During
the first week of August I attended a Gilder Lehrman American History teacher
seminar in which I studied American Indians for a week at Dartmouth College, an
Ivy League school, in Hanover, New Hampshire. This was my second GL
seminar and my eighth of these types of seminars overall (the other six were
through the NEH). I have now studied Pilgrims and Indians, George
Washington, Mark Twain, FDR, Immigration in New York City, Latinos in
California, the Civil War, and now American Indians.
When I was an undergraduate at the University of Iowa, I
made American Indian History my de facto specialization. It wasn't my
specialty at Ole Miss, but I did manage to take a course on it. Since I
don't teach American History, my interest in this subject is not sated through
my curriculum. Thus, this was the perfect opportunity to learn, review,
and reframe American Indian History and figure out ways in which I can
incorporate it into my World History, Western Civilization, Geography and
Civics courses. Moreover, the professor leading the seminar, Colin
Calloway, was a professor whose works I had read as an undergraduate.
He's one of the most prolific professors there is, publishing a new book
about once every other year. So it was a great opportunity to learn from him for a
week.
The content in each of these workshops was/is immensely
interesting and useful for teachers and is the reason I go. I will highlight
some of the content that struck me for one reason or another.
Part 1: The Content
A. A Brit as an expert on American Indians: Professor Calloway: Back in undergrad, the first time I read the biographical snippet on one of Professor Calloway’s books, I was immediately struck that he was a Brit writing about American Indian History. That seemed odd. But then I realized that there are lots of Americans who specialize in British history…or French, Russian, Chinese, African, Latin American, etc, etc. I had gotten over that, but it’s something he obviously has to address quite frequently. And it makes more sense one realizes that the United States has had 238 years (1776-2014) of relationships with American Indians. The British had 260 years (1607-1867 (Jamestown to Canada’s independence) of relationships with American Indians.
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| Dr. Calloway discussing a Yanktonai Sioux headdress that is in the collection at the Hood Museum at Dartmouth. The headdress is from the mid 1800s and was probably obtained from southeast South Dakota, northwest Iowa, or southwest Minnesota. There wasn't a ton of information on it, but it was obviously of great interest to me. |
B. Indians in US History: Usually when Indian History is
taught, it starts from the East with Columbus, John Smith, the Pilgrims, etc
encountering Indians in the East and then Americans interacting with Indians as
they moved west. Instead, Indian History should start in the center of
the country, particularly with Indians in the Mississippi, Ohio, and Missouri
River valleys before 1492. Most teachers don't do this, but I already do, so it was good that my approach was reinforced.
C. Indians and Colonial America: A quote from Dr.
Calloway when discussing the interaction between the sexes of each group:
"People spend more time in bed together than trying to kill each
other." Titillating, of course, but he said it in the framework
of the Iroquois spiritual world in which men and women both had power--men had
the power to take life (hunting, war) and women had the power to give life
(childbirth, farming). Thus, before the Iroquois went to war, they would
spend days working themselves into an emotional and spiritual state. Part
of this was abstinence because if they were going to take life, they couldn't
mix with the force that gives life. However, Dr. Calloway pointed out
that contrary to the popular image of Indians as warriors who scalped white men
and raped white women, most of the time they were not in the warrior-mode.
And that's when he made the statement about people in bed.
D. Indian Treaties: When Indians and Europeans started
negotiating treaties, they operated under different assumptions concerning the
land. Indians initially believed that they were giving Europeans the
opportunity to use the land, not own it or possess. Indians, of course,
would eventually figure out how Europeans and Americans interpreted the treaties. Indians also had to come to understand
the power of the written word. In Indian diplomacy with each other, there
was not the same finality to negotiations as there was when Europeans conducted
diplomacy with each other. Europeans and Americans, however, because of the permanency of the written word, regarded treaties with a finality that Indians didn't. So even if there wasn't malice on the part of
Europeans and Americans, there were often vast cultural differences that were
very disadvantageous to Europeans and Americans
E. Indian Gifts: In Indian society, the most powerful
were usually the poorest because they gave away everything they had in order to
create as many bonds of reciprocity as possible. To Euro-Americans,
gift-giving did not have the same meaning since power came from the
accumulation of goods. This is not as foreign of a concept as it seems. Modern politicians have made an art of giving things away in order to increase
their power. Modern politicians, however, do not impoverish themselves in
the process...
F. Indian Country Before Lewis and Clark: When Lewis and
Clark went through Indian country from 1804-1806, they were unsure of what was
between the Mandan villages in present-day North Dakota and the Columbia River
in Oregon. This area, however, had been significantly affected by guns,
smallpox (and other diseases), and horses brought by Europeans only about a
hundred years before. Guns entered the plains from British fur traders in
the north. Horses entered the plains from the Spanish in the south.
Smallpox entered from both directions. The Indian world Lewis and Clark
entered had been drastically changed.
G. The three best anecdotes from the Lewis and Clark
expedition were all things I'd already taught when I was at IKM (I don't teach
them anymore because I don't teach American History): a) Lewis and Clark spent
the winter of 1804-1805 in the Mandan villages. Indians had very
different views on sexuality than Americans and Europeans and many Plains
Indians believed that one's power could be transferred via sex.
Clark's slave, York, was believed by many Indians to possess immense
power. So York had a very enjoyable winter... b) One of the biggest
problems during the whole expedition was mosquitoes. The journals are
full of complaints about them. in Lewis's journal, he spelled mosquito
thirty-eight different ways! There was no standard English at the time.
c) There was one point during the expedition when Lewis wanted to speak
to a Salish Indian. So Lewis made a statement in English. Labiche, one of the men on the expedition, then translated it into French. Charbonneau, Sacagawea's husband, translated it into Hidatsa. Sacagawea
translated it into Shoshone. A Shoshone finally translated it into
Salish. So: English-->French-->Hidatsa-->Shoshone-->Salish
H. Cherokee vs Cherokee: We spent a full day learning
about Cherokee Removal, but rather than focusing on the Trail of Tears
and horrors and duplicity committed by Americans, Dr. Calloway had us focus on
the debate within the Cherokee community. Among the Cherokee, there were
some who begrudgingly and reluctantly accepted removal once it was evident that
the only other option was a war against the US they were sure to lose.
Others, however, opposed removal and this split caused significant acrimony
within the Cherokee nation. The division existed, of course, because of
the presence of Americans, but Dr. Calloway's point was to complicate our view
of history rather than see Indian relations with the US as a simple
"Indians are good and Americans are bad" dichotomy.
I. Indian Empires: When we think of empires, it's usually of Rome, China, or Britain. However, by 1850 the Comanche in the southern plains and the Sioux in the northern plains, because of the horse and gun culture, had also created empires in that they subjugated their neighbors, demanded tribute, and exercised suzerainty over a vast territory. This mental model is important because it recasts the vision of what was happening in on the plains when Americans began settling there.
J. "Kill the Indian to Save the Man": In the
late 1800s, Henry Pratt, the founder of the famous Carlisle Indian Boarding
School in Pennsylvania, promoted a policy in which Indian culture would be
wiped out in order to assimilate Indians into American society, thus ending
Indian culture. In the 1950s and 1960s, the Bureau of Indian Affairs
wanted to promote assimilation and improve Indians' quality of life by
encouraging them to move off the reservations and into urban areas. Ironically,
both policies had the effect of strengthening Indian cohesiveness. Each of these policies brought Indians from different nations together and gave them a common language, English. These Indians could share with each other their experiences with the US government and American people. Moreover, they could work together to promote causes, protest injustices, and, most importantly to them, keep their culture alive.
