A story to start with: where did Wall Street get its name? You may not expect to find out at the National Museum of the American Indian. But as you’ll see when you read on, there’s no place more appropriate to learn about the early history of Wall Street.

In 1626, Peter Minuit “bought” Manhattan for trade goods worth 60 guilders. Unfortunately, how the Native people of the island understood “bought” and how the Europeans understood “bought” differed greatly. The Europeans believed they now had the exclusive right to live on the land. The Native people believed that the land could not exclusively belong to anyone, any more than water or sunlight could. They thought that the Europeans were making a gift to thank them for sharing the land. As relations turned sour, the Europeans built a wall to keep the Natives out. Where was it? Ironically, not far from where the National Museum of the American Indian stands, on what today we know as Wall Street.

Native American. American Indian. First Nation’s People. They all describe the many groups of indigenous people who were the first inhabitants of North and South America. With a visit here you can expand your knowledge of their crucial part of American history, including your knowledge of the perspectives of many different Native American groups on American history. And since it’s a Smithsonian Museum, it’s free to the public.

The museum is fascinating. Just the building itself, located in the George Gustav Heye Center at the Alexander Hamilton Custom House, starts you off with an irony. As you approach it, look for a large sculpture of a female figure representing the U. S., which is crushing the famed Aztec city Quetzalcoatl. Behind it is a Native person surrounded by broken Native artifacts. The scene is meant to triumphantly depict the United States conquering and destroying the Native American way of life. But it decorates a building that now pays tribute to American Indian cultures that continue to endure today.

Between the building, the exhibits, the programs, and the library and research center, you could keep yourself busy for days, even weeks, at a time. Okay, so where to start? Visit the museum and look through its exhibits, which you can preview online [http://www.nmai.si.edu/subpage.cfm?subpage=exhibitions&second=ny]. There are two large exhibits and two smaller ones. They change frequently, so it's a good idea to double check exactly what is on display before you visit. Also make sure the exhibit you want to see is actually at the New York City museum. (There are three National Museums of the American Indian, and it is very easy to look at the dates and descriptions of exhibits while overlooking their locations.) Online you can also check out past exhibits [http://www.nmai.si.edu/subpage.cfm?subpage= exhibitions&second=pastthumb] and online exhibits [http://www.nmai.si.edu/subpage.cfm?subpage =exhibitions&second=online] for research ideas.

The Native influence on New York was shown in a recent exhibit, “Booming Out: Mohawk Ironworkers Build New York.” You may have seen one famous picture in the exhibit: the 1928 photograph by Lewis Hine of nine men sitting high up above the city on a huge beam, during a break from construction on what would be known as the Rockefeller Center. Three of the men were Mohawk. The Mohawk communities of the Akwesasne (northern New York and Canada) and the Kahnawake (near Montreal) have a huge presence in the ironworking industry, and the exhibit’s pictures captured them as they helped to define the famous New York skyline. These guys worked on almost every city landmark in the last century. The Empire State Building, the George Washington Bridge, the United Nations buildings, and what was the World Trade Center are just a few of the magnificent structures that Mohawk ironworkers helped build.

Other recent exhibits have explored depictions of Native peoples by celebrated artist, George Catlin, the similar aesthetic sensibilities expressed in objects like clothing, beads, baskets, and pottery from different North American cultures, and the artwork (and themes contained therein) of contemporary New York Native American abstract painters.

One recent exhibit, “Spirit Capture: Native Americans and the Photographic Image,” reflected a basic theme of the museum: it asked visitors to examine how American Indians have been portrayed throughout the history of the United States, and to learn a fuller and a more accurate history of the many different Native American peoples. This mission is also seen in the goal of the museum’s education department: to improve the teaching of Native American history.

