HIST 170 - Introduction to Native American History

Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)

(Same as AMST 170) This course introduces students to the diverse experiences and histories of Indigenous peoples in North America since before European contact to the present moment. And course materials invite students to engage with many Indigenous voices and their perspectives on the past. The course focuses on the historical development of a U.S. Federal Indian policy and its ongoing impact on Native peoples. Students analyze the persistence, change, and adaption of Native cultures to historical and contemporary social conditions of the U.S. settler colonialism as well as individual and community efforts to maintain sovereignty in the 21st century. Since Indigenous peoples have their own culturally specific ideas and practices concerning gender and sexuality, students also examine the ways in which Indigenous ideas and practices around gender and sexuality have become sites of resistance to settler colonialism and an assertion of Indigenous identity, both in past and present. Students also investigate issues related to race, identity, and community by analyzing historical relations between African Americans and Native Americans across North America. Noel Smyth.

Two 75-minute periods.

Course Format: CLS