Lewis Henry Morgan talk... in progress

• Many of you know me as one of the fathers of american anthropology. I am most known for my interest in kinship and for being a social evolution theorist. Usually when someone mentions me, the Iriquoi are not far behind. It was my work with them that really gave me my fame. 
•  I hail from a famous family, the Morgan brothers, whom all Morgans in New York are descended from. They helped establish colonies and were continentals in the revolution, after which they traveled up north. Now this is an important time because at this time the Iroquois, who fought with the british, are forced to give up a lot of their traditional land.  
• Now, flash forward I was born In Aurora, New York.  I was born into a very large family. My father, Jedediah Morgan, had five children in his first marriage;after his first wife died he married again and had eight more kids - me being on of them. Fun fact I was born as Lewis Morgan, adding the H as a middle initial when I became an adult - deciding that H would best stand for Henry.  But going back to my dad,  he invented a plow and formed a business to make the parts for it. he also made a blast furnace for the factory. He moved to Aurora, leaving the farm to one of my brothers. After joining the Masons, he helped to form the first Masonic lodge in Aurora. He was even elected a state senator. Eventually when he died he had 500 acres with herds and flocks which he left to us, so that we would be well off and our educations funded. 
• He gave my siblings land for their occupations, but for me he left a fund for my education, which i readily used. I attended Cayuga Academy where i studied classical subjects like latin, greek, rhetoric and maths. I then attended Union College in Schenectady, which i graduated from in 2 years, at the age of 22. While there i continued classic studies but i added on studies of science and mechanics. 
• After i graduated I became a lawyer with a friend of mine, who would later become a judge, but sadly it didn't go well. due to the depression going on, we couldn't seem to find clients. After about a year of that flopped endeavour, I got together with some friend from school formed a secret scholarly fraternity which after several name changed we settled on calling it the  New Confederacy of the Iroquois.
• We tried our best to replicate the Iroquois social organization 
• We tried to learn the languages, 
• assumed Iroquois names  
•  New members underwent a secret rite called inindianation in which they were transformed spiritually into Iroquois.
• We met in the summer around campfires and paraded yearly through the town in costume
• in 1844 something amazing happened. I decided to start looking into old treaties that my school had made, coincidentally so were the Seneca people. Now the Seneca are Iroquoian speaking natives who were looking into old treaties to defend their claim to their land. See, after the war they had been forced to give up their land and move to canada. Through conversation with a high ranking tribesman's son about the New Confederacy, I was invited to come speak to the delegation (which was run by what was left of the Iroquois Confederacy). I took page upon page of notes and used them to remodel the New Confederacy. Over time we grew strong friendships. 
• Through a very unethical sale of Iroquoian land in a lawsuit brought forward by the Ogden Land Company, there was a movement brought on by the Seneca people in which my organization supported and aided. We:
• conducting a major publicity campaign. 
• held mass meetings, 
• circulated a general petition, 
• spoke to congressmen in Washington.
• Eventually I was sent to Congress with a counter offer:The Seneca were allowed to buy back some land at $20 per acre, at which time the Tonawanda Reservation was created. The previous treaty was thrown out. Returning home, I  was adopted then  into the Hawk Clan, Turtle Tribe, as the son of a man named Jimmy Johnson.
• After being admitted into the actual tribe, I lost interest in the new Confederacy.. Now i was part of the real thing. That is when I began my ethnographic study of them. I found myself fascinated by their family unites and marital customs, as well as their kinship terminology. (draw a fast kinship chart) I published my book "   League of the Iroquois" in 1851.That is also the year I married my cross cousin, Mary Elizabeth Steele - who remained with me for the rest of my life. 
• Unfortunately when we had our son Lemuel was born mentally handicaped, which was blammed on out first cousin marriage. Although I agreed and even spoke against cousin marriage, my own remained a firm and affectionate one. Together we attended church, I mainly did this because Mary liked to go. Personally I refused to make "the public profession of Christ that was necessary for full membership. Later we had 2 beutiful daughters, Mary Elizabeth and Helen King.
• For a long time I toned down my scholarly work, however I did decide, with the help of a scholarly club i was a member of, to found a university. However it did not really support women, so we founded ANOTHER university - one that would be for women. However the owner of the land in which we had been allowed to build on, sold it to the first university. This kind of ticked me off because I firmly believe in the equality of both sexes, after all it is a mark of a proper civilization!
• Over time with the rising in iron working, I ended up joining a railroad company. I became an attorney and director.long story short I fought hard for them, however after i realized i was being cheated in payment I pretty much left the company to become a field anthropologist.
• I once again renewed my interest in kinship terminology and charts, deciding to do a cross cultural study of them between tribes. Altogether i collected about 51 different kinship systems. It was amazing! However while I was at my peak, I was suddenly torn asunder when i got word from my wife that my two precious daughters died from scarlet fever. 
• Now also going on at the time was the American Cicil war, which i really didn't care about and didn't participate in. I could easily have joined the anti-slavery movement, but really felt no motivation to do so. I'm anti slavery but also against abolition because technically slavery was supported by law - as a lawyer i had to respect that. I did help indirectly though through business in iron making, making sure it was readily available. Through this i became independently wealthy and could retire from law. 
• Now i was free to run for office - the goal? Commissioner for indian affairs. I figured since I could assimilate to native life, Natives could assimilate to American culture, leading to their eventual acceptance as citizens. When I did not get the job I backed off and watched as Grant messed everything up.. Assimilation became the way of dealing with natives, however there were many components that made it hard. All natives had to be moved to reservations and then came the issue of educating them. This was put on halt later, in 1871. After suffering years of poverty and attempt to suppress their cultures, American Indians were admitted to citizenship in 1924. Although technically i did help come up with the idea of assimilation, because i never got a job dealing with it, I escaped any accountability. 
• Instead I took the family to Europe for a year where I met Charles Darwin and Sir John Lubbock - which is how i got into the theory of Social Evolution. However what i found interesting about this, was that i believed that all society started out in a matriarchy, which i has observed with several native tribes. As savages, they were the earliest stages of culture... However as socety evolved it changed and became more patriarchal. 
• I died at home in 1881