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Native American Experience: Displacement and Depopulation

Native American Experience: Displacement and Depopulation. ETHN 100 Week 4 Session 1. Last Session. Discussed Native American and European contact Selected and categorized key terms from Zinn Listened to a brief lecture on Native Americans and European contact. . Today.

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Native American Experience: Displacement and Depopulation

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  1. Native American Experience: Displacement and Depopulation ETHN 100 Week 4 Session 1

  2. Last Session • Discussed Native American and European contact • Selected and categorized key terms from Zinn • Listened to a brief lecture on Native Americans and European contact.

  3. Today • Observations from this week’s reflexive commentaries. • Discuss Takaki’s chapter • Brief lecture on government policies and Native Americans

  4. Reflexive Commentaries: Discussion Content • A few questions • Most questions were about crosscutting themes. • Some assigned their group one to reflect on. Others prompted their peers to choose terms and categorize them. • Themes that were mentioned: assimilation, movement, community.

  5. Reflexive Commentaries: Feedback • Excellent work, generally. • Next time, question-askers should post about a specific idea from class instead of leaving it open for their group members to choose. • Think about what you are learning from one another as you decide what questions to ask. • Responders need to make sure they reference the text. Your answers should not be purely anecdotal or opinion. Posts that do not do this will not receive full credit. • Suggestion: Group members should exchange phone numbers or email addresses to communicate in emergency situations.

  6. Takaki, Ch 1-2 Discussion Questions A • Why do you think Takaki chose to frame his discussion of the history of multicultural America with Shakespeare’s The Tempest? • Discuss the historical evidence Takaki pulls from The Tempest. What is the argument he develops from this evidence?

  7. Takaki Ch 1-2 Discussion Questions B • Describe the evolving relationship between European settlers and Native Americans. What are some key moments, people, or ideas that reflect the relationship? • How would you characterize Thomas Jefferson’s views of Native Americans?

  8. How are cultural values and beliefs translated into social structure.

  9. Government Policies • Sociologist Stephen Cornell notes that the “Indian Problem” for Europeans Americans has had three aspects: • Economic – how best to secure Indian resources, especially land. • Cultural – how best to assimilate Indians into the dominant culture. • Political – How best to control Indians to bring about solutions to the first two problems.

  10. The “Solution” • Displacement and depopulation of tribes. • Cultural decimation through forced assimilation. • These strategies were supported, aided, and legitimized by government edict. • Two implicit goals: • Eliminating the Native American population as an impediment to western settlement and the needs of expanding American economy. • Eradicating Native American cultures and political forms.

  11. Separation • Various agreements between Native Americans and colonists essentially held that the Indian nations were independent political entities and were to be dealt with on that basis. • Bounded territories were created, separating Indian nations for Americans. • The legal status of Indian lands because hazy as settlers coveted these lands • Indian lands were ceded by treaties, usually entered into by Indians under duress or in ignorance of their meaning, through fraudulent schemes perpetrated by whites, or by sheer force. • Clashes occurred repeatedly. • Native Americans were pushed west.

  12. Removal • The Indian Removal Act of 1830 called for the relocation of all tribes living in the eastern United States to lands set aside for them west of the Mississippi River. • President Andrew Jackson vigorously pursued this policy. • Removal was rationalized by the ideas that Indians were not using land as God had intended, to farm in the way of the white man. • Created a ten-year movement in which Native Americans experienced intense hardship and suffering. • Groups were decimated, particularly those who resisted removal.

  13. Trail of Tears • Forced migration of the Cherokee in 1838. • US Army rounded up 16,000 Cherokees and held them for months in disease-infested camps. The march west to Oklahoma extended from Summer through fall and winter. • 4,000 had died by the end.

  14. Next Session • Writing Assignment 1 due. • Reminder: Due in class, hard copy. No extensions. • No readings assigned.

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