History of American Indians and the United States

Narratives of Violence

Dr. Kane

mkane2@albany.edu Humanities 109 | MWF 9:20 - 10:15 AM

Office Hrs: M 10:20 - 11:20 & F 1:30 - 3:30

Social Science 60S

Wednesday, November 1

coming up

  • Objects paper Nov 6
  • email your images by Nov 5 - mini presentations in class
  • Final proposal - Nov 13 guidelines on Bb
  • this week - politics of colonial history
  • next week - pre-contact

final proposal

  • 2 additional scholarly sources
  • 2500-3000 words
  • outline of current paper
  • plan for revisions
  • objects only: 2 additional objects

today's class

  • violence in New England
  • violence in New Mexico
  • why does narrative matter

where are we?

  • Contact period
  • early contact - 1450-1600
  • late contact - 1600-1650
  • "First Thanksgiving" 1620
  • King Phillip's War 1676
  • Pope's Rebellion 1680

New Spain

  • encomienda, mission and ranchero system
  • inner conversion (hispanicization) possible through outward conversion
  • Pueblo kachina - literal gods on earth
  • Juan de Onate - 1598

Pope's Rebellion 1680

  • drought and famine - Spanish agriculture
  • increasingly violent suppression of religion
  • Pope as revivalist leader - no agriculture, no livestock, no writing

interpreting 1680

  • Spanish failure to reconquer
  • 1692 surrender - after drought & Plains Sioux raids
  • surrender inevitable?
  • Mexican American War - 1848 - whose citizens are these?

We Shall Remain

entanglement in New England

  • health care & consumer debts
  • conversion "not from love of God but love of land"
  • King Phillip's Rebellion / Metacom's War 1676
  • violence is inevitable? disease, incompatibility?
  • if violence in inevitable, no one is responsible

why history matters

  • if Indian history is done before US is a nation, US doesn't have to acknowledge modern presence
  • if Indians "disappear" during colonial period, US isn't responsible
  • if violence was inevitable, then boarding schools & termination were also inevitable