history-and-culture-of-the-us.

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Història i cultures dels EEUU

2º Grado en Estudios Ingleses

Facultad de Filología
Universidad de Barcelona

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HISTORY AND CULTURE OF THE US

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Reflections on history, culture(s), diversity, and historiography

Politics → relations between groups, people, ideas, etc.

Policies → implementation of those politics.

America, An hegemonic narrative of promise, happiness, success, of freedom…

The American dream is based on the principles of:
- Democracy, which is strongly associated with the myth of success.
- Democracy rights
- Liberty
- Opportunity
- Upward social mobility

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Waves of immigration ⤵

● 1815-1840s - Irish, German and English.

● 1860s-1880s - Germans, Scandinavians, and English.
● 1880s-WWI - European Jews, Russians, Poles, Ukrainians, Lithuanians, Italians, and
Greeks.
● 20-21st centuries - most immigrants come from Mexico, the Philippines, Jamaica, El
Salvador, Haiti, Korea, India, China, and African countries.

But the realization of the American Dream is not homogeneous, it’s a double-edged reality. It
is not an objective reality; its actualization takes different forms… It is a refracting
experience: to an extent, it depends on the previous living conditions. There are
discrepancies between the image/harsh realities.

PARALLEL (HI)STORIES → Freedom versus the creation and reproduction of social and
economic hierarchies, the Pursuit of Happiness and the American Dream versus the
downside of the American Dream, and the ‘American Exceptionalism’ versus The diversity of
the American experience

When were African American men granted the right to vote? 1868
Native Americans? 1924
When were women granted the right to vote in the U.S.? 1920

Specific Exclusions from the national narrative of happiness, success, and progress:
- Native Americans: consigned to reservations
- African Americans: enslaved against their will
- Chinese Americans: Invited because work was needed
- Hispanic Americans: Inhabited the Southwest long before the westward movement

What had constituted a universal narrative was indeed restricted and just included a small
portion of the population: a white, male, upper/middle-class narrative.

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history → what happens

and goes and does not
exist any more.

History → what ‘stays’ here

despite time has passed by
and educates/informs us
(archives, pictures, letters,
manuscripts, etc).

The turning point → 1960s. Voices who were silenced in the past started to be heard.
Women, African American people start to work and/or study at universities. They started to
change the status quo.

1. Questioning of long-accepted truths.

2. Political pressure from students, community activists, scholars, etc.
3. Revision

The history of the US has been told only partially so far. Some “historical facts” which
circulate are untrue. There is a tendency to tidy up history from unpleasant or uncomfortable
elements. Any account of history responds to certain personal/group decisions and interests.

Conventional wisdom has it that the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of
America was first published on September 7, 1892, in a popular publication called Youth's
Companion.
- In 1954, “Under God” was added (in response to the advance of Communism).
- Back to the utopia/dystopia dichotomy: a place of good and evil, a place of success
and failure, a history of inclusions and exclusions –from the narrative and from the
rights...

In Conclusion ⤵
• Contrasting images and stereotypes about the US.
• Utopia vs. Dystopia: The American Dream as a narrative of happiness and success
vs. its underside.
• A country of immigrants: “E pluribus unum.”
• History vs. Historiography.
• Historiography: revision of traditionally

USA Culture(s)
Edward B. Tylor’s definition of culture (1871) “Culture… is that complex whole which
includes knowledge, beliefs, arts, morals, law, customs, and any other capabilities and habits
acquired by [a human] as a member of society.”

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Culture can also be defined as “The collective programming of the mind distinguishing the
members of one group or category of people from others” (G. Hofstede)

National culture

What people in a nation share. The set of norms, behaviours, beliefs, customs, and values
shared by the population of a sovereign nation. [It] also refers to specific characteristics such
as language, religion, ethnic and racial identity, and cultural history and traditions.” It is also
known as a distinctive set of beliefs, values, and assumptions generally held by members of
a national group.

