Explores the impact of colonization on Native Americans to 1840. The course will focus on the creative adaptations of Native Americans to the great changes unleashed by the meeting of the new and old worlds.
Athena Title
Native Americans to 1840
Prerequisite
Any HIST course or ENGL 1101 or ENGL 1101E or ENGL 1101S or ENGL 1102 or ENGL 1102E or ENGL 1102S or POLS 1101 or POLS 1101E or POLS 1101H or POLS 1101S
Semester Course Offered
Offered every year.
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Student learning Outcomes
By the end of this course, students will be able to arrive at conclusions about pre-modern Native American history by gathering and weighing evidence, logical argument, and listening to counter argument.
By the end of this course, students will be able to write stylistically appropriate papers and essays. Students will be able to analyze ideas and evidence, organize their thoughts, and revise and edit their finished essays.
By the end of this course, students will be able to identify how the history of American Indians before 1840 has shaped social and cultural identities, encouraging them to understand diverse worldviews and experiences.
By the end of this course, students will be able to apply appropriate methodological approaches to their analysis of primary sources and to organize their evidence to show historical continuities and discontinuities.
Topical Outline
Topics to be covered include America before Columbus, environmental transformations after the meeting of the new and old worlds, disease, geographic diversity of Indian experiences, trade, the impact of the evolution on American Indians, and removal of the "Five Civilized Tribes" to Indian Territory.
PART ONE: AMERICA BEFORE 1500
Week 1: The Peopling of America
Introduction
Migration to the Americas
“First Americans” CP
Week 2: Early America I
The Anasazi
“Chaco, Hohokam and Mimbres: The Southwest in the 11th and 12th Centuries,” CP; “The Chaco Canyon Community” CP
FILM: Myths and the Mound Builders
Week 3: Early America II
Mississippian Cultures
Timothy R. Pauketat, “Cahokian Political Economy,” CP
America in 1492
Weber, What Caused the Pueblo Revolt of 1680?, 1-37
Week 4: Worlds Collide
The Encounter
Weber, What Caused the Pueblo Revolt of 1680?, 37-83
The Impact of Disease
Alfred W. Crosby, Jr., “Virgin Soil Epidemics as a Factor in the Aboriginal Depopulation in America” CP
PART TWO: NATIVES AND NEWCOMERS
Week 5: Southwestern Indians and the Spanish
Brown Robes
Weber, What Caused the Pueblo Revolt of 1680?, 84-129
Resolved: The Pueblo Revolt and other such violent confrontations between Europeans and Indians were unavoidable. The decimation of native societies was inevitable.
Week 6: Northeasterners Meet the French
FILM: Black Robe
FIRST EXAM
Week 7: Indians, Puritans, and Virginians
Trade, Warfare, and Black Robes
Daniel K. Richter, “War and Culture: The Iroquois Experience,” CP
New England and Virginia
J. Frederick Fausz, “Fighting ‘Fire’ with Firearms: The Anglo-Powhatan Arms Race in Early Virginia,” CP; Neal Salisbury, “Red Puritans: The ‘Praying Indians’ of Massachusetts Bay and John Eliot,” CP
Week 8: Indians and the Slave Colonies
Trading In the Southeast
James H. Merrell, “The Power of the Steelyard,” CP
The Dilemma of Slavery
James H. Merrell, “The Racial Education of the Catawba Indians,” CP
PART THREE: THE CRITICAL YEARS
Week 9: The Indians’ New World
Environmental Transformations
William Cronon and Richard White, “Indians in the Land,” CP; Krech, “Pleistocene Extinction,” and “Deer,” from The Ecological Indian, 29-43, 151-171, CP
Pontiac’s Rebellion
Wilbur R. Jacobs, “Gift-Giving,” “Pontiac’s War,” and “1763,” CP
Week 10: A Lost Revolution
The American Revolution
Calloway, “Corn wars and civil wars: The American Revolution comes to Indian country,” CP
FILM: Ikwe
Week 11: The Culture Brokers
The Culture Brokers
Alan Taylor, “Captain Hendrick Aupaumut: The Dilemmas of an Intercultural Broker,” CP
SECOND EXAM
Week 12: Jeffersonian Indian Policy
The Battle for Ohio
George W. Knepper, “Breaching the Boundary,” CP. “Documents,” CP
Jeffersonian Indian Policy
Mary Young, “The Cherokee Nation: Mirror of the Republic,” CP
PART FOUR: COMING TO TERMS WITH A NEW NATION
Week 13: “Civilization”
Resolved: Unlike western women, Native American women were powerful and influential members of their communities. Balance and harmony, rather than inequality, characterized their relationship with men.
Theda Perdue, “Women, Men and American Indian Policy: The Cherokee Response to ‘Civilization,’” CP
Tecumseh
R. David Edmunds, “American History, Tecumseh, and the Shawnee Prophet,” CP
Week 14: Expanding Empires
The Invasion of California and Alaska
Wallace, The Long Bitter Trail, 1-73
Origins of the Jacksonian Indian Policy
Week 15: Jacksonian Indian Policy
Georgia and the Indians
Wallace, The Long Bitter Trail, 74-120
Resolved: The state of Georgia is guilty of ethnic cleansing and should offer reparations to the Cherokee Indians.
Stephen Breyer, “‘For Their Own Good,’” CP
Institutional Competencies Learning Outcomes
Analytical Thinking
The ability to reason, interpret, analyze, and solve problems from a wide array of authentic contexts.
Communication
The ability to effectively develop, express, and exchange ideas in written, oral, interpersonal, or visual form.
Critical Thinking
The ability to pursue and comprehensively evaluate information before accepting or establishing a conclusion, decision, or action.
