In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue. He also played a central role in the European adoption of Indian or Native American slavery.
When we think of slavery in early America, we often think of the practice of African and African-American chattel slavery. However, that system of slavery wasn’t the only system of slavery that existed in North America. Systems of Indian slavery existed too. In fact, Indians remained enslaved long after the 13th Amendment abolished African-American slavery in 1865.
In this episode of Ben Franklin’s World: A Podcast About Early American History, Andrés Reséndez, a professor of history at the University of California, Davis and author of The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in Americas (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016), leads us on an investigation of this “other” form of American slavery. You can listen to the podcast here: www.benfranklinsworld.com/139.
Convention Days will commemorate the Centennial of Women’s Suffrage in New York State with a Thanksgiving Dinner Gala entitled “A Fine Agitation” followed by the World Premiere of a One-Woman Play about Dr. Mary Walker, the only woman to receive the Medal of Honor.
July, 2017 is 100th anniversary of the first U.S. forces sent overseas to fight in World War I. The Time and the Valleys Museum in Grahamsville, NY will be honoring the men who fought in the war and the women who supported the troops by hosting a new exhibit and weekend of special programming on July 8th and 9th.
In February, more than seven tons of ice were cut from the Mill pond at the Hanford Mills Museum Ice Harvest Festival, and then stored in the Ice House. On July 4th, that ice will be used to make ice cream on a steam-powered churn, and visitors to the Museum’s Independence Day Celebration can sample the results.
The Neversink Valley Museum of History & Innovation will present a History Talk on Wednesday, July 19th at 7 pm with local historian Sue Gardner. Gardner will speak about “Most Obedient Servant: Tracking the Life and Legacy of John Hathorn and his Militia.”
An Independence Day Fair will take place at the John Jay Homestead, in honor of America’s founding. The Fair, hosted by the Bedford-Armonk Rotary will take place on Tuesday, July 4, 2017 from 11 am to 4 pm at John Jay Homestead in Westchester. 
Brooke Kroeger’s book, The Suffragents (SUNY Press, 2017) tells the story of how some of New York’s most powerful men formed the Men’s League for Woman Suffrage, which grew between 1909 and 1917 from 150 founding members into a force of thousands across thirty-five states.
Cornell University Press has released a new Critical Edition of Cadwallader Colden’s History of the Five Indian Nations Depending on the Province of New-York in America (2017). The Critical Edition includes several essays that consider Colden’s original text across social, cultural, and political contexts.