Nov 5: Film Screening - Pakachoag: Where the River Bends - The Native American identity of Worcester, MA and the campus of the College of the Holy Cross

Film Screening and Q&A with Filmmakers

Pakachoag: Where the River Bends

The Native American identity of Worcester, Massachusetts and the campus of the College of the Holy Cross

Presented By:

Dr. Lydia Willsky-Ciollo, on behalf of the Humanities Institute and in coordination with the Indigeneity Initiative, a committee organized under the Office of Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging

Wednesday, November 5 | 5:00 pm  BCC Dogwood Room

FYE Multicultural Event!

Pakachoag: Where the River Bends is a film that explores the indigenous history—and present—of the land on which the College of the Holy Cross sits.  The film represents the mutual production of faculty at Holy Cross, a Jesuit institution, and the Nipmuc people, created with the aim of moving beyond land acknowledgment toward dialogue and even reparation with the indigenous peoples of the Greater Worcester area.   We will be joined by Dr. Sarah Luria (Holy Cross), Dr. Gwenn Miller (Holy Cross), Dr. Kristofer Ray (Holy Cross), and Colin Novick (Executive Director, Greater Worcester Land Trust), who will engage in a Q&A following the film. 

Telling a Native American story of the land where The College of the Holy Cross now resides, Pakachoag: Where the River Bends is a documentary produced by faculty, staff, and students at the College about the transformation of this area over the last 400 years. The film takes viewers on a tour of key sites on Pakachoag Hill (now commonly known as College Hill or Mt. Saint James) and discusses them through a Native American perspective and through the stories they tell of environmental change. It covers Nipmuc relations with colonial settlers and the Jesuit community from the 1500s to today.

There was a time when all Holy Cross students knew of Pakachoag, but that knowledge has been lost. This film seeks to revive a widespread knowledge of the indigenous identity and significance of Pakachoag Hill and today’s larger Worcester region.

The documentary brings together primary resources from the American Antiquarian Society, the Holy Cross Archives, the Worcester Historical Museum and other repositories, with perspectives from three narrators: Cheryll Holley of the Nipmuc Nation, Thomas Doughton, Nipmuc historian and Senior Lecturer at the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies at Holy Cross, and Colin Novick, environmental historian and Executive Director of the Greater Worcester Land Trust.

FYE Multicultural Event! 

Registration required through Life@Fairfield.

Light refreshments will be served.

The Film Screening of Pakachoeg: Where the River Bends is presented by Dr. Lydia Willsky-Ciollo on behalf of the Humanities Institute and in coordination with the Indigeneity Initiative, a committee organized under the Office of Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging.  

Many thanks to our Co-Sponsors: Fairfield University Art Museum, Office of Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging, American Studies, Visual and Performing Arts, Sociology and Anthropology and the Departments of Politics, English, History, and Religious Studies

Hope you can join us!