A History of Native America

Contact and Cultural Exchange

Maeve Kane

mkane2@albany.edu

maevekane.net/hill

First half

  • early contacts and disease
  • early trade
  • what does colonialism look like?

early contacts

contact from Native perspective

  • facial hair = poor hygiene!!
  • lack of women = hostile intent
  • poor preparation, European dependency
  • who worships what?

Edenic landscapes

contact and disease

  • cross-species transmission
  • livestock in urban areas
  • bacteria: lyme's, staph, strep, yellow fever, typhus
  • parasites: chagas, ring worm
  • syphilis & disease evolution: sexually transmitted or not?
  • herd immunity (get vaccinated!)

North America, 1750

North America, 1750

Middle Ground Diplomacy

  • mutually agreed upon rituals of exchange
  • trade is diplomacy and diplomacy is trade
  • integration of captives, adoptees, and partners
  • role of free & enslaved African Americans (The Sunfish)
  • male mediators, female convertors

Fort Hunter, 1745

Second half

  • French and Indian War, 1754-1763
  • American Revolution in Iroquoia
  • Treaty of Canandaigua, 1794

Fort Necessity, 1754

Mohawk Valley

  • 1710 Palatine refugee immigration
  • Palatine vs. English Albany conflict
  • German settlers as English ally or barrier?
  • renting land as land claim security
  • renting land as control over white settlement

French and Indian War, 1754-1763

  • Iroquois trade vs Iroquois smuggling
  • Kahnawake, Akwasasne, and Iroquoia
  • Iroquois as English ally or barrier?
  • English fear of further frontier warfare
  • Proclamation of 1763, English as American ally or barrier?

1779 Sullivan Campaign

  • Iroquois neutrality early in American Revolution
  • Oneida allied with Americans but not against other Iroquois
  • 1777 Battle of Oriskany, rumors of cannibalism

1779 Sullivan Campaign

  • Fort Hunter and Canajoharie Committee of Safety raids
  • "a war against vegetables" = hundreds of thousands of bushels
  • post-war erasure of women and refugee issues
  • "made to discover some signs of repentance"

Treaty of Canandaigua, 1794

  • Northwest Indian War, 1783-1795
  • punitive or peacemaking?
  • first US treaty with a nation other than Britain
  • what is the role of women?
  • why does Jesus show up in Rochester???

Treaty of Canandaigua, 1794

  • oldest continually observed treaty
  • treaties are on par with US Constitution
  • security of Iroquois lands
  • safe travel between reservations and across US/Canada border