Beyond the Spectacle: Native North American Presence in Britain

2017 marks the 400-year anniversary of the death in 1617 of Pocahontas, a woman with strong localized connections in both Kent and Norfolk, and whose short stay in Britain and death in Gravesend symbolize both a hope for Native-British relations and its tragic curtailment. Conflict over resources and general mistrust in the Virginia colony would escalate in the years following her death. Three short years later, the Massachusetts Bay colony would be established, again dependent on the possibility of good relationships with the Native population of the northeast coast. These two significant anniversaries-their meaning for British and Native communities now as well as their historical detail-frame the timeline of this project, and give urgent impetus to reflect on the legacy and impact of Britain's colonial history, its relationship with Native North America, and the political, cultural, and economic significance of Native transatlantic mobility-to both British and Native communities. In so doing, we provide a lens for the further consideration of migration and displacement, the historic and ongoing development of globalization, and questions of nationhood and belonging.

Our research, principally managed by two senior specialists in Native American Studies-Stirrup and Fear-Segal-will follow three key phases:

1. beginning with the examination of known scholarship and the combing of established archives in the UK and in key locations in the US and Canada;
2. pursuing new archival possibilities uncovered during phase one in order to recover detail that is, perhaps, more intimately local to travellers' stays in particular places;
3. making use of a variety of means, including crowdsourcing, calls for submission of materials, and oral history, to locate and document highly localised tales, memories, family legends, and, where possible, photographs and other artefacts, pertaining to Native presence in and travel through Britain.

In undertaking this work we will identify gaps in the narrative as well as more fully map out the routes and networks that move beyond London, rendering partial narratives complete. Four core projects undertaken by each member of the research team will identify and explore particular groups and purposes of travel that will enable us to build a comprehensive narrative through manageable and discrete programmes of research.

In addition to the more conventional academic outputs for such work-conference papers, journal articles, a co-authored book, blog posts, and our own conference on Native presence in and travel to Europe-we plan methods of interpretation and dissemination that emphasise community involvement and that ensure public accessibility. The project will incorporate:
- a series of artist residencies for Native visual, verbal, and musical artists to work for short but sustained periods in the UK with school and community groups (in Canterbury's Beaney Gallery or Studio 3, the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Art in Norwich, Bristol's Rainmaker Gallery, and Salford (TBC)). Through workshops, these residencies will develop artworks that will then be exhibited in various locations and, where feasible, online. The musical residency, through collaboration with the Voice Project, will result in a choral piece for performance by community choirs in Norfolk and Kent in the first instance.
- Similarly, we will collaborate with the theatrical charity Border Crossings on the 2019 'Origins: Festival of First Nations', both to focus that event on the concerns of this project and to facilitate outreach.
- We will also engage the British Library's Regional Libraries Network in order to further disseminate findings in British locales relevant to those materials.
- All of this work will be visually documented and disseminated via our website, online mapping and visualisation technology, giving online life to the hidden archive and ensuring the broadest possible access both in the UK and North America.

There are a number of key constituencies who will benefit from this research:

1) The public/publics: There is an abiding fascination in the British imagination for a particular kind of "Indian". Whether a residue of Empire, a construction of the more recent "spectacular West," which has its feet firmly planted in the Wild West shows of the turn of the 20th century, or both, this "Indian" recurs with surprising frequency in British culture. That (usually) "he" does so often without notice attests to "his" ubiquity, but also to the ongoing invisibility of Native presence in Britain. This project will tackle the misperceptions and absences associated with this figure by comprehensively mapping the long heritage of Native travellers to and expatriates in Britain, and by bringing to the foreground the ongoing, culturally diverse nature of British-Native North American relationships. The public (or publics) will be engaged through public workshops, performance and exhibition, and online resources.

2) Artists / Arts Organisations: The project incorporates four residencies, offered to Native artists working in visual, performing, and musical media. These will provide unique opportunities for these artists to spend a period of time (1 month) in the UK, where they will engage with public and school groups through workshops and spend time with the core research team and our findings to explore local/regional stories of particular interest and/or significance to them. Where appropriate, they will collaborate with other British arts organisations (such as choirs in East Anglia and Kent, for instance), enhancing the cultural experience of those groups and their audiences. Resultant artworks will be performed/exhibited in Britain, documented for online exhibition, and, where possible, made available for exhibition at a later date in home countries/communities.

3) Native communities: Besides the potential benefit above, this project will forge connections based on known narratives that will enable communities to develop their own knowledge and understanding of ancestral journeys. This will be done partly by making as much of the archive available digitally, through online exhibition and datasets, GISmapping technology, and dynamic, visual interpretations of travel stories. Through individuals such as Stephanie Pratt (Crow Creek Dakota), Steve Coen (Salford) and other contacts we will also forge connections with Native groups traveling to the UK now for the purposes of educational, diplomatic, artistic, and commercial exchange. Understanding both the historic connections that enable such links, and the ways in which British organisations, both public and private, are able to facilitate them, may have profound positive impacts for Native communities in the US and Canada.

4) Tourism / Heritage: Such links are of course also of value to towns and cities where such connections are strong. Canterbury, Heacham (Norfolk), Salford and Manchester are excellent examples of where local heritage has embraced that history of Native presence and mutual exchange, and this project will look for ways of developing tourism and heritage. We will do this directly-through exhibitions, for example-and indirectly, through connecting localities with their hidden histories.

5) Policymakers: Our proposed learning modules for keystages 3-5 will enhance current teaching in areas such as the American West (History), while also developing strands for both History and Geography of (Post)Imperial Britain. Modules will also make available teaching resources in Literature, and Fine and Performing Arts related to the cultural material and histories this project engages. It will also enable us to build up a more comprehensive picture of British relationships with and obligations to Native communities, dating back to the colonial era, than has yet been achieved, which we will formally report on with regard to British policy on Indigenous Rights.