Dr. Gregory d. Smithers, an associate professor of history at virginia commonwealth university, specializes in native American History. Else the author of several books including an indigenous history of migration, resettlement and identity about which greg spoke here a few years ago. And his newest book and the subject of todays lecture native southerners indigenous history from origins of removal. Please give a warm welcome to our guest speaker, greg smithers. [ applause ] let me first begin by acknowledging the traditional landowners of this region, members of the powatan chiefdom and the chickahawpee people. Thank you to those who organized this. Its much appreciated and its lovely to be back here at the Virginia Museum of history and culture. I hope i got that right. Im going to begin today by talking just a little bit about the artwork on the cover of my new book. This is a piece by chief terry saul. Hes was hes passed, now hes walked on. Chief terry saul was chickasaw and choktaw. He was born in 1821 in oklahoma. Anyone who knows anything about that part of the world in the 1920s and 30s knows it wasnt an easy place to be native american. And so chief terry saul grew up seeing lynchings on a fairly regular basis, lynchings of both native and africanamerican people. He grew up impoveri impoverishment on a daily basis. You have to have a sense of humor. It seems sauls parents did have such a sense of humor, because they named their child chief, which utterly confused white people throughout oklahoma as he grew to manhood in the 1930s and 40s. Chief terry saul was never actually a chief of the chi chickasaw and chocktaw peoples, but he did grow up to be a wonderful artist. I serv he served briefly in the second world war, and when the war was over, the g. I. Bill allowed him to pursue his passion of art. It was at the university of oklahoma. Thats where chief terry saul learned the units of cubism and surrealism, trends that were very popular in the early 20th century. These helped chief terry engage with traditional native stories that he had grown up hearing relatives and Family Friends telling him about. In particular, surrealism, which influences this piece here, which is entitled the warrior. Its a piece that sort of evokes an attempt on the part of this warrior to sort of step back, to find a portal, a passage, to another series of stories, another time and place, another level of consciousness. All themes that are very much in keeping with the traditions of surrealism. Anyone who knows anything about their art history. And also very much in keeping with many of the narrative, oral narrative traditions within native culture, particularly the native south. And so it is a different set of stories that im going to share with you today, a different set of stories that place the American South as we know it today in a very different light. Im going to use a different lens to talk about the history of the southeast. And so some of this may come as something of a shock. What stories do we emphasize when we cease to take a euroamerican perspective for granted and we look at southern history through an indigenous series of lenses . What stories matter . What events matter . As well see over the next 35 minutes or so, there is a very different perspective that emerges. It sometimes overlaps with the euroamerican and afroamerican perspective on southern history, but it is, nonetheless, a different perspective that native people bring to this history. And i should begin by just emphasizing, and this will really rock your socks, that virginia is not part of the south. What . At least, not all of virginia. Now, the southern culture zone that native americans called home prior to contact, and indeed, after contact with europeans begins roughly around the nottaway river, among the nottaway peoples, and in what today is southwestern virginia. That was traditionally cherokee hunting lands. Its in those hunting lands that cherokee warriors in particular often had contact with the monican in central virginia. So the geography in the south suddenly changes when we take a native perspective on southern history, and this is something that i develop and explain in more detail in the book. In addition, also the stories and the way we talk about the stories of the south change as well. Let me just sort of talk about someone who you probably all have heard of before, a young girl in the 17th century by the name of pocahontas. She is often thought of as a friend to the english. Marries john rolfe, saves john smith. These are mythologiemythologies. They become embedded in southern history, American History. But they tell us far more about europeans and the history of colonialism than they do about pocahontas, the po monkey and the powatan people, and they tell a story about myth making. Its those mythologies im trying to work against here in this book. Im trying to not necessarily throw all of those mythologies out with the bathwater, as it were, but to provide a little bit of Historical Context from a native perspective. And the reason i want to do that, and the reason i want to share some of those stories with you today is because this have been for too long relegated to the margins of American History. For native people in particular, not just in the native south but elsewhere, stories are hugely important to constructing a sense of community, of kinship, of politics. I just want to