HIST 366 - American Encounters: Natives, Newcomers, and the Contest for a Continent

Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)

Moving past today’s fixation on Pocahontas and John Smith, Squanto and the Pilgrims, this course will examine the Native response to the invasion of North America, focusing on peoples living east of the Mississippi River prior to c. 1800, a date that marked the beginning of the end of Indian Country. Confronting the challenges in the way of understanding the Native experience (lack of evidence, modern stereotypes, loaded language), we will combine scholarly works with Native writings, explorers’ accounts, treaty texts, captivity narratives, and films to consider the central arenas where Indians engaged foreigners from beyond the eastern horizon, from trade and missions through war and diplomacy to ideas of “race” and notions of gender. Mr. Merrell.

Prerequisite(s): Prerequisite for advanced courses is ordinarily 2 units of 200-level work in history, or by permission of the instructor. Specific prerequisites assume the general prerequisite.

Two 75-minute periods.