2008, pp. 63-80.
• Phillips, Katrina. “Hordes of Red-Skinned Warriors: Performing Sex, Race, and Empire in the Apostle Islands Indian Pageants.” Radical History Review 2015 (123): 32–36.
• ---. Staging Indigeneity: Salvage Tourism and the Performance of Native American History. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2021.
• Spry, Adam. Our War Paint is Writers’ Ink: Anishinaabe Literary Transnationalism. State University of New York Press, 2018.
• Stewart. Fenn Elan. “Hiawatha / Hereafter: Re-appropriating Longfellow’s Epic in Northern Ontario.” Ariel: A Review of International English Literature 44.4 (2014): 159-180.
• Trachtenberg, Alan. Shades of Hiawatha: Staging Indians, Making Americans, 1880-1920. New York: Hill & Wang, 2004.
• Willmott, Cory. “Anishinaabe Regalia of the Reservation Era, 1870s-1930s.” American Indian Art Magazine 37.3 (Summer 2012): 70-81.

Hampton Institute

• Adams, David Wallace. Education for Extinction: American Indians and the Boarding School Experience, 1875-1928. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1995.
• Alford, Thomas Wildcat. Civilization and the Story of the Absentee Shawnees As Told to Florence Drake. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1936.
• Child, Brenda. Boarding School Seasons: American Indian Families, 1900-1940. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1998.
• ---. “The Boarding School as Metaphor” in Indian Subjects: Hemispheric Perspectives on the History of Indigenous Education, edited by Brenda J. Child and Brian Klopotek, 267-284. Santa Fe: Sar Press, 2014.
• Emery, Jacqueline, ed. Recovering Native American Writings in the Boarding School Press. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2018.
• ---. “Writing against Erasure: Native American Students at Hampton Institute and the Periodical Press.” American Periodicals, 22.2 (2012): 178-98.
• Hampton Institute. Some Results of Hampton’s Work. Hampton, VA: Institute Press, 1915: 8.
• Hultgren, Mary Lou. To Lead and to Serve: American Indian Education at Hampton Institute, 1878–1923. Charlottesville: Virginia Foundation for the Humanities and Public Policy, 1989.
• Guimond, James K. “The “Vanishing Red”: Photographs of Native Americans at Hampton Institute.” The Princeton University Library Chronicle 49.3 (SPRING 1988): 235-255.
• Kyes, Rebecca A. "Thomas Wildcat Alford," The Chronicles of Oklahoma, Summer 2017; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma: Oklahoma Historical Society.
• Lindsey, Donal F. Indians at Hampton Institute, 1877–1923. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1995.
• Marquez, Bayley. Plantation Pedagogy: The Violence of Schooling across Black and Indigenous Space. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2024.
• Mathes, Valerie Sherer, ed. The Women’s National Indian Association: A History. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2015.
• --- and Richard Lowitt. The Standing Bear Controversy: Prelude to Indian Reform. Urbana: University of Illinois Press: 2003.
• Simonsen, Jane E. Making Home Work: Domesticity and Native American Domesticity in the American West, 1860-1919. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006.
• Smith, Troy A. “Not Just the Raising of Money: Hampton Institute and Relationship Fundraising, 1893–1917.” History of Education Quarterly 61.1 (February 2021): 63-93.

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Developed by former National Park Service Mellon Humanities Postdoctoral Fellow Dr. Benjamin Pokross and Longfellow House-Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site Archivist Kate Hanson Plass. Special thanks to the Mellon Foundation, the National Park Foundation, and American Conservation Experience for their generous support of Dr. Pokross’s fellowship and contributions to this research guide.