read for you very quickly, if youll indulge me, the first paragraph of the book, because this underscores where im coming from and how im trying to tap in to the importance of stories in native American Culture and history. Stories matter. Stories tell us about our ancestors, about ourselves, and about our communities. Storytelling is a gateway to meaning. Stories help us to understand our individual and collective experiences, and they add layers of meaning to a sense of place or home. In short, stories inform our world views and our identities. This is particularly true for native people. Its not to say that stories remain static and dont change. Quite the opposite occurs. Stories do, indeed, evolve change and are innovated over time. And we see that throughout the native south from the time of contact, and even through to the present. There are many stories i could share with you this afternoon. Im going to begin in 1797 and begin with stories of the native south. What stories, what messages did they convey to us . The first thing you notice is that the map of the south looks a little bit different. It roughly overlaps with what we might recognize as the southeast today, but what you see on the screen there are representations of different culture zones throughout the south, mississippi and up into what we might call today the midwest. And the dots you see on the screen there, they are indicative of some of the best and most thoroughly studied archeological sites. Its one in particular that im going to emphasize this afternoon, its this place. Very special place. This is moundville. Moundville is located just outside what is today tuscaloosa in alabama. It is a society that grew in prosperity and regional influence, but about the year 1 1000 in the common era. We begin to see population growing and growing quite dramatically at the site that archeologists have referred to as moundville, so that by about 1150 in the common era, we see that monumental architecture has emerged. Many hundreds, possibly thousands of people, call this place home. Its a diverse economy that these people are cultivating, an Exchange Economy with outside native communities, and a society that engages in both warfare and diplomacy with nonkin members. So by about 1150, moundville has entered into an era that will last about 200some years of prosperity and culture activity. Stories told both hourly with dance and with architecture begin to mark the landscape. The mounds that you see still to this day at the moundville sites told the story in and of themselves. These mounds indicated a sense of social rank and order within the society of moundville. There were approximately 29 mounds that were constructed. They were constructed to last. This is truly monumental architecture that were talking about here. I was mentioning to someone when i came in this afternoon talking about mounds and mound construction throughout the southeast. When you drive in to the moundville state park, your breath is taken away. Its truly phenomenal that these soaring structures built so many years ago now, almost a millenia ago, still stand. That was indeed the intentions of those chiefs and elders who had these quite extraordinary structures constructed. They were constructed to last, they were constructed to present to outsiders a sense of the strength and power of the moundville community, and they were designed to remind people who resided at moundville of their place within this society. Chieftain societies dominated the southeast from about 1700 through and into the 15th century. They begin to decline and shift into a new phase of their history at about the same time that europeans begin invading the southeastern culture zone. Before that happens, the people of moundville are enjoying a 3centurylong period of prosperity just as other moundbuilding societies throughout the southeast are enjoying. The societies look, for all intents and purposes, to be well established and utterly permanent in nature, in not only their architecture but their social structures. But this sense of rigidity, of permanence, it actually belies the malleability, the fluidity throughout the southeast. Manmade facilities, as we refer to them, precise scholarly language, these societies all had in common this dynasty. Relationships had to be continually cultivated, nurtured and people had to live up to a balance in a Community Like moundville, but also to ensure balance in harmony and diplomatic relationships with societies outside your legal kin and community. We do see members of these societies break away. They break away and they form their own societies for a variety of reasons. It may be that these societies, many of which grow very quickly, people on the peripheries of these societies feel marginalized. That should sound familiar to some of us. Marginalized people dont really like being marginalized, do they, so they break off and try and form their own societies. They renew kinship relationships or cultivate other kinship relationships with other communities. This was happening before european contact, and it continues to happen at a greater pace and rapidity after europeans begin invading through the southeast and culture zone in the 16th century. Today we commemorate sites like moundville as examples of indigenous social, cultural, political socialization, all of which preexists european colonization, and many of these societies