History 2055 Notes

First Americans:
Where did they come from? Siberia
Indigenous: native “here originally”
How did they get from Siberia to America?
No really good evidence that they took a boat.
Probably a land bridge
Crossed just before the end of the last ice age
There is evidence going back about 40,000 years
They were following the animals
Follow the mammoth theory
Another theory:
They followed the fish
No physical evidence for that
How many came?
Genetically, it appears that as few as four or five women populated 95% of native American population.
That would suggest maybe a single migration.
WE HAVE NO IDEA HOW MANY PEOPLE WERE HERE IN 1492!!!
Safe to say there were millions.
Where did they live?
1492: Most lived South of the Rio Grande two large urban civilizations were in central mexico and peru
Aztecs
Incas
Empires
Stone built cities
A lot of citizens
Sophisticated people
5 million people or less about the Rio Grande not wall to wall people north of the Rio Grande
Once they get here…what do we call them?
Native Americans
In the 1950s they were called Indians
Everybody said that until the early 70s
Amerindian distinguished Indians from American Indians
American Indians
Native Americans
Before the 1970s people would’ve though a native American was anyone born in the United States
In Canada they call Native Americans:
Aborigines
First peoples
First nations
They do not use native American or native Canadian.
This matters because of how political everything is now!
Political Power!
Native Americans make up from ¾% to 1½% of the population
Don’t have any political or economic cloud in the US.
What started the name changing trend?
Back in the 1970’s
Stanford Indians changed to the cardinals
Not the bird, but the color cardinal
Social Identity
North Dakota Fighting Sue
The Sue are not happy with the school mascot.
Notre Dame Irish
Irish people don’t seem to mind at all?
What’s the difference?
Belonging to society…
Irish Americans are Americans
Native Americans want their land back and don’t feel like they are a part of the American population. Don’t feel like Americans.
Not all Native Americans think alike.

Culture of Native Americans
Eastern Woodland Indians
Mississippi river and east
3 or 4 million people
LARGE GROUP
You can subdivide them further, but we will just go with Eastern Woodland Indians You will be able to find an exception to what will be taught. You’ll find some that don’t fit the rubric.

Eastern Woodland Folks
Agricultural people
Growing one crop in particular
Corn
That is what everyone is eating and have been eating it for a long time!
Corn has been fossilized…its been here forever
Squash, beans, potatoes
Very agriculturally dependent.
Hunting
Men do the hunting
Women do the agriculture
Except clearing the land
They did that by torching it mainly
NO IRON MACHINES
They are new stone-age people basically
Back then they had no domesticated animals like horses, oxen, etc.
Stone tools, bone, antler
Take a stick, poke holes in the ground and seed it.
Women would harvest these crops
When soil ran out they would leave.
They were not producing massive surplus.
Because of their farming techniques.
European farmers tended to stay put, Eastern Woodland Indians moved around a lot.
Cultural misunderstandings
Europeans would be next door planting and some eastern woodlanders would come and claim land. Europeans would be like, “hey that’s actually our land” and the woodlanders would be like, “Well, you aren’t here right now.”
Woodlander men thought that European women were lazy.
European women weren’t harvesting the crops or building houses.
European men though that woodlander men were lazy.
Woodlander men weren’t building homes, etc.
It’s really just two different styles of doing things.
Stereotypes developed early on
When it came to numbers (populations)
It took about one acre to support an adult for a year.
If you had about 2-300 adults, you’d need 2-300 acres
The tribes were broken up into smaller villages.
If you wanted to expand your territory, you had to move on to new territory. Totem poles would mark territory for native americans
A totem pole that had bear heads and fish heads on top of a pole with blood dripping down marked the territory for Baton Rouge with a red stick.

We need more territory Would be a cause for most wars try to trade for it first, but if that didn’t work there was always war scalping was very common in wars form of tropism some might say that it wasn’t the native americans who scalped.
Scalping was very rare in European warfare…it was the native Americans
Hoken-Siouan
Tribe type…allies?
Europeans always tried to find Native American allies as they came to America.
Weren’t many conflicts between Europeans and Native Americans where there were Europeans vs. Natives. It was more of Europeans and Natives vs. other Europeans and Natives.
Fought primarily over land
Revenge was common
Native peoples north of the rio grande didn’t really engage in “total war” the goal wasn’t to completely annihilate the entire tribe would go to war in order to get more people instead of making kids the old fashioned way, they would steal other people’s women and kids… prisoners of war would eventually die male captives…never women or children captives.
Religion
Polytheistic
Multiple gods
Animistic
Belief that gods were in the rivers and wind
Nathaniel Po (Movie character played by Daniel Day Louis)
Orphaned indian
Becomes skilled at hunting…mainly shooting things
They roasted a British major
Nathaniel po takes his musket and puts a bullet in his head so that he won’t suffer from the pain and humiliation
Europeans tortured people all the time in the 16th century
Especially witches or accused witches
Light estimate of witches who died…100k
Were torched for religious reasons
Native Americans engaged in battle
Usually broke down to one on one fights
Collective strategy used
Ambush
Once that ambush started the woodlanders would pick an enemy and go for that person
Their fighting skills were very animalistic
There was a sort of communal approach to life, but individualistic things were going on as well.
Choctaws hated the Chickasaws
No president, king, etc. Chiefs would be listened to voluntarily.
If you are a 19 year old Choctaw and you decide you want to go to battle, you might be humiliated, but won’t be forced to fight or kill you.
Film reference
Dances with Wolves
You could make your own decisions when it comes to war and fighting.
Ritual Cannibalism
When you captured and killed someone you would consume some part of them….
Wasn’t necessarily extremely popular, but it did happen.
More popular in Mexico
Ishak tribe would eat their enemies…
Choctaw pointed out the cannibalism
Ishak=the people
Choctaws called them maneaters.
Choctaws didn’t like them because they were cannibals.

Casualties were kept low because you didn’t want to wipe out your whole enemy and because of weapons
Your less likely to be killed from a spear or arrow wound than a gun wound.
Native americans will eventually get firearms and that will change EVERYTHING!