What is ethnicity? a group of people who identify with each other because they come from
the same or similar background and share common facts as well. Also, it is based on a
shared common culture, including elements like language, religion, art, music, and literature,
and norms, customs, practices, and history. An ethnic group does not exist simply because
of the common national or cultural origins of the group, however. They develop because of
their unique historical and social experiences, which become the basis for the group’s ethnic
identity. For example, prior to immigration to the U.S., Italians did not think of themselves as
a distinct group with common interests and experiences. However, the process of
immigration and the experiences they faced as a group in their new homeland, including
discrimination, created a new ethnic identity.” Ashley Crossman, “The Sociology of Race and Ethnicity”

Forms of contact between cultural groups

1. Pluralism –Multiculturalism – Integration - Diversity

- A state in which all races and ethnicities are distinct but have equal social standing
- The resources are distributed equally regardless of skin colour –yet not colour-blind
- Is the US pluralistic? Not exactly. It is pluralistic by the letter of the law, but not in a
practical sense since there is still a huge stratification, and despite having equal legal
standing, not all races have equal social standing.

2. Assimilation. The process by which minorities gradually adopt values of the majority
culture.
- Adopting language, culture, dress, values, etc. as a way to avoid prejudice or
discrimination.
- It is easier for some groups

3. Segregation. Physical and social separation of categories of people.

- De jure vs. de facto segregation (segregation which continues due to traditions and
norms; it still continues) (People tend to live, work and study with others who are like
themselves. This leads to high racial segregation)

4. Genocide, or the systematic killing of one group of people by another.

- The most extreme consequence of racism and prejudice.

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“Over the past fifteen years, one of the major developments in American Studies across the
nation has been the adoption of multiculturalism as a central, if not the central, organizing
principle in how to study culture in the United States…most American Studies programs
emerged … in integrating new writings on and by people of colour into required courses for
undergraduate majors and graduates” ROWE, John Carlos, ed. Post-Nationalist American Studies. 2000.

The American Census: purpose

1. Planning and funding government programs … for specific groups.

2. To better understand demographic characteristics.
3. Ensure Equal Opportunity
4. Establish and evaluate the guidelines for federal affirmative action plans.
5. Monitor compliance with the Voting Rights Act and enforce bilingual election
requirements.
6. Monitor and enforce equal employment opportunities under the Civil Rights Act of
1964.
7. Identify segments of the population who may not be getting needed medical services
under the Public Health Service Act.
8. Allocate funds to school districts for bilingual services under the Bilingual Education
Act.
9. Knowing if people of different races have the same opportunities in education,
employment, voting, and homeownership.

What is Race according to the census? → “The Census Bureau collects racial data in
accordance with guidelines provided by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB),
and these data are based on self-identification. The racial categories included in the census
questionnaire generally reflect a social definition of race recognized in this country and not
an attempt to define race biologically, anthropologically, or genetically.
In addition, it is recognized that the categories of the race item include racial and national
origin or sociocultural groups. People may choose to report more than one race to indicate
their racial mixture, such as “American Indian” and “White.” People who identify their origin
as Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish may be of any race.”

Categorizing Race and Ethnicity

→ For race, the OMB (Office for Management and Budget) standards identify five minimum
categories:

❖ White
❖ Black or African American
❖ American Indian or Alaska Native
❖ Asian
❖ Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander
❖ We use a sixth category, Some Other Race, for people who do not identify with any
of the OMB race categories.

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The complexity of the distinction

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Hispanic, race, or ethnicity?
- It is ethnicity, but many people refer to it as race.
- Introduced in the census in the 1970s.

Latinx: from America South of the USA

Thus: Spaniards are Hispanos but not Latinx, and Brazilians are Latinx but not Hispanos.4

Also happens with the fluidity of ethnic/racial boundaries. The Irish have been traditionally
“racialized”. Why? Ethnicity, class, religion. They arrived in the US broadly at the same time
as the Chinese (Takaki). Unlike these, feasible assimilations, yet traditionally kept a strong
sense of ethnicity.