far and away more prosperous and socially sophisticat sophisticated, dynamic than many of their counterparts, london, paris, madrid. These are extraordinary places. So they fell, though, as i mentioned because theyre deceptively fragile, or perhaps better put, theyre more dynamic than outer appearances give them credit for. Moreover, native southerners covet and value quite highly the constant cultivation of relationships and alliances. Additionally, factors such as Climate Change began to impact native communities throughout the southeast and throughout east and north america during the 13, 14 and into the 1500s. The impacts of Climate Change had a quite marked impact on agriculture and Economic Activity and were exacerbated by the disease and violence then that tended to follow europeans. Spaniards, the french, the english and others. And so what emerges are new societi societies. Just as native people had always cultivated and inno vavated the cultural traditions, their sense of kinship and community, how do we cultivate and hold onto a sense of balance and harmony . How do we maintain tradition . That often requires change, innovation, adaptability. So thats what we begin to see occurring on a more regular basis and at a more rapid speed from the 16th century. In the book i refer to a term that we as historians use, anthropologists use it also fairly regularly, the term is coales coalescence. What begins to happen is people, like those people of the once powerful moundville civilization begin to mingle. Theyre looking for new places to settle, new relationships and kinship bonds to form. They innovate. They adapt. They coalesce in rootlessness, and they recreate these roots in the context of the many changes a le alluded to. The arrival of very rude european europeans and the impact of disease. What we see developing, then, over the course of the 16th century and into the 17th century throughout the native south are dynamic, multilingual, multiethnic communities in which old traditions are rekindled anew and new societies form around town amid regional identities. These communities become over time you may know some of these names. The charities, the chocktaws, still without federal recognition, by the way. And the kataba people formed out of the core of the mighty nassau peoples of the southeast, neighbors to the cherokees. The katabas formed relationships both over the fragments of the cheer era societies and they formed relationships to new societies coalescing and coming into existence on these milit y military. You get of sense of those from the map you see on the screen here. Thz a map thats dated datedly when you see them drop off the central political identity are these lines m, native communities that have and you might also see that square box the virginians. The virginians are on probation. Let me tell you why. That square. The virginians are on probation. Let me tell you why. The virginians were intrusive. They were rude. They tended to break agreements they had made with southerners, both diplomatic and trade agreements. Good thing none of this has continued. And they were violent. And the violence ran the spectrum of indigenous girls to women to violence against young men and warriors and, indeed, peaceful communities who found themselves suddenly abutting what virginians call their back country settlements. So for that very reason, native people didnt turn virginians, the carolinians in the carolinas away, but they kept a very close eye on them, and they tried to remind these europeans that they had to constantly living up to the responsibilities of the agreements that they had forged, the reciprocity that was at the core of identities, economic and political in nature throughout the southeast and elsewhere throughout east and native north america. You wanted to ensure, then, that you remained you kept, rather, paths of communication open. Because if these paths were to become broken or you didnt find yourself on this map, then chances are you were at war with, in this case, the kataba. So its possible the katabas provide this map to the virginians to remind them of their agreement with the kataba people. Should you become delinquent, virginians, on our agreement, it is likely you will be erased from this map. The stories theyre telling with their cartography are stories that need to be constantly nurtured should those relationships be splintered apart and end in war. This is a chickasaw deerskin map from about february 1828, and it tells the story of who we have diplomatic friendships with. You want to maintain the white path of peace, and you do that not simply by speaking without talking that is, writing the english did that a lot and it didnt work out so well. Although the english did want treaties, and they lobbied through their communities, but you have to demonstrate through actions, not words, and you have to perform on a regular basis. Very important. Some of the stories ive shared with you so far is a story of how native southerners is not a static story. Its very much a dynamic, moving story. There is not one singular version of native history in the southeast. There is not one singular native american identity in the southeast. There is not simply one way, then as now, to be an Authentic Indian in the southeast. There are many ways. Native southerners creates and recreates. They continue, indeed, to create vibrant and dynamic cultures and