To pursue this goal the museum runs several programs that you should know about. The Education Department oversees many of them. In fact, no matter what day you visit the museum you can participate in an activity that will teach you cool stuff about Native culture and history because every day at 2 pm, without fail, you can meet with a Cultural Interpreter (a Native American museum educator) who will demonstrate Native American artwork or lead a tour through the exhibit. This program is free. (Free!!! Just like admission … so you have no excuse for not taking advantage of it.) To avoid overwhelming the Cultural Interpreter, you should call (212) 514-3705 ahead of time to reserve a time if you plan to show up in a large group. Additional hands-on workshops are offered throughout the year for students, families, and adults conducted by the Cultural Interpreters as well as visiting Native artists. Unfortunately, unlike everything else so far, they are not free. They usually require a materials fee. But on the flip side, you get to learn about and make neat stuff like beadwork, Iroquois cornhusk dolls, and woven materials. For information on workshops, call (212) 514-3714.

Although not it doesn’t focus on American history, the Education department also runs all of the museum’s wide-ranging public programs that feature indigenous cultures from throughout the Western Hemisphere. Each year on the third weekend of May, the museum hosts a Children’s Festival that includes hands-on workshops, dance programs, and gallery hunts. And on Thursday evenings in the summer, the museum offers its annual Native Sounds Downtown, featuring contemporary music. For information about these upcoming programs contact (212) 514-3888.

Although not managed by the Education Department, the museum’s Film and Video Center screens films and videos that are educational in nature. They include historical fiction and documentaries about the lives of indigenous peoples of the Americas. When you come to the museum, ask for a calendar of events. You can also access most of the information in the calendar of events from the museum’s website, http://www.nmai.si.edu/subpage.cfm?subpage=events&second=ny, in addition to the phone number already mentioned above.

The best part about the museum for doing research is that it has a resource center that is geared specifically to you. It’s free and does not require any reservation. If your topic is about Native Americans, then it's here. You just walk in, fill out a sheet about what kind of information you are looking for, and give it to the librarian.

Just some of the available reading material in the waiting area includes Cobblestone, the history magazine for young people; Indian Country, “The Nation’s Leading American Indian Newspaper”; the Pequot Times; the Choctaw Community News; the SiouxMessenger; and the CherokeeAdvocate. We came across a lot of interesting information, on topics such as the Navajo Code Talkers (a group of Navajos who spoke their native language as a code for the U.S. military during World War II; because of its complexities, the enemies were unable to break it) and how the 86,500-acre Nez Perce reservation in Iowa is only 30% of the land promised in the treaty that established the reservation in 1863.

The computer areas consist of four workstations that can each be viewed by up to three people. One computer station is just for Internet research. The other three are for using CD-ROMs. On the CD-ROMs you can learn about stuff like the original Native inhabitants of Manhattan, a Native jewelry maker, a beadworker from the Hunkpapa Lakota, and pow-wows. Did you know that (back in the days when taking a ferry to Staten Island wasn’t free) wampum beads were used as currency by non-Natives and were accepted in the early 1900s as payment for the Staten Island ferry ride?

The material that the librarian will prepare for you could come in almost any form. Though the resource center mainly has books, it also contains videotapes and musical recordings. The museum also has “discovery boxes” of everyday life: hunting and fishing, pow-wows, weaving and textiles, and the buffalo. In each box are a series of artifacts for you to look at. To give you an idea: the box on the buffalo contains the tools that would have been made from that animal. You can examine the dung that would have been used as fuel, the bladder that would have been used to contain water, hooves, and carved horns and bones. The boxes are accompanied by reading material that puts the artifacts in context.

The best way to use the resource center [ http://www.nmai.si.edu/subpage.cfm?subpage= visitor&second=resource&third=ny] is to just come and explore. You never know what kind of amazing and often times eye-opening information you will find. The only drawbacks are that it is a non-lending library (you can’t take any material home) and that you can photocopy a maximum of twelve pages for free—so bring a huge notepad that you will fill with a ton of notes. Also, bring some change for the copier. To contact the Resource Center, call 212-514-3799 or e-mail nin@ic.si.edu. You can also go online and get a lot of information about the museum’s educational programs [http://www.nmai.si.edu/subpage.cfm?subpage=events&second=ny] and about the Resource Center [ http://www.nmai.si.edu/subpage.cfm?subpage=visitor&second= resource&third=ny].