The NNATC Has Deep Roots

By Doug George-Kanentiio

The Native North American Travelling College is celebrating its 50th year as a formal entity. It has long served the Akwesasne community by sponsoring many artists and teachers over the past five decades while giving visitors and students from the northeast insights into the culture and history of Indigenous peoples.

In the spring of 1974, the founder of what was then the North American Indian Travelling College, the late Ernie Benedict, passed on the duties of directing the College to his daughter Salli Benedict, a student at the State University of New York at Oswego.

A creative and effective grant writer Ms. Benedict hired Gloria Thompson as the finance director and a group of students to begin the work of converting the Peters farm on Kawehno:ke into a cultural center. I, along with Maggie King, Dan Thompson and Dave Jock were the first crew.

We began by tearing down the old barn in front of the main residence and then making the home into office space. We saw that the interior barn boards were in good condition and would make ideal paneling for the offices and so began using claw hammers, crowbars and pliers to separate the boards from their frames and reuse the iron forged nails to bang the wood into the walls of the house, a two-story structure, solidly built with a sweeping view of the St. Lawrence River.

Also, as part of our job was to mow the hay fields in front of the building, fields which led to the north shore of the river and proved to be an ideal location for what was to be called the "Indian Village". The physical labor began in May and took most of the summer. As we prepared to return to school, we realized there was a need for a permanent director, and we decided that Mike Mitchell would be an ideal spokesperson. He succeeded Salli as director.

Realizing that the College needed financial support beginning with securing status as a non-profit cultural entity a very young lawyer, Micha Menczer, was hired to guide it through the legal processes necessary for the College to receive outside support. A new team established a formal board which then enabled the College to flourish for the next half century while expanding its support for other entities such as the Akwesasne Shonatatenron, the Akwesasne Freedom School, the Akwesasne Communications Society, Ohero:kon, the AMBE Language Program and Akwesasne Lacrosse.

In examining the roots of the NNATC they are very deep in Mohawk-Rotinosionni (Haudenosaunee) history. From the beginning of the Confederacy teaching has been a vital part of the instructions given to the people by its founders.

Using universal images such as the Everlasting Pine Tree to the Four White Roots inclusive was stressed, to reach out an provide those willing to learn about the key principles of living in political, ecological and spiritual harmony.

In the colonial era leaders of the Confederacy did just that. Whether it was extending membership to the French at Quebec in 1655, Canesatego enlightening the British colonists in 1744, Shenandoah creating the Oneida Academy (now Hamilton College) in 1793 or Ely Parker drafting what would become the first book of anthropology (League of the Haudenosaunee or Iroquois) in 1851 the Rotinosionni have been very active in instructors others.

We can see that strong impulse in the 20th century from the advocates of Indigenous sovereignty-Laura Cornelius Kellogg, Levi General-Deskaheh, Clinton Rickard, Jesse Cornplanter, Huron Miller, George Thomas, Audrey Shenandoah, Jake Thomas, Wallace Mad Bear Anderson, Leon Shenandoah, Chief Thunderwater, Paul Diabo, Mary Cornelius Winder and other heroes.

Here at Akwesasne we had our own champions: Standing Arrow, Ross and Madeline David, the Point family, Phillip Cook and the great teacher Ray Fadden who, along with Ernie Benedict, began their own life's work to restore Mohawk pride and the traditional teachings.

Mr. Fadden and Ernie Benedict were the first travel troupe. Their excursions in the 1930's until the 50's was followed by other cultural caravans which had Indigenous people using the newly built interstate system to visit other communities and exchange contemporary issues. Hopis from Arizona could be seen at Onondaga while delegates from Ohsweken were restoring the ancient customs with their relatives in Oklahoma.

By the mid part of the 1960's Akwesasne took the lead when the Mohawk Nation Council sponsored the White Roots of Peace to go to the four directions an encourage other Native nations to shed the suffocating cloak of tribalism and stand as free people y reviving their respective customs, spirituality and politics.

This would not have been possible without the decades long work by Fadden and Benedict to brush off our history, bring back our traditional clothing styles, revive our music and support traditional governance-all of which inspired a new generation to create the Akwesasne Freedom School in 1979 and to sponsor language retention initiatives.

That was the fertile ground upon which the NNATC took hold. Over the decades hundreds of people have been employed at the College and much good has flowed from those river side buildings. In retrospect the creation of the College has been one of the most enduring and effective actions undertaken by the Akwesasronon to assert what Ray Fadden would call a "wonderful and creative" heritage.