identities throughout the southeast. And, indeed, as ive written about elsewhere in diaspara. These are rich stories. Theyre dynamic stories. Theyre stories that continue to keep these various identities alive and meaningful. P n now, in the 18th century, the map on the screen is getting toward here, as im about to allude to. Things begin to take a turn in which these adaptive qualities of southeastern native American Cultures will be tested and tested quite seriously over the coming century. The native south its important to emphasize this. The native south is a map on the move. The native people are not static. The communities are not static. Their Belief Systems are not static. They dont exist as europeans like to try and create this sort of image of the Authentic Indian. They dont exist outside of time. They very much are within history. They have a different version of history that emphasizes community and the cyclical nature of time and place. But they are very much attuned to the importance of constantly innovating and adapting and moving and shifting their identities, their community sense of solidarity when necessary. Responding in a creative and proactive way. Thats what we see in the native south and its the example im going to share with you as it relates to a group of people who some of you may or may not have heard of, the yemisee indians in the late 17th century and 18th centuries. The yemisees became refugees, migrants in what is roughly today the border between georgia and florida. They joined a series of refugee and resettlement movements that were beginning to take place over the course of the 17th and 18th centuries. As the maps that ive shared with you on the screen attempt to indicate. These are maps that were made by jack forbes back in the 1970s. Jack was a historian at the university of california, davis where i received my phd. He had retired by the time i got there, but he remained incredibly influential into how i thought about native American History. Jack, for the record, charted his heritage back to here in virginia and the powatan indians. What he was trying to do with these maps that ive shared with you today is to indicate just this very point, that native people are not static. Native people respond to the world around them in very creative and active ways. You see that in the 1700s and 18th century. Naif native peoples not only in the south but in southeastern america respond and move to resettling and recrafting their communities. This is, indeed, what the yemisee people, or the people who come to be known at the end of the 17th century as the yemisee were engaging in, this exercise in creation and recreation. Theyre beginning to tell stories here about how they create a meaningful sense of existence for themselves, for their children, indeed, important number in native culture, 7. For yemisees seven generations from now. From the midpoint of the 17th century, refugee communities began traveling across what had become northern florida. That is roughly, as i mentioned, the border between modern day georgia and florida. Many of these refugee communities, native southerners, were fleeing violence. They were fleeing disease. And they were fleeing the increased violence of captive enslaved raiding. These are slave raids that are being conducted by other native communities, other native warriors often from the north and from the west of the people who come to call themselves the yemisee. Among the most violent and feared of these captive raiding groups, the chichimeko indians. The chichimeko target the yomaha chi chieftains who are located here in northern georgia. As a result of these captive th native people whos are also moving away from the coasts themselves. So theyre moving for different reasons. The groups of people moving inland away from the coast are trying to move away from the impacts of disease and contact with french, english, spanish pirates. Theyre trying to get away from these captive or slave rates. The european demand. So they began to relocated their communities toward the atlantic coastline. Spanish documents indicate that peoples have coalesced around, it is located just toward the savannah river. They formed the yamasees about a dozen new towns. This is important. Native identities that are forming, coalescing during this period, are coalescing in town formations. So these are decentralized, political identities that are taking shape. It is unlike the political societies that existed prior to this. This decentralization is both a strength and a weakness of native communities as they are beginning to reform. Political identities at least over the course of the 17th and 18th century. One of the more influential groups form a town away from the coastline. Away from the mouth of the savannah river. Other people who call themselves yamasees seek among the missions who are at this point in the late 17th century under the protection of missionaries. Some form new island communities. But they never, to the frustration of the spanish, and the catholic missionaries particularly, embrace christianity. They refuse on build churches in their communities. And they absolutely refuse to erect a christian cross. They want a diplomatic and economic relationship with these outsiders, but they dont want their religious and cultural belief thats they sell and this utterly infuriates missionaries. Not only at this time but throughout