printable Syllabus


History 367: Survey of American Indian History

 

 

Contact Information

Dr. Michael Witgen
Office: 3749 Haven Hall
Office Hours: Tuesdays 1:00-2:30 pm
Email: 
mwitgen@umich.edu

  

Class Meetings

Tuesday and Thursday 10:00-11:30 am

Room: 1359 Mason Hall

Campus Map

 

 

Course Description

This course is an introduction to the history of the Native peoples of North America.  Instruction will focus on the idea that indigenous people in North America possess a shared history in terms of being forced to respond to European colonization, and the emergence of the modern nation-state.  Native peoples, however, possess their own distinct histories and culture.  In this sense their histories are uniquely multi-faceted rather than the experience of a singular racial group.  Accordingly, this course will offer a wide ranging survey of cultural encounters between Native peoples and European and Euro-American empires, taking into account the many different indigenous responses to colonization.  This course will also move beyond the usual stories of Indian-white relations that center either on narratives of conquest and assimilation, or stories of cultural persistence.  We will take on these issues, but we will also explore the significance of Native peoples to the formation of modern North America.  This will necessarily entail an examination of race formation, and a study of the evolution of social structures and categories such as nation, tribe, citizenship, and sovereignty.

 

 

Graded Assignments

 

Essays: 30%

Each student must complete three take-home essays, which will be a written response to the study questions for any given week.  Responses to the questions should draw from assigned readings, but may also involve additional research.  Each essay response should be 8-10 pages, double-spaced, Times New Roman, 12 pt font.  Your response should be written as a single synthetic essay. Do not answer the study questions individually.  Your assignment is to identify and explicate a theme or idea in the assigned texts and study questions so as to provide insight into a particular historical experience, event, or persona.  Essays are due one week from the class to which they were assigned, and must be submitted to your drop box as a word doc.  The grader will retrieve your essay, make comments, assign a grade using track changes, and will return the graded document to your box. 

[For grading parameters, see the rubric on americanindianhistory.pbworks.com] 

 

 

Participation: 20%

This class will focus on the development of interpretive, analytical, and presentation skills.  For each class students are asked to examine information from a variety of sources delivered through a variety of platforms.  Your task is to evaluate these sources of information to determine how they might be used to form a historical narrative.  Exploring the origin and nature of the assigned texts, students should be able analyze, interpret, and synthesize the content of specific historical and cultural artifacts.  Each class will focus on how we process and engage with information and ideas in order to assign meaning to the past, and to create a narrative understanding of past experience.

 

In order to develop this skill set, you will be asked to work collaboratively in small groups at the beginning of each class where you will work through the assigned study questions.  This will require that you read or watch the assigned materials before class.  Small groups will then be asked to present their findings briefly and succinctly.  You will also be called upon to answer follow up questions from the instructor or fellow students as they arise.  Each student will be expected to serve as the primary presenter for his or her group at least once during the semester.  

 

There will be seven pop-quizzes during the course of the semester, each worth five points.  Only five of the quizzes will count toward your final grade.  The quizzes should be easy for anyone who has read or watched the assigned materials for a given class.  These 25 points will represent a quarter or your participation grade.

 

 

Final Research Project: 50%

An original historical research project will serve as the final for this course. This research project may take the form of a traditional research paper 12 to 15 pages in length (standard formatting:double-spaced, Times New Roman, 12 pt font), or it may take the form of a wiki.  The wiki should be comparable in scope to a written paper 12 to 15 pages in length.  Regardless of the format the research project must center on the analysis, interpretation, and presentation of primary source evidence.  Your task is to find a historical event, person, or experience and explain why and how you think this subject is important and or meaningful in its particular historical moment, and now in the present day.

 

[For more grading parameters,see the rubric on americanindianhistory.pbworks.com.]

 

 

 

 

 

 

CLASS SCHEDULE

 

NB: Links to the sources and study questions are on americanindianhistory.pbworks.com

 

 

WEEK 1: COURSE INTRODUCTION

 

Thursday 1/5

Course Introduction

 

An Introduction to the Problems, Issues, and Study of American Indian History

No Readings for the First Day of Class

 

 

WEEK 2: NATIVE NORTH AMERICA AND THE ATLANTIC WORLD

 

Tuesday 1/10

Native North America: Origins and Evolution 

 

Readings

 

 

Thursday 1/12

The Atlantic World Comes to North America

 

Readings

 

 

 

WEEK 3: THE NATIVE NEW WORLD

 

Tuesday 1/17

Adapting to European Settler Colonies

 

Readings

 

 

Thursday 1/19

The Native New World 

 

Readings

 

 

 

WEEK 4: THE MIDDLE GROUND AND FRENCH COLONIZATION

 

Tuesday 1/24

The Middle Ground, Part One 

 

Readings

 

 

 

Thursday 1/26

The Middle Ground, Part Two

 

Readings

 

 

 

WEEK 5: ENGLISH AND SPANISH COLONIZATION

 

Tuesday 1/31

Spanish Colonization

 

Readings

 

 

Thursday 2/2

English Colonization

 

WEEK 6: RESISTANCE AND ADAPTATION

 

Tuesday 2/7

Resistance: The Militant Response to European Expansion

 

Readings

  

 

Thursday 2/9

Adaptation: The Diplomatic and Cultural Response to European Expansion in the West

 

Readings

 

 

 

WEEK 7: CONFRONTING NEW POWERS IN EASTERN NORTH AMERICA

 

Tuesday 2/14

Pontiac’s War, British Indian Policy, and the Early Republic

 

Readings

 

 

Thursday 2/16

The Iconography of the American Indian in the Early Republic

 

Readings

 

 

WEEK 8: REVITALIZATION AND NATIVE SPACE

 

Tuesday 2/21

Revitalization and Racialization in Native North America

 

Readings

 

 

Thursday 2/23

The United States and the Colonization of Anishinaabewaki

 

Readings

 

 

 

WEEK 9: WINTER BREAK

 

WEEK 10: AMERICAN AND AMERICAN INDIAN EXPANSION

 

Tuesday 3/7

The Old Southwest and Indian Removal 

 

Readings

 

 

Thursday 3/9

American and American Indian Expansion on the Great Plains

 

Readings

 

 

WEEK 11: THE WESTERN FRONTIER, PART 1

 

Tuesday 3/14

Whiteness, Indianness, and the Dakota Uprising

 

Readings

 

 

Thursday 3/16

US-Indian Military Conflicts in the American West 

 

Readings

 

 

WEEK 12: THE WESTERN FRONTIER, PART 2

 

Tuesday 3/21

The Creation of Plains Reservations

 

Readings

 

 

 

Thursday 3/23

The Ghost Dance and the Wounded Knee Massacre

 

Readings

 

 

 

 

 

WEEK 13: ALLOTMENT, ASSIMILATION, AND BOARDING SCHOOLS

 

Tuesday 3/28

Dismantling Tribes and Their Homelands

 

Readings

  

 

Thursday 3/30

The American Indian Boarding Schools

 

Readings

 

 

 

WEEK 14: AMERICAN POPULAR CULTURE AND THE ICONOGRAPHY OF AMERICAN INDIANS IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

 

Tuesday 4/4

John Ford’s The Searchers

 

Readings

 

 

Thursday 4/6

Disney’s Pocahontas

 

Readings

 

 

 

WEEK 15: AMERICAN INDIAN SELF-DETERMINATION, PART 1

 

Tuesday 4/11

The Red Progressives and Reform

 

Readings

 

 

 

Thursday 4/13 April

Nations Within a Nation

 

Readings

 

 

 

WEEK 16: AMERICAN INDIAN SELF-DETERMINATION, PART 2

**Not Applicable for Winter term 2016

Tuesday 4/18

American Indian Self-Determination, part 2

 

Readings