The Unity Project was started as a response to the fact that Native Long Island history is no longer taught at SUNY Stony Brook, Adelphi, Hofstra, NYU, Fordham or Columbia University. As a result no new graduate students, professors, historians, archeologists or anthropologists have been trained in many years and no younger students have been taught by experts in the field.

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As the founders of 1523.org sought academic articles, archeological reports, books and journals it was discovered most have not been digitized.

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Large collections of artifacts have been transferred to large institutions like the NYS Museum and moved to Albany where they remain unstudied.

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Local collections frequently turn up at yard sales, their origins unknown or unrecorded.

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Bit by bit, the material culture of the Algonquin people who lived on the East End is disappearing. Bit by bit the knowledge base built over one hundred years is also disappearing. Books are out of print. Archeological reports are known to few people. Museums like the Southold Indian Museum, the Shinnecock Museum and Garvie's Point Museum are all underfunded.

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School children learn little about the real history of Long Island.

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And that is the genesis of the Unity Project. It is an effort by citizen-scientists, private institutions, concerned people of all types, to save the knowledge base of books, photographs, videos, academic papers and also to save the artifact collections.

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Our motto has become;

Scholarship. Stewardship. Leadership.

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Please help.

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