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Race and ethnicity highlights:

➔ The White population remained the largest race or ethnic group in the United States,
with 204.3 million people identifying as White alone. Overall, 235.4 million people
reported White alone or in combination with another group. However, the White alone
population has decreased by 8.6% since 2010.

➔ The Two or More Races population (also referred to as the Multiracial population)
has changed considerably since 2010. The Multiracial population was measured at 9
million people in 2010 and is now 33.8 million people in 2020, a 276% increase.

➔ The “in combination” multiracial populations for all race groups accounted for most of
the overall changes in each racial category.

➔ All the races alone or in combination groups experienced increases. The Some Other
Race alone or in the combination group (49.9 million) increased 129%, surpassing
the Black or African American population (46.9 million) as the second-largest race
alone or in the combination group.

➔ The next largest racial populations were the Asian alone or in the combination group
(24 million), the American Indian and Alaska Native alone or in the combination
group (9.7 million), and the Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone or in
the combination group (1.6 million).

➔ The Hispanic or Latino population, which includes people of any race, was 62.1
million in 2020. The Hispanic or Latino population grew 23%, while the population
that was not of Hispanic or Latino origin grew 4.3% since 2010.

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Ethnic/racial minorities

What is a minority? “Any category of people who are distinguished by physical or cultural
difference that a society sets apart and subordinates”
1. They share a set of features
2. They are set apart by society: occupy a lower position and have less access to social
assets

- Are women a minority, when they are more than 50% of the population? Yes.
Numbers are unimportant when it comes to designing who is a minority

- Who is the majority in ethnic/racial terms? Right now: non-Hispanic whites are 61 %
of the USA population.

- What are Majority-Minority states? California, Hawaii, Nevada, New Mexico, and
Texas.

More than 400 U.S. counties are now minority white

“White, non-Hispanic Americans now account for less than six in 10 people in the U.S. — a
more precipitous drop over the past decade than experts expected — and they're no longer
the racial-ethnic majority in 13% of U.S. counties.”
By the numbers: White, non-Hispanic Americans are about 58% of the U.S. population,
according to data from the 2020 census released on Thursday. That's lower than the
estimates of 60%, and it compares with about 64% in 2010. They are no longer the
racial-ethnic majority in 400 of the nation's 3,100+ counties and county-equivalents, up from
340 a decade ago.”

To remember:

➢ Diversity and its metaphors: The Melting Pot, the Mosaic, the Salad Bowl…
➢ Minorities; Majority-minority.
➢ The concepts of Culture, National Culture, Ethnicity, Pluralism, Multiculturalism,
Integration, Diversity, Assimilation, Segregation, Genocide.
➢ The pedagogical function of narratives.

1758: Karl Linneus’ tenth edition of Systema Naturae: gradation of human races
1776: Blacks excluded form Declaration’s entitlement to freedom. Jefferson, explicit about
“the inferiority of the black race”. Need to justify this scientifically.
1800s: Polygenist vs. One species-several races theory; both equally racist 1850s:
Biological and social darwinism

‘RACE’ and Racism in the USA

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What’s the difference between race and ethnicity? Well, we know that race is based on
physical traits. There are observable biological features that distinguish people and are
considered important by a given society.

Race vs ethnicity

race ethnicity

- Biological factors: skin, hair, eye - sociological factors: cultural factors

colour, etc. (nationality, regional culture,
ancestry, religion and language)

- black, white - a sense of a shared cultural history

- fewer races than ethnicities - examples: African American, Italian

American, etc.

- race is no longer a valid biological - self-defined

concept but, instead, a socially
constructed one

- is still used as a term to group

people (racism)

Race as a constructed reality → the idea of race

1. From indenture ship to slavery

- 1600s → Blacks in America were considered indentured servants
- 1660s → 1st Virginia Law on slavery
- 1670s → Bacon’s Insurrection: Whites and blacks together start the rebellion,
yet already different treatment (for economic reasons, as well as social control
of poor whites)

2. Formalization of the ideas of race

- 1776 → Blacks are excluded from Declaration’s entitlement to freedom.
Jefferson, explicit about ‘the inferiority of the black race’. Need to justify this
scientifically.
- 1800s → Polygenist vs. One species-several races theory; both equally
racist.
- 1850s → Biological and social Darwinism

3. Late 1800s → massive arrival of southern (darker) Europeans, which meant

complication of colour categories: Black or White?

4. Job competition
- Early 1900s → Black migration towards northern states, looking for jobs and
escaping lynchings

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5. 1950s-1970s
- Civil rights movements → challenge race discrimination
- Jim Crow repealed in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
- De Jure vs. De facto equality

→ PRODUCTION OF ↔
DISCOURSES KNOWLEDGE EXERCISES
OF POWER

Prejudice is a matter of belief, but discrimination is a matter of action. Discrimination is an

unequal treatment of different groups of people. It can mean actual actions (like calling
someone a racial slur, or refusing to work with someone, etc.), but also institutional racism.
Racism includes beliefs, thoughts and actions based on the idea that one race is innately
superior to another. Usually, racism is addressed at people who have less power than other
races.

There is also implicit and explicit racism:

- Implicit ↔ Unconscious beliefs about other groups, it is more insidious, because it

is less easily recognizable.
- Explicit ↔ We are conscious of our beliefs and stereotypes. Calling someone a
racial slur.

Institutional racism ⤵

Biases which are built into the institutions of society, such as schools, banking systems, or
the labour force (a term coined by Stokley Carmichael and Charles Hamilton in the 1960s,
who said that “Institutional racism is harder to identify, and therefore less often condemned
by society”)

Bombing a black church is easily recognizable as racism (an act of hatred motivated by this)
Vs. Black children’s lack of access to appropriate housing, schooling, food, or healthcare (=
caused by institutional racism)
• Elevated ratios of sickness and death in black children are not seen as stemming
from society or individual’s racist animus, yet are the result of structural racism in
society.
• Much easier to go unnoticed because there is no single person to blame.

CRITICAL RACE THEORY

Intellectual and political fight for black people in the country.

- Origin ⟶ the early 1980s.
- ‘not a noun, but a verb’, it is always in the making, constantly changing/evolving
- Putting systematic racism at the forefront of education and academic study.

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The critical race theory ‘controversy’

Why are states banning CRT? Opponents fear that CRT admonishes all white people for
being oppressors, while classifying all Black people as hopelessly victims. These fears have
caused some schools to ban some teachings about racism in classrooms. But there’s a
fundamental problem: these narratives about CRT are gross and exaggerations of the
theoretical framework.

‘Black History Month’ >> “Black History Month Is known in the US as “African-American
History Month”.
→ A month devoted to celebrating culture and achievements of this community. Educational
and cultural activities

Reservados todos los derechos.

INTERSECTIONALITY

The combination group these subgroups create

is intersectionality.

Why is intersectionality not more prominent in

social justice movements ?
1. Slows things down
2. Exposes privilege → Sometimes we don’t pay
attention to all discrimination (E.g. Gay pride-
normally white, why not black?)
3. Decentralizes those at the centre
4. Forces to listen to “Others”

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Microaggressions

- small daily insults or bad actions against small discriminated groups. They’re not
always verbal.

- What are their features, which makes them so insidious and exhausting? Small;
Cumulative; Perpetrated by many people; Often unconscious
- What is their effect?

i. Hypervigilance; Psychological damage, state of anxiety...

ii. They normalize racism; hold the System of white supremacism together.

Whiteness, Privilege White Privilege and White Fragility

Racism is not only understood by looking at minority groups. Understanding whiteness as a

construct is of paramount importance to understand the distribution of power and privilege.

“Whiteness scholars define racism as encompassing economic, political, social, and cultural
structures, actions, and beliefs that systematize and perpetuate an unequal distribution of
privileges, resources and power between white people and people of colour (Hilliard, 1992).
This unequal distribution benefits whites and disadvantages people of colour overall and as
a group.” (DiAngelo 56)

- Whiteness refers to the specific dimensions of racism that serve to elevate white
people over people of colour…“ (DiAngelo 56)

Critical Whiteness Studies

“Understanding Whiteness” (Alberta Civil Liberties Research Centre):

Whiteness is multidimensional, complex, systemic and systematic:

● It is socially and politically constructed, and therefore a learned behaviour.

● It does not just refer to skin colour, but its ideology is based on beliefs, values
behaviours, habits and attitudes, which result in the unequal distribution of power and
privilege based on skin colour.
● It represents a position of power where the power holder defines the categories,
which means that the power holder decides who is white and who is not.
● It is relational. "White" only exists in relation/opposition to other categories/locations
in the racial hierarchy produced by whiteness. In defining "others," whiteness defines
itself.
● It is fluid - who is considered white changes over time. (i.e. Irish, Italian, Spanish,
Greek and southern European peoples have at times been "raced" as non-white).
● It is a state of unconsciousness: whiteness is often invisible to white people, and this
perpetuates a lack of knowledge or understanding of difference, which is a root
cause of oppression.

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● It shapes how white people view themselves and others, and places white people in
a place of structural advantage where white cultural norms and practices go
unnamed and unquestioned.

ABOUT PRIVILEGE

What is privilege? It is an invisible thing, no one sees it but is still present, while providing
benefits to people without them not even realizing it sometimes.

> A special right, advantage granted to a particular person or social group.

> Privileged groups become the model for normal human relations.

Privilege has also different forms:

- Personal practice: it is what you can/are allowed to do (or not do)
- Structural privilege:
• Public policies
• Institutional practices
• Cultural representations
• Textbooks

White Fragility
→ Known as a state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress becomes intolerable,
triggering a range of defensive moves.

→ Which are the factors that inculcate White Fragility in the white population?
1. Segregation
2. Belief in Universalism & Individualism
3. Entitlement to racial comfort
4. Racial arrogance
5. Racial belonging
6. Constant messages that we (note subject position) are more valuable –through
representation in everything

NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURES

- Traditional accounts → presentation of Native Americans through white eyes:

Omission, invisibility.
- Stereotyped representation → Homogeneous groups (normally Indians), savages,
inarticulate: westerns.
- The dichotomy: The savage Indian, seen as a natural savage and brutal. The noble
savage, whose idea is soon overtaken with the native savage.

"Throughout America, from North to South, the dominant culture acknowledges Indians as
objects of study, but denies them as subjects of history. The Indians have folklore, not
culture; they practice superstition, not religions; they speak dialects, not languages, they
make crafts, not arts" Eduardo Galeano, "The Blue Tiger"-

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Folklore ↔ culture
Superstitions ↔ religions
Dialects ↔ languages
Crafts ↔ arts
Civilized ↔ Uncivilized

“What is civilization? Its marks are a noble religion and philosophy, original arts, stirring
music, rich story and legend. We had these. Then we were not savages, but a civilized race”
(Grand Council Fire of American Indians. Qtd. in Loewen, 102. 1927)

What stereotypes and received ideas on Indian peoples are visited and criticized in the
poem?
1. The Stoic Indian (I.e. Indians do not show their emotions --and by extension, they do not
have them; Indians lack a sense of humour).
2. Indiansalwaysrideonhorse
3. The native woman as exotic beauty/object.
4. Indian men and women are closer to nature than non-Indians (with the implicit assumption
that they are further from civilization).
5. Indians keep secrets (they are treacherous).
6. Indians are fond of white skin (native women loving the whitest men).
7. Indian men are violent and insensitive.
8. Violence surrounds life in these communities: murder, suicide, rape. A sense of danger is
always lurking.
9. Indian people deal with the supernatural in routinely ways.
10. White people freely toy with the idea of becoming Indian (cultural appropriation,
superficiality, commodification)
11. Single-race Indians do not deserve prominent positions in representation (and, by
extension, in society)
12. Indian men are warriors
13. Indian women are healers
14. Only children are capable of mixed-race relations, which are, necessarily, “childish”
(impossibility of adult normalized interracial affective relations)

--- Poem’s conclusion? Symbolic elimination of Indians, echoing what actually occurred in
history.

NATIVE AMERICANS II → BEFORE INVASION

• From misrepresentation to self-representation

• From invisibility to full visibility
• From victimhood to full agency

1. From misrepresentation to self- representation

● Undermining the mascot Dynamics

● Self-representation in cinema and literature
● The 1491s
● From Smoke Signals to Reservation Dogs

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○ The bus scene

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○ John Wayne’s Teeth
● Native Cinema Showcase (November 12-18, 2021)

2. From invisibility to full visibility

● United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, “UNDRIP”,

2007 • Increasing visibility of the International World’s Indigenous Peoples
(August, 9)

- In USA
• Native American Heritage Month (November), since 1990s
• Incresing protagonism of Day of Indigenous Peoples, 11 October
• 2021 Presidential Declaration of Day Indigenous Peoples

Reservados todos los derechos.

3. From victimhood to acknowledgement of full agency

- NA contributions to culture and history

• From the anecdotal (toboggan, moccasin, etc.) To consistent inventions
(goggles, oral anticonceptives, painkillers...)

• Outstanding historical contributions (American Indian code talkers in WWII)

Ice Age 20,000 years ago: First human crossings

Between 60.000 and 15.000 BCE: diverse crossings of Beringia (debated dates)
• Also from Asia and possibly Africa
• Later on, visits from Europe (possibly Irish 5th C., Vikings, 10th C; Basque whalers, 16th C)

Vs. Native Traditions “Emergence Stories”:

• IROQUOIS: ancestor fell from the sky
• PUEBLO, NAVAJO: emerged from under the earth
• ALGONQUIAN: were transformed from ash trees into people

• Hardly an empty wilderness: cities, roads, irrigation systems, trade networks, huge
buildings...
• Lacking certain technologies -European Perceived “Backwardness”: a central justification
for conquest
• They smelted tin, copper and gold, for ornamental purposes, but not iron
• No Wheel
• No written literacy
• Yet highly sophisticated societies

Aztec Empire 1428–1521

Wide variety of social, political and economic structures

= Different groups adjusted to the different ecological conditions.
Settlements in the North: far smaller than those in South America

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- against received ideas

- greatly influenced
- exhausted great mammals (mammoth)
- burned out great land extensions to favour hunting

● Extinction of big mammals like mammoth and giant bison because of climate change
(warming) and hunting: hunting of big animals ceased
● Absence of livestock (except for turkeys and llamas)
● Agriculture begins in 9000 -–limited by absence of tillage animal force + absence of
natural fertilizer
● North: cultivation of maize (corn), squash, beans. South: potato.

What created a sense of identity in people? Land and community

● Huge diversity / cultural areas

○ Northwest Native Americans
○ Northeast Native Americans
○ Southeast Native Americans
○ Great Plains Native Americans
○ Southwest Native Americans

Common aspects (Foner)

• Religion
- Animism, respect for life in all its manifestations
- Daily life deeply steeped in religion
- Participation in religious life defined community membership
- Ceremonies intended to harness supernatural forces to their interests
- Persons with special abilities had special roles in secular and religious
activities (“shamans”)
- Not sharp distinction between natural / supernatural, or secular / religious
activities
- Superior creative force

Coexistence with supernatural (Dreams, visions) —> Oral transmission of culture

• Land and property and Status

- Numerous land systems

- Generally: plots of land assigned to families for seasons –”owned” the right to
use the land, but not the land
- Tribes claimed specific areas for hunting
- Unclaimed land remained free for anyone to use
- Land as common resource, not an economic commodity
- Property: not accumulation
- Wealth vs. Status
- Relevance of gift-giving

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1. Cosmic vision of life —> Balance (nature: animals, community)

2. Sense of place –Land
• Spiritual vs possession
• Impact of colonization: changing relationship with the land.

• Gender relations: women

- Women’s life defined by family membership, yet,

- Could engage in premarital sex
- Could choose divorce
- Not often leaders but often advisers in councils, etc.
- They owned dwellings and tools
- Matrilineal societies (frequently)
- Husband moved to woman’s family home
- Women did household chores and also agriculture, when men away hunting,
etc.

Research on gender and Native Americans shows that women were highly respected
because they served “as the keepers of traditions, practices and customs of the
Nations; women and girls embodied the sacred through their capacity to create and
nourish life... Women made important decisions concerning internal and external
affairs including family, property rights, resource allocation, trade/economics and
education.”

Gender in Native societies: Two- Spirit people

NATIVE AMERICANS III → EPISODES BETWEEN INVASION-PRESENT

1. Conquest by war
2. Treaties
3. “Five Civilized Tribes”
4. Indian Removal Act and Trail of Tears
5. Residential Schools
6. Dawes Act 1887

1. Conquest by war

● Anglo-Powhatan Wars (16th: Powhatans considered extinct by 1685)

● Pequot War (1636-37)
● English + Narragansett vs. Pequot
● Major slaughter
● Metacomet’s /King Philip’s War (1675-78)
● English vs. Wampanoag
● Considered the most bloody war “per capita” in USA

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2. Treaties

● For centuries, treaties have defined the relationship between many Native American
nations and the U.S. More than 370 ratified treaties have helped the U.S. expand its
territory and led to many broken promises made to American Indians.
● The matter of assumptions, translation, and lies
● Sometimes signed with people without authority
● The complex matter of Sovereignty

3. “Five Civilized Tribes”

•CHEROKEE
•CHICKASAW
•CHOCTAW
•CREEK
•SEMINOLE

•Christianity
•European customs
•Farming
•Land ownership

Increasing pressure from white settlers

4. Indian Removal Act

(1830) and Trail of Tears
(1838) President Andrew
Jackson

Tribes East of the

Mississippi were to be
removed to Indian
territory.

•Around 16.000 people

were forcibly relocated in
a few weeks.

•One person in four died

on the way.

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No se permite la explotación económica ni la transformación de esta obra. Queda permitida la impresión en su totalidad.
5. Residential Schools

Between 1869 and the 1960s

● Government-Run Boarding Schools (Bureau of Indian Affairs, f. 1824)

● Children were separated from their families for years at a time and placed in schools
that were designed to indoctrinate them with the belief that European-American
culture was superior to “primitive” tribal cultures.
● “Kill the Indian, and save the man” – Richard H. Pratt, longtime Superintendent of the
Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania.

- Children were taught to speak English

- Wear western clothing

Reservados todos los derechos.

- Pray as Christians
- Faced stern punishment for failure to behave in accordance to these cultural norms.
- Strict military discipline
- Taught manual skills mostly
- Frequent verbal and physical abuse
- When children died they were sometimes buried in unmarked graves, sometimes
without communicating it to the family

By the 1926, nearly 83% of Indian school-age children were attending boarding schools.

357 boarding schools in 30 states

1900: 20,000 children in boarding schools
1925: 60,889 children in boarding schools

6. Dawes Act 1887

Sometimes called the General Allotment Act, it allowed the federal government to break up
tribal lands. The federal government aimed to assimilate Native Americans into mainstream
US society by encouraging them towards farming and agriculture, which meant dividing tribal
lands into individual plots.

Only the Native Americans who accepted the division of tribal lands were allowed to become
US citizens. If they accepted the allotment divisions, the Dawes Act designated 160 acres of
farmland or 320 acres of grazing land to the head of each Native American family. Tribes
already controlled the land that was being returned to them at a fraction of the acreage.
This ended in the government stripping over 90 million acres of tribal land from Native
Americans, then selling that land to non-native US citizens. Native Americans were not
accustomed to a life of standardized ranching and agriculture, and the lands allotted to them
were often unsuitable for farming. In order to receive their allotment, Native Americans were
required to enrol with the Office of Indian Affairs, now known as the Bureau of Indian Affairs
(BIA), which determined whether or not that individual was eligible to receive their allotment.
Although Native Americans controlled about 150 million acres of land before the Dawes Act,
they lost the majority of it due to these allotment divisions and selling of surplus

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When tribes were paid for their land, they were underpaid. In addition to scan payment
Native Americans were not used to spending money and quickly spent most of what they
received.

THOMAS KING

- Novelist, short-story writer, essayist, screenwriter, photographer.

- The son of a Greek mother and a Cherokee father.
- In 1964, he worked his way across the Pacific on a steamer and found employment
in New Zealand and Australia as a photographer and photojournalist.
- Returning to the United States in 1967, obtained a BA 1970 and MA 1972, and later
he received a PhD in 1986.
- Emigrated to Canada in 1980.
- Took position as professor of Native Studies at the University of Lethbridge (Alberta).
- At present, Emeritus professor at the U. of Guelph (Ontario).
- Temporarily involved in Canadian politics (2007-2008)
- In 2004, King was named a Member of the Order of Canada.

Vertical vs. Horizontal patterns

● Think of the political implications of the possibilities seen in the previous page: As it
happens, truths are not given from above as an imposition, but are rather created
and re-created by the group responding to their needs.
● Political intervention is thus let open to anybody and to everybody; the story
embodies not a hierarchical and class-ridden political philosophy, but a fully
participative one.

PUEBLO CULTURES > Stories and the land

The origins: Anasazi culture Mesa Verde region

Migration to the South

Storytelling: Leslie Marmon Silko

Leslie Marmon Silko was born in 1948 to a family whose ancestry includes Mexican, Laguna
Indian, and European forebears. She has said that her writing has at its core “the attempt to
identify what it is to be a half-breed or mixed-blood person.” As she grew up on the Laguna
Pueblo Reservation, she learned the stories and culture of the Laguna people from her
great-grandmother and other female relatives. After receiving her B. A. in English at the
University of New Mexico, she enrolled in the University of New Mexico law school but
completed only three semesters before deciding that writing and storytelling, not law, were
the means by which she could best promote justice. Prior to the writing of Ceremony, she
published a series of short stories, including “The Man to Send Rain Clouds.” She also
authored a volume of poetry, Laguna Woman: Poems, for which she received the Pushcart
Prize for Poetry.
- In 1973, Silko moved to Ketchikan, Alaska, where she wrote Ceremony.
- Initially conceived as a comic story about a mother’s attempts to keep her son, a war
veteran, away from alcohol, Ceremony gradually transformed into an intricate

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meditation on mental disturbance, despair, and the power of stories and traditional
culture as the keys to self-awareness and, eventually, emotional healing.
- Having battled depression herself while composing her novel, Silko was later to call
her book “a ceremony for staying sane.”
- Silko has followed the critical success of Ceremony with a series of other novels,
including Storyteller, Almanac for the Dead, and Gardens in the Dunes, among
others.
- She now lives on a ranch near Tucson, Arizona.

Reservados todos los derechos. No se permite la explotación económica ni la transformación de esta obra. Queda permitida la impresión en su totalidad.
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