Fort Pitt Museum opens Homelands: Native Nations of Allegheny
The Good Hunter, a prominent warrior of the Iroquoian community on the Sandusky River in the early 19th century. The mixed Iroquoian band was removed to Oklahoma in the 1830s where they merged with other Iroquoian speakers, later forming the Seneca-Cayuga Nation of today.
The Fort Pitt Museum – part of the Smithsonian-affiliated Senator John Heinz History Center’s family of museums – will take visitors on an in-depth exploration of the history and culture of American Indian tribes who once called Western Pa. home inside its new exhibition, Homelands: Native Nations of Allegheny, opening this Saturday, June 22.
Created in collaboration with federally recognized Delaware, Seneca, Seneca-Cayuga, and Shawnee tribes, the exhibition will illuminate the past, present, and future of the region’s Native tribes with rare artifacts and new scholarship.
Three centuries ago, Delaware, Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) and Shawnee tribes migrated to the upper Ohio and Allegheny Valleys, close to present-day Pittsburgh. Fleeing colonial settlements, searching for elbow room, and, in some cases, returning home after decades in exile, they adopted it as their own. When Pennsylvania traders told colonial officials about these new communities, they referred to the area by a name still in use today: Allegheny.
The Native settlers who came to this region lived in relative peace for more than a generation before the Seven Years War and American Revolution forever altered their way of life. Set on a path that ultimately forced them from the region and threatened their survival, the connections between these peoples endure to the present day, a distant reminder of the time they lived together in what is now Western Pa.
The Homelands: Native Nations of Allegheny will feature dozens of objects on loan from American Indian tribes – including domestic objects, decorated moccasins, pouches, and contemporary arts and crafts – along with artifacts and imagery from the collections of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission (PHMC) and the Heinz History Center.
Exhibition highlights include:
The Miller Point – a 14,000-year-old stone projectile point named for the sponsor of the dig that led to its discovery in 1976 at the Meadowcroft Rockshelter in Avella, Pa. The point represents the oldest known object made by human hands in Western Pa.
A carved wood spoon with frog effigy handle on loan from the Onöhsagwë:de’ Cultural Center (Seneca Nation of Indians) in Salamanca, N.Y.
A Seneca-Cayuga boy’s dance outfit made by tribal member Patty Harjo Shinn for her son William.
A pair of 1930s beaded moccasins owned by Betty Admussen, on loan from the Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma.
The Homelands: Native Nations of Allegheny exhibition, which will be on view through June 2025, is generously supported by the Laurel Foundation and the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission (PHMC), with support from Heinz Endowments, Richard King Mellon Foundation, the Allegheny Regional Asset District (RAD), and Visit Pennsylvania.
Programming for Native Nations Exhibition
The Fort Pitt Museum will host public programs throughout the exhibition run in consultation with the federally recognized Delaware, Seneca, Seneca-Cayuga, and Shawnee tribes.
On Aug. 17-18, Fort Pitt Museum staff and members of Native tribes who once dwelled in our region will host the “Stickball at the Fort” event, showcasing the American Indian game of stickball. One of the oldest organized sports played in America, stickball is a precursor to lacrosse and shares aspects of many modern-day field sports like soccer, field hockey, and American football. A tradition passed down from generation to generation, stickball is still played competitively by Native tribes across America. Visitors can learn techniques and test their skills at stickball on the Fort Pitt lawn.
Additional programs will be announced later this summer.
For more information on the Fort Pitt Museum’s exhibits and public programs, please visit heinzhistorycenter.org/fort-pitt.