the remainder of the 17th and 18th century and does continue to cause tensions. They are continuing to develop and some are continuing to move and relocate and reestablish. Again, because of french pirates, for example. They are taking native peoples out of their towns, and relocate, forcibly relocating them to the slave plantations of the english caribbean. So they are experiencing a mixture of refugee movements into the 1680s and 1690s. So some, some of these communities in a desperate search for stability begin to move inland into the carolinas. Some of these grow to a thousand or more. So they are beginning to take route and beginning to form relationships, economic and otherwise, with both english traders and nativeamerican traders. By 1700, what was seen is over the decade of the 1690s, something quite extraordinary occur. The people who had formed these communities were telling stories with their feet. They were forming new communities to evade disease, violence, and slavery. But over the decades, 1690 through 1700, they themselves seemed to have become slave traders. They provided the english in carolina with 200 indian slaves. By 1710, that number had grown to over 1,500. Now, there are reasons why they might be selling other native people to the english. And i can talk about those in q a and i talk about them in the book. One of the most important explanations is that they are not a unified political block. They have preexisting rivalries and this is a fabulous opportunity on try to undercut the political power of some of their rivals. Now, lets move into the 19th century quickly here because this is where the story begins to really escalate in a negative way for the yammasees. They engage in this trade in slaves. They begin to rack up a bunch of debts. Theyre selling slaves to the english and theyre buying manufactured items from those english traders, but they cant seem to get terms of trade that get yamasee communities out of a perpetual indebtedness and they continue to rack up as we move through the 18th century. So there is a delicate economic balance that is existing here in the early 18th century. It is delicate, both for the yamasees but also for the english. Because what we have here, the yamasees are tied to a Global Economy at this point. The debt themselves not unlike other native southerners, increasingly tied into over the course of the 18th century. The english themselves are fully cognizant of this. This is a quote that you see on the screen from george ross. A georgia columnist who in may 1714 recognizes makes the recognition that if this province, georgia, were lost, the whole continent would suffer. There is a recognition of the regional interconnectedness then of the yamasees, native southerners more generally. Everyones fate is tied up increasingly together. So tensions in this context are beginning to rise. So that by the 1713, 14 period, yamasees are increasingly expressing their frustration with the english, theyre increasingly annoyed that theyre getting ripped off by traders and theyre increasingly upset with the disadvantageous materials of trade that theyre experiencing. So the gentleman on the the screen here, thomas, decides in april 1714 hes going to travel down, travel out and try to smooth things over with some of these influential yamasees. April 1715. He sits down, april 14th, actually, to be exact. He sits down to break bread and discuss the issues that are troubling yamasee chiefs and elders. The meal was pleasant enough. Conversation did at times become heated. Theres a lot at stake. The stakes are quite high. For traders like him, who is also acting as an indian agent for the carolina colony. Nan nonetheless went to bed that april 14th evening fairly satisfy that talks had gone well enough. Some sort of understanding had been reached and we could make progress on this in the following days. April 14th. Goes to bed the night of april 14th. Not going to see april 15th. Why . Well, unbeknownst to nan, another indian agent, a guy by the name of john wright is its also there that april and it is safe to say that wright and nan really cant stand each other. Theyre competitive, theyre constantly trying to undercut one another, politically and economically. And so wright is in town that april 14th to try to undermine nans activities and negotiations and hes doing it in a way that sends a shudder of absolute fear and dread down the spines of yamasee chiefs and elders. He promises to enslave them if they dont agree to the terms. So heres what happens. They are dragged out of their lodgings that evening. He is dragged and hes affixed to a poll in the town center. He is confused. Hes been slapped around a little bit. He is quite scared, as you can imagine. He probably gets a look around. Tries to get his bearings. He no doubt saw wright being dragged out of his lodgings and he is terminated pretty quickly. Wright was killed with very little ceremony. Nan, on the other hand, wasnt quite so fortunate. He was, as i mentioned, affixed to a pole at the center of town and he was tortured for several hours, at least. According to one english source, a great number of pieces of wood to which they set fire punctured nans body. That yes, this was a slow painful death which indicated the story that they are tell, is that nan is speaking out of both sides of his mouth. They dont trust him. So physically, your body is not only going to be ended, its life ended here, but your spirit, your soul is going to be destroyed to ensure that you cannot in any way underminor destabilize the society into the future. This incident sparks what comes to be known as the yamasee war. And it initiates a change in colonial policy among the english and a rethink among other europeans as well, certainly in terms of the nature of slavery and the role of indian slavery in this region. But what it does emphasize, i think, this particular story very clearly is that towns and town elders and chiefs took the lead in negotiating with europeans and this remains the case throughout much of the 18th century. This decentralized diplomacy which didnt serve the more centralized economic and political purposes of european colonialism very well at all, actually. But served native southerners and their political interests reasonably well for much of the end of the 18th century. Things do begin to change. And the strength of this decentralized system will begin to come under increasing strain by the mid point of the 18th century. The sevenyear war and the revolutionary war period. So much so that there is a major rethink that is beginning to go on throughout the native south and among native southerners, how do we respond to the emergence of the united states. Do we persist with a decentralized model or embrace some sort of centralized political and diplomatic system. To answer that question, youll have to buy the book. Thank you for listening. Im happy to take questions. You described a situation with nan, with what he was thinking about, or his attitude, when he went to bed. And later his death. What were the sources for this information . Very good question. One of the wonderful things about the 18th and 19th and even into the early 20th century, people kept diaries they wrote. For a historian, thats much more useful than this modern era. I cant imagine being an historian 100 years from now trying to piece together peoples thoughts based on tweets which are usually ill legible anyway. So we have personal writings from nan leading up to this event and we have accounts from other english officials who reported on any time Something Like the happens, official reports had to be filed. It doesnt mean those reports are strictly speaking accurate. And indeed, you need to read those colonial sources with a good deal of skepticism, as you need to ask questions about all historical sources. But, so we get some of our information to answer your question directly, from those times of sources. And then from the oral tradition thats have been passed down and kept alive by the stories of the yamasee people, we also get those accounts and those versions of the story as well. So we as native historians rely on to try to approximate what the past looked like. In your introductory remarks, you talked about some of the myths around our understanding of indigenous people. You mentioned pocahontas specifically. Could you elaborate on what some of those misconceptions are . Yeah. I talk a lot about this in other works. And i certainly do a lot talking with my students who probably, i think one of them is here today. And has been with me all semester. Shes sick of hearing me talk about this. One of the things that emerges throughout the colonial experience, from very early in the 16th century, europeans even before they encounter native peoples, have a sense of what they think theyre going to find. And theyre nothing short of fictions, drawn out of their own imaginations about what what they imagine theyll find. Ecological indians, people who are in touch with nature and can community with wildlife and flora and fauna, for example. These stories help european colonists during the early centuries give some sort of meaning and purpose to what theyre doing. Logic and rationale to what theyre doing in what in most cases is an invasion and conquest, and to sort of rationalize how these are people who exist outside of the civilized realm. The christian realm. Theyre savages, theyre pagans, so to frame it for war is because they have been constructed of being outside of that christian civilized norm and you see this in written sources from all european communities. The stereo times evolve order time. What i will say in the interests of time, do you see an appropriation that begins to gather momentum at various moments throughout American History that reflect a longing on the part of european americans to assert some sense of their own legitimacy over what they are calling north america or the united states. So whether it is dressing up as indians and dumping chinese tea in the Boston Harbor during the revolutionary war, or white southerners in the 1940s and 1950s saying they are the true descendants of cherokee princesses who just happen to work the slave plantations, or whether it is Marketing Companies in the late 19th and early 20th century who try to sell butter and soap and football teams by appropriating native iconography. Theres a lineage that you can chart in all of this and you can date it back, as i do in my courses, to the earliest mythologies. Thats a very thumbnail sketch of a very big question that i could go into more detail with for days. Some of the other readings like these books of 1491, or 1391, 93, it seems they take place with Larger Population numbers on the natives than what you did here. Just off 1491, 1493. Well, some of the population numbers that i gave were you town specific. So im breaking them down into more granular, rather than macro figures. Yeah. The population figures that we have in general for the americas in total, for north america in particular, we still have quite substantial ranges in population estimates. Better based on a number of factors such as archaeological evidence from some of the estimates of early european contacts with native communities. So you will still see to this day, some quite dramatic macro level estimates of how large the native population of north america was in 1491, 1492. But what i can say about that is that populations do decline and they decline quite dramatically in the early 16th century. It is not just disease, as most people usually think, although that does have a major impact. But it is violence, violence with both europeans and the increasing violence among native southerners, too, that is exacerbated as a result of pressure from europeans entering into the region and heightening preexisting tensions. That leads to an intensification of violence between different native groups. And then the impact during the 16th, 17th century, into the 18th century, of indian slavery. We see native people moved around throughout the American Continent and into the caribbean and places like cuba as well. So all of these factors combined do lead to quite major and dramatic demographic changes over the centuries immediately after european invasion. So greg will be in the lobby to answer any other questions that you might have. Happily into them. And also to sign copies of his new book. Happily sign it. One more round of applause. Thank you. This is American History tv on cspan3 where each weekend we feature 48 hours of programs exploring our nations past. Sunday on american artifacts. John f. Kennedy was assassinated on november 22nd, 1963. We visited the National Archives in 2014 to learn about the assassination records and to see some of the iconic artifacts such as Lee Harvey Oswalds rifle, the socalled magic bullet, and the original. 8 millimeter film taken by abraham. Heres a preview. This is the famous rifle which, oswald used to assassinate the president. You can see the custom box that was created by the National Archives conservation staff. Again, it has its own Commission Exhibit number. Which is Commission Exhibit 139. We consider it part of the records of the Warren Commission. They were the organization who had custody last prior to transfer. So the next item is this blanket and this is the blanket that was found in the house of ruth payne. And ruth payne was the woman with whom oswalds wife and daughter were staying at the time. And oswald had stored some of his effects, i believe, in their garage. And so it is believed that he actually had wrapped the rifle in this blanket while it was in ruth paynes garage and it was found after the assassination. So this is probably one of the more famous bullets in existence. It is sometimes referred to as the magic bullet. I refer to it as the 399, the number assigned to it by the Warren Commission. It was found on a hospital stretcher. It is believed by the Warren Commission that this is the bullet that first hit president kennedy, exited through his neck, and actually hit governor connolly who was sitting in front of the president. After going through his body, his arm, it was lodged into his thigh, they believe, and actually fell off while he was on a stretcher. Again, one thing on let people know is that we have very high quality, High Resolution images of most of these artifacts. This one in particular, available on www. Archives. Gov through our job line Public Access catalogue. We want to give as many views of this as possible. People have questions about every aspect of this bullet, as you can imagine. And the container, is that just a special bullet container . It is a container that weve created ourselves in order to have it in a container where you can see it but that it has a plug on the top and some film on the bottom so that it can be in there without rattling around but you can turn it and view it from different angles. So it is just a way of conserving it, but trying to keep it so if we need to pull it out for some reason, you can actually visibly see it. We had special housing made at the archives for our various bullet fragments and bullets associated with this case. So once the limousine was back in washington, of course, it was going very carefully and there were bullet fragments found in the limousine. So thats what youre going to see here. Very small bullet fragments. There is the exhibit number. 840. And there is the larger bullet fragment found. It is a separate Commission Exhibit number. There were cardboard boxes found on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book depository where the Warren Commission believed the shots were fired. And yes, the boxes are retained by the National Archives and are in our stacks. Boxes put into boxes. As you can see there. Learn more about the kennedy assassination sunday on american artifacts. At 6 00 p. M. Eastern, 3 00 p. M. Pacific. Here on American History tv. Up next, the nativeamerican activist 59 deloria. This event was hosted by the university of Colorado Boulder Center of the american west. It is really my great pleasure and honor to introduce the luncheon speaker. In january of 2018, the standing of Harvard University ascended when phillip j. D