Established 1879
A Voice for the Students FRIDAY, APRIL 5, 2019
HOBART AND WILLIAM SMITH COLLEGES
VOLUME CXXXX-V
This Land Is Not Your Land By Grace Ruble ’21 News Editor Hobart and William Smith Colleges value history. Students waiting in line to matriculate are quizzed by the Orientation Team on fun facts like the founding dates of each college. Every admissions tour involves a stop at the Elizabeth Blackwell statue, and anyone who’s taken a Women’s Studies class knows how close we are to historic Seneca Falls. However, there’s a history that we don’t talk about much on this campus, a history that is often ignored, or, when it’s not ignored, misrepresented. It’s invisible to the community, even though it should be something we consider every time we step outside: the history of the land beneath our feet and whom it belongs to. One not-well-known-enough fact about HWS and the surrounding town of Geneva is that before it was HWS and Geneva it was Kanadesaga, an important town for the Seneca Nation, one of the Six Nations of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) people. Specifically, Kanadesaga was located at what is now the intersection of North Street and Preemption Road. Before the Seneca people moved to Kanadesaga, the site of HWS’ own Fribolin Farm was another Seneca settlement called White Springs. Only 40 minutes away is the Ganondagan State Historic Site, an even earlier settlement where the Seneca people lived until the summer of 1687 when they were driven out by the French. Today, Ganondagan is a park and museum that aims to educate visitors about Seneca history. However, these important Indigenous sites are much less talked about and visited by the student body than the more well-known and whiter history sites. On September 7, 1779, General Sullivan’s American troops destroyed Kanadesaga in a “scorch and burn” campaign under the orders of George Washington as retaliation for the Seneca people’s association with the British in the Revolutionary War, despite the fact that some Haudenosaunee people fought with the
American colonists. Washington said the goals of the campaign were “total destruction and devastation of the settlements and capture [of] as many prisoners of every age and sex as possible,” and that “It will be essential to ruin their crops and the ground and prevent their planting more.” Though the Seneca people avoided the campaign because of advance knowledge of the advancing colonial army, their home was destroyed as they were forced to evacuate to the west. One of the only surviving elements of Kanadesaga were the fruit trees that William Smith would eventually use make his fortune, the fortune that would later found William Smith College. Today, the Seneca nation occupies a fraction of the land it once did. Stories like this are all too familiar to anyone who is aware of the horrific injustices of early American history and the brutal colonization inflicted upon America’s Indigenous peoples. And these injustices are reflected and remembered in Haudenosaunee history. According to the museum at Ganondagan, the Haudenosaunee name for “George Washington or any other U.S. president” literally translates
Arts Campus Has Real Issues By Niki Russell ’19 Herald Contributor
The arts campus seems like a faraway, mystical place to many students here at HWS, but for 21 percent of the student population it is a very real part of each week. Anyone who has taken a class there knows that it is not at all mystical and, indeed, very far away. The campus consist of three buildings: Houghton House, Carriage, and Elliott. Houghton House is home to the art history and architecture students and professors, as well as the Davis Gallery. The house is also where many mandatory and extra credit lectures and events are held. Carriage belongs to the video and photography students and professors and also contains a computer lab, black room, printing room and photography studio. Elliott hosts all studio art classes as well as the materials and tools needed for each medium: painting, drawing, printmaking and sculpture. About 500 students took at least one class
Photo Credit: Grace Ruble for the Herald
on the arts campus during this school year, and there are currently 193 architecture, art history, and studio art majors or minors at the school. While the campus is beautiful, the classes great, the supply of materials and tools ample, and the professors awesome, there are several unfortunate issues these students are forced to endure. Several are issues that I, as a senior studio art major, am frankly sick of. One can get to the arts campus a few different ways: the shuttle (which runs from 7:42 p.m. to 12:42 a.m. on weekdays and a little later on weekends), a car, a friend’s car, a bike, or a nice long walk. A student walking or biking can reach the campus via either end of a oneway road called Kings Lane. The lane begins on South Main Street, winds through some woods, and brings you to campus. It then moves past Houghton House, Carriage, and Elliott, is a straight shot through more woods, and exits onto Jay Street, which Pulteney Street adjoins.
Art campus… continued page 4
Above: Students walk to class from the arts campus
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to “devourer of villages.” The town of Geneva, in contrast, erased this history by celebrating the “victory” of the Sullivan campaign with parades and speeches for years following. After the Seneca people were forced off their land, the land that eventually became HWS and the surrounding town of Geneva was acquired by a British speculation company called the Pulteney Association through a series of legal loopholes that allowed a British company to purchase land at a time when it was illegal for non-Americans to do so. Eventually that land became the land upon which Hobart College, and later William Smith, were founded. The fact that the Seneca people were forced off their land alone is enough to warrant more discussion of the history of the land at HWS. But the way HWS has reflected this Indigenous history throughout the years is even more problematic. Bringing up issues of Indigenous land and representation at Hobart typically leads back to one topic: the legend of the Hobart oar presumed to have belonged to Seneca warrior, Agayentah. The general understanding about the Hobart oar is that it is guarded by the Druids
Land… continued page 3
Feminist Activism on Campus By Olivia Rowland ’21 Copy Editor & Herald Staff Anonymous social media accounts are commonplace at schools, and HWS is no exception. While most of these accounts are primarily focused on entertainment, there is one anonymous Instagram account at HWS with a more serious purpose: @ bossbitchtheory, which has been posting about feminist theory and feminist issues on campus since the fall of 2017. The Herald met with the owner of the account, who wished to remain anonymous, to discuss how it got started and what impact it has had on campus. Boss Bitch Theory began as a final project for a feminist theory class. The seven students in the class felt that social media was an important form of activism, especially as a way to make feminist theory more accessible to people who might not know much about it. And since an Instagram page would be easier to participate in than a club, the students thought that it would be able to reach more students. As for the name, “Boss Bitch Theory just came to us,” says the student who runs the account. “It’s feminist theory, and everyone calls you a bitch, and we were kind of reclaiming that word. And you never really hear people be like, ‘Oh, you’re a boss’ to girls, and not often are women bosses in the literal sense.” The main goal of the account, then, has been increasing feminist awareness on campus about local issues at HWS and issues of global concern. Accordingly, the account mixes general feminist text posts and images with pictures relating directly to HWS. One popular type of post comes from the series “Texts from HWS,” which shows screenshots of texts students received from other students harassing them and explains why harassment is never acceptable. Activism… continued page 5
Arts & Entertainment D a vi s Galle ry p. 2 Musi c S eri es : B rad y Le o p. 4 “Fra t erna l Fore ve r” p. 5