Always Here: Documenting the Invisible History of Indigenous Peoples on the Avalon

This paper focuses on a multi-year archival project that has looked to uncover Indigenous participation in the life and economy of the Avalon Peninsula, Newfoundland. The Indigenous history of this place has never been compiled before, with the narrative that "Indigenous Peoples were never here" continuing to be taken as truth. Using the Memorial University library digital newspaper archives, evidence of Indigenous participation was uncovered. With roughly 800 lines of data in a spreadsheet (November 1880 - June 2018) alongside a large database of images, several themes emerge around how Indigenous Peoples were written about and how they were participating in the life of the Avalon. This presentation will focus on detailing and discussing these emerging themes, and discuss next